On Tuesday evening's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, the host proved he is has no real interest in the Bible or concern for the message it contains. O'Donnell spent eight minutes harshly criticizing the story of Noah from Genesis and jovially mocked the claims of scripture.
In fact, O'Donnell was so pleased with himself that he admitted getting a shot at slamming the Bible was the one reason he wanted to show up to work:
Every once in a while, there's just that one thing that makes you want to come to work today. This is that one thing for me.
The subject matter for O'Donnell's diatribe centered around the Christian-themed amusement park that is slated to open in Kentucky in 2016. It is called the Ark Encounter and will feature a replica of the 510-foot vessel spoken of in the Book of Genesis that protected Noah and his family from the Great Flood.
Behind the privately-funded $30 million dollar project is the founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, Ken Ham. Ham's new ark project just received unanimous approval from the state of Kentucky for $18 million in tourism tax incentives. The park's economic potential for the state was evaluated by the finance board and deemed beneficial for increasing tourism to the state of Kentucky. However, some critics feel this is blurring the lines between the separation of church and state because of its Christian message.
Ham has repeatedly defended this assertion and did so once again Wednesday in a response posted to AnswersInGenesis.org:
No state funds will be used to build the Ark Encounter.
Future Ark visitors will pay sales tax at the attraction (e.g., on tickets, food, and merchandise), and at the end of each year of operation, the state will rebate the sales tax paid at the Ark facility (up to a maximum of $18.25 million over 10 years) to the Ark Encounter if the Ark meets attendance-performance standards and tourism dollars flow into the state.
In Ham's response, he also fired back against O'Donnell's rant, calling it a "mocking misrepresentation," saying his true motivation appears to be "to misinform people about the tax incentive program." Similarly, Ham mentioned another MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow, who in May, bested O'Donnell's eight minutes, ranting a minute longer against Ham, other creationists, the Bible, and these tax incentives. This led Ham to ask the question we all want an answer to: "When is MSNBC going to tell the truth?"
Instead of being truthful, O'Donnell gladly mocked Ham's project using a stereotypical Bostonian inflection, calling it the "Ahk Pahk" the entire time. He scoffed at the idea of God being so angry as to destroy the Earth, careful to mention the word "fetus" to remind his viewers that babies were killed as well. But most of all, O'Donnell wanted to comfort his audience by telling them they could still be "good Christians" and "good Jews" and not believe the words of Scripture, despite its requirement to the contrary. "The story of Noah's ark is just one of many, many, many things in the Bible that good Christians and good Jews no longer believe," O'Donnell said.
Read all of O'Donnell's comments below:
In the Rewrite tonight, another episode of the merger of church and state. This time in Kentucky, where the state of tourism board gave preliminary approval, today, for $18.25 million in state government funding for a Noah's ark theme park. The Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority voted unanimously to approve government financial support for the Noah's ark theme park that plans to begin construction next week and hopes to open two years from now.
The ark park -- and I so wish this was located in Boston -- the ark park is the latest beneficiary of one of this country's stupidest forms of socialism: government handouts to private companies. Usually justified by the never provable notion that the company will generate enough economic activity in the state to more than pay back the cost of its subsidies through increased tax revenue to the state. That is the theory under which sports socialism has thrived in this country and you, the taxpayer, have subsidized the construction of lavish sky boxes that you will never see, in the playpens of professional athletes, who might actually have to make a million or two less a year if the stadiums they play in were actually capitalistic enterprises.
When the ark park is up and running, the state of Kentucky will send an annual check to the ark park in gratitude for all of the tourism the 500-foot replica of Noah's ark will be bringing to Kentucky. Of course, many readers of the Old Testament will not consider the new ark to be a replica at all, because to be a replica of something, that something would have had to actually exist before.
And the whole Noah's ark thing is one of the many elements of the Bible that science has made impossible to believe. Since the dawn of science, one of the principle missions of theology for religions based on the Bible is to explain what the Bible really means when it says that thing that no one believes anymore. Like the penalty for adultery is death. No one believes that anymore. The Bible is littered with death penalties that no one believes anymore. The Bible says the penalty for not observing the Sabbath is death. No one believes that anymore. But we still have millions of people who claim to be literal followers of the Bible when in fact, they are not. Many Republicans claim to be literal followers of the Bible, but not one of them has ever called for a known adulterer, even a politician known adulterer, to be put to death, because they don't believe that anymore.
And the only way the ark park will be able to keep some people believing what they're seeing is a replica of what Noah actually built is to, let's say underplay certain aspects of the story of Noah. Like for example, when Noah built this 500-foot wooden ship, Noah was 600 years old. Yes, that's what the Bible says. Noah was 600 years old. Luckily, he had some help, though, because when he was 500 years old, [laughs] Noah had three sons. So they surely got it built about four times faster than they could have, if Noah was doing this all alone.
And remember, the reason Noah had to build this ship is because God told him that God was so angry, just outright blind angry, at the way his creation, human beings, were behaving, that God had decided to murder every man, woman and child -- and fetus -- on Earth, except Noah and his family. And while he was at it, God's rage made him decide to kill every form of animal life on Earth, including birds and butterflies, not because they did anything wrong but because God felt like it. He did not tell Noah to move his family deep into a cave so that God could burn the entire surface of the Earth, destroying every living thing on it. Instead, he told him he was going to flood the Earth with water thereby making it an even more hospitable and fun place for fish. Why killer sharks were a more favored species in God's eye than doves, we don't know. But one of the tour guides is going to get that question at the ark park the day that I get down there to check that place out.
So this 600-year-old guy with his 100-year-old sons builds a 500-foot boat into which he marches, not two animals of each species as is commonly believed, but as God ordered him,[reads from Genesis 7:2] 'seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate. And also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female.' So seven pairs of deer and one pair of pigs. Never mind how every species on Earth was suddenly supposed to get the message to show up at Noah's ark just in time to get on board. But assuming they did, there would be a very, very long line to get on that boat.
[clip of Ricky Gervais also mocking Noah's story -- to prove O'Donnell's point?]
The fake Noah's ark is going to be 510 feet long, 85 feet wide and 55 feet high. It will presumably have, I don't know, four or five floors -- I suppose we should say decks -- and it will surely be able to fit hundreds of animals depending on how big they are, especially since you only have to fit two camels in there, because they are unclean animals according to the Bible.
It's okay. Relax. Take it easy. You can disbelieve the story of Noah and still be a good Christian or still be a good Jew. You don't have to believe that God got himself so blindingly enraged that God decided to wipe out, to murder, every living thing above water on the planet. You don't have to believe that. The story of Noah's ark is just one of many, many, many things in the Bible that good Christians and good Jews no longer believe.
I can't wait to see what Noah looks like at the ark park. What does a 600-year-old guy look like? How long is a 585-year-old beard? Now, Hollywood will ask you to believe almost anything, for a couple of hours any way. Hollywood asks you to believe in ferries, hobbits, Jedis, Smurfs, all manner of gremlins, Godzilla. But in Hollywood, [shows picture of Russell Crowe as 'Noah'] Noah is 50 years old. Because even Hollywood can't buy the 600-year-old guy thing.
