AIG Responds to My Previous Post, "More Lies from Ken Ham" Part 1

Good Day All,

I was more than a little surprised to find that AIG has published "Part 1" of a two part rebuttal to my previous post, More Lies from Ken Ham as the lead article of June 7th by Tim Lovett on the AIG site.

In Part 1, Mr. Lovett:

1-Criticises my use of "complicated" words
2-Tells me that I cannot have morals and ethics
3-Quibbles over plank dimensions on the Ark and makes extraordinary claims as to the provenance of the wood used to build the mythical Ark.
4-Defends the non-existent autonomy of AIG contributors
and
5-Argues that Ken Ham is not the leader of a Christian fundamentalist sect.

Mr Lovett seems to be unable to merely address the issues and starts out by criticizing me for using "complicated words."  I find that simplification is often enhanced by using more descriptive words, but I'll try not to use any big words here so he doesn't have to consult the dictionary as often. Then:  
  

"Furthermore, an atheist who has “founding rules of life” and morality, which produce guilt and reasons to oppose immorality, doesn't sound like a consistent atheist where rules and morality are   optional"

The last time I checked, there were no bands of "consistent atheists" roaming the land doing dastardly deeds prescribed by their optional morality.  Sadly for him, Mr. Lovett does not get to choose what I consider moral or even how I came to the conclusion of what is, or is not moral.  The fact is that empathy is the bedrock of morals and ethics.  Honest and helpful people become accepted and trusted by their peers resulting in being accepted and productive within the community.  We have evolved empathy over eons of human cooperation, which turns out to be a highly successful survival skill.  Of course it is a trait of most all crackpots to claim some sort of absolute truth, and Ken Ham and his hapless minions are no exception.

In the article I said, "....I always refer to anything from the AIG as being from Ken Ham because all of the contributors on his site have signed an agreement with the Hamster to publish only material that he has personally endorsed."

Mr Lovett replies:

"This is incorrect. Furthermore, Mr. Ham does not have time to personally endorse the many pieces of content Answers in Genesis produces. Everyone, including Mr. Ham, is subject to the Statement of Faith that was created by a board of directors, and all of the content should be consistent with this document."

Oh, see how he spins.  So Mr Ham does not personally endorse every word of content, but as the founder of AIG he appointed a board of directors who created a "Statement of Faith" document against Mr Ham's interpretation of scripture?  Of course not.  That would be absurd.
The board of directors didn't get appointed in a vacuum.  They were chosen due to their consistent agreement with Ken Ham. Let's keep it real, here.  Ham had already formulated his interpretation of Genesis long before that board was appointed.

I then wrote that, "Ken Ham is the leader of this sect of fundamentalist, bible literalist Christianity," and Lovett spins away:

"Not so—each Christian working at Answers in Genesis (or working with us) is actually subject to his own church denomination and ultimately to Christ. We have Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc., and this ministry affirms the great confessions of faith held by the church for 2,000 years. We aren’t teaching anything new but those things Christians have adhered to for centuries. Ken is the president and CEO of just one parachurch organization (Answers in Genesis) within the larger realm of biblical Christianity.

I think I had said that Ken Ham is the leader of this fundamentalist sect- meaning AIG.  
There are a vast number of Christians who do not buy in to Ham's fundamentalist philosophy.
It matters not what 'denomination' AIG contributors represent, they must sign Ham's Statement that they not publish anything that contradicts his interpretation of scripture.  That fact alone proves that whatever Ham is doing, it is not science.  Ham does, indeed, tacitly approve everything written on his site.  Why try to worm out of that? 

Next, Lovett wants to quibble over the dimensions of the wood used in the Ark, and so I shall go with his speculated dimension of 24" wide planks that still result in 19,800 feet of longitudinal cracks between the planks.  And those cracks were supposedly sealed with pitch and all succumbing to the effects of bending moments and torsion.   Not gonna happen.  Lovett refers to these planks as 'keelsons" yet there is no evidence that the Ark had a keel at all, and so the longitudinal planks would be referred to as side planks, not Keelsons. (I admit that I did not use exact proper terms, as he points out, since I was merely trying to explain this to a couple friends, and my degree in Mech Eng was awarded in 1972, and I spent the balance of my career in business management.)  By the way, Mr Lovett argues that the planks could have been much longer than my example of twenty feet, but sorry to say, the longer the plank, he more deflection, and attendant leaks, there will be.

Then Lovett goes on to make a couple very odd statements:

"Or perhaps you mean that twenty feet was the best Noah could find in the Middle East [he is here referring to my hypothetical length of the planks.] The Ark landed there, but this was completely unrelated to where it was built because “the ark moved about” (Genesis 7:18). “Gopher wood” doesn’t have to be a desert acacia or even a cedar of Lebanon. It could just as well have been Douglas fir, yellow pine, or even teak."

So the Ark landed in the mid east but may not have been built in the mid east? 
Is he saying that the Ark was built in north western or southern USA where Douglas Fir and Yellow pine grow respectively? Or in Burma where Teak grows?   I don't know what he's alluding to, but I'm sure he can make something up if pressed to do so.   

My original post was merely to show the concept of why wooden ships the size of the Ark were never feasible or seaworthy and how all the efforts of nineteenth century shipbuilders at the height of their skills could not make an all-wooden ship the size of the Ark that would float for any extended length of time. Historically, wooden ships (smaller that the Ark) could not be made seaworthy even though they were true keel ships that used iron and steel reinforcement..

It will be interesting to get to the meat of this exercise and see what Mr. Lovett has to say in the promised "Part 2" of his rebuttal, but it is safe to bet that he will make the claim that since Noah was not far removed from Adam that he was smarter than the nineteenth century shipbuilders and devised some type of elaborate plan for keeping the Ark afloat, and he always has the option of claiming divine intervention, which is what anti-science fundamentalists do when they run out of natural explanations.

And finally, but a bit off topic, for AIG followers who are considering donations to the Ark Park, note that the park will be a for-profit enterprise, so by donating money for the construction you will be putting profit in Ken Ham's and his cronies' pockets.  I doubt if anyone would donate money to General Electric or any other for-profit company, and this is no different.  They will also be using tax breaks from Kentucky to enhance those profits.  It certainly seems odd that a for-profit enterprise is actively soliciting for "donations."    I am quite sure I could predict the reaction from someone who received a solicitation for a donation from Walmart so they could build a new store.


Since the pre-eminent wooden shipbuilders of their day failed to build a seaworthy wooden ship it will be interesting to see how Mr Lovett supports his insinuated claim that a wooden ship that large would be seaworthy, especially since it had to be at sea for an entire year without docking for repairs as all the other wooden ships of history did. 

So, "Tim" promises to come back next week  "for my response to whether wooden ships are reliable...." 

And I promise that I'll be waiting, and hoping I do not perish of curiosity in the interim. 


Froggie

More Lies from Ken Ham

One of my founding rules of life is to eschew obfuscation; tell it the way it is in as simple and factual way as possible.  Occam's Razor and all that; and sure, I am often guilty of oversimplification, but that's the way it is here at the pad.  So it is no surprise that politicians and commentators on religion incur my ire on a daily basis with their spin.  In the case of Ken Ham, I can barely stand to read any more of his mephitic rhetoric, yet about once a week I find myself perusing his website, AIG.  It is usually just more of the same distortions and obfuscation of valid science, but a couple days ago he again tried to make a case for the reality of the myth of Noah's Ark. 

First of all, I always refer to anything from the AIG as being from Ken Ham because all of the commentators on his site have signed an agreement with the Hamster to publish only material that he has personally endorsed.  Ken Ham is the leader of this sect of fundamentalist, bible literalist Christianity and nothing is posted that does not agree with his personal interpretation of scripture.  Having said that, the article was supposedly written by one Tim Chaffey.

The line that especially caught my attention was:

"I don’t think there are many skeptics and critics of Noah’s Ark who would claim that it couldn't float—at least initially. Many large wooden vessels have been constructed that have floated without problems."

I might agree with the first sentence, and furthermore, I agree that the Ark would float quite well, as wood will do, after it broke into pieces after the first few minutes afloat.  But the second sentence is problematic.

Many large wooden vessels have been constructed that have floated without problems."

Oh?  Well, let us have a look at those vessels.

Ham's/ Noah's Ark would float in still water for a short spell, but due to the large dimensions, and the fact that the wood will have joints every 20 feet, lengthwise and hundreds of joints between the planks heightwise, even small swells would rip it apart in hours due to all the mechanical moments and torque action over that length.  Next, there will be so many linear joints that as soon as the boat started to stress and torque, the joints would open instantly and leak.  I won't even discuss the effect of wind on a structure three stories tall, of that length.

Anyone who has ever built a wooden boat of any length knows very well that they are impossible to seal 100%.  The wood will also expand and contract, further opening the thousands of seams/ joints.  The Ark started out on dry land.  With enough water pouring in from "somewhere,"  to cover the earth in 40 days indicates ridiculously large waves/ currents/ swells further complicating the idea of a large wooden vessel. After all, creationists claim that all the billions of metric tons of sediment in the geologic column were laid down by the flood, which would take extraordinary flows of water.

The Ark's dimensions were supposedly 135 meters long, 22.5 meters wide , and 13.5 meters high . That's 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.  The largest "wooden" ship ever built, that actually sailed was the Pretoria at 103 m long (338 ft,) and 13.4 m wide (44 ft.) and 23 feet high.  She was a barge built for use on the Great Lakes.  She had a wooden frame but it was reinforced with Keelson Plates, chords, arches and was diagonally strapped with steel.  It leaked so badly that it took 2 dedicated engines to keep the water pumped out of the interior.  She leaked like a sieve.

The Pretoria was built by James Davidson, the preeminent marine engineer of his day. She was launched in July of 1900 and sank in rough weather on lake Michigan in September of 1905, partly due to the Pony Engines failing and the ship filled with water.

Only steel reinforcement allowed the Pretoria to sail, but in 1869 Britain built the largest true wooden ship, the HMS Orlando.  She was 335 feet long.  She suffered from the strain of her length creating massive leaks and was scrapped in 1871 after a few short voyages.

Another consideration is that the modern wooden ships were far more stable in moderate to high seas due to the fact that they were Keel ships by construction and they were powered, and 'V' shaped, which enabled them to  "cut through" the waves.  The Ark, being a straight sided box would have been at the mercy of even moderate or light seas with waves and wind smashing against the straight sides.

Keel ships, with their attendant ribs are intrinsically stronger and triangulated frame rather than a box ship with corners that would increase longitudinal torque.

It is also interesting to note that Noah had no engines to pump out water from the interior of the ark and with eight people aboard, it is absurd to think that they bailed it by hand.

Finally, Johan Huibers from the Netherlands has built a 1/2 scale ark.  Even though it has steel reinforcement, it was considered unseaworthy and was installed on barges and towed via some canals to the port of Rotterdam where it is on display.

 Plans for Ham's ark remain a tightly guarded secret but there is no doubt that it will be built upon a robust foundation.  Northern Kentucky experiences freeze/ thaw cycles in the winter months and that heaving alone would soon negatively affect the integrity of the structure.

There are no Marine engineers on planet earth that have concluded that the ark could be seaworthy, that is, without some supernatural agent suspending the laws of physics and nature.

It is impossible for a ship of that material and construction to float on water for more than a very short period of time and anyone making the claim that Noah's ark as described in the bible was seaworthy is just plain nuts.

Froggie

Around the Pond

I Am a Humanist

I am a Humanist.

Humanists reject the claim that there cannot be moral value without God.

Humanists deny that our moral sense was placed in us by God.

Humanists favor a naturalistic, evolutionary account of how morals and ethics have developed.

Humanists reject moral justifications rooted in religious authority and dogma.

We believe our ethics should be strongly informed by study of Sociology and human development, and of what will help them perpetuate our status in this world, rather than the next.

Humanists deny that that if our lives are to have meaning, it must be bestowed from above by God.

Humanists favor developing forms of moral education that emphasize personal responsibility based on the reason and logic that we have evolved.

Humanism is a view that reason and logic are far more rational for developing ethics than vague ancient myths.

For example, as a humanist I tried to show my five kids that it is important not to lie or steal because the community will identify you as dishonest and that will curtail your ability to become a valuable member of the society that we strive to perpetuate, rather than to teach them if they lie or steal some supernatural being will condemn them to hell.

Many humanists consider it cruel to instill a child with fear of eternal punishment

Humanists trust science and reason as invaluable tools to understand our nature and for each of us to determine our purpose in life.

As a humanist, I am a secularist but have no problem with my friends and family that hold spiritual positions and faiths. I do bristle when certain fringe elements work to have spiritual beliefs taught as science in public schools and/ or try to impose their belief systems upon me.

That is all.

Happy Holidays!

I don't give an actual rat's ass what beliefs people hold, but I do hope that most of us get a chance to have some nice times with family and friends this time of year.  After all, getting a couple days off work in itself is cause for celebration! The ending of another year and beginning of a new one always give me hope that the collective good will that is represented by "The Holidays" will carry over to some degree.

Since our kids are all out on their own there's been a couple times over the last few years that we didn't put up a tree. That wasn't well accepted by Mrs Froggie so I determined that we would have a tree this year.  The problem is that my son and I stashed our tree in the storage space above my shop with much effort.  We bought that sucker about six years ago and it is a deluxe model with the lights right on it.  That monstrosity weighs a ton, the box it is in is huge, and is no fun to put up. Granted, it is a beautiful tree and at any distance it looks real as shit; cost us over two hundred bucks. What to do, what to do?

So last week I was heading in to Walmart to pick up a prescription and lo and behold, right there in the middle of isle were trees, complete with lights, weighing in at about twenty pounds, in a compact container for thirty nine bucks.  "Perfect," I think so I bought the tree and hid it in the shop and on Friday while MF was away I set it up in the living room.  It took about  five minutes and the process was painless.

Not exactly like the picture on the box

I was pretty sure this was not going to be very well received.  And indeed, it was not, though over the next couple days I think it kinda grew on her.

"Once we get the decorations on her she'll be beautiful," said I.

And it came to pass that after the Steeler loss to the Cowboys on Sunday, my two little helpers, Beth and our friend Terri, set about doing their magic and we ended up with a damn fine tree!

My Little Helpers

So, all is well that ends well.  I love when a plan works out.  And they let me install my Peace Sign Tree Topper all by myself!

Mission Accomplished!

Happy Holidays!

My Jewish Phase

When I was in Jr. High we had Religious Ed on Wednesdays.

There were churches of all denominations within walking distance of the school and they would let us out at one o’clock and we’d return to catch the bus at three something.

The Catholic Church, where I went, was the farthest away and I hated walking there in the winter.

My friend Brad,  who sat beside me in the class from which we were dismissed , went to the synagogue that was right across the street from the school. So one cold blistery winter day when they let us out to go to our religious ed., I asked Brad if I could go to his church. He said “sure.” So, away we went.

We got inside and were greeted by Rabbi Schoenberg. I will never forget him as long as I live. Brad introduced us and when he heard my name I could see his eyebrows rise up and he got the funniest look on his face for a second. So, he slapped a beanie on my and Brad’s head and we went into a room where there were about five other kids.

I have never had so much fun in a religious setting. The good and bearded Rabbi regaled us with tales from the Old Testament and I was rapt at the way he related the stories. He treated the characters in the Old Testament as our close relatives, our heritage. I was enthralled!

I went back the next Wednesday, he slaps the beanie on me and he told us that we are all like little Israels; we make mistakes and pay the consequences, but we must move on and do well for our family and friends. I loved that message.

It was a few days later and my Father called me into his den. He was sitting behind that big desk of his, piled with books and stuff and he had set “the chair” beside the desk. I knew from previous experience when that leather wing back chair was arranged in that manner there was going to be some sort of serious discussion.

He motioned to the chair and I sat down. He said, “I hear you’re converting to Judaism.”

I said, “I..ahhh..er..well……where did you hear that?”

He burst out laughing. My Dad wasn’t a big laugher so when he did get a charge out of something it’d catch you by surprise. He had a dry and wily sense of humor so his laughing got me to laughing too.

He went on, “Rabbi Schoenberg and I have been friends for many years.” So…I got busted by the Rabbi.

Dad was in law enforcement and he had sponsored many programs for prisoners and such and the Rabbi had been involved in many of them over the years.

Actually, it came as no surprise that the Ol’ Man told me that he thought it a good thing that I took the initiative to check out other faiths. I took credit for that initiative since I didn’t want to admit that I only did it to get out of walking to our church in the nasty weather…………. 

It's Still Here!

So, I'm back *brushing cobwebs out of his hair* and this place hasn't changed much except I see that Blogger has some new fancy bells and whistles since the last time I made a post almost three and a half years ago.

For all that time I've been exercising my editorial prowess at a couple forums that I've enjoyed immensely, but it finally happened.  I didn't think it would happen on an internet forum, especially one with so many erudite and esteemed individuals, but being the hopeless introvert that I am, I hit that social wall- could not handle being in the thick of so many voices.  I don't regret the time I spent there one bit, and perhaps some of my cronies will stop by here and say hello, one on one. I even made a few personal friends over there with one from Austria staying here with us for a few days in the summer of  2010.

The scope of that forum was somewhat, but not totally, limited to bringing about awareness of fundamentalist religion's effect on education and American society in general, which has been one of my hot buttons for many years; but it caught up with me and frankly, a sense of fatigue set in and overtook me so I am stepping away to evaluate where I've been and what options are available for a semi retired old curmudgeon. I've changed a few other of my daily conditioned routines.  It's not like I don't have plenty of stuff to do with Mrs Froggie and the dog, and I've got a hundred hobbies, on paper, but something is pulling me- what, I'm not sure.  What I am sure of is that I had to make a change, just for me and spend some time in contemplation of the future.

I finally decided to hole up here for a while and write about whatever I want while not giving a single actual fuck if anyone reads me or not.  Maybe I'll even post a whole bunch of rules on the side bar that will allow me to trump up charges against those who disagree with me and ban the bastards; but probably not.  After all, free speech is very important to me for reasons that I might even write about if I get around to it; but probably not. 

Having said all that, which is pretty close to nothing at all, I'm not even sure what my next post will be, but there will be one, I'm pretty sure.  Maybe it could be a short history of vagueness.  We shall see!

Good Day!

Froggie

PS  There was a glitch in the system so I had to delete this post and reload it.  Thanks to Chris for saying hello in the comments of the first post.