BILL NYE VS KEN HAM: TONIGHT AT 7 PM

[Chad32]

Ham himself practically acknowledged the existence of evolution when he said that each animal family branched out, he just didn't accept speciation.

That's what I really don't get: How someone can be so completely indoctrinated by their religion that they actually accept the thing they think they're against and don't even realize it, and where this bogus distinction between micro and macro evolution comes from.

Well, okay, I know where the micro/macro thing comes from, it comes from them trying to rationalize their religion with the obvious fact of evolution, what I don't get about this distinction is that they don't understand that if you sting together all the so-called micro evolution examples they do accept, you get so-called macro evolution, and thus there's no distinction and it's all just evolution.

I'm so glad I never had to claw my way out of being indoctrinated to this degree, this makes my brain hurt.

It's the same reason anyone would think the the bible condemns slavery. Supposedly he rescued the isrealites from slavery, but then he said it's fine to own people from other cultures, and even made a way to own their own people by offering a man a wife.

When reality contradicts the bible, and you find you can't ignore it, you just have to twist the words to mean something else. As racist as some people can be, you're unlikely to meet a guy that owns someone, and said he paid his wife's father to marry her after he raped her.

[downbeatplumb]

Did Ham mention instant light speed or is even he not stupid enough for that?

[Cyberman]

I don't think he wants indisputable evidence; merely convincing evidence. He comes across as a rational guy.

You mean all the convincing evidence he rejects out of hand because it doesn't line up with his irrationally literal interpretation of the Bible?

I assert the sky is purple, and reject any evidence that contradicts my claim. Provide me convincing evidence the sky is not purple.

Perhaps re-read the exchange which prompted my words, in its correct context. I was referring to Bill Nye.

Never mind, though; accidental strawmen are tastier .

[Statler Waldorf]

[Rampant.A.I.]

Jesus. What a Waldorf Salad. 35 pages of case-by-case "I believe what I want to believe because the bible told me it has all the answers: I don't care to critically examine it, no I don't."

Also, lol@ "speciation is part of the current Creationist Model." Give it up, stop selectively adopting valid theories to convince the uneducated "a magician made the universe, the world, and us" is a valid Scientific theory.

[Minimalist]

I’d rather put my faith elsewhere.

Yeah, we know. 2500 year old bullshit. You are right about one thing. It was wrong then and it will never improve which simplifies things for the simple minded.

[Statler Waldorf]

[Chad32]

Wow, what a post, Waldorf.

Sounds like straight up scientism to me. You would have been trusting in something that was completely wrong then. How do you know you’re putting your trust in something that is correct now? I’d rather put my faith elsewhere.

Because it's a method that improves over time. I don't have to twist the words around or find some different meaning to make it say what I want it to say. Science improves over time. We are more correct now than we were before. The bible has gone through changes and revisions, but there are people that claim this is the divinely inspired, inerrant word of Yahweh. I don't claim the scientific method has all the answers. That's why things like gravity and germs and evolution are theories. Scientists may debate over how and why they happen, but the vast majority of them know it happens.

[Esquilax]

Sounds like straight up scientism to me. You would have been trusting in something that was completely wrong then. How do you know you’re putting your trust in something that is correct now? I’d rather put my faith elsewhere.

Well, hold on: the difference is that science continues to search and investigate, and when it finds an inconsistency or error, it corrects for it. At no point are the conclusions of science anything more than tentative, and subject to continued research and review. Compare that to the thing you're putting your faith in, which never changes and presumes to have all the answers irrespective of any other evidence.

Which is more likely to come to an actual understanding of the truth? And I don't even know why I bothered asking that question, because I already know you're just going to answer it by saying the bible is already in possession of the truth...

No, creationists start with the infallible and work their way from there, which makes far more sense to me. For the life of me I cannot figure out why nobody on here gets why they do that.

Because they recognize that the assertion that something is infallible is not the same thing as actual infallibility, especially when the fallibility of the self proclaimed infallible text is well known?

That really is a terribly glib answer, Stat.

I disagree with you. If God exists there are some things that must be factored into a person’s inferences about the age of the Earth; namely the flood and creation ex nihilo. When a person keeps those in mind, the evidence is very friendly to this timeline. If a person does not keep those in mind the evidence is very friendly to an Earth that is billions of years old. Ham touched on this point briefly in the debate, but I wish he had driven it home more because it is the hinge that everything else swings upon.

You're mistaking your very specific god as being the only hypothetical creation model. Granted, there are some god claims that can be excluded by an old earth, but creation as a concept? No.

Ignoring all of the epistemological shortcomings of a godless universe? I’ll play along because I like you; if God did not exist and if we could somehow still do science and predication without Him existing then the evidence would support an Earth that is millions to billions of years old (depending on the dating method that is used).

It's good that you ignored all those shortcomings, because those are nonsense objections made to avoid having to be accountable to evidence. Given that the evidence points to an old earth, I'll take it that this young earth stance is purely a faith thing, then?

[Minimalist]