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Bill Nye and Ken Ham Creation/Evolution Debate


Ralar

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I hate that you were also raised in Religious Crazy Town Mecca, but it is nice to find other people who can understand what it is like to have been raised to believe bizarre stories are true. My husband was a Christmas/Easter Christian so he just cannot understand how people take all that seriously.

I'm actually surprised Ken didn't bring up that Noah could have built a wooden boat that floated for a year because they had better technology than we do now plus he spent 120 years building it. That was a common argument that I have heard to explain why we currently find that a boat of that size would not float.

I was taught that there are in fact people on other planets-- many of them-- who either didn't get the apple choice or didn't eat the apple, and are thus without sin. They're all watching Earth to see the consequences of sin, so all our problems are a living testimony to how awful sin is, and how lucky they are not to have been given the choice. None of them can contact Earth; they just stand back and watch from afar. I didn't even realize how bizarre that is until I explained it to a nonChristian friend (in grad school!) and I got the oddest look.

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There was one question that said if you believe that life could have been jump started by aliens, why can't you believe in God. First of all, there is absolutely no reason why you cannot accept science and evolution and still believe deeply in God (my father does). All it takes it not taking the bible literally. Second, I can turn the question around and ask if you believe in a supernatural being who created life on our planet, why couldn't you believe in aliens? In many ways, an alien source of life is much more believable than the earth was created 6,500 years ago in 6 days (with no sun till day 4).

Actually I was amazed at how incredibly easy it was to answer/dismiss the questions the creationists posed. I thought there would be much more of the fact twisting I'm used to seeing.

Oh, and what was the point about noetics?

That one just blew my mind. Aliens or panspermia is about a billion times more likely than a god. Panspermia is natural, requires no supernatural magic, just physicalprocess we know happen all the time. How could they ask that question and not instantly see the answer?

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I was taught that there are in fact people on other planets-- many of them-- who either didn't get the apple choice or didn't eat the apple, and are thus without sin. They're all watching Earth to see the consequences of sin, so all our problems are a living testimony to how awful sin is, and how lucky they are not to have been given the choice. None of them can contact Earth; they just stand back and watch from afar. I didn't even realize how bizarre that is until I explained it to a nonChristian friend (in grad school!) and I got the oddest look.

I remember hearing this, but it was debated if it was biblical to believe this way. Some people felt like it was and others said that if God had made other people on other planets He would have put it in the Bible.

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Another Tweet from God:

After the #creationdebate, be sure to stay tuned for the #gravitydebate. Do things fall when you drop them? Find out tonight!

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Another Tweet from God:

After the #creationdebate, be sure to stay tuned for the #gravitydebate. Do things fall when you drop them? Find out tonight!

They do now (observational science) but may not have in the past (historical science).

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slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/02/06/religion_and_science_answering_creationists_questions.html

And here are some answers to the creationists' burning questions. I think he answered them very patiently and reasonably, better than I would have anyway.

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I remember hearing this, but it was debated if it was biblical to believe this way. Some people felt like it was and others said that if God had made other people on other planets He would have put it in the Bible.

What about Genesis 6:1-4?

The Nephilim.

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What about Genesis 6:1-4?

The Nephilim.

I was taught those were demons who took the form of man and then had children with regular humans creating a Twilightish half-human half-demon race.

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I was taught those were demons who took the form of man and then had children with regular humans creating a Twilightish half-human half-demon race.

Apparently, Answers in Genesis addresses the issue with a long winded "I don't know"

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I hate that you were also raised in Religious Crazy Town Mecca, but it is nice to find other people who can understand what it is like to have been raised to believe bizarre stories are true. My husband was a Christmas/Easter Christian so he just cannot understand how people take all that seriously.

I'm actually surprised Ken didn't bring up that Noah could have built a wooden boat that floated for a year because they had better technology than we do now plus he spent 120 years building it. That was a common argument that I have heard to explain why we currently find that a boat of that size would not float.

I was a sunday school and church every sunday for ever kind of Christian for the first 20 years of my life and until this thread had never heard the stories. United Methodists in my area were not literalists, apparently.

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I was a sunday school and church every sunday for ever kind of Christian for the first 20 years of my life and until this thread had never heard the stories. United Methodists in my area were not literalists, apparently.

What?! You mean your Sunday school lessons didn't have stories about half-demon half-humans roaming the world and Noah using advanced technology? :lol:

The demons having babies with humans has the potential of being an awesome YA book.

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I grew up attending church, Sunday School, and catechism and creationism was a historical relic only mentioned in school classes. So far I've never attended a church that believes in creationism. If I did it was only as a visitor and they didn't mention it while I was there.

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What?! You mean your Sunday school lessons didn't have stories about half-demon half-humans roaming the world and Noah using advanced technology? :lol:

The demons having babies with humans has the potential of being an awesome YA book.

Not so much, no. We also pretty much skipped over Revelations, didn't talk about getting "saved" and laughed the first time I heard the world was less than 10,000 years old.

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I started watching a History channel show on Revelation the other day but I went to sleep. They seemed to be saying that it wasn't a end of the world book that people make it out to be.

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Katie Botkin has weighed in on the debate: kbotkin.com/2014/02/05/ken-ham-and-bill-nye-revisited/

Clearly, she is saying "Thanks but no thanks" to the Dominionist Kool-Aid, again and again.

In the comments:

Speaking of belief, I so want to believe they called this event “An Evening with Ham ‘n’ Nye.â€

:lol:

Well, that's a cheesy remark! ;)

We need a rimshot smiley for me.

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Not so much, no. We also pretty much skipped over Revelations, didn't talk about getting "saved" and laughed the first time I heard the world was less than 10,000 years old.

The United Church of Christ was also not into the Nephilim (or biblical literalism in general). And when we had an ecumenical Vacation Bible School with the Covenant Church in our tiny town, and one of my teachers said something about "Some people believe humans came from monkeys, but you all know you're children of God, right?," I thought to myself, I'm not going to tell my [preacher] mom about this, because I am having an otherwise good time with these new kids, and she would be very upset if she knew there was a teacher telling us that science class was incompatible with religious belief.

I did tell her years after the fact, and she said, "Yeah, probably that would have been the end of that cooperative venture."

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I was taught those were demons who took the form of man and then had children with regular humans creating a Twilightish half-human half-demon race.

Yep. Children of human women and fallen angels.

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The United Church of Christ was also not into the Nephilim (or biblical literalism in general). And when we had an ecumenical Vacation Bible School with the Covenant Church in our tiny town, and one of my teachers said something about "Some people believe humans came from monkeys, but you all know you're children of God, right?," I thought to myself, I'm not going to tell my [preacher] mom about this, because I am having an otherwise good time with these new kids, and she would be very upset if she knew there was a teacher telling us that science class was incompatible with religious belief.

I did tell her years after the fact, and she said, "Yeah, probably that would have been the end of that cooperative venture."

I went to a Methodist church as did much of my family on both sides (small town) including my Lutheran grandfather and his wife, my Baptist grandmother. Said grandmother helped out with a small baptist church in another small town near by, though she didn't attend there. ONe summer she took me to their bible school a couple of times, when I was about 4--not yet in school. The teacher was filling out a form and asked if I was saved. I asked "What is that?" and she "tsk tsked" me and wrote down "no" and I knew I'd given the wrong answer. Still, "saved" wasn't a "thing" at my church.

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Another Tweet from God:

After the #creationdebate, be sure to stay tuned for the #gravitydebate. Do things fall when you drop them? Find out tonight!

Yes, but I was not there when these things fell, so how do I know gravity really happens?

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I went to a Methodist church as did much of my family on both sides (small town) including my Lutheran grandfather and his wife, my Baptist grandmother. Said grandmother helped out with a small baptist church in another small town near by, though she didn't attend there. ONe summer she took me to their bible school a couple of times, when I was about 4--not yet in school. The teacher was filling out a form and asked if I was saved. I asked "What is that?" and she "tsk tsked" me and wrote down "no" and I knew I'd given the wrong answer. Still, "saved" wasn't a "thing" at my church.

I grew up in the Methodist church, going to Sunday school weekly. In fact my parents taught both child and adult Sunday school classes over the years. The only clear memories I have from all of those years is crafts and snack time.

We spent one entire year spelling out the 10 commandments in dried alphabet soup letters and gluing them onto tongue depressors. Once, finished they were attached into a jaunty wall hanging.

So why I would like to think us Methodists are superior for not worrying about such issues as demon halflings and being born again, obviously our taste in crafts is a bit suspect. This may have contributed to my current agnostic leanings.

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I'd like to ask Ken Ham how he can take the creation story literally when Genesis couldn't even decide which version of the story to print. Chapter 1's version is different from the account told in chapter 2. Why are there even two versions? (Separate issue: Why are there two versions of the ten commandments also?) Literal-shmiteral. Even if they don't turn you into the raging agnostic that I am now, Biblical inconsistencies should at least make you question *some* things.

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Hell must have frozen over. Pat Robertson disagrees with Ham and says "Let's Not Make a Joke of Ourselves." Ham should listen. If anyone knows about making a joke of himself it's Robertson.

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