John Solum

Hello everyone,

Before I talk about Ken Ham I'd like to introduce myself since I'm new to the board (my first post was yesterday in the thread about the Cambrian period--thanks to all the people who welcomed me there.

I'm a third year grad student at the University of Michigan working in the field of fault mechanics (my research is mainly in the field of structural geology with areas of mineralogy and geochronology).

I've been a lurker and occasional poster on several message boards for a couple of years now, and I've decided to become more active. I'm putting together a webpage on creation/evolution, and while it's fairly crude now, at least it's online.

<a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jsolum/yec/yec.html" target="_blank">My YEC web page</a>

I guess that's enough of an introduction. I've never been to a talk by Ken Ham before, and I found out that he's coming to Grand Rapids, Michigan soon.

<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/details.asp?Event_ID=45" target="_blank">Ken Ham in Grand Rapids</a>

I'd appreciate it if any of you who've been to his talks could tell me what he's like. Can you ask questions? If so, can you ask them personally or do you have to give them written on a card to the moderator? Grand Rapids is on the other side of the state from me, but if there's a chance I can ask Ham a couple of questions I'd try to make it to his talk.

thanks in advance,

John

Oolon Colluphid

So it's the Tim Thompson Appreciation Page then is it

Oolon

John Solum

Well, I guess there are a disproportionate number of posts by Tim Thompson, but he does write a lot of great material. I've got more posts that I haven't uploaded yet since I haven't been able to contact the original authors, and once I do that the Tim Thompson ratio ought to go down a bit.

excreationist

I've been to some seminars including one by Gary Parker. I'm not sure if you can ask questions after his talk. Maybe you can, if you're lucky enough to be chosen. You could probably only get to ask one question. The thing is that I used to be a creationist and practically no question could have stumped me. Maybe you should avoid science questions (since science is easy for them to bluff their was through) and stick with the Biblical (which is what Ken Ham is all about). It is pretty hard thinking of hard Biblical questions though.
Ken might be swamped with fans before and after the talk so you might have a hard time talking to him. You might be able to ask him up to 2 or even 3 questions though before he moves on to someone else. Maybe if you stick around for a long time you might be able to ask more.
So what questions were you planning on asking?
His talks just involve the same things that he talks about on the AiG site - basically that because we don't take all of the Bible literally, including Genesis, our morality is crumbling... I mean now there are legal brothels in Nevada, and people are openly gay on TV, and people are having premarital sex, etc.

Kosh

When he gets up there and says that the
earth was created 6000 years ago, Ask
him "WERE YOU THERE?"

tgamble

Why? His response will be to claim "God WAS there and he told us about in HIS WORD. The holy infallable BIBLE." Guranteed!

If he's fond of quoting scientists out of context, find out who he usually quotes and bring that origonal source material with you. Then catch him red handed. Maybe you could bring along some geologic papers and material that refute his junk.

If you can ask questions, ask him to explain the sorting of the fossil record. Point out that hydrouic sorting and geographic location sorting doesn't cut it.
@@@.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/sorting.htm

Grumpy

True enough. While it would be simple enough to retort, "God must be a great deceiver if all the evidence for an Old Earth requires him to write a book explaining that he made it that way," you would lose a lot of the punchy, rhetorical impact.

Would it be petty to point out that your spelling of "infallible" is fallible?

crocodile deathroll

Another question you can ask him.
We if he tells you that "Jesus walked on water" Ask him Were you there

John Solum

I don't know if any of you are talk.origins readers but a while back Troy Britain posted excerpts from a fundraising letter by Ken Ham in which he referred to humanists (referring specifically to the Council for Secular Humanism)as "soul-destroying terrorists" and "the forces of evil." I'd like him to clarify who he includes in those groups. He specifically says that these soul-destroying terrorists "indoctrinate people in evolutionary humanism." What I'd like to do is to introduce myself, say that I'm a grad student who helps teach classes, and that in those classes I teach that the earth is ancient and that evolution is the best explanation for the fossil record. I'd like him to tell me if he would classify me as a soul-destroying terrorist.

I don't know if he'd answer, and I guess that's really not that important. I think that just making people aware of the existence of letters like that is a good objective. I think it says a lot about Ham's motivation and his state of mind. I think it illustrates the point that his motivation isn't scientific and that he is a hate-filled man.

What do you think?

tgamble

What evidence for an old earth?! It's all based on assumption and speculation and cirular reasoning! The geologic column doesn't exist! It wsa invented by Darwin to make the facts fit his warped satanic theory! [add a whole bunch of times where dating methods failed including live mollusks being dated at 3000 years old and 200 year old lave been dated at millions of years old]

Hey, it's not like the idiot's going to be concerned with accuracy is it?