Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham

Shamelessly stolen from Reddit:

You can CLAIM that Ken Ham was at a debate last night, but I say that he was bowling all night in Tokyo with bigfoot. Now, you might have youtube videos and witness accounts and logical argument about the flight times to travel from Kentucky to Tokyo - but we can't go back and observe those things - they are in the past, historical science. It is tempting to say that how technology and electricity, and cameras works today is how it worked last night, but that is confusing observational science with historical science and ASSUMING that natural laws are unchanging from now to last night. I will freely admit that my historical science based interpretation of Ken Ham's sasquach bowling is based on the infallible word of Henry Gale, but the humanist secularist must admit their story of electron based communication from last night is also a faith based story (one that leads to abortion and euthanasia btw). To back my story up - here are some videos of other people who also believe the Tokyo bigfoot accounts and have phd's - and as we all know 4 people can't be wrong about one thing AND good at something else too.
TL;DR Ken Ham was in Tokyo bowling with a mountain ape all last night. Proof: it is historical science my dear watson.
 
The hosts of “Creation Today,” Eric Hovind and Paul F. Taylor, attacked Robertson for claiming that dinosaurs could exist
Oh hell no. I've put up with ignorance, religiously-fueled bigotry, the harm caused to education, but NOBODY fucks with dinosaurs.

This is an official hate-on.
 
The point being that if you have to devolve into attacking the intelligence or character of the person you disagree with, you aren't standing on very firm ground, even if we were to allow personal insults and attacks as acceptable in our community.

As long as you keep that bullshit out of science classrooms, you can believe in whatever the hell you want.


I stand on very firm grounds of evidence. What do you got? Ask me questions. Also important to note that "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer for observed phenomena.
 
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As long as you keep that bullshit out of science classrooms, you can believe in whatever the hell you want.


I stand on very firm grounds of evidence. What do you got? Ask me questions. Also important to note that "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer for observed phenomena.
 
I thought Bill Nye did a really good job advocating for science while also maintaining respect for opponent. I think these debates do hold the potential to help people change their understanding. If Ham's arguments are the best they have I'm not too worried about him convincing anyone of anything.
 
I thought Bill Nye did a really good job advocating for science while also maintaining respect for opponent. I think these debates do hold the potential to help people change their understanding. If Ham's arguments are the best they have I'm not too worried about him convincing anyone of anything.
Agreed. You won't convince anyone to join your side by laughing in their face or calling their beliefs bullshit. Nye's tact, respect, and patience was impeccable so far as I could tell. If anything, Ham was the dismissive one, saying things like, "Well, you know, there is a book that tells you how the universe began. It says, 'And then God said let there be light...'"
 
I don't want to get involved in any debate, really, but to me the most annoying thing going on is the assumption that all Christians are the same or believe the same thing, or that since this Christian said something that everyone must believe the same thing. Hell, I can't even count the number of different Christian denominations that disagree on one fundamental level or another. Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinist, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostals, Independents, and all the different sects and flavors of each. You can pretty much assume if one guy things something, that's on him, and not everyone.
 
I thought everyone here was being pretty clear they were speaking about Creationists. Did I miss where someone specifically targeted Christians as a group instead?
 

GasBandit

Staff member
And there are even Old Earth Creationists as well. IE, "God still made the world and the universe, but the time measurements in the bible are metaphorical/not literal, and it's perfectly reasonable to assume science is right about the age of all this stuff, and evolution is a thing too."
 
And there are even Old Earth Creationists as well. IE, "God still made the world and the universe, but the time measurements in the bible are metaphorical/not literal, and it's perfectly reasonable to assume science is right about the age of all this stuff, and evolution is a thing too."
If we go worldwide, isn't Old Earth Creationism much more prevalent, and in fact basically a dominant view? I was under that impression regarding European Christians at the very least.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
If we go worldwide, isn't Old Earth Creationism much more prevalent, and in fact basically a dominant view? I was under that impression regarding European Christians at the very least.
I have no data on the prevalence of old earth creationist thought, in either the US or the World. I just know that it exists in non-negligible amounts.
 
I thought everyone here was being pretty clear they were speaking about Creationists. Did I miss where someone specifically targeted Christians as a group instead?
Ken Ham in particular is one of (if not THE) most prominent Young Earth Creationists, considering he has a museum all about it. The actual Young Earth Creationist world view at this time is pretty niche, and to my knowledge isn't near as prevalent as creationists who acknowledge origin via science and evolution on at least some level.

EDIT: And my original post wasn't referring to here, just general though everywhere in the internet-verse.
 
Young earth literal creation is a relatively (the last hundred or two hundred years or so) new theological idea. No one read Genesis 1-3 as literal much before then if I remember correctly.
 
Ken Ham in particular is one of (if not THE) most prominent Young Earth Creationists, considering he has a museum all about it. The actual Young Earth Creationist world view at this time is pretty niche, and to my knowledge isn't near as prevalent as creationists who acknowledge origin via science and evolution on at least some level.

EDIT: And my original post wasn't referring to here, just general though everywhere in the internet-verse.
Ah, I see. Thanks Piotyr :)
 
There are many variations to creationism. I've heard the most regarding dinosaurs and what remains of them. Off the top of my head, I've heard:

- Dinosaurs died when Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise.
- Dinosaurs died in the flood, not being on Noah's ark.
- Dinosaurs were on the ark and died later.
- Dinosaur fossils are planted by the devil to make us question God.

Dinosaurs were really why I as a 4-year-old kept asking my mom questions she couldn't answer when she was trying to read us a children's book interpretation of Genesis.
 
I was told that scientists are lying about the dinosaurs. There never was such a thing. Scientists have created these fantastical creatures to make us believe there is proof of their theories when it's really no better than aliens made in a movie/animation studio. This same person told me that my view of a combination of creationism and science's theories of creation of the universe and evolution was a falsehood. I was lying to myself about how everything was created because The Word is Truth as it is written. I got a brain cramp from trying to use reason.
 
And there are even Old Earth Creationists as well. IE, "God still made the world and the universe, but the time measurements in the bible are metaphorical/not literal, and it's perfectly reasonable to assume science is right about the age of all this stuff, and evolution is a thing too."
Back when I was a devout christian, I leaned pretty heavily on the passage from 2 Peter 3:8.

With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
 

fade

Staff member
Hamm's response to everything was essentially, "It's not true because I don't believe/want it to be true." Which seems contrary to the rules of a debate.

Then again, I guess the point was less to win than to showcase their points of view.
 
You guys weren't there, how do you know his distinctions were laughable?

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Actually, I like my period. It means I'm not pregnant. That's a good thing in my world! I like sleep. I'll gladly suffer for a few days a month to have (mostly) restful nights the rest of the time!
 
Another thing that I loved about the debate is that Ham kept saying that only creationists are teaching kids to think critically. I think someone needs to tell him that blindly accepting what an ancient book tells you is the antithesis of critical thinking.
 
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