BILL NYE VS KEN HAM: TONIGHT AT 7 PM

[Chad32]

The point was likely because this is one of the few ways you can reach out to an audience that may not be as fundie as people like Ken. People like me who just needed to hear things from outside my bubble to get me going towards a more truthful path.

Forgive me I am not from the bible belt of the USA, indeed where I live (Australia) is the total opposite of that part of the world.

Yeah, I was quite sheltered when it came to other beliefs. Sometimes we asked what christmas trees had to do with Jesus' birth, and what rabbits and eggs had to do with his resurrection, but you better believe no one told us it was a holdover from pagan beliefs due to christians trying to convert by integration. Definitely not that there were older stories of people who were born of virgins and rose from the dead three days after being killed.

Over here we have little churches on a dozen corners around town. It's a big part of the community.

[Cyberman]

Peter Hadfield - aka PotHoler54 - pulls up the Hamster on his definitions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jMVYdgVVgc

[Justtristo]

Forgive me I am not from the bible belt of the USA, indeed where I live (Australia) is the total opposite of that part of the world.

Yeah, I was quite sheltered when it came to other beliefs. Sometimes we asked what christmas trees had to do with Jesus' birth, and what rabbits and eggs had to do with his resurrection, but you better believe no one told us it was a holdover from pagan beliefs due to christians trying to convert by integration. Definitely not that there were older stories of people who were born of virgins and rose from the dead three days after being killed.

Over here we have little churches on a dozen corners around town. It's a big part of the community.

Well where I am from lots of churches are being closed left right and centre.

[MJ the Skeptical]

Ken Ham and his Flintstones museum...If Ken Ham really had to debate a real scientist, I wish it was Dawkins up there instead just because Dawkins would have been more forward.

I'm still kind of surprised Bill Nye pulled this loony creationist up by his own bootstraps by even taking his creation model serious in a debate. But creationism still looked like garbage.

I like that Bill Nye absolutely crushed Ken Ham, but, it gives the creation/evolution debate a facade of fairness, that somehow there's a valid point to the other side.

It's almost as frustrating as climate change "debates" on TV when they never fucking have a climate scientist on against the climate change deniers.

[EgoRaptor]

I watched the whole thing. Nye tore Ham a new asshole. It was good.

Also, for all the people out there who say this wasn't a good idea; Nye probably convinced a few people of the truth of evolution. That is a total victory.

[Chad32]

All you have to do is plant the seed of doubt. They're very aware of this, which is why they made all those passages about killing/not associating with non christians unless you're preaching at them, and god literally forbid you from speaking bad about him.

[Statler Waldorf]

Wow, what a post, Waldorf.

Because it's a method that improves over time.

Without an exterior standard to measure it by how do you know it is improving?

I don't have to twist the words around or find some different meaning to make it say what I want it to say.

It doesn’t “say” anything, that’s fallacious reification.

We are more correct now than we were before.

How do you know this?

The bible has gone through changes and revisions, but there are people that claim this is the divinely inspired, inerrant word of Yahweh.

Changes and revisions by whom and when?

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.

That depends on what you mean by evolution.

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.

How do you know when something is in fact an error?

19th Century: “The Universe has a finite beginning!”
Early 20th Century: “Sorry, we were wrong- the Universe has always existed!”
Late 20th Century: “Sorry again, we were wrong about being wrong; the Universe definitely had a finite beginning!”

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.

You’re proving my point; would you expect an infallible account of history and purpose to change? I wouldn’t.

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...

Who is more likely to be telling the truth, the child who has consistently given you the same story every time you ask him for it or the child who changes his story every time you ask him?

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?

It’s not merely an assertion it’s an axiom. If the Bible were indeed infallible it’d certainly be the only infallible source we have correct? Then how could you possibly demonstrate its fallibility when all you have are fallible means? In my example above, there is no way to prove that the first child is fallible by appealing to the second child who always changes his story.

That really is a terribly glib answer, Stat.

Whose? Yours or mine?

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.

Again, it matters where you start from. Start with the Bible and the Earth is young, start somewhere else and you’ll end up with a different age.

It's good that you ignored all those shortcomings, because those are nonsense objections made to avoid having to be accountable to evidence.

They are not nonsensical at all, knowledge and science presuppose that God exists.

Given that the evidence points to an old earth, I'll take it that this young earth stance is purely a faith thing, then?

Asserting the evidence “points” to anything is what is nonsensical. When interpreted within a Biblical conceptual scheme the evidence points to a young Earth.

I read the whole thing!!!!
Do I get a cookie?

Yes sir.

I always get that.... "you need to be more aggressive", they say...

There are enough people like that on here and not enough like you.

Well... dogs, cats and quite a lot of mammals can breed at one year of age... do those count as "higher organisms", to you?

Well Sanford’s work deals with primarily humans but I am not sure how you’d observe 80 years of the genetics of dogs and cats.

But that 2400 year number comes from humans and a historically high estimate for the age at which people have kids.... 30.

A lower generational number only confounds the problem for the deep time model.

I haven't gone back to read the study and it is possible that he measured it well...
But did he take into account the self-correcting mechanism on the genes that became faulty over the last generation?
1% of the genetic makeup may degenerate every generation (ughh... bad word choice), but what is degenerated in one generation gets corrected over the course of the next few generations... if it is indeed deleterious.

Are you saying that all deleterious mutations are selectable?

But if that condition arose in a woman, it could be fatal.
That's why it hasn't filtered out of the male population... no pressure.

That’s the whole point though, it’s a deleterious mutation that reduces the functionality of the genome and yet it was never filtered out. You compile too many of those and you’re gone. I would also disagree that it has been filtered out in women, it’s simply rarer but it still exists (color blind father and a mother who is a carrier).

Ah.... all your numbers pertain to "near-neutral deleterious mutations... ah... that makes more sense.
Why were you making a case for deleterious mutations as a whole when your source pertains only (or mostly) to "near-neutral" ones?

Near-neutral deleterious mutations are still considered to be deleterious mutations. Forgive me for not being clear.

Why do you think that the bible is "the word of god"? The god which is infallible?

When I start there I get a far more internally consistent conceptual scheme that can make sense of reality where others cannot.

It seems to be a collection of texts written by men who believed in the existence of some sort of god... sometimes it even sounds like they believed there could be more than one.

You’d have to be more specific for me to address this.

If the contents of the bible were written by men, is it not to be expected that some parts are as fallible as any other text?

The Bible does not claim to be merely written by men. Its divinely inspired; meaning every pen stroke was ordained by God which would make it infallible if that were true.

If it was written by men, and the Vedas were also written by men, and the Buddhavacana were written by men, and many other accounts claimed to be from some greater spiritual entity were written by men.... how do come to the conclusion that the bible is correct, while the others must be incorrect? What is your criterion?

The others espouse conceptual schemes that are internally self-refuting while the Bible does not. If not “Not A” then “A”.

That's fine Stat, don't bother addressing my point about about creation scientists being two faced liars for jesus.

I am under no logical obligation to address fallacious ad hominem attacks.

No Statler, it is a fucking stupid position, and anyone with real knowledge of relativity knows that.
AIGs position is based on a pathetic need to make their fairytale appear real, nothing else.

I bet you regret posting this now that another atheist in the other thread has thoroughly demonstrated that you didn’t have any idea what you were talking about this entire time. Life is great isn’t it?

I don't know why Bill Nye wasted his time debating people like Ken Ham, indeed any creationist for that matter.

The best way of dealing with creationists is not take their views seriously and whenever possible ignore them. That is how flat earthers and geocentrists are treated by everybody else.

Yes, and the reason I do not wrestle grizzly bears is because they are just too weak and I do not want to give them any credit by paying them attention!
Fortunately, most people can see through this sort of ridiculous posturing and can see it for what it really is…weakness.

The point was likely because this is one of the few ways you can reach out to an audience that may not be as fundie as people like Ken. People like me who just needed to hear things from outside my bubble to get me going towards a more truthful path.

Which is precisely why Ken did the debate as well…interesting.

There's nothing to refute: All you've provided are a bunch of unbacked assertions.

Give me specifics! Do not just make an unbacked assertion.

It may satisfy your already convinced mind, but the only thing you've convinced anyone of is that you have no argument to begin with.

Conveniently no specifics again?

We have laws regulating adultery? Really? Like, you can cheat with certain people but not others and, by staying within these rules, not end up violating our marital contract? You see, I always thought that committing adultery was grounds for divorce and your estranged spouse could use that against you in legal proceedings but obviously I was mistaken.

Yes we have laws regulating adultery. It’s permitted under the law and yet there’s all sorts of regulations concerning prenuptial agreements, child custody, and so on.

Well, I'd like it better if you'd explain the paradox. Was Yahweh unable to make his desires known? Was he able to lay down many detailed rules about sex, from when a woman is "clean" after her menstrual cycles to "don't have sex with your wife's sister" but not something as simple as "one per customer"? Was he powerless to go against the culture of his "chosen people"?

Paradox? Certain moral truths are part of the created ordinance and obvious to all, monogamy is one of them.

You should know me better.

I do, which is precisely why I get paranoid.

The Lord loved David as a nearly perfect man, who's [sic] sole sin was his moment of weakness when he had Uriah killed and had sex with his wife. The Bible does NOT say, "...and also the fact that David took more than one wife, a practice that ran against the Lord's rules on strict monogamy in marriage".

You skipped a step, where in the verse does it say that David only sinned once?

Which contradicts Mark 10:11 which says divorce is never allowed but let's keep this discussion to the OT when polygamy was practiced. By the time of the NT, Greeco-Roman civilization had introduced monogamy to Judea.

Nope, if you are going to discuss the Bible with a Christian then the entire Bible is fair game. I see no contradiction in Mark 10, I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Where?

Adam and Eve. Apparently you have not read Genesis for a while.

This passage is saying "don't be a mama's boy". It doesn't preclude cleaving unto more than one woman and the ancient Hebrews certainly didn't.

Well I clearly stated that I was referring to the created ordinance in Genesis 1, but this verse supports my position as well. Wife? Why does it say wife and not wives?
The ancient Hebrews also worshipped idols so that argument is obviously a violation of Hume’s Law.

The context of the chapter is about remaining true to the worship of Yahweh and there is some concern in the OT about foreign wives leading men astray, to worship other gods. It also forbids the accumulation of great wealth, as this will also corrupt the hearts of men.

Actions that lead a man’s heart astray from the worship of Yahweh sound like sins to me.

Read a couple chapters later and Deut 21 discusses what to do if you like one wife more than another or even hate one wife, how shall you treat your children with them.

Yup!

...or it was that way since Judea's culture changed under pagan influences and subsequently the nature of their god changed to fit the new culture.

Source?

Let's see if Waldork's head explodes....which would be bad. There would be shit all over the carpet and walls.

Only you would think that quoting another person’s post in another forum (who references not a single source) counts as some form of “academic research”. I thought you were intellectually lazy and sloppy when you were quoting from and citing other people’s blogs but this is stooping to a new intellectual low even for you Lol.

Forgive me I am not from the bible belt of the USA, indeed where I live (Australia) is the total opposite of that part of the world.

Even though a disproportionate number of popular creationists are Australian? That’s funny.

Peter Hadfield - aka PotHoler54 - pulls up the Hamster on his definitions:

The amount of stock you guys put into user-generated YouTube videos is downright appalling.

According to the YouTube video, Ken Ham created the Operational/Historical Science distinction and secular scientists never draw this distinction or use these terms? Really?

Let’s see shall we?

““If a moving automobile were an organism, functional biology would explain how it is constructed and operates, while evolutionary biology would reconstruct its origin and history—how it came to be made and its journey thus far.”-E.O. Wilson’s From so Simply a Beginning, page 12.

I thought that Wilson was an atheist, Darwinist, and Biology professor at Harvard University but I guess since he recognizes the same important distinction he must therefore be a creationist right?

“Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry, is a historical science—the evolutionist attempts to explain events and processes that have already taken place. Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques for the explication of such events and processes. Instead one constructs a historical narrative, consisting of a tentative reconstruction of the particular scenario that led to the events one is trying to explain.”- Ernst Mayr in Darwin’s Influence on Modern Thought

After living his life as a staunch atheist and Darwinist, Mayr would undoubtedly be rolling over in his grave if he could hear all of the ignorant Darwinists today asserting that only creationists use such terms as “historical science” and “operational science” and draw attention to the distinction.

I wish people would learn the facts before they rushed to make a YouTube video. I wish people would learn the facts before they rushed to link to this YouTube video.

Ken Ham and his Flintstones museum...If Ken Ham really had to debate a real scientist, I wish it was Dawkins up there instead just because Dawkins would have been more forward.

DickDawk hasn’t recovered from the spanking Lennox gave him.

I like that Bill Nye absolutely crushed Ken Ham, but, it gives the creation/evolution debate a facade of fairness, that somehow there's a valid point to the other side.

Crushed him how? Yes, more debates like this are coming, and I welcome the free exchange of ideas and deplore censorship. It’s a shame you disagree.

It's almost as frustrating as climate change "debates" on TV when they never fucking have a climate scientist on against the climate change deniers.

That’s funny you mentioned this, I saw Nye debate this topic with a Climatologist prior to the Ham debate and he got destroyed. That’s why I was not expecting much from him in this debate, he was more prepared for this debate fortunately.

I watched the whole thing. Nye tore Ham a new asshole. It was good.

How?

Also, for all the people out there who say this wasn't a good idea; Nye probably convinced a few people of the truth of evolution. That is a total victory.

I doubt that.

All you have to do is plant the seed of doubt. They're very aware of this, which is why they made all those passages about killing/not associating with non christians unless you're preaching at them, and god literally forbid you from speaking bad about him.

You sound so religious right now. You do realize that it was AIG who organized this event right? If Christians were worried about “the seed of doubt” being planted they would not run around challenging everyone to debates. It seems that it is the Darwinist who is worried most about this since they usually refuse to actually defend their position.

[Rahul]

The bible has gone through changes and revisions, but there are people that claim this is the divinely inspired, inerrant word of Yahweh.

Changes and revisions by whom and when?

Well obviously by someone at sometime. Or do you think the various books that currently comprise the bible were originally written in English?

We can all have a lengthy discussion about just that. As well as the groups that decided which books should or should not be included in the bible.

[Dragonetti]

English was not a dominate language during the Biblical years (It did not exist). Any translation of ancient text would be a revision as many languages do not translate word for word.

Also, languages evolve over time. New words and meanings are added through time.

[Angrboda]