Ken Ham files lawsuit against Kentucky

[Thumpalumpacus]

Esquilax thinks lying is okay. He lied presenting a quote from me of something I never actually said.

No. Read in the context of this thread, his summation was put in quotes precisely because it wasn't your exact words, but exactly because it was your message. That English, she's a funny mistress, for those of you who don't get her ... especially when sarcasm is involved. You see, that requires a little insight.

Is this some sort of atheistic hypocrisy? That it is okay to lie if you are an atheists, but if a theist lies....well that is just unforgivable.

No, what it is is that you're not sharp enough to understand that you're on the receiving end of a joke. I'm smart enough to understand that he wasn't actually quoting you, word for word, but rather, putting quotes marks around his own summary of your post.

Clearly, you don't have a problem with Ham being a liar. You've brushed his lying off with what boils down to "big deal". Why are you complaining about that being noted?

I don't care that Ham is inflating the numbers in regards to this case. It is immaterial.

His point was that you don't care about it from the standpoint of a Christian.

You can thank me later.

The project would still qualify for a rebate no matter whose numbers you use(it obviously cost more than a million dollars and at least 25% of the attendance is obviously going to come from out of state). If Ham is lying about the numbers, he isn't doing it to get approved for the project or get a bigger rebate check. Any money Ham receives from the state is going to be derived from actual sales tax revenue his attraction generates....and not numbers he presents before it is built.

I think his real lies are in regards to what the real religious requirements are for the job, myself. I trust the court will get to the bottom of that.

Since his lies are immaterial to this court case, people present them only to make other people hate Ham.

No. You don't seem to understand that it isn't his lies that are onstage right now, but your defense of them. The fact that you are defending his lying undermines the moral argument for your faith, because you are clearly basing you argument on material practicalities.

If you were a moral Christian, you would condemn lying, no matter the cost or benefit.

Thanks for showing your colors.

Hating Ham is not a good basis to decide this case. Facts and laws are a good basis to decide this case. Esquilax should learn what the facts are and what the laws are before he speaks....because its obvious he doesn't know what the hell he talking about.

Look at you, trying to deflect from the fact that you are defending deceit.

How cute!

[Heywood]

No. You don't seem to understand that it isn't his lies that are onstage right now, but your defense of them. The fact that you are defending his lying undermines the moral argument for your faith, because you are clearly basing you argument on material practicalities.

If you were a moral Christian, you would condemn lying, no matter the cost or benefit.

I'm not defending Ham's lies. I am saying they are irrelevant in regards to the merits of his case against the state.

If you were a moral atheist, you would condemn lying, no matter the cost or benefit. But instead you defend lies told by other atheists. You are not of moral character.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm not defending Ham's lies. I am saying they are irrelevant in regards to the merits of his case against the state.

By ignoring them, you're insinuating that they're acceptable. I should think a believer should be more stringent in judging his fellow-travelers.

If you were a moral atheist, you would condemn lying, no matter the cost or benefit. But instead you defend lies told by other atheists. You are not of moral character.

... except that, as explained above, it wasn't a lie, but rather, a sarcastic summation of your view. I'll let you think about it a little now, because you clearly need to do so. (By way of assistance: when Dana Carvey portrayed GHW Bush on Saturday Night Live, were his scripted words "lying"?)

You should probably do that thinking before you post, next time.

[Esquilax]

You really don't know anything about this case do you? Did you even read the complaint? Stop talking out of your crack if you don't know what argument is being made in the complaint.

I read the complaint front to back, so put that well poison away, you condescending asshole.

In the initial application the park was to be financed and owned by mostly private investors. The application is approved. Circumstances change and the ministry decides to finance with debt and will now be sole owner(a new application must now be filed).

When it was privately funded to that degree, AiG also agreed in writing not to discriminate in its hiring practices. That's a non-trivial point; clearly this isn't such an important component of their religious beliefs when there's money on the table.

The state now comes back and demands that AIG(this is what AIG is claiming anyways) surrender the right that it has under state and federal law to discriminate in its hiring practices in order to be approved for the incentive.

As I've already said, that right to discriminate is only given unconditionally to fully religious entities like churches. It's provisional when applied to things like for-profit religious businesses, something that AiG clearly knows; since the likelihood that a court will find discrimination through the for-profit, subsidy-supported Ark Encounter is far less likely than through AiG, jobs for the Ark Encounter were being filed through AiG, a non-profit for which the exception is more likely to be granted.

AIG is claiming that it is being asked to surrender its rights because it is a religious ministry and the state has never asked non religious owners to surrender their rights to qualify for the rebate.

It's not a right. It's a provisional exemption from the law given on a case by case basis when applied to for-profit entities, hence all the shady shit from AiG to try and maximize the chances of getting it.

AIG claims that since the only thing that changed from approval to denial was the fact that ownership went from a group of private investors to a religious ministry, that is evidence the state is discriminating against religious ministries.

But this simply isn't true: AiG was given preliminary approval in 2010, while their discriminatory hiring practices- the actual reason why they were denied- came to light in August of 2014. This is another thing that changed between approval and now, and it's also the stated reason why AiG was denied at all. I tend to think it has more of an impact than a restructuring of investment funding.

The initial approval is evidence that the project fulfills all the requirements of outlined in the law.

The initial approval was conditional on AiG not discriminating in its hiring practices, which the group agreed to in writing at the time, something that the lawsuit brief characterizes as "disconcerting." You know, the lawsuit brief you accused me of not reading, but then apparently missed out on important factors in it yourself?

This is also, by the way, the portion of the brief where AiG lies again, insisting that they only wanted to discriminate for management positions, when in fact their job ads were for CAD technicians and featured that same discrimination.

Esquilax thinks lying is okay. He lied presenting a quote from me of something I never actually said. Is this some sort of atheistic hypocrisy? That it is okay to lie if you are an atheists, but if a theist lies....well that is just unforgivable.

If you're stupid enough to think that I was seriously presenting that quote as words of yours, placed as it was directly under an actual quote from you which used the completely different quote formatting, or dishonest enough to grasp at this specific straw, then so be it. But don't act like everyone else is as insipid or mendacious as you are, Heywood; I feel confident that at least my fellow atheists are intelligent enough to understand that I was boiling down what you said to its essential message, and not presenting it as a literal sentiment that you expressed.

And before you try to ride this bomb right the fuck into the ground, because I know how much trouble you have admitting that you were wrong, I'd like to point everyone to the fact that I just explicitly explained what I was doing in that post, for those of you too dull to understand that immediately; not much of a lie, when the very next post the "liar" makes clarifies that the "lie" was not the intended effect.

If the ark caught on fire, the fire department would respond in spite of the ark being used to promote religion. However I imagine Esquilax would argue that such action would constitute an unlawful entanglement between church and state and then claim the pastor was lying when he called 911 by exaggerating the size of the fire.

Ooh, look! Heywood's lying, by saying I said something I never did! Oooioooooo, christian hypocrisy!

You can try to ridicule my position all you want, but when I post evidence in writing that Ham actually is lying, you're misrepresenting me by characterizing it as a claim in order to make what I'm saying seem baseless. Cheap shots might be your stock in trade, but you could at least pick a target that won't make you look like a bumbling fool when you take it on by pretending its something it's not.

[Minimalist]

If the ark caught on fire

Why would your fucking god let that happen?

[kookookachoo]

I'm losing touch with reality here. But that's normal for me. Carry on. Popcorn anyone?

[SteelCurtain]

The incentive is a rebate. Ark Encounters has to generate the sales tax revenue for the state. Once the state has it money from the attraction it will rebate some of it back. Ark Encounters gets nothing up front from the state. If they build the thing and generate 0 dollars in sales tax revenue cause no one shows up....they get 0 dollars rebated back to them even if they spent a billion dollars building the thing.

The $11 million that the state has to shell out up front to build the interchange does matter. And if the Ark Encounter is only going to bring in 20% or less of the amount that was originally posited, do you think the anticipated numbers have no relevance to whether or not the state has a vested interest in giving incentives to the Ark Encounter? Even if there is a positive cash flow when all is said and done, is it worth $11 million up front plus lost tax revenue when you only reap $4.9 million over ten years? Maybe the answer is yes. But when Ken Ham is telling the state that he will reap them over $25 million in tax revenue when the reality is more like $5 mil, that is not a negligible difference.

You seem infatuated with tu quoque statements. Ken Ham lied here, and if someone else lied, it doesn't make Ken Ham right. Especially when he is requiring new hires to have "unimpeachable personal lives." I am pretty sure that doesn't include being blatantly dishonest with state government, then crying "persecution!" when you get caught.

[Heywood]

The $11 million that the state has to shell out up front to build the interchange does matter. And if the Ark Encounter is only going to bring in 20% or less of the amount that was originally posited, do you think the anticipated numbers have no relevance to whether or not the state has a vested interest in giving incentives to the Ark Encounter? Even if there is a positive cash flow when all is said and done, is it worth $11 million up front plus lost tax revenue when you only reap $4.9 million over ten years? Maybe the answer is yes. But when Ken Ham is telling the state that he will reap them over $25 million in tax revenue when the reality is more like $5 mil, that is not a negligible difference.

I don't know anything about the state building an interchange, but it seems reasonable. However the state commissioned its own study and would likely rely on that not Ham's.

[Brian37]

The $11 million that the state has to shell out up front to build the interchange does matter. And if the Ark Encounter is only going to bring in 20% or less of the amount that was originally posited, do you think the anticipated numbers have no relevance to whether or not the state has a vested interest in giving incentives to the Ark Encounter? Even if there is a positive cash flow when all is said and done, is it worth $11 million up front plus lost tax revenue when you only reap $4.9 million over ten years? Maybe the answer is yes. But when Ken Ham is telling the state that he will reap them over $25 million in tax revenue when the reality is more like $5 mil, that is not a negligible difference.

I don't know anything about the state building an interchange, but it seems reasonable. However the state commissioned its own study and would likely rely on that not Ham's.

I don't give one shit why he wanted the Ark it is superfluous bullshit and as bad as the NFL paying no taxes and getting free stadiums all discrimination issues aside.

This isn't like building a police station, or fire house, or public school or library. This is superfluous crap, and on top of superfluous crap, crap intended on selling bullshit myth on my dime.

Ham wants to build his own Ark, he should raise his own money in the private sector, if he cant do that, fuck him.

Just like big business, religion should not be getting welfare at the expense of everyone else.

[Heywood]

I don't know anything about the state building an interchange, but it seems reasonable. However the state commissioned its own study and would likely rely on that not Ham's.

I don't give one shit why he wanted the Ark it is superfluous bullshit and as bad as the NFL paying no taxes and getting free stadiums all discrimination issues aside.

This isn't like building a police station, or fire house, or public school or library. This is superfluous crap, and on top of superfluous crap, crap intended on selling bullshit myth on my dime.

Ham wants to build his own Ark, he should raise his own money in the private sector, if he cant do that, fuck him.

Just like big business, religion should not be getting welfare at the expense of everyone else.

Then this religious attraction should not be generating any revenue at all for the state. I'm sure Ham and AIG would rather just be exempt from charging sales tax. If you offered that deal to Ham, he will build the dam interchange himself.

If this religious attraction is going to be generating revenue for the state then it should be eligible for facially neutral incentives offered by the state.