Perhaps. I am left wondering to what degree facts are misrepresented on the atheist side when viewing material like this, though.
For instance, somewhere near the very beginning, the narrator comments on what he perceives as wood warping, and speculates that a Biblical Ark, going by this model, would be inherently unable to weather even a tiny fraction of the stresses Genesis implies.
This ignores how variable the climate of Kentucky is and what even one period of winter contraction and expansion can do to something meant to handle apparently near uniform Middle East climes.
Omitting even a major consideration like that altogether...
Wikipedia had the following to say:
"Whenever possible, the builders employed techniques from the ancient era, such as manually bending the wood for the rudder rather than steaming it to make it more pliable ...
While the builders originally planned to hold the ark together with wooden pegs, modern building codes required the builders to use steel fasteners, thus 95 tons of metal plates and bolts were used to connect the wood together ...
Much of the wood used to build the Ark Encounter was sourced from renewable forests or trees infested by beetles ..."
So, we have manually bent wood, weighted down by tons of steel which may or may not have been bored through by insects, seen for the first time by 2 visitors who may or may not be viewing the structure after North American winter.
And this thing presumably cared for like a building, and not like a ship, which historically gets applications of various materials, tar, pitch, etcetera, to protect the wood and keep it seaworthy.
Something's wrong when none of these considerations are even mentioned.
I wonder how many people will take even 20 seconds to think about things like that.
I don't think they were trying to accuratately assess whether this arc would float. They were just mocking it. And it's a well deserved mockery if people really spent 100 mil on it.
__________________
Azula: My mommy didn't love me so I'm going to burn down your village.
Lol wait, what. Surely you mean they spent 100 million...pennies on it? No way people would spend 100 million dollars to create this kind of exhibit.
Or if they did...surely it has to be because they expect to make vastly more money off of it than the original amount they spend.
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
^ Didn't you see the ticket and parking prices!? $40 and I think they said $10 for parking. I'm sure Jesus would disapprove of this nonsense just as he did the moneychangers in the temple.
This makes me want to watch Noah again. A depiction of the classic story by an atheist that apparently ruffled fundy feathers, heh...
100 mil is the figure they've mentioned in the video. Maybe I heard it wrong. Can't be bothered to check. Regardless, if they made more money and donated it to a good cause I wouldn't have a problem with it. Or if they built an amusement park instead to make some money for themselves.. again, no problem. Except this isn't an amusement park. They are teaching fake history to kids. The question is - are they at least using the money they're making for a just cause to balance out the damage that they're doing.
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Azula: My mommy didn't love me so I'm going to burn down your village.
Average business, iirc, takes about 3 years to recoup its initial investment.
Assuming the average of 1 million visitors per year that showed up between July 2016 and July 2017, at $40 per ticket, Hamm and company should be well on their way.
Financially speaking, SamZED made a better analogy than he probably knew.
Compare the ticket and parking prices for amusement parks like Cedar Point and Kings Island. You'll find the Ark Museum prices are actually a little cheaper (Cedar Point, for instance, charges 43 to 52 dollars for an adult ticket.)
The Ark Encounter has yet to reach 1 million visitors total. According to their own estimates, they have only had 645,000 guests since it opened in 2016. Things are so bad the county that extended the $60 million in tax incremental funding and $18 million in sales tax rebates is now facing bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the owners tried to sell the Ark Encounter to a non-profit Christian ministry for $1 to avoid paying taxes altogether. It is an embarrassing shitshow all the way around.
Even then it doesn't look good, cos a sizeable portion of that income is eaten away by operation cost, as Ken Ham isn't running and maintaining the park all by himself, there's staff payroll, repairs, maintenance, electricity, water, insurance etc to pay.
I used to think like this when I was younger.
Actually, to some extent, I still do.
My parents and grandparents and great-grandparents used to complain about cost all the time, and, in some cases, wondered how they would make ends meet. Now I live in a world where the cost of things is sometimes 4 or 5 times the amount they used to decry.
100 million dollars sure would sound like a lot to me ...
IF my own home City of Detroit hadn't spent an estimated THREE hundred million on Ford Field and Lions Stadium just a few years back.
Similarly, a $40 ticket would seem outrageous ...
Until I remember tickets to amusement parks and ball games cost easily as much and usually more.
Check out the estimated cost for a Football Family night, for some perspective:
"Chicago-based Team Marketing Report last week issued its annual Fan Cost Index that measures the estimated cost for taking a family of four to NFL games, based on surveys provided by each club.
For the Lions, the average was $411.94. That is calculated from the cost of four average-price tickets, two cheapest-priced draft beers, four cheapest soft drinks, four cheapest hot dogs, parking for one car, two game programs and two least-expensive, adult-size adjustable caps.
NFL teams must share some revenue with the rest of the league, while keeping other money ..."
You're actually stating the case for why many Kentuckians DON'T consider that 100 million wasted. It gives back to a large staff and local businesses.
Each item cost you mention represents wages for a tour guide, or a curator, or a janitor, or a repairman, or a plumber, or an electrician, or a welder, or a groundskeeper, or a serviceman, even as earlier it was employment for lumberjacks (or whatever name they go by now), carpenters and wood craftsmen, construction workers, engineers, and county road commissions.
Money spent is not paper destroyed. It's paper redistributed throughout local governments and community.
Certainly the nearby counties view it that way. Again, from Wikipedia:
-- On February 24, 2017, Executive Director of the Grant County Chamber of Commerce Jamie Baker asserted that the Ark had drawn additional tourism to the area, and that the challenge now was to expand accommodation and other local amenities in order to convert this into economic growth for the county.
-- In March, the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau presented the Ark Encounter with its Star of Tourism award for 2016.
-- Bureau President Eric Summe reported a $23 million increase in visitor spending in nearby Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties in 2016 over 2015, the year that the region hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game; Summe attributed a large part of the increase in spending and hotel occupancy to the opening of the Ark Encounter and an expansion of its sister attraction, AiG's Creation Museum.
-- In June 2017, Mayor Jim Wells of Dry Ridge, Kentucky stated that the Ark Encounter had a positive effect on the town, with hotel occupancy rates increasing from 60 to 98 percent since the opening of the attraction
Ken Ham himself only reports 500,000 visitors, but a representative for the Ark Encounter placed it at 645,000. Their numbers.
Most of the Ark Encounter staff are part-time, so it is not creating the sort of jobs that were promised. Moreover, the neighboring counties are not facing bankruptcy for footing the $100 million bill for the Ark Encounter which is not delivering the economic growth promised.
That is a lot of assumptions. Any actual fact you wanna hit me with in terms of their money making?
__________________ Chicken Boo, what's the matter with you? You don't act like the other chickens do. You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you're not a man you're a Chicken Boo.
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Sep 17th, 2017 09:25 AM
