Bill Nye On Creationism

I am very dissapointed in how this "debate" is being handled. I can not even call this a debate, because there doesn't seem to be any reasonable arguments trying to dispute any facts or fiction.

This is true for one simple reason; Only one side has facts. The other side has mythology. See further down.

that there is only one real truth, and anything else is a complete lie.

Actually as an advocate of the scientific method, no, he's saying that humanity in general needs to get beyond the platitude of 'a wizard did it' and actually look for the underpinning 'how' and 'why' rather than just dismissing it as a miracle and never looking back.

Those that dispute evolution do not necessarily believe that all evidence supporting it is simply herrecy (I do hope I am spelling that correctly: don't get much opportunity to use it).

Heresy.

but at least our side has a reason to think that

And back to the meat... No. That side has a reason not to have to think, period.
There is no evidence, at all, for that side. It has no facts. It's the equivalent of spirtual hearsay, out of a document that as you yourself pointed out is the translated transliteration of an oral narritive.
Taking it as anything more deep than aesop's fables is akin to seeking profound wisdom and enlightenment from a game of telephone played by participants the majority of whom don't even share a common language.

And, if you have kids, make sure that they know both sides of the story, so that they can decide what is right: if you only tell them one, they won't be able to form their own opinions

Telling them "God Did It" isn't a side. It's a redundant fact. What didn't God do, if one accepts the existence of a God in the first place?

Disregarding that, you're treating this like there are only two sides; Every religion and culture has a creation mythos.
Any child(ren) of mine will be raised to think independently and critically. They'll be told fairy tales, fables and mythology as exactly that in as diverse a manner as possible. The purpose of such things is to provide frames of reference for events that set up atypical scenarios to evaluate morality and decision making, not to abrogate your own responsibility for thinking and choosing because some random author said so.

There is no way to prove God, short of him revealing himself.

There is no way to completely disapprove God, so this debate will go on until the end of time.

If you're having this debate to try to persuade the other side to come to yours, then forget about it. You're not gonna change anyone just because you believe your logic is better than theirs. Get out of this thread before Ray comes in with the burning airplane.

If you're having this debate to expose the other side to some points of view to open their mind, then great. I'm sure that's what Bill Nye, and God if there is a God, wants.

Man it sucks being agnostic.

Man it sucks being agnostic.

I don't see why. You either believe something exists or you don't, and in most cases it's irrelevant regardless. The only ones to whom the question really matters are the ones who think someone actually knows what God wants and that everyone should be compelled to obey that, which has always been the sticking point of most religions for me. If God exists and wanted everyone to follow a set of rules, we wouldn't have a choice and would follow them, wouldn't even cross our minds not to. If God exists and wanted us to have free will, or the illusion thereof, then we're free to do what we please and anyone trying to force everyone to do something their way is more or less defying the freedom God gave us. If there is no God, there is no compulsion beyond basic respect for others and cooperation for a better quality of life for all.

All three have the same end result; Live your life the way you feel called to do so and mind your own damn business about everyone else unless it endangers someone because they're either doing God's will or there's no God for them to be defying. All this "God has called upon me to save you from yourself" crap some people claim is Hubris.

I don't see why. You either believe something exists or you don't, and in most cases it's irrelevant regardless. The only ones to whom the question really matters are the ones who think someone actually knows what God wants and that everyone should be compelled to obey that, which has always been the sticking point of most religions for me. If God exists and wanted everyone to follow a set of rules, we wouldn't have a choice and would follow them, wouldn't even cross our minds not to. If God exists and wanted us to have free will, or the illusion thereof, then we're free to do what we please and anyone trying to force everyone to do something their way is more or less defying the freedom God gave us. If there is no God, there is no compulsion beyond basic respect for others and cooperation for a better quality of life for all.

All three have the same end result; Live your life the way you feel called to do so and mind your own damn business about everyone else unless it endangers someone because they're either doing God's will or there's no God for them to be defying. All this "God has called upon me to save you from yourself" crap some people claim is Hubris.

Man, I was so disappointed that the Bill Nye calling Akin a pineappleing idiot article was satire. I got suspicious after "Justin Bieber Rushed to Hospital Following First Erection" was one of the "See Also" articles.

Yes I'm 2 pages late.

I am very dissapointed in how this "debate" is being handled. I can not even call this a debate, because there doesn't seem to be any reasonable arguments trying to dispute any facts or fiction.

First of all, I want to comment on the original video. I was quite disheartened when Bill Nye came out and basically said, (and unfortunately, it is not far off the mark) that all Creationists are scientifically illiterate and can thus not vote effectively, or even have any sort of reason. I am scientifically literate (I am in Engineering Physics: hard not to be in a program like that), have a very good grade standing, and I am also a Creationist. It is very offencive to me that Bill Nye would use his wide-reaching status and influence that he has on children and pretty much do the one thing that he blames us of doing: that there is only one real truth, and anything else is a complete lie. By using his platform like this, I can still say that I respect him as a scientist, but I have lost respect for him as a man.

"...only one truth and everything else is a complete a lie." With all respect, isn't that more like the view of most Creationists? Science has no "absolute truth", because science doesn't dictate the truth, but it seeks it. Evolution Theory =/= Evolution. Evolution is a scientific fact. While some details of Darwins theory are controveral, evolution in general is something that I just find impossible to argue against. I really can't help but imagine you as a fundamentalist Christian. I'm not sure if you're aware but many of the priests and actually majority of Christians accept evolution.

Moving on to some of the other comments in this forum (I won't point out specific comments, but there would be no point seeing as everyone here seems to have the same opinion). There are many people here saying that Christians should get their own facts straight before trying to debate with other "scientifically literate" people. The fact is that our faith (and many of the other faiths, with the possible and real exception of fundamentalists and Catholics) leaves us open to interperate the holy book that we are given, and to decide within it how much of it we should believe. Keep in mind that it was written millenia ago, and that at that time it was geared towards the people of that time. Therefore, when reading something from centuries ago, we should take things with a grain of salt, and things like "an eye for an eye" should be talked about as if looking at the overall meaning, and not just the literal translation (Wow! The Bible is a translation? Who would have thunk it!) So with that in mind, it means that there is a general direction that our faith teaches us to follow, but the specifics of it are up to interpretation.

I find it ironic, how you admit that the Bible is a very old book that shouldn't be taken literally but yet you just can't let go of creationism. That, my friend, already puts you into the minority of christians, mostly consisting of fundamentalists and bible thumpers. Many of these people believe that the world is 6000 years old. Do you share this belief? And during the Bible times, worldview was earth-centric and people believed that the earth was flat, heaven being above and hell below the magical giant pizza we stand on. For ages, the church was kicking scientists on balls, shouting "HERESY", because of that ridiculous claim someone made that the earth could actually be a globe. Eventually however, people gave in and accepted that earth is a round planet, that orbits the sun. The evidence was indisputable.

Now, I really have to point out Satellite's comment about the fossils, and saying that to dispute evolution is akin to saying that they think all fossils are fake. Now, I shall open with one word: seriously? Those that dispute evolution do not necessarily believe that all evidence supporting it is simply herrecy (I do hope I am spelling that correctly: don't get much opportunity to use it). I personally think that there is cause to believe in micro-evolution, that natural selection does occur, but I think that people who blindly believe that we have all evolved from bacteria looong ago are just as bad as the people who believe that the world is only 6000 years old: there are bound to be people on both sides, and I think that both theories are patently rediculous, but at least our side has a reason to think that, which goes back to my part of the Bible being geared towards people from a long time ago: for them, since there wasn't as much time in their life, a day meant a lot to them, and the story of the 7 days of Creation held a special part to them (Sunday, the Sabbath, was when the people rested, and when God "rested."). Once again, everything is open to interpretation, and the people who ask for proof about evolution are not asking about the stuff like if an alligator sees a chicken, but more so about what happened at the very beginning. Unless you had a time machine and either looked for the Big Bang and the evolution of the bacteria, or God's hand creating the universe, I think all that anyone can have on the subject of billions of years ago (or however long it was) is faith that the people who are telling us the answers are right.

I agree that skepticism is needed, but I don't agree that both evolution and creationism are a question of faith. Think of this: What age are kids teached about evolution? What age are kids teached about Creationism?
Let's say we take 2 kids; other one is first taught about creationism when he's 3 years old and other one is first taught about creationism when he's 15. You would find out that it will be a lot harder to convince a 15-year-old about the theory. They will most likely think you are kidding. There's many books about creationism for children, there's pretty songs about God and jesus and there's many Christian clubs and kindergartens. Child's mind is extremely vulnerable for influences. If you have read psychology, childs are very fast to learn, way faster than teens or adults. However kids are not skeptics, in fact if they were, they would be as good as dead. There's just no time to doubt the massive amount of information. Kids will gladly accept God, Easter Bunny and Santa. Same goes for creationism. Rather amazingly, kids manage to grow out of Santa Claus.

"and the people who ask for proof about evolution are not asking about the stuff like if an alligator sees a chicken, but more so about what happened at the very beginning."

I think you have an incomplete view of evolution. Evolution, by no means, is answering to the question about origin of life on earth. Evolution explains the process of how different species came into existence. How life, over few billion years, turned from microscopic unicellural life to multicellular vertebrate animals or to homo sapiens.

This post is getting long, and I'd like to see if a reasonable debate can follow, so I'll just relate how I, as a protestant Christian, see how the world was created.

I believe that the world was created, designed by God's (or a Deity, depending on how you feel) hand. No, I don't think it was done in 6 days, but over time and through constant work he finally created a world in it's primitive prime: a variety of animals, in the sea, land, and air. Included in this he made a sentient life form, which is us (though I am sure some you you are doubting the "sentient" part of that sentance every day). Now, through many years, He guided us to write about the past, and the present (and the future) and many of those books were combined into one book, which was in turn used to guide others on their own path. It doesn't contain the inner workings of the universe, because that is for us to discover on our own: can any of you say that you would have as much today if you knew everything there was to know? I'd think you would get bored.

I'm glad your beliefs about creationism have a pinch of realism in them but I think that if you actually studied evolution more, you would find out that the more you learn about it, the more you start to doubt creationism.

I might as well share you my stand on this issue:

I believe that humans, despite being easily the most intelligent species on Earth, are on the same line with animals. Intelligence, in my opinion, is both a curse and a bless for us. Our life doesn't revolve around getting food anymore and we have plenty of free time and pasttimes. We have many great inventions and we live longer and happier lifes than ever. But for centuries, we have also known something, that animals don't realise the same way. We know that our life is limited.

As humans we want to know more, but we have always also been scared of the unknowable. We want to know the meaning of life, we want to know why we are here, what happens when we die, where we really are and why is there so much evil. For ages, humans have filled the missing gaps with different theories, or as most of them are called today: myths. Actually, I really think that superstitions were good for human race. It motivated us to work hard and build huge cities, for god(s). Origin of species was one HUGE gap in knowledge and there's millions of creation myths to explain it. I think that this gap in knowledge is no different from the gap of what was outside earth and how old the earth is. All these gaps have later been filled with information that is not only based on scientific research, also on knowledge, reason and observation.

I no longer see that it's needed to live in delusion or self-deception. I see no reason to fill all the holes in our knowledge with God and other mythology. Why is it so hard to admit, that we don't know everything yet? Why do we constantly claim to know something that we obviously have no way of knowing. Why do we constantly think that we humans are somehow special? Why do we reflect the image of humans in our God? But most importantly, Why do we do evil over these beliefs?

I think it's time to shape up and say, "Look, we can't really know for sure at the moment, but for now let's find out more, so maybe some day we or our future generations can understand more about the universe and life." Science is great because it doesn't give one absolute answer. It gives many different theories that are then compared to evidence and other knowledge etc. etc. Science can be wrong, but unlike religion, they admit it and in fact to me it's one of the greatest things in science.

The more and more we learn, more holes will be filled. I think almost everyone will have dropped creationism in the near future.

And, if you have kids, make sure that they know both sides of the story, so that they can decide what is right: if you only tell them one, they won't be able to form their own opinions, and threads like this may take form of one-sided "debates."

Both sides? There's not just 2 sides. Creationism is on the same line with all other creation myths, and there's millions of them. If I get kids, I will make sure they'll learn both evolution and the most important creation myths. But most importantly, I will only let them know about evolution and creationism when they are old enough to have critical skills and understand these things. If everyone did this, there would be nearly no creationists.

Well, I won't go into great details right now since I have a limited time, but I will try to answer a few of your points as best as I can.

Your final point that if everyone knew about both evolution and creationism at the time that they have formed cohesive reasoning skills that there would be very few creationists I find is a bit over-simplistic, but probably not for the reasons that you think. There are many astrologers (I know one from my University) that after many years of believing in evolution actually "found God" by looking into deep space. I don't mean this in the literal sense that he found God in a physical form, but came to believing that there was a God by looking at the sheer magnificance of the universe.

Now, going away from first-hand accounts since they represent only a few opinions, one would teach their child about their faith at an early age for a few reasons: one of them is that if you teach a child to be good and show them the right path (even if another may not agree with it), they are not likely to stray from it. It isn't purely for God, but also showing them what is morally right since most of the teachings that you find in faiths related to creationism talk about doing no harm, and other favourable qualities like that. If you were to talk from a stand point of taking God completely out of it, showing your children a way of life that will actually help society should be more socially acceptable than people are making it out to be.

I know that I don't know everything, but I do strive as an Engineer to learn as much as I can about my world. Through my personal experiences, I know that there is evolution, but the scale of it I am sceptical of. I am not a fundamental Christian (please don't think of myself like that), and I know that there is more for humans in general to learn, but I also think that if creationism or faith was taken out of our culture completely, our society would be worse off. I am not a master of predicting the behaviours of people, but I do know that if humans in general think that death itself is the final punishment, and that there isn't any sort of reward or punishment at "the end of the game," people would start to do whatever they wanted to a greater degree. Like I said, I don't know fully, but I would rather "hold on" to the idea that there is something past the unknown. You could think of it this way for the two opinions being wrong:
1) Either you have faith in a God and die, but there isn't one. The consequence? Nothing for you.
2) You believe there is no God and die, but you realize too late that there is one.

I would like to end this with a comment about you, @Satellite. I originally had the impression that you were a hard-lined evolutionist that did not stand any sort of reason against your arguments, but reading through your latest post tells me a bit more about you. You do sincerely believe what you preach, in a sense, and I do respect that. You have a logical approach to a debate, and try to prove to the other person (not through calling them a flaming idiot, but it almost came close to that) that your thoughts are the more correct ones. The only dispute I have is that you may not be doing what you tell others in the sense that you should check WHY the other guy believes what they do. No, it isn't because they are stupid. No, it most likely isn't just because they were taught that as a child. There is a possibility, however slight it may seem to you, that they managed to find the truth in some form of media, one that they just want to tell others about.

I personally found my truth, and I try to refine it every day, though I may not be the best at telling others what I know.

Bellieve i god bro ... because better safe than sorry right? right.

Bellieve in god bro ... because better safe than sorry right? right.

Ok, following that theory you're universally screwed, because almost all religions are mutually exclusive, meaning you can't believe in them all, and only one of them can be right, according to them. So how exactly does one be 'safe' rather than 'sorry' making a choice of which religion is right and which ones are wrong when none of them have anything to prove they are in fact The One True Religion but their own word? If it comes down to 'believing in any of them at all' and God just accepting that as fair/counting it as an E for effort He should give an equal fair pass for not knowing what to believe and just trying to be a good person.

Sure is preachy in here. Why won't this silly thread die?

Sure is preachy in here. Why won't this silly thread die?

What is your issue with people speaking their minds? You seem to do this a LOT whenever two opposing arguments are being made. People going back and forth -- even if it's not accomplishing much -- is kind of the point of a forum.

What is your issue with people speaking their minds? You seem to do this a LOT whenever two opposing arguments are being made. People going back and forth -- even if it's not accomplishing much -- is kind of the point of a forum.

Eh, seems like it is getting kind of venomous I guess. ( And to anyone wondering yes I do believe in evolution.)

Ok, following that theory you're universally screwed, because almost all religions are mutually exclusive, meaning you can't believe in them all, and only one of them can be right, according to them. So how exactly does one be 'safe' rather than 'sorry' making a choice of which religion is right and which ones are wrong when none of them have anything to prove they are in fact The One True Religion but their own word? If it comes down to 'believing in any of them at all' and God just accepting that as fair/counting it as an E for effort He should give an equal fair pass for not knowing what to believe and just trying to be a good person.

CUS! if you believe in god bro you get to go to heaven, which is a safe place to be. and if god dont exist like science freaks believe (which I KNOW hes real) then ill just die like nothing happened and turn to dirt. or whatever instead of your soul flying out of your body and flying upwards to god who waits right beyond our atmosphere. like space shuttles dont bump in to god because they not dead so god closes the gate to heaven. its not believing its called faith bro. like god said in his bible that if we dont have faith in our lord he'll hate and pomegranate. and he knows if you even think or try to study another religion. so im gonna stay a christian forever bro. plus we get easter and thanksgiving and christmas which is the best part of my religion i think.

CUS! if you believe in god bro you get to go to heaven, which is a safe place to be. and if god dont exist like science freaks believe (which I KNOW hes real) then ill just die like nothing happened and turn to dirt. or whatever instead of your soul flying out of your body and flying upwards to god who waits right beyond our atmosphere. like space shuttles dont bump in to god because they not dead so god closes the gate to heaven. its not believing its called faith bro. like god said in his bible that if we dont have faith in our lord he'll hate and pomegranate. and he knows if you even think or try to study another religion. so im gonna stay a christian forever bro. plus we get easter and thanksgiving and christmas which is the best part of my religion i think.

If I'm sent to hell for eternity to be burned and tortured, wouldn't I simply grow bored of it, become numb, or my sanity cause it to be something enjoyed eventually? I should no longer have any fear, my soul is determined, nothing I can do will change it or cause me to disappear. Frankly I'd rather go to hell, with all the unreasonable "rules", unacceptable hypocrisy, I'm sure heaven would turn annoying quite fast.

Pretty much 3 sin's in that paragraph better go confess to your preacher

Eh, seems like it is getting kind of venomous I guess.

That's a moderator's call to make, not yours. You trying to moderate a thread would be spam. Leave it to the peeps who can actually enforce it and if you really feel it's out of hand there's a report button for that.

Eh, seems like it is getting kind of venomous I guess. ( And to anyone wondering yes I do believe in evolution.)

I've always thought of debating as seeking truth. The exact opposite of "venomous".

Wasn't there a rule against debating religion on SP? I seem to remember that being specifically mentioned.

Wasn't there a rule against debating religion on SP? I seem to remember that being specifically mentioned.

Eos removed it when fiel sold him the website

Just felt like this was needed.