Great jobs in Kentucky!

Wow, Ken Ham has been touting all the jobs his Ark Park will bring into Kentucky, and he’s already advertising. Isn’t that great? Look what opportunities are available:

Job Opportunities in the United States:

  • Constituent Data Administrator (CDA)
  • Guest Services Coordinator
  • Public Safety Console Operator
  • Senior Database Administrator (Senior DBA)
  • Video Editor/Animator/VFX
  • Web Developer–Python
  • Zoo Keeper
  • Ark Encounter Jobs

That’s a diverse assortment of jobs, and they just have one thing in common. One little bitty catch.

All job applicants need to supply a written statement of their testimony, a statement of what they believe regarding creation and a statement that they have read and can support the AiG statement of faith.

So, you get to manage a database or shovel llama shit, as long as you have Fundamentalist Jesus in your heart. That goes even for those jobs at the Ark Encounter, where they are begging for state subsidies while insisting that it isn’t really a religious ministry. If it isn’t, why do all the employees have to swear an oath to worship Jesus precisely as Ken Ham demands they do?

Creation “Science” Fair this weekend

Rats, I have to miss it again. The Twin Cities Creation Science wackos are buggering up science and children’s education again this weekend with a Creation Pseudo-Science Fair at the Har-Mar Mall, which will be temporarily renamed the Har-Har-Hardy-Har Mall in their honor. I’ll be back in Minneapolis on Saturday, but I’ve already booked the shuttle home to Morris and really don’t feel like it’s worth rescheduling just so I can see a deadly dull string of poor exhibits assembled by sad kids who will be slapping on bible verses because the rules say they have to and who will “Pray [their] exhibit will witness to non-Christian visitors”.

It’s just too depressing. Besides, I hear The Black Swan will be playing in Morris this weekend, and I’d rather go be cheered and uplifted by that uplifting and warm tale of human endeavor. Relatively speaking, that is.

Bring it on, Al

Albert Mohler, that deluded Baptist zealot, has written an analysis of the New Atheism that puts evolution front and center. I actually sort of agree with him — these New/Gnu Atheists are predominantly scientific atheists who consider scientific explanations to be far better and more satisfying and most importantly, more true than religious explanations. Mohler lards his summary with gloppy accusations of “worldview” and “dogma” and other such buzzwords that religious apologists use as insults when applied to atheists but virtues when applied to theologians, but otherwise, it’s a fair cop.

The Dogma of Darwinism is among the first principles of the worldview offered by the New Atheists. Darwin replaces the Bible as the great explainer of the existence of life in all of its forms. The New Atheists are not merely dependent upon science for their worldview; their worldview amounts to scientism — the belief that modern naturalistic science is the great unifying answer to the most basic questions of human life.

As Richard Dawkins has recently argued, they believe that disbelief in evolution should be considered as intellectually disrespectable and reprehensible as denial of the Holocaust. Thus, their strategy is to use the theory of evolution as a central weapon in today’s context of intellectual combat.

The New Atheists would have no coherent worldview without the Dogma of Darwinism. With it, they intend to malign belief in God and to marginalize Christians and Christian arguments. Thus, we can draw a straight line from the emergence of evolutionary theory to the resurgence of atheism in our times. Never underestimate the power of a bad idea.

Mohler just lets it lie there — isn’t it enough to just point at the Other and shriek, “DARWINIST!”? — but I can see where he’s going with it, and it’s the same place creationists go. All they have to do to prove atheism wrong and Christianity true, they think, is to prove that evolution is false. I welcome this tactic. I love watching creationists butt heads against the evidence. They’re so cute when they’re reeling about, blood streaming down their faces, brains getting increasingly addled, as they try to deny reality. I guess it’s a kind of historical tradition in Christianity, this business of tying a blindfold on and throwing themselves to the lions. It used to be you needed a legionnaire or two poking them with a spear to get them to enter the arena, but nowadays they just do it voluntarily.

And I guarantee you, we atheists do not underestimate the power of bad ideas. We witness them in action every Sunday, and every time a public official whines that they need to say a magic chant to their sky-fairy before they get to work.

Revealing clientele

Bill Nye the Science Guy, humanist of the year, science educator and entertainer, and all-around interesting fellow, apparently stopped briefly at the Creation “Museum” to take a quick picture of the exterior, and then moved on. How do we know? Ken Ham was watching.

Bill Nye (“The Science Guy” of PBS-TV fame) visited the Creation Museum for…… 2 minutes this past week. He only stopped in front of the museum to take photos. In our photo attached, he is standing in the driveway in front of the museum. He did not go inside. Including the drive in and out the gate, he was on-site for a total of 122 seconds. He was last year’s “Humanist of the Year” – see my blog: <http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2010/06/15/bill-nye-the-humanist-guy/”>>

You have to admit, though, Kenny…the lies inside the “museum” are obnoxious, the guard dogs and tasers aren’t particularly inviting, and now the revelation that the staff creepily obsesses over surveillance footage is more than a little off-putting. It’s an extraordinarily paranoid place.

Perhaps Ken will be happier with another guest, one who has begged special permission to visit the Creation “Museum”: Jeffrey D. Bornhoeft. He’s more of a Creation “Museum” kind of guy.

An Ohio man — who killed his ex-wife’s new husband but was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2000 — has received permission to leave the state to visit the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky.

It will mark the first time in 11 years that Jeffrey D. Bornhoeft will be allowed to leave Ohio for a trip his father said he is taking because he has become involved with a church since the shooting death.

The court-approved trip, which is scheduled for Saturday, is the latest step toward freedom for Bornhoeft since Nov. 7, 2000, when a Warren County jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting death of Jamey Johnson, 23, of Dayton.

During his trial, authorities said Bornhoeft had his ex-wife, Shawn “Candy” Johnson, on the phone as he fired three shots at close range from a .357-caliber revolver into the back of Johnson’s head while he slept in a Lebanon apartment. Bornhoeft then threatened to turn the gun on himself during a three-hour standoff that ended when he surrendered to Lebanon police.

He may be a cold-blooded murderer, but at least he’s not a humanist.

Oh, and just in case you were making plans…Saturday is probably not the best day to visit Ken Ham. Although I am looking forward to his blog post in which he brags about how Jeffrey Bornhoeft actually came all the way into the “Museum”, and just loved the exhibits.

Eric Hovind just can’t help lying

Remember how I told you that Eric Hovind was giving away free DVDs for Valentine’s Day? And you all rushed over to place your order, and you got the sad notification?

We’re sorry, the Valentine’s DVD is now out of stock. Thanks to supporters like you, over 2,000 people will get to hear the gospel message!

We pray that the Holy Spirit will use these DVDs to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Awww, out of stock. Oh, well, that’s fair enough, you thought, and you turned away to go back to the kitchen and turn the roast-baby-on-a-spit some more. But wait! There’s something mysterious going on here!

Try this. Click on this link

http://shopping.drdino.com/product-exec/product_id/1140/nm/_The_Truth_Valentine_s_DVD_FREE_OFFER_

And you’ll get the sad “out of stock” message.

If instead, though, you copy this same URL and paste it into the address bar of your browser:

http://shopping.drdino.com/product-exec/product_id/1140/nm/_The_Truth_Valentine_s_DVD_FREE_OFFER_

Presto! You show up at the old page that allows you to order the free DVD. You can have your DVD and your roast baby at the same time! Huzzah!

Sneaky Eric put up a redirect to intercept any visitors arriving from Pharyngula to his fake out-of-stock page. He could have been honest, and done exactly the same thing, but have the page say something like, “Please, we are making these DVDs available to our Christian customers. We’d appreciate it if you’d leave them for people who will enjoy the content.” And that would have been cool. I think most of us would have just sat back and let it slide by, no problem, dude.

But no! Eric Hovind must really like us, because now we get the roast baby, the free DVD, and we get to point at a creationist and sneer at his pathetic dishonesty! This calls for something more than just a “Huzzah”, I think I’m going to give you all permission to run outside with your pistols (loaded with blanks, for safety reasons, of course) and fire them madly into the air while screaming “Yeeeeee-haaaah!”.

Thanks, Eric. We knew you were a lying toad, but it’s always nice to get confirmation.

The bar is set very, very low

Creationist Steven L. Anderson is having an art contest. He is shocked and surprised that chickens and dinosaurs are related and wants some cartoons mocking the concept.

He’s got a few examples at his site; they aren’t very good, and they all miss the point. Chickens are not descended from T. rex. Chickens and T. rex share a common ancestor, and there are good reasons to argue from their morphology that chickens and T. rex shared a common ancestor more recently than chickens and people, or chickens and bananas.

Watching his idiotic performance, though, (and he’s no slouch at the stupid: I’ve mentioned his sermon on pissing) got me wondering. Who is the dumbest creationist in the country? There’s some stiff competition for the title, with Ray Comfort, Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, Carl Baugh, and every podunk preacher with a bug up his butt about Genesis making asses of themselves, but Anderson certainly should be in the running. Maybe we should have a contest to name the craziest, dumbest, most venal, etc. creationist … leave your suggestions in the comments.

A Valentine’s day opportunity

Aww, how sweet: Eric Hovind is offering a free Creation ‘Science’ Evangelism dvd for you to send to your sweetie. They’ll love it. I’m hoping someone will care enough to send me one, because nothing says love like a dense collection of lies and misleading delusions.

Oops, did my inner cynic slip out there?

Anyway…free, totally free. Not even any shipping charges. They do get your name and address for their database of suckers customers, which may be more than you want to pay, but otherwise it’s a good deal.

Well, it might also be a bit of a libido killer, which may not be a good idea for Valentine’s Day. On second thought, maybe you should think carefully about whether you want to suffer with this thing.

Would you call this pedagogy?

The governor of Kentucky sees nothing wrong with promoting this charlatan’s act, but watch this video of Ken Ham ‘teaching’ an auditorium full of children. It’s appalling.

“What do you say when someone says ‘millions of years’?” “WERE YOU THERE?”

Hey, kids, what do you say when someone says Jesus is Lord, the Grand Canyon was carved by a global flood, and Adam and Eve hung out with dinosaurs?

Tom Ritter’s claim

I chuckled at Ritter, the creationist suing a Pennsylvania school district, but now I’ve actually seen formal legal complaint, and I’m not giggling anymore. It’s more like the kind of roaring guffaw that would make Brian Blessed sound like a feeble titterer.

I don’t think he had any legal counsel in drafting that. At least he took the time to retype it from the original draft, which was probably done in purple crayon on a Big Chief tablet. Does he even have standing in this case?

That’s not a lawsuit anyone needs to worry about, except perhaps for Tom Ritter, who will at best be publicly embarrassed and at worst might have to pay some court costs.