As a card-carrying YEC (voting member of the Creation Research Society), I don’t think the Ark Encounter project is viable, nor do I think it is a wise use of God’s money. I speculate it may go insolvent in short order. Just a guess….
170,000,000 for an amusement park? Do you know what guys like Rob Carter, Walter Brown, John Sanford, Don Johnson, the Discovery Institute could do with money like that?
Seeing an amusement park doesn’t make Noah any more real to me than going to Disney world makes Tinkerbell more real. Sorry for my cynicism, but that’s how I feel. Faith in the truthfulness of Noah’s flood comes elsewhere, not from big amusement parks.
Here is a photo 14:30 opening day:
https://twitter.com/MrAtheistPants/status/751127116960428032/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The other thing, in creationist circles I mingle in. I hardly hear anyone saying, “Oh I can’t wait to see the Ark.” There are lots of other places like baseball games where YEC parents are eager to take their YEC kids for fun.
Here is another observation:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2016/07/a-fun-day-at-ark-encounters-grand-opening/
News reports say attendance was around 4,000 today. Of course, that’s not sustainable. But let’s imagine it was. That comes out to 1,460,000 attendees in the course of a year. That’s nowhere near what they promised, it assumes there are no days the park is closed, and it assumes attendance will continue to be at least as good as on opening day with all the hype and advertising.
Here is a supposed photo of the ticket line, I have no reason to doubt its authenticity. Should I doubt it? We’ll find out if Ark Encounter goes bankrupt:
https://twitter.com/MrAtheistPants/status/751130524949905408/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Looking at some of the photos of the Ken Ham’s Ark, this looks awful.
https://twitter.com/mattstonephotog/status/751019902203523073/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
I just as soon go to a farm or zoo if I wanted to see animals being fed. And beside zoos look more humane for animals than the cramped quarters of the ark. If you want to see the horrors Noah went through to survive the flood, the real Ark would have been the place. So the concept of this place being a fun place (an amusement park) is not so wise from the start since any semblance of what the Ark might have been like would have been one of incredible hardship.
The Ark Encounter project may do one thing, it may show how infeasible it is to feed and manage all those animals without a miracle. My reading of the flood account is that God miraculously provided for Noah in the ark to keep all those animals alive. As it said, “God shut him [Noah] in [the ark]”. The ark was miraculously protected on the inside and outside. I suspect lots of animals went into God-induced hibernation (pure speculation on my part).
So, I’m sorry, I can’t bring myself to pray for the Ark Encounter project anymore than I’d pray for an unwise endeavor. There are lots of Christian causes in much dire need of attention and money like the International Justice Mission, which I support:
https://www.ijm.org/
In some sense, I’ve desperately hoped creationists would stop supporting stuff like Ark Encounter. You want to donate to YEC or creationist causes? I recommend CRS for YEC and Discovery Institute for ID. I support both.
That’s not possible because there is no evidence to support that claim and enormous amounts disconfirming it.
You assert that ridiculous claim solely because of your religious beliefs.
Indeed. I find Game of Thrones a handy resource for illustrating points I’m trying to make. Irreversibility of time, “The past is already written. The ink is dry.”
And who was Luke?
I find this astonishing. I know you have said this here before and I didn’t pick up on it at the time and I don’t recall if anyone else did. What evidence suggests life only got going around 4,000 years ago, or should I say got going again after the flood?
Seriously?
I mean, seriously?
Please elaborate!
Yes, young fossils stacked in exquisite layers by a global cataclysmic flood, with little penetration between close layers, and none on the larger scale. Fooling generations of geologists and palaeontologists. ‘Cos that’s what happens with floods.
Alan:
Alan, no one in that thread was arguing that the flow of time could be reversed. That was just your comical misunderstanding of what it means to say that the laws of physics are time-reversible.
Appreciate your concern but don’t worry about us. You’re most definitely wrong Sal
Or to consider the evidence rather than a source that has never provided any scientific knowledge that wasn’t known at the time?
I’d agree that what is attributed to Jesus doesn’t obviously point to the flood being a literal fact (a more comprehensive consideration of his recorded statements might could be a different matter, for all that I know. Or not). But if it did, so much the worse for that source. Sal can believe any nonsense he wants, but it’s appalling that he places any authority above demonstrable facts when teaching or otherwise insulting people’s intelligence.
Glen Davidson
As if he ever does.
Really, he seems not to think that way, but in generalities that ignore specifics. Which would be fine if he weren’t discussing matters that require exacting treatment of the specifics.
Glen Davidson
Don’t know about god, but someone here is definitely fucked in the head.
If Sal did questions, he’d have done them on the ‘Kinds’ thread. All he wants is to spew nonsense and have that nonsense vetted and the most obviously wrong things pointed out so he can fool people who don’t know any better with his now-refined argument.
It’s just a one way street!
keiths,
You know those little toy clowns with the weighted round bottoms…
Sal has been quite clear about that, yes. On the other hand, YEC seems on the decline with young people in the US. Social media does allow information to leak into dark corners, however hard folks try and control it.
John,
He could, but he’s probably reluctant to. It opens up another can of worms, because if Jesus interpreted some parts of scripture allegorically but other parts literalistically (e.g., his “every jot and tittle” remark), then it licenses us to do the same, including with regard to the New Testament.
Maybe all this “son of Man” and “second coming” stuff was just allegorical. Better not to go there.
Alan,
Oh, I don’t doubt that you’ll bounce back up for another blow.
keiths,
Noyau if you fell the need.
Alan,
Who was it that brought up “clowns with weighted round bottoms”, again?
I do hope that the people who Sal is poisoning with his ‘teaching’ find this site.
It isn’t working, as evidenced by the failure of the ark park. (There are two smaller ones in Europe.) Religion will reach flat earth status this century. This trend is aided and abetted by the religious wars and terrorism on everyone’s minds these days.
Noooooooo!
Are you sure you are not confusing Aqua Park? (I hope)
ETA This?
The one in Holland comes to mind, but there are others. And one in Hong Kong.
But they aren’t exactly on top of each other are they. They often have Great Unconformity and they are often side by side. Get a load of this:
http://www.thegeologytrusts.org/pub/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/GB-IPR_123-16CTGeologyMap-650×722.jpg
And your dismissal doesn’t change any of the physical issues:
1. Faint Young Sun Paradox
2. C14 in fossils given their half-life
3. DNA in fossils given their half-life
4. Amino Acid in fossils given their half life
5. Accepted erosion rates that would wipe out the fossil record in a few million years
6. marine fossils with land animals (we use marine fossils lying in the same dig site as index fossils to date the land animals)
And their is evidence a Tsunami like burial was involved in burying what became fossils.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/06/06_deaththroes.shtml
I guess the dino-birds couldn’t escape maybe hurricane force winds before getting suffocated and buried.
And there is one fact: they all had the death pose. So what are the chances over a few million years that every fossilized Archaeopteryx died from similar storms? Were they all similar storms over millions of years that put them in death poses, or was it one?
stcordova,
Sal, accused of the Gish Gallop, comes back with a Gish Gallop. Go figure. Sal, you will have to expand on each of these to explain why it supports whatever you think it supports, whether young earth, young life, a worldwide flood, or all the above.
I’m at a loss to understand what you think a geologic map does to support you. Unconformities, structural features, and such would seem to me to argue strongly against any such flood. We could discuss that and other things if you first present some kind of case. What exactly is your alternative hypothesis of earth history? Events? Dates? What evidence supports it? What disposes of contrary evidence?
Best take one at a time. Start with that geologic map.
Damn but you’re an ignorant SOB.
” The Death Pose
When found, many dinosaur fossils display a strange pose: Their necks are bent dramatically backward. Seeing this position, early dinosaur experts concluded that the animals could hold their necks this way in life. But it seems more likely that the pose reflects something that happened after the animal died.
A cord of springy tissue rather like a rubber band helps support the necks of most animals. This band, or ligament, can stretch to nearly twice its length when the neck is extended; it relaxes when the neck is in the neutral state. After an animal dies, the neck muscles slacken, the ligament shrinks and the neck straightens or bends back on itself”
AMNH: Death Pose
BTW Sal the oldest DNA recovered is from a frozen paleo horse and dates to over 700,000 years. That “half life” sure screws your 4500 year Flood claims.
I see you also chickened out on addressing the geologic formations described too. No surprise there.
stcordova,
Absolutely not what one would expect from a Flood, so it hardly helps your case. There remains a succession which can be pieced together globally.
I’ve been through every single one of these with you, in several instances more than once. You are stone deaf.
Although 5 is a new one, and complete horseshit.
Having watched Salvador for 12 years, I am sure that he’s doing precisely what you say. But I am sure also that he wants nothing so much as to be a star. The majority of his writing, including the present post, serves to aggrandize the author.
To Salvador: I challenge you to go a year without making yourself a topic of your online writings.
I know for a fact that you know that there are radiometric dating techniques that work with various radioactive isotopes with half-lives much greater than that of radioactive carbon (C14).
Why should I see what you’ve done here as something other than the work of an amoral charlatan?
Tom,
Heh. That’s like asking Donald Trump not to refer to himself in his next speech.
By the way, did I mention that when I was eight, my photo was in the newspaper for placing third in the prestigious regional spelling bee, against much older opponents?
And I got a star in Mrs. Edmonds’ class.
No I’m not stone deaf. I read your inadequate responses. They were so anemic I didn’t bother responding, but thanks anyway for the conversation.
As far as point 5.
Lots of land mass is 600 or so meters above sea level:
So 600 meters/ 500 million years = erosion rate of 1.2 micron/years
A sheet of paper is 70 microns. So we don’t really need fast erosion to wipe out the fossil record.
Accepted erosion rates in literature are above 1.2 microns a year, some as high as 30 or more.
Further more if you look at stratified layers, did you notice how smooth the layers are at the bottom compare to the top? The bottom should have been the subject of the most accumulated tectonic activity, but the bottom layers are found to be sometimes quite smooth.
If the sedimentary accumulation was over hundreds of millions of years, the smooth layers would be on top, not on the bottom as the sediments would presumably accumulate in the little nooks and crannies and valleys of the old layers after the old layers had been subject to tectonic activity. But that is not what we see.
Think again about this photo, the smooth layers at the bottom suggest the accumulation wasn’t over hundreds of millions of years. It is the reverse of what long age theory would predict.
Plus, we now have experimental evidence in the Colorado school of mines that stratified layers form quickly in water, not over millions of years.
And finally the layers were laid down quickly, maybe in a matter of minutes so as to suffocate those poor dino birds and make them look like they were all choking to death. Bwahaha!
200 years of geologic science overturned by the genius of Sal.
But these dating methods are for the rocks that weren’t part of the living creature. Dating methods like: Samarium-neodymium, Potassium-argon, Rubidium-strontium, Rubidium-strontium dating, Uranium-thorium dating method, uranium-thorium dating are not for tissues that were once living.
To my knowledge, those aren’t expected to be part of the biology of the fossil. So assume we have 65 million year old potassium argon dated rocks. A poor puppy could be buried in those rocks today, and it would foolish to date the puppy’s time of burial by the 65 million year old rocks the puppy is buried in. It is better to use the clocks in the puppy. If the puppy were buried 50,000 years ago, it would still have traces of C14 in it. If it had DNAs and non-racemic amino acids, that would also indicate recency of death.
The whole carboniferous era (300 million years ago) has evidence of youth. This is acknowledge with some embarrassment in the literature.
I just refuted your point, you were mistaken. But if you’re suggesting I’m a scoundrel, to quote Han Solo, “Scoundrel scoundrel…I like the sound of that.”
I often think of the Jerry Mathers of Creationism.
And still he won’t start up an oil company to exclusively use flood geology in order to find petroleum, making wild profits and proving the mockers to be finally and utterly wrong.
They’re very sure of themselves (many seem to genuinely believe, on the surface), but they just never put their money into their claims. Showing that there is some knowledge of the state of their claims in their heads, preventing them from spending their retirements on utter bullshit. Indeed, many of them have investments in oil companies, and the latter wouldn’t begin to give the time of day to such idiocy.
Glen Davidson
stcordova,
Here’s another ‘anaemic response’: erosion does not occur uniformly across the surface. Further, erosion at one site is deposition at another. This is a stupid argument.
So, to summarize:
The fossils are all way younger than the rocks they’re in as well as the rocks above and below them. And anyway, radiometric dating doesn’t work because. Just because. Rest assured that Sal will never engage in any actual discussion of these interesting claims. A shark has to keep moving or it dies, and the Gish Gallop is a shark.
There is far more sediment in sedimentary rock than can reasonably be expected to exist in suspension at once. And, where in heck did it come from?
There are more fossils in sedimentary rock than can reasonably be expected to exist at the same time.
There is at least 100 times more carbon in biogenic carbonate rock than the entire current biosphere. All of this must exist in solution before it can be incorporated in shell. A massive stoichiometry problem.
The list is endless, all wafted away with a dismissive sniff of ‘anaemic’. Heh heh.
John Harshman,
Sal can, at least, list radiometric isotope pairs. That adds gravitas. None of them work, curiously. Even isochrons. What a waste of time for the scientists involved.
A poor puppy? You’ve just recited part of your presentation to children, haven’t you?
You know that an exponentially decaying quantity does not reach zero. You know that physics would be wrong if there were not traces of C14 in fossils far too old for reliable radiocarbon dating.
Perhaps in the eyes of 14-years-old children desperate to shore up their belief that church and family are telling them the truth. To accept that you actually believe your “refutation” would be tantamount to saying that you are stupid. I do not believe that you are stupid. And that leaves quite a narrow range of plausible accounts for your behavior.
Scoundrel is far too weak a term for someone who makes an art of professing to children beliefs that he does not actually hold. You cannot expect me to accept that you’re intelligent and knowledgeable, and to accept also that you are arguing in good faith. You can, of course, establish that you were merely mistaken by explaining, for instance, that you are so stupid as to believe that C14 disappears entirely after a certain amount of time.
The word scoundrel has overtones of lovable. I would never mistake Sal for a scoundrel.
I would never mistake petrushka for a dirty old man.
Indeed, there is a more descriptive term.
Excellent points, all. But they do not carry nearly as much weight with the most simpleminded of Christians as the dismissive sniff of an orator who has convinced them that (a) he is one of them and (b) he is Very Smart.
Those of you outside the United States perhaps do not know that our high-school graduation rate was, for decades, about 72-73 percent. Only 32 percent of Americans hold bachelor’s degrees. In the latest Gallup poll of American beliefs regarding evolution and creation, only 27 percent of respondents with college degrees were YECs, while 57 percent of respondents with no education beyond high school were YECs.
Salvador is selling himself to poorly educated people. Here at TSZ, he gets responses from folks who are intellectual standouts, even among the elites who hold doctoral degrees. Salvador need only convince the poorly educated that he, their Very Smart proxy, champions their beliefs in debates with evilutionists.
Salvador is so blessed. I feel the hand of God at work.
Thus continuing the grand creationist tradition of pretending that no knowledge exists beyond that presented in the irrelevant internet thread in which they are participating at any given time. Because, of course, no one has ever considered these points before. If only there was some sort of repository of knowledge where a person could find out what has been learned in the past. Ah, what a dream…. Perhaps someday….
As I think about it, it seems to me that this may be the craziest thing Sal has ever said. And I say that even though I know there are a great many other candidates.
Think of the implied scenario here: Somebody comes along, drills a hole into solid 65ma rock, drops in a puppy, and fills in the hole with rock. And not just that puppy, as this is apparently proposed as the explanation for the entire fossil record: billions upon billions of holes for billions upon billions of puppies. Of course it also completely contradicts the flood theory too, but internal inconsistency isn’t really the part that makes this a winner.
Poor old Satan had quite a job to do, didn’t he?
Or if not, I can’t make any sense of Sal’s claim at all. With Satan it’s pathetic, but at least not utterly senseless.
Glen Davidson
Don’t worry Mung. We always have you to pull the IQ average down and back to normal.
Well, there is a certain less than honest YEC who on other science discussion boards earned the nickname “the human shit stain” for good reason. See if you can figure out who. 🙂
Long ago I thought the creation museim was a wrong idea. I was wrong. it was a great idea. It has become famous and makes a powerful witness . It proves the bad guys to no end.
it gives a spatial expression to a common historic popular opinion in a nation controlled by those who deny any opposition or a opposition to respect. These places force respect because they show the common peoples opinions.
Saying these creation places is irrelevant is like saying these gay and ethnic parades are meaningless for showing opinion and presence.
The ark thing is cool. It probably create more of a intellectual interest in creationism and origin subjects and probably hundreds of kids will be influenced to get into sciency things who otherwise came from demographics where it would not be on the dock.
There’s no C14 in limestone. Makes you think, huh?
stcordova,
As a wise man said recently (that would be you), lack of response is a sure sign I’m on to something.
The top is roughly as undistorted as the bottom. The apparent upper curve is due to the fact that the vertical surface is not a plane, and the picture was taken from below! It’s an illusion of perspective.
With the coarse material at the bottom and the finer material at the top, one might expect.
Those poor dino birds that happened to be underwater at the time.