I would very much love to go, whether with you and your friends or on my own. (So thanks for the gracious invitation.)
Yet, I just can’t bring myself to contribute money (via my payment for the admission ticket) for something which I consider so extremely destructive to both my homeland and to the progress of the Great Commission. (I suppose if the admission cost was just a few bucks, I might rationalize my minimal contribution, but isn’t one adult admission around $48 plus $10 parking?)
If Ken Ham declared a “free admission day” for his evangelical critics and other “skeptics”, I’d have a clear conscience. Meanwhile, my turning down the opportunity on the aforementioned grounds is just my own personal decision and I have no problems with other people reaching different conclusions about financially “participating” in the Ark Encounter by buying a ticket.
It is probably just as well that I won’t ever tour the Ark Encounter. It would be bad for my blood pressure and I might even be tempted to be less than totally gracious. I still have lots of YEC friends (since my experiences long ago as a “creation science” advocate) and those friends are such good people and effective Christ-followers. But for that very reason I tend to get very frustrated and even angry at how leaders like Ken Ham are exploiting them. (Being uninformed about science and Hebrew exegesis doesn’t make my favorite YEC friends anything but the fine people they are. It just makes them vulnerable to manipulation at times.)
At the very least, I think I would leave the Ark Encounter very saddened by what I saw. At my age I don’t need that kind of discouragement. But thanks for your offer, Patrick!