But it was too late. Months too late. You don’t need to be Sun Tzu to realize that, when it comes to guys like Ken Ham, you can’t really win. If you refuse to debate them, they claim to be censored. If you agree to debate them, you give them a public platform on which to argue that, yep, they’re being censored. Better not to engage at all, at least directly. Nye may be the last to understand a point that seems to be circulating more widely these days: creationism is a political issue, not a scientific one, and throwing around scientific facts won’t dissuade those who don’t accept scientific authority in the first place.
I suppose it's the reason Nye had already lost this debate by simply agreeing to participate.
RIFA wrote:Both can co-exist without all of this crap.
They can coexist as two completely different things that are not mutually exclusive. The problem is that these debates keep happening because people keep thinking they are.
You guys' posts are pretty interesting. It seems like you're all ignoring Ham's specific viewpoint of young Earth creationism and instead you're leaping over to whether Science and Religion can coexist, and that discussion is the one that isn't defined enough to make any sense.
What do you mean by "religion"? Which one? The Mormon religion? Islam? Hinduism? Which god made the Universe, and how do you know?
What do you mean by "coexisting"? That they're compatible? Again, which one? All of the religious texts contradict each other on everything (is there only one god that created the Universe, or is it many gods?) None of these religious texts can be used to make scientific predictions, and even people like Ken Ham concede that they have no idea what process their god would have used to create anything, making them statements of faith, not Science.
Location: All-Hail Master Virgo, Censor of NolanFans
chom wrote:You guys' posts are pretty interesting. It seems like you're all ignoring Ham's specific viewpoint of young Earth creationism and instead you're leaping over to whether Science and Religion can coexist, and that discussion is the one that isn't defined enough to make any sense.
What do you mean by "religion"? Which one? The Mormon religion? Islam? Hinduism? Which god made the Universe, and how do you know?
What do you mean by "coexisting"? That they're compatible? Again, which one? All of the religious texts contradict each other on everything (is there only one god that created the Universe, or is it many gods?) None of these religious texts can be used to make scientific predictions, and even people like Ken Ham concede that they have no idea what process their god would have used to create anything, making them statements of faith, not Science.
I've been on the internet way too long--I can't tell if that post is joking or not. It's got a winking smiley face, but I can't figure out if the winky smiley is being used ironically .
chom wrote:Debates like this are for convincing people who are on the fence, or are ignorant of the discussion, but are willing to be convinced by evidence.
Cool. So these debates are totally relevant and approach the topic with total fairness, talking about the most important issues. Sure sure... They surely are not for feeding egos. Why do people need to be convinced by other people? Why not convince yourself through ... uhm ... research and reason? So basically these debates are for the people that already believe in one side or the other and they need to see somebody else agreeing with them... Yeah... Basically the definition of feeding egos.
chom wrote:Billy Nye, on the other hand, is just trying to deliver the scientific consensus to the uninformed, and he's also trying to stop loons like Ham from forcing this shit on kids.
Please...
Just stop bringing up these kind of debates since they prove almost nothing unless you're already on one fence and you feel like a debate video like this one can feed your ego enough that you'll tell other people "See? Bill Nye uses his head. You should too." Few debates I've seen are half fair and relevant to the subject. The rest is the same 'ol same.
Anyone who REALLY wants to understand BOTH science and religion won't even look at these debates but will actually research the whole thing themselves. These debates are also responsible for the toxicity between the believers and non-believers. There's no need for this religion vs. science contest in the first place. One of the biggest circle-jerk things in history of humanity. It's so stupid.
Both can co-exist without all of this crap.
Ham's views and modern science can't coexist. The Earth isn't 6,000 years old, The Universe isn't 6,000 years old, Evolutionary biology is true, T-Rexes weren't vegetarians, Adam & Eve never existed, there was no worldwide flood, snakes don't talk, etc. There's just no way to accommodate extremist bullshit like that.
You guys pretty obviously weren't paying attention to anything Nye said--he made it explicitly clear that he doesn't care what anyone's religious beliefs are, and that many Christians disagree with Ham's views on Science. Nye also said he's open to evidence to change his views, while Ham said nothing could change his opinion on creationism--how, exactly, does that make Nye just as egotistical as Ken Ham is?
If Ham were actually honest about what Genesis is describing in terms of Cosmology, he'd be trying to sell this as an alternative to the current model of the solar system:
that graphic depiction is actually incorrect. You cant extrapolate their writing onto a modern day understanding of cosmology, since they were not talking about space as a material plane, but a spiritual one.
celibate wrote:
that graphic depiction is actually incorrect. You cant extrapolate their writing onto a modern day understanding of cosmology, since they were not talking about space as a material plane, but a spiritual one.
That depiction of the Cosmology of the Old Testament (The NT's Cosmology viewed the World as being held up on pillars) is based on Old Testament textual analysis by OT scholars. That was a common Cosmology back then, based mainly off of Babylonian ideas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_cosmology). Medieval cosmological ideas held that the Solar System functioned based off of Crystalline spheres that the planets orbited on, and that peoples' spirits lived there.
KEN HAM'S the one who's extrapolating his modern ideas onto The Bible. The guy isn't a flat Earther, and he's not a geocentrist, so he's bullshitting people when he says he takes The Bible literally.
celibate wrote:
that graphic depiction is actually incorrect. You cant extrapolate their writing onto a modern day understanding of cosmology, since they were not talking about space as a material plane, but a spiritual one.
That depiction of the Cosmology of the Old Testament (The NT's Cosmology viewed the World as being held up on pillars) is based on Old Testament textual analysis by OT scholars. That was a common Cosmology back then, based mainly off of Babylonian ideas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_cosmology). Medieval cosmological ideas held that the Solar System functioned based off of Crystalline spheres that the planets orbited on, and that peoples' spirits lived there.
KEN HAM'S the one who's extrapolating his modern ideas onto The Bible. The guy isn't a flat Earther, and he's not a geocentrist, so he's bullshitting people when he says he takes The Bible literally.
you still fail to grasp the central difference between describing something on a spiritual plane, and on a material plane. You can't apply descriptions of a spiritual plane to the material plane, and then say, look it doesnt fit with what the modern day view of the material plane is. Whatever word was taken as representative of "cosmos" in that time, has very little to do with the word "cosmos" of today. But discussing these things gets boring real quick. If you want to believe the world is material and we are here by chance, nobody is going to stop you, so why are you so concerned about interfering with others' beliefs.
