Bill Nye: Bible doesn't tell Earth's true history
© AP / Bill Nye
Bill Nye: Bible doesn't tell Earth's true history
Feb. 5, 2014, 8:34 AM EST
By DYLAN LOVAN , Associated Press
PETERSBURG, Ky. (AP) — True to his passionate and animated TV persona, "Science Guy" Bill Nye tapped on the podium, threw up his hands and noted that science shows the Earth is "billions and billions" of years old in a debate at a Kentucky museum known for teaching that the planet's age is only 6,000.
Nye was debating Creation Museum founder Ken Ham and promoting science in the snappy way that made him a pop culture staple as host of "Bill Nye The Science Guy" in the 1990s.
The event was meant to explore the age old question, "How did we get here?" from the perspectives of faith and science.
Ham, an Australian native who has built a thriving ministry in Kentucky, said he trusts the story of creation presented by the Bible.
"The Bible is the word of God," Ham said. "I admit that's where I start from."
Nye delivered a passionate speech on science and challenged the museum's teachings on the age of the earth and the Bible's flood story. Like most scientists, Nye believes there is no credible evidence that the world is only 6,000 years old.
"If we accept Mr. Ham's point of view ... that the Bible serves as a science text and he and his followers will interpret that for you, I want you to consider what that means," Nye said. "It means that Mr. Ham's word is to be more respected than what you can observe in nature, what you can find in your backyard in Kentucky."
The event drew dozens of national media outlets and about 800 tickets sold out in minutes. Ham said ahead of the debate that the Creation Museum was having a peak day on its social media sites.
"I think it shows you that the majority of people out there, they're interested in this topic, they want to know about this, they don't want debate shut down," Ham said before the debate.
At times, the debate had the feel of a university lecture, with slides and long-form presentations.
Responding to an audience question about where atoms and matter come from, Nye said scientists are continuing to find out.
Ham said he already knows the answer.
"Bill, I want to tell you, there is a book that tells where atoms come from, and its starts out, 'In the beginning ...,'" Ham said.
Nye said there are plenty of religious people around the world who don't question evolution science.
"I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion," said Nye, who wore his trademark bow tie. "But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old."
The debate drew a few Nye disciples in the audience, including Aaron Swomley, who wore a red bowtie and white lab coat. Swomley said he was impressed by Ham's presentation and the debate's respectful tone.
"I think they did a good job outlining their own arguments without getting too heated, as these debates tend to get," he said.
Some scientists had been critical of Nye for agreeing to debate the head of a Christian ministry that is dismissive of evolution.
Jerry Coyne, an evolution professor at the University of Chicago, wrote on his blog that "Nye's appearance will be giving money to organizations who try to subvert the mission Nye has had all his life: science education, particularly of kids." Coyne pointed out that the Creation Museum will be selling DVDs of the event.
The debate was hatched after Nye appeared in an online video in 2012 that urged parents not to pass their religious-based doubts about evolution on to their children. Ham rebutted Nye's statements with his own online video and the two later agreed to share a stage.
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I would have to believe that all the humans involved in the book had no agenda, and no vested interest in getting everyone to agree and to act accordingly.
To me that is not reasonable."
No, you're right. It isn't.
Unless there is something other than selfishness motivating them. Unless they had an extraordinary view which transcended ours. Unless these were impeccably honest men whose only concerns were for higher principles or ideals. Unless their only agenda were the truth to which they were granted specific insights they then shared with others.
Given all the dishonesty, corruption, and greed in today's society, it's pretty easy to be disillusioned that this could even be a possibility, I agree.
The question is, then, does hope still exist? Can one hope for the ideal? Does rationality exclude the possibilities of a brighter future?
The trick in a logical debate is that you have to look at both the logical train of thought AND the assumptions in order to arrive at a logically valid statement. Disprove either and you have disproved the logical argument.
Uhhhh....
I don't even need to read the book to disprove this one by logical fallacy.
One can make the case that one does not "believe" in god for sure, but without being omniscient one's self, how can one possibly claim to rule out every possibility that God exists?
I would also point out that one would also have to positively describe and identify the god that one is disproving. That would mean that in order to disprove the existence of a god, one would first have to understand and know that god.
I'm not going to tell you which way to believe, but trying to "prove" that God doesn't exist seems to me to quite the reach. Seems much more plausible just to admit that you don't believe and leave it at that.
At the very core of a Christian's philosophical understanding of the world, is the belief in God. A Deist doesn't need to have alot follow that-but it is still at the core of their philosophy. They may then say but the existence of God does not affect the rest of my philosophy. For a Christian, there is a philosophy of life if you are practicing Christianity. If I am not following you, let me know.
I guess for some atheists they just state there is no God without examining any evidence. I guess that could be considered a belief. But not a philosophy. Please understand, there are plenty of atheists who are irrational and do not apply reason and logic in their lives to a great degree. Atheism is not the objective standard.
This is why the caution was given that unless the scriptures are read by the Holy Spirit, one may draw incorrect conclusions about meaning. It is even possible (very likely, actually) that during the translation of the KJV, mistakes were made. Anyone who speaks more than one language knows that despite all the scholarly wisdom of a dictionary, unless you have a native who understands both languages, your translation is going to be a bit off or nuanced at very best.
Most Christians derived their view of God from a text called the Nicean Creed about 400 AD. Basically, hundreds of clergy got together and tried to make sense of the scriptural texts they had - arguing for days - until they came to a consensus. But what they wrote is the quintessential contradiction in terms - probably one of the most logically absurd pieces of literature ever to come from human mind. Try reading it some time and you'll see that the Christian sects that adhere to this logically absurd document's theories are also the same ones who promote the idea that the earth was created in six thousand literal years. One absurdity begets another.
I do not accept the Nicean Creed, so I'll give you my view of God - you can take it or leave it. (And no, I don't believe the Earth was created in 6000 years.)
The scriptures say God is our Father, so why not then in appearance like us? Why not a real man - with arms, legs, face, eyes, etc.? A little different because He's immortal, but not some blob of infinite or infinitesimal size. Human-size. Moses said that he talked with God face-to-face, so this to me makes sense. The Bible also mentions that Christ is the Son of God and when the Apostles ask Christ to see God (the Father), he tells them that the Father looks like Christ. If humans are God's children, this also makes sense - as we were created "in His image".
I think Christians tend to overlook these things because they focus more on the actions that denote one as a follower of Christ rather than dwell on the minutiae of physical characteristics (especially when one defines a formless, shapeless essence as "god").
To me, everything in religion should make sense if I am to adhere to it. While I believe faith still plays an integral part, doctrines must be scientifically sound. What I like to do is remind myself, however, that just like science, religion too is an exploratory discipline. Both should be taken with the realization that not only does humankind NOT know everything, but it is impossible for us to do so!
Can we know truth through exploration? Only if we keep an open mind and do not rules out possibilities until they are completely disproven. To me, that means that Bill Nye is shorting himself by denying the possibility of God and Ken Ham is shorting Christianity by asserting that the creation took place in 6000 years.
The opposite might be said by Christians.
> An aetheist does not work through their philosophies or science by first stating an axiom there is no God.
Some Christians do not start by saying there is a god. Some are lead to that by their own self journey.
> It is illogical to pose hypotheses which have no basis and then say well it could be you can't disprove it.
I cannot answer for others, but for me the proof is in the existence of my own intelligent mind. As I am capable of intelligent design I am also intelligently designed. I find evolution sorely lacking in explanation for that which makes man as a being aware of self. My mind is too drastically over-engineered to account for evolution, which, according to science, does not over-engineer any animal. I am capable of intelligent design. I can build a building, a bridge, design a car, dream of space travel, and seek to become better and more than I am. Evolution does not explain all of these things. Some choose not to think about our being over-engineered or where consciousness came from. Some choose to explain this with the theory that we were seeded on this planet by an older version of humanity from somewhere else. Some, and I am one of these, choose the divine explanation. Some just chock it all up to evolution, and others throw up their hands and say they don’t know.
I'm willing to admit that I don't have all the answers and until I do gain a few more, I'm willing to say, "God did it. He gave me a book that says he did. I believe it,"
Tell me is this child more free in the home of her father or would she, as your child, enjoy as great a intellectual freedom in your future home?
Or observe the adjectives they use to "describe" him: omnipotent (his power has no limits), omniscient (his knowledge has no limits), omni benevolent (his goodness has no limits). We know what it doesn't have -- i.e., limits -- however, what does it have? I don't know, I've never been told. How about you?
"Assuming you've read introduction to objectivist epitemology (ITOE) and understand how our conceptual faculty functions, then I suggest the book "Atheism: the case against god" which is the application of ITOE to the question of whether or not god exists. It proves it quite well."
There is NO verse in the Bible which says that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. It simply is not there.
But this raises the question: If the Bible makes no mention about the age of the Earth, where does the the young-earth theory come from? The answer is that it comes from religious scholars, both ancient and modern, who refused to accept the idea that the Bible contains any metaphor, and that absolutely every single verse should be interpreted in a strictly literal sense. And how do these scholars estimate the age of the Earth? By simply adding up the ages of all the prophets listed in the Bible. Seriously, that is all they do. That is the entire basis of the young-earth theory.
But there are three major assumptions (or problems) which that approach relies on:
First, they're assuming that no two prophets ever lived at the same time.
Second, they're assuming that there was never any gap of time between the death of one prophet and the birth of the next.
Third, they're assuming that the Bible contains a complete list of every single prophet who ever lived.
Where in the Bible does it say that there cannot be multiple prophets at once? Nowhere.
Where in the Bible does it say that a new prophet will always be born in the same year that the previous prophet died? Nowhere.
Where in the Bible does it say that there were no prophets that went unmentioned or unlisted, and that every single prophet was accounted for within its pages? Nowhere.
When we realize that there is no basis or foundation for any of these assumptions, it becomes clear that simply adding up the ages of the prophets is a totally illogical and irrational method of calculating the age of the Earth. In fact, there is one particular story which totally refutes the first assumption (that no two prophets ever lived at the same time), and that is the story of Elijah and Enoch, two men who both became prophets, and yet lived simultaneously. Though they were not both prophet at the same time, they were both ALIVE at the same time. According to the Bible, Enoch was Elijah's assistant, and when Elijah ascended into Heaven on a Chariot of Fire, he passed his mantle of prophethood onto Enoch. The time they each served as prophet is linear and consecutive, but their lifespans overlap with one another. Therefore, anyone who tried to add their ages together would get a larger number than the actual span of time during which Elijah and Enoch lived. This demonstrates the foolishness of using the age of the prophets as a measurement for determining the age of the Earth.
There are no stories to disprove the other two assumptions (at least as far as I'm aware), but there are no verses to vindicate them, either. The theory of a young-earth is based on faulty reasoning.
well it could be you can 't disprove it.
I would also like to submit that atheism is just as irrational a belief as Christianity. The scientific community accepts that the existence of god cannot be totally proven or dis-proven. Therefor I submit the agnostic belief is the only belief that is Objective and rational.
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