Bill Nye Debates Creationist Ken Ham Live 2/4/2014

Hide yo' Bibles, hide yo' wives and hide yo' religion cause we bashin' everyone out here.

If I meet a religious dude imma punch him in the faith!

So on the subject of why we indoctrinate children, how many people have actually been preached to or had someone actively try to convert them as an adult? To clarify, preaching in this sense means someone who is conversing with you, not just the soapbox lunatic shouting on a streetcorner.

Going by the technical definition of adult as "18-years-old or above," I've never had this happen. About a month before my 18th birthday I chased some obnoxious people out of the restaurant I worked in by cracking open their Bible and pointing out the story of David and Jonathan, but that was the last time someone tried to sway or convert me in real life. It's very telling. I know a lot of folks who proclaim their faith rather loudly, too, but they basically wait for someone to show an interest before proselytizing, at least when that someone is an adult. Kids, on the other hand... once again, this is why Creationism is exclusively concerned with classrooms.

Even as a religious person, I have to agree that there is a time and place for it to be taught, and public school science classes are not the place for it. If I'm going to a science class I expect to learn secular science. If I wanted to hear creationism taught I'd go to a religion class. If someone can't handle it when science contradicts their faith, that's not the school's fault. Then again, I was never indoctrinated to believe science was the devil. Why the theory of evolution is such a problem, I'll never understand.

religion bashing and bill nye best christmas ever

Don't think anyone is denying that the indoctrination angle is at the core of creationist thought. Religion has a fixation with children, sex and women precisely for this reason.

Wow that creationist site... what a way to misinterpret evolution! As a scientist it is incredibly frustrating that people deliberately misinterpret the tenets of the theory of evolution in the hopes of sparking a religious debate. While some people extrapolate from evolution to origin, in fact the theory of evolution was not intended to do so. I have had to TA a number of genetics courses with students who came from counties in Georgia where they teach ID. It is fruitless to teach a future science major ID because while it has been concocted into some form of a theory, it is very hard to use the scientific method to prove or disprove. It is even more difficult to find funding for research in ID outside of places like the Creationist Institute (it is in fact also difficult to find funding to research basic research ideas like the evolution of a species). The government is not going to fund that kind of research because it has little payoff and less relevance to clinical application (best to do research on some protein involved in cancer or heart disease). With that being said when a student comes to college with ID and evolution given equal standing in their mind (or perhaps more standing to ID) their grades will reflect that because no college professor is going to give partial credit for an alternate theory which is not widely accepted in academia. In the end this only hurts the student by lowering their GPA. It hardly seems fair to me to handicap students in such a manner.

Some (perhaps most) religions, not all.

Evolution: The marijuana of science.

First you'll be talking about evolution then you'll be raping, pillaging, burning people at teh stake, asking about physics, believing in gay marriage and profaning God by asking questions.

christianity is the america of religions really should just stay out of other peoples business

The purpose of evangelizing religions is to get into your business. If you want Christianity's less intrusive form, try Judaism.

Super secret club for the elect onry.

Judaism (and Islam) gets given a pass in the US because they're a minority faith that doesn't have the clout to proselytize with the same fervor as Protestantism, but don't let's pretend that is the case everywhere. The sorts of things that can happen in the wrong neighborhoods of Jerusalem today in 2014 make something like this debate between Bill Nye and what's-his-name look positively quaint.

If you want religions that aren't going to be obnoxious to outsiders, look to East Asia. Tao and Shinto seem to have no impulse to convert as far as I'm aware. Buddhism doesn't get a pass with me if only because of how annoying Western Buddhists are. I've no clue if they're like that in South or East Asia, but far too many American Buddhists need to be punched in the face.

I think there's the problem.

“Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?”


Did anyone else feel like this question could be interpreted in a lot of ways?

No. The word "creation" (in the context it is meant) and any variation on the word "science" instantly render the interpretation of the question very simple: this is not a valid question.

Let's use a parallel structure: Does Zeus have a comprehensible place in contemporary meteorological science? No addition of adjectives makes this question worth asking nor more intriguing.

The way I put it seemed a little rash. What Snoochybooch said is more tasteful. Treat it like college courses and just give the option to take either. Make one or the other mandatory. I feel like its the easiest solution.

It's easier to just not teach it actually.

The point of adjectives is to make things clearer and more descriptive.

“Is biblical creationism a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?”

...would have been better since this is literally what they're arguing over. He's not just saying god created everything, he's saying the christian god created everything, etc. Religion tends to have a way with high jacking ideas and putting claims on them when they have no business doing so. People on the other side of the fence tend to buy into that argument by default when they shouldn't.

Even if someone does convince people that there must have been a creator, that person must still convince people that it's their specific religion's god, and not one of the other religion's gods. That is really the quickest and easiest way to debunk that particular argument.

Actually, it was the word "viable" that I thought was interesting.


I thought Nye should have shown evidence that people believing in creationism hurts us as a nation. He made claims that it will limit us economically but never cited any research to support that theory.

Ken certainly named people who have contributed to the greater body of knowledge despite subscribing to nonsense.


I can't help but think that Bill Nye took this personally and may, in fact, have arrived at his conclusion due to some confirmation bias. (not regarding how things began, but regarding whether or not creationism is harmful)

I met Bill when he spoke at my school. He's a personal hero of mine but I couldn't help but think that the choice of the word "viable" allowed for a second interpretation of the question.

I may certainly be wrong.

I'd kinda like to see what would happen if the option was given to take either science or religion in a high school setting (elective classes in grade school are rare, although I did go to a school that had them). I think it would be particularly interesting to make it an exclusive choice. You either take science this year or religion, but not both or, at least, you're not required to take both.

Ironically, in spite of having attended a Catholic high school, I'd bet easy money that my classmates would overwhelmingly prefer the science class. And they'd overwhelmingly take the religion class. Religion classes were stupidly easy and the complete lack of anything interesting about them was probably a significant factor in my apostasy. In a public/secular school, though, I'd be interested to see if the openly religious kids opting not to learn about chemistry and biology would be mercilessly mocked.

I'd love to dream that would happen, but I suspect the whole "I have to work to do science class or I can make ***up at the last second for religion" dichotomy would rear its head and religious pundits would misinterpret enrollment numbers as genuine interest. Of course, the easy solution would be to make religion classes require the same level of work and commitment as any other literature and philosophy class, but since Christianity has a long foundation of not letting the plebs (laity) ask questions of doctrine and dogma, I can't imagine that would get much traction.

No, because evolution is the most important and fundamental theory in all of biology (which I think is undeniably an important subject for students to have at least an introductory knowledge in). To teach biology sans evolution is akin to teaching guitar without chords.

The word "viable" is the adjective I assumed you found interesting. And it is a cheap ploy to make a simple question seem somehow more complex and valid than it really is. The more honest but provocative question would be, "Does fantasy have any relevance to the scientific process?"

Nye has had a bee in his bonnet about this subject for a long time. He honestly shouldn't have even dignified the question, but he suffers from a common error that many intelligent and educated people make: assuming that people are irrational because they lack sufficient information. In fact, people are irrational because they are people and confirmable data has very power to shift anyone's opinions. Even a scientist like Nye who will adjust his hypotheses to match new data has a few deeply-ingrained beliefs that won't be shifted by anything short of imminent personal threat.

Well, loose lingo got me into this mess so I'd like to be clear.


Am I alone in interpreting the prompt:


as


which I think is more specific than

I'm going to break character here and agree with people I don't normally agree with. I went to a religious university and took a geology class. The professor touched on issues such as evolution and the Big Bang Theory and taught that the age of the earth was billions of years old, all in a way consistent with modern scientific theory. On the last day, he stated that from both the standpoint of religion and science we don't know everything and that it was up to the individual to figure out how they interrelate.

Simply put, don't expect the world to cater education to your specific beliefs.

I work with a lady who is extremely religious and has tried on multiple occasions to convert me. I'm 27 and she is 62. She's adorable and she's one of my favorite people there, but she simply cannot be restrained on the topic of Christianity. Her work station is right next to mine, so I'm unfortunately a bit of a captive audience to it.

On the other hand, it's easy to excuse her because of some extenuating circumstances. Namely, she had seizures as a child that damaged her frontal lobe and made her see things, one of which was "god" who came to her and "talked" to her. She was under the effects of a seizure when her vision came, but she's still 100% convinced that it happened and was truly god and he was truly carrying on a conversation with her. I'm in no mood to try to tell her that something THAT game-changing just didn't happen, it was just the seizure. It's defined her whole life since then, and what right do I have to take it away?

On the other hand, when she gets going on it, she seems to be following a very different god than the rest of Christianity. One of the guys quoted several very anti-woman Bible verses to her, she claimed that those were never in the Bible and he's reading the wrong Bible. She disagrees with nearly everything the church says and does, and when you say things to her that are Biblical, she often says those are wrong and not in her Bible and we're all reading the wrong Bible.

So, either she's got her own religion (which she thinks it Christianity) and her god (who does not appear to be the god of the Bible) did appear to her and every biblical scholar and Christian in the world actually IS reading the wrong Bible, or else she's crazy. (She does believe SOME of the things in the Bible though, such as the flood and ark. It is my opinion that she did see a hallucination while she was seizing and she did believe it was god instead of recognizing it as a hallucination, and now she simply picks and chooses which verses to read and which to ignore, but that's obviously just my opinion.)

Either way, I don't really care. She's a doll and I love working with her, I've had to tell her several times to respect my non-belief as I respect her belief, and she always takes it well and waits another week or two before trying to convert me again. Honestly, the biggest problem I have with her is that the guys I work with bait her on it often and she rises very easily to the bait. I've taught her "don't feed the trolls" and she's starting to get better about ignoring them.

I've also had my father and older brother both try to convert me on multiple occasions. But that's different because they are family. Family members usually feel more forward about browbeating other family members, whereas strangers tend to be a bit more shy and respectful.

Overall though, you are right. It does seem like religions target children, and my opinion on the reason for that is that children believe things far more easily than adults do (especially if someone they trust told them to.) You're not going to convince an adult that Santa exists, either, but kids just naturally buy it. The adults that do end up converting often say things like "God found me at my most vulnerable!" which makes sense because the more vulnerable someone is, the more willing they are to reach out and grasp at any little bit of hope.

In the religion of my family, they relied heavily on childhood indoctrination. Sunday school followed by church in the mornings (it's my understanding that most churches have Sunday school during the service. Not so in my church, children had a half hour of Sunday school and then joined their parents for the adult service unless they were young enough to cry and cause distraction, in which case they were sent to nursery) and then the evening service on Sunday nights. Every Wednesday after school I had AWANA (Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed) until I was old enough for youth group, and then every Wednesday was youth group in instead of AWANA. A full week out of every summer was dedicated to Vacation Bible School (we still had to attend the other three services during that week) and another full week was dedicated to Bible Camp (during that we were sent away, so we did not have other services that week. Although every morning at Bible Camp was Chapel, which we were required to attend.)

At the time it was just normal. Compared the the childhood experiences of my religious friends, it does not seem to be the norm. Most of them had a much more casual experience, and came away with a much less angry attitude towards religion in general. Some of them didn't even have to attend services once a week, let alone three times a week!

I feel ya Liela, my friend's dad gets after me from time to time, and as I respect him in some other ways, I try to not get into an argument with the guy, even though he's by textbook definition delusional.

Honestly out of the whole ordeal, the thing that upsets me personally the most is that I've lost a friend due to religion. But he was never that smart, so it was bound to happen eventually.

Are you implying that his turn to religion was due to a lack of intelligence, or am I reading that wrong?

most definitely.

edit: along with a lack of critical thinking skills, or the ability to research legitimate sources on his own.

Seriously Jet? We were having a reasonable conversation on here until you started implying that all religious people are idiots.

I did no such thing, but I figured you would imply that.

Don't get your panties in a knot over me because of your short comings.

My insinuation is that my friend (whom I've known for 20+ years, closely and consider near a brother) turned to religion because he's not the brightest crayon in the box, nothing more.

edit: I've read over most of the thread, I wouldn't consider a decent amount of the conversation to be "reasonable."