BILL NYE VS KEN HAM: TONIGHT AT 7 PM

[Esquilax]

You just conceded that our understanding of the evidence is never certain and it could all drastically change in a matter of years like it has done hundreds of times before in the past; so why would this be a problem?

Because "could" is not the same as "will." Your view of this seems to be that if science can be wrong, then it automatically is wrong whenever it conflicts with something you want to believe/comes from a source that claims to never be wrong. That's so spurious, I shouldn't even have to point out why.

Secondly, I do not believe we are both using the term faith in the same sense. I have logically sound reasons for believing that the Bible’s claims about history are true, and logically sound arguments should never be abandoned simply because of our current understanding of science.

It is logical, looking at the landscape around you, to conclude that the earth is flat. Our current understanding of science says otherwise; are you still going to stick to this "don't abandon logical sounding arguments in favor of evidence," schtick?

I said that if you start with an anti-Biblical perspective you will interpret the evidence to mean the Earth is billions of years old; I think it’s a misconception to say the evidence points one way or the other without requiring a priori assumptions in order to be interpreted.

So when our radiometric dating suite concludes that parts of the earth are older than the young earthers say the planet is, it's merely bias that leads us to conclude that's what the radiometric evidence says?

Both children could be lying, that is true. However, I cannot use the second child’s testimony to prove the first child is lying because he keeps altering his testimony and therefore contradicting himself. The only way I can prove the first child is in fact lying is by finding some sort of internal logical contradiction in his story.

The second child would only be contradicting himself if he insisted that no changes in his story had occurred. If he simply alters his story to fit additional information coming in, what he's doing is "correcting himself." Meanwhile, in keeping with our comparisons here, the first child's story is physically impossible according to everything we do know. You're saying to accept the first child sight unseen because we don't know everything, and at least his story is consistent(ly impossible) while ignoring the second child because he accepts where he is wrong and amends his story to fit the new record. How crazy is that?

If I'm relating directions to you, and a person next to me corrects me on the name of a single street, and I then change my directions to fit that and continue on, do you then conclude that the entirety of my directions are wrong because I've changed my answer?

Yes and all Christians should do this if they truly believe what they claim to believe about scripture. Now this does not actually happen very often, I was able to get science degrees and now work in a scientific field just fine because the Bible is very friendly to the operational sciences.

I think that says a lot about you, that a claim of infallibility means more to you than honest corrections. By the way, how did you confirm that the bible is indeed infallible, especially when it actually, demonstrably isn't, on some respects? Isn't just one incorrect statement enough to disallow infallibility?

Or is this just a matter of accepting claims that you want to believe, in spite of reality?

On the contrary, I think I am being very intellectually honest and rather logical. I think true dishonesty occurs when someone quietly assumes beforehand that the Bible is wrong in order to interpret the evidence and then uses this interpretation to argue that the Bible is indeed wrong. Secondly, you’re doing the very same thing I am doing but without any rational justification for doing so. When current scientific understandings contradict the Bible I will always side with scripture because I believe it is infallible. When the Bible contradicts your understanding of current science you will always accept current science even though you know science is fallible-which makes no sense whatsoever. At least I have a very good reason for what I am doing.

No Stat, you don't have a good reason: what you have is a claim of infallibility that you're preferencing for no good reason. Because the bible is not infallible:just off the top of my head, rabbits do not chew cud. I have a rabbit, so I can demonstrate this to be true. Therefore, the bible is not infallible, it just claims it is.

There. Now they're on equal footing again, only one source- the bible- is lying about being infallible, and the other has evidence for it.

Properly identify your axioms= young earth. Hide under the dishonest pretense that you have no axioms = old Earth. I’ll take the former.

Oh? When did I ever say I didn't have axioms? I just don't feel the need to invent an imaginary layer of existence which has no justification at all in order to paradoxically support my axioms.

That’s too bad you look at it that way but whether or not you find something insulting is irrelevant in regards to its truth. We’ve played this game before; you cannot make sense of your assumptions in a manner consistent with your materialism and I can make sense of mine consistently with the Bible. This means you’re using borrowed capital.

Stat, just rushing in and claiming "first," on reality and epistemology doesn't mean that you actually own them.

I have to disregard none of it because the evidence is very friendly to the Bible when using that conceptual scheme.

And what does that biblical conceptual scheme have you do with evidence for an old earth?