(July 15, 2017 at 2:02 pm)*Deidre* Wrote: What bothered me most about this guy and his ''museum'' wasn't just that it's based on absurdity (I thought this even as a practicing believer) - it just shows the hypocrisy of how many Christians spend their money. How about using all of the wasted money for this museum and giving it to the poor? To the homeless? To those less fortunate? The museum is little more than this jerk's cry for attention, and a massive ego trip.

Well, I mean, look at the conceit of Xtianity in the first place; you're the center of the universe and god's special person, and yet somehow this attitude is supposed to be considered humility. It's a complete and utter contradiction and instills this sort of arrogance in adherents. So obviously they can never be wrong about anything and they think people will not only WANT to hear everything they have to say, but will be convinced by it. It's a gateway to fucking batshit insanity and it's horrendously contagious. Ham is as mentally ill as Donald Trump and should be fucking institutionalized, not in charge of a financial giant.

But here's one of the main problems; Ham may have assumed that every Xtian is the same kind of creationist asshat that he is and that this enterprise would appeal to a much broader demographic. While the ones closest to the location are probably more likely to be that brainwashed, the wider US population are more fairweather about their faith and don't care much about it, or are able to somehow maintain a cognitive dissonance balance between the bullshit and the reality, which makes them look at Ham with the same disapproval as the rest of us, only they still cling to other ridiculous beliefs of a different or lesser stain. I mean, crunch the numbers. A few billion Xtians worldwide, X% of that within the US, Y% of X who are creationists specifically, and Z% of Y who are willing and able to spend the $$$ to make the trip out there and pay for both parking and admission. Every single one of those should show a MASSIVE exponential drop, so if we assume 1 magnitude for each of those divisions, that literally only means a few million at best if we're being extremely charitable. How the everlasting FUCK did no one at least do a mockup of this and come to the conclusion this might, just might, be a colossal shit show?

I would say the only saving grace in all of this is that there SHOULD BE no hope in hell of them getting a government bailout because it's a FUCKING RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION but I wouldn't put anything past Ham and human stupidity at this point.

@Tazzy

-That's one of the reasons that Hams park failed.  Kentucky is a particularly beautiful state.  The exit that leads to the ark park also leads to legitimately surreal landscapes and caves, huge sheared outcroppings of rock in which the floor of an ancient inland sea can be found....a hop and a skip away from the appalachian range, danny boone...and mammoth cave.  Red River Gorge, Natural Bridge, two or three hours to the west is The Land Between the Lakes.  The ohio/kentucky river and all of it's tributaries cut through the valleys and hollers.  The bluegrass (actrually blue, btw, due to high amounts of calcium..which is why people finish their racehorses here...don't want a buncha broken ankles) and hills dot every space in between.....hell, the land the park was built on was noticeably degraded by plopping that pile of shit down on it. This state was once, in a very real sense, the american congo..and only ceased to be so in that weal;thy european immgrants came here and attempted to remake their homeland - the architecture and thoroughbred complexes reflect that..as do the many invasive, non native trees and plants. On the other end of it, this is coal country, and so the relationship that the american poor and frontiersmen have always toiled under played itself out here like a microcosm of the whole.

There is no shortage of awesome shit to see and do here...the ark doesn't even make the long list.

Quote:How about using all of the wasted money for this museum and giving it to the poor?

Um...it's Kentucky.

Kentucky actually has a long history of siding with social programs, and ofc it would, it's a great testbed for stressing those systems (sadlol).  Lately, we were a model of obamacare adoption, if you'll recall. Then it all went wrong, lol.

A huge part of our bad rap goes -aaaaaaallll- the way back to when wealthy NE states were actively oppressing the residents in order to avail themselves of cheap fossil fuels and farm labor. The term "redneck" as it;s used now comes partly from a reference to a coal miners union that actually fought back....ultimately being menaced by mercenaries and then -bombed-...from the air, by US forces. It was imperative that papers frame the conflict as one between their lofty selves and the degenrate subhuman poors beyond the mountain range, fit only to die in the mines and on the fields. The residents predictably turned to faith and family, as is the pattern in almost every instance of this type of centuries spanning systematic oppression. Who else were they going to turn to?

Unfortunately, that makes them easy marks for a con like Ham. Williamstown, for example, is one of (if not the) jesusiest brugs in the US....but..ultimately, they signed on with Ham in order to get a bigger freeway exit.

I saw a press statement on youtube where Ham was saying that he 'believed' that the park would do well. I mean, is there any better proof that just because you BELIEVE something doesn't make it true? The irony is so rich you could replace your hemoglobin with it.

It's also a useful way of making a claim in such a manner that could not be construed, later, as fraud.  Back when asked about the specifics of funding and attendance/profit projections and how all of it was arrived at he would wave his hands in the air and say "my lawyers know more than me about that".  The guy isn't a true believer, he's a common con. Give him a few more years, he'll come up with another religious themed for profit venture that just so happens to coincide with a juicy peice of public funding. It's his organizations MO.

(July 17, 2017 at 12:22 am)Khemikal Wrote: It's also a useful way of making a claim in such a manner that could not be construed, later, as fraud.  Back when asked about the specifics of funding and attendance/profit projections and how all of it was arrived at he would wave his hands in the air and say "my lawyers know more than me about that".  The guy isn't a true believer, he's a common con.  Give him a few more years, he'll come up with another religious themed for profit venture that just so happens to coincide with a juicy peice of public funding.  It's his organizations MO.

But he owns the creation museum and AIG, and is planning on other projects, so it's not like he needs it. He just leaves a broken community in his wake and pays no price. If there was such a thing, I'd sell my soul to ensure he and everyone like him paid for it dearly.

(July 17, 2017 at 12:27 am)Astonished Wrote:

(July 17, 2017 at 12:22 am)Khemikal Wrote: It's also a useful way of making a claim in such a manner that could not be construed, later, as fraud.  Back when asked about the specifics of funding and attendance/profit projections and how all of it was arrived at he would wave his hands in the air and say "my lawyers know more than me about that".  The guy isn't a true believer, he's a common con.  Give him a few more years, he'll come up with another religious themed for profit venture that just so happens to coincide with a juicy peice of public funding.  It's his organizations MO.

But he owns the creation museum and AIG, and is planning on other projects, so it's not like he needs it. He just leaves a broken community in his wake and pays no price. If there was such a thing, I'd sell my soul to ensure he and everyone like him paid for it dearly.

Well, it's not like Ken Ham fleeced them with a monorail.

He would if he could manufacture the credibility for it, but he can't.  Religion is the ultimate turnkey con.  The barrier to entry is nil and the marks are flat out desperate to give you their money.

@Astonished
OFC he doesn't need it, he just wants it. That's as far through anything as he has to think out his schemes. The man is a terrible waste of human space...and I;m pretty hard to get a call on that one from...I;m also not the kind of guy to let a faith slide for what others take to be it;s notable dipshits. This one, though, I'm calling bullshit on and letting the christers off the hook. Nobody deserves to have Ham inflicted on them, not even the christers. I hope part of the facade breaks away and lands on him. Even I would begin to suspect divine intervention in that case.

Kentucky taxpayers taking it up the ass again because of one of these jesus freak shitballs.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/anti-lgb...ew-ruling/

Quote:Anti-LGBTQ court clerk Kim Davis costing Kentucky taxpayers $224,703 in fees per new ruling

Pay through the nose, asswipes.  Serves you and your fucking god right.