BF2S Forums Creationism debate tonight Bill versus Ken Hamm (Feb4, 2014)

i wanna go to the creation museum but it costs too much

I don't really see the point in doing these "debates".  It's going to be a guy who believes the world is 6000 years old against a scientist.  What's there to debate?  It's like trying to have an intelligent scientific conversation with a monkey

Stubbee wrote:

$30 to see dioramas of people riding dinosaurs....

heh, you have it cheap there. for most people that would cost a lot more, ticket to USA and all, you know.

Last edited by Shahter (2014-02-04 21:29:36)

you could have kept watching and seen the biggest loser . . .

Superior Mind wrote:

The Ham guy didn't really answer any of the questions asked of him. He just kept focusing on semantics and the Word.

haha what did you expect?  Him to intelligently debate the finer points of using the scientific method to resolve contradictions between the creation story in the bible and what we know as observable fact?

Again, I really don't understand the point of the debate?  Is it just to point and laugh at the guy for being ignorant of science?  Is it so we can use this as a trump card to show how stupid the young earth creationists are?  I don't think something like this accomplishes anything except to give stupid atheists another feather to put in their cap of everlasting shaming, something to trot out as evidence of how much Christianity is WRONG

I kind of think that Bill Nye lost the debate just by turning up. That validated Ham's argument than any point he made.

Also it's kind of telling that they got a scientists most known for presenting a children's TV show to explain evolution to creationists.

Ty wrote:

I kind of think that Bill Nye lost the debate just by turning up.

I think the people who hate creationism lost the debate by rallying around Bill Nye. I know he is well educated but he is most known for a children's T.V. show. I think it says something about the internet atheist community when they trot out the host of a children's show to argue against a Christian. It is like getting the black guy from The Reading Rainbow to debate the author of Fifty Shades of Gray about the role of feminist literature.

Whatever, welfare case. Maybe we can discuss how to get the most out of government assistance with you.

Last edited by Ivan Kara (2014-02-06 13:22:01)

DesertFox- wrote:

Ivan Kara wrote:

Ty wrote:

I kind of think that Bill Nye lost the debate just by turning up.

I think the people who hate creationism lost the debate by rallying around Bill Nye. I know he is well educated but he is most known for a children's T.V. show. I think it says something about the internet atheist community when they trot out the host of a children's show to argue against a Christian. It is like getting the black guy from The Reading Rainbow to debate the author of Fifty Shades of Gray about the role of feminist literature.

He's a science educator. He's not the guy from Blues Clues. He wasn't trotted out by the "internet atheist community" either. Ham invited him, and unfortunately, Nye validated him by accepting.

He would still be teaching in obscurity if the reddit nostalgia crowd didn't circle around him since he found a way to be relevant by arguing about things the liberal left likes to feel intelligent about. If Nye was going around trying to teach people why nuclear energy is great alternative to oil do you think he would be so highly talked about this day in age? No, but since he is willing to go on Fox News, be introduced with a clip from his show, and talk slowly about evolution and global warming he is held up as a modern renaissance man. He is just another public academic people like to cite to feel smart. Only he is popular among the 90's kids

Problem seemed to be that it was a poorly chosen question. The question "is creation a viable model of origins in today's modern scientific era" is the wrong question in a debate where fact goes up against faith and Ham knew this. It's his whole strategy at his museum, all he does is look like he's accepting the science, point out holes, and fill them with his particular version of God. It's a tactic that has been used throughout history. As time has gone on these gaps for God have grown smaller and smaller as we learn more, but they still exist. This sort of strategy is enough to give creation viability. Not enough to give it credibility but then that wasn't the question.

Posed with this question Nye couldn't win or even make a decent show of it. All he could do was go over the same arguments and facts that prove evolution. Meanwhile the question as it was posed placed no obligation on Ham to prove anything, all he had to do was sit back and watch Nye hit his head against a brick wall.

Nye was also the wrong person for the debate. He's a scientist and a kids TV presenter, of course he would focus on debating on the merits of science which is exactly what Ham wanted. A much better opponent would have been a religious scientist scholar like Father George Coyne, someone who could pick apart Ham's religious theories - which are just as bizarre as his scientific ones and have even less of a grounding in reality. Coyne would be able to make the point that scripture is simply not teaching science and show that Ham's attempts to do so are without reason or logic.

Of course this wouldn't have drawn the same amount of attention but would have led to a better debate.

I don't get why people are saying Nye shouldn't have accepted the offer of debate.  If he hadn't accepted, then the creationists would have claimed victory.  Come to think of it, they'd have claimed victory no matter what the outcome of the debate was.

And yeah, Ken Ham using that particular wording for the question for a debate which was organised by a creationist organisation at the museum of creation science was an obvious attempt to steer the debate in Ken's favour right from the outset.  I'd love to know whether Ken Ham would accept the offer of a second debate, where Bill Nye picks the question & venue.  Is his faith strong enough that having no home advantage wouldn't be a factor?  Was the prospect of Atheists contributing to the coffers of his art gallery the real motivation for the original debate?