Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham

Bill Nye has written a postmortem of his debate with Ken Ham. It's very interesting reading his insights into the preparation, debate and post debate process.

Isn't that the same article I linked to yesterday?

Except that this has nothing to do with tax exemption. Instead, it's about tax incentives that the state is now no longer going to pay to the park. But please, feel free to continue to toss random, irrelevant thoughts in from time to time to spice things up.

As you yourself noted, there is no legitimate business reason to require that all the hot dog venders, and litter collectors, and bathroom cleaners be Christian. The only conclusion left is that they simply wish to discriminate against non-Christians in their hiring practices. Please, try to take a moment, sit back and consider this. Don't assume that just because it is a Christian run organization that it cannot have evil motives. If there is no legitimate business reason for hiring only Christians for non-apologetics positions, what other possible reason could there be, other than discrimination against non-Christians?If you can think of no other reason, and if you agree that discrimination against non-Christians in hiring for non-apologetics positions is wrong, then you may begin to understand why the state of Kentucky is no longer willing to subsidize this endeavor.

Underlying this justification is the assumption that non-Christians would be more likely to undermine his project and Christians wouldn't. I see no basis to assume either of these things. I've seen plenty of Christians express great dismay over the way Ham represents Christianity. And, if I needed a job and someone were willing to pay me a decent wage to sell hotdogs to credulous buffoons, the last thing I would do is badmouth my employer.If you actually think about these things, you'd realize that proffered justifications for discriminatory behavior like these are usually based on fallacious assumptions about the actions of people the discriminator doesn't like. That's part of the reason why it's important to fight this kind of discrimination, to correct those kinds of misconceptions.

I read all of your post before responding, so obviously it didn't.

Why are you so reluctant to ascribe a discriminatory motive to him? You yourself have been unable to imagine a rational and legitimate business related reason; what does that leave other than discrimination? Is it because he professes to be a Christian?

Perhaps it comes a shock to you, but a lot of Christians have negative opinions of anyone who doesn't share their religion. (I don't mean to single out Christians, people of all different religious beliefs do that. It's just that the topic of this particular conversation happens to be Christian.) And, if you like, I'm sure I can find specific quotes from Ken Ham showing that he in fact has a negative opinion about non-Christians.

Any actual evidence of that? Or is this another unwarranted assumption

And you chose to believe Ham, despite the fact that his statement is filled with known lies.Curious.

Yes, it is written about Ham, but the only evidence supporting your assumption that atheist groups were behind it is a quote from Ham. We know for a fact that the state isn't treating AIG any differently from any other business seeking this kind of exemption, yet Ham insists it's being treated like a second class citizen. He claims it's an example of hostility toward religion, and we know it has nothing to do with religion. He implies that the state changed its stance on the exemption because groups objected, but we know that the reason the state denied the exemption is because Ham reneged on his previous promise that the park wouldn't discriminate in hiring based on religion.These are all lies from Ham, but you still believe his claim, unsupported by any evidence, that it was atheist groups that pressured the state.

Here's another shock for you; not everybody uses the same flavor Christianity as you.

You''re on a fool's errand. There is no contradiction that a True Believer can't rationalize away.

But the point was whether or not it was an atheist organization. I understand you have doctrinal differences with Jesuits, but I'm sure you would agree that they aren't atheists.

Or perhaps, even better yet, a pro-First Amendment organization.