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Ken Ham just dodged the question if the bible should be taken literally.

made it his own question.

 Wyrmalla wrote:

 Piston Honda wrote:
Is Ken Ham trolling on some of these answers?

Well yeah. He knows he can talk complete gak and still have the extremists following him because he's defending the word of the bible against a detractor. It doesn't matter if he's misquoting it or bending the facts, he's already vindicated in the eyes of his followers.

He seems like he has the mentality I had when I was a kid.

Why is the earth round? God made it that way.

I could not stand to watch it for very long. I like Science but you will NEVER convince some people. I got into arguments with people that were hardcore (Like the Earth was not a thing until 6,000 years ago) and it was sad. I started hitting them with facts from the Bible like this: It is said that Man's life is but a blink of God's eye ... average lifespan of a man is 74 years, so ... a full day to the 'MAN' is friggin millennia to us. No effect whatsoever.

Animals don't evolve, they just add and remove pre-existing functions? What? "I wanted to fly today, so I just did. The information was only hidden to me until this point".


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"What is the one thing, more than any other thing on which you base your belief"

"There's a book..."

Other peoples have similar myths to those in the bible, and so the bible is vindicated. Shucks, that or the writers of the bible just cherry picked bits and bobs of other religions and cultures for their own benefit.

DjPyro3 wrote:
I'm unsure on how you would argue against that in a theological sense I guess.

Before getting into theology, let's go back to logic. If the way nature operates is subject to change, then every observation we make of nature is a matter of chance. That is, observations might be repeated but they would not be repeatable. In other words, what we call science would not be possible at all.

Why is that problematic theologically? Let's start with Ham's premise and see what logically follows. If the world is constantly subject to arbitrary revision by God, then there is no causality proper to the world itself; i.e., everything is directly caused by God. (This necessarily preclude agency but let's skip over that for now.) It is clear that God being the direct cause of everything must entail the moral quality of human actions. If we define, as Christians do, God as good then logically whatever God directly causes is also good. In Ham's framework, God must be the direct cause of me murdering someone. And he must also be the direct cause of me not murdering someone. Given that both of these results are directly caused by God, they must both be good. Moral distinction becomes impossible and therefore the Christian concept of sin collapses.

Now, this is only one of the problematic theological implications of Ham's repudiation of natural law but it is probably the easiest one (and it is still very difficult) to talk about with an audience that is generally familiar with Christianity. We can see that natural law is not only the necessary foundation that makes science possible; it is also the necessary ground that makes Christianity possible.

And there goes Ham off the stage while bill sticks around.

Did everyone else hear people cheering "Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!" at the end?

 Ravenous D wrote:
And there goes Ham off the stage while bill sticks around.

Ham went to go high five Pat Robertson.

 Manchu wrote:

DjPyro3 wrote:
I'm unsure on how you would argue against that in a theological sense I guess.

Before getting into theology, let's go back to logic. If the way nature operates is subject to change, then every observation we make of nature is a matter of chance. That is, observations might be repeated but they would not be repeatable. In other words, what we call science would not be possible at all.

Why is that problematic theologically? Let's start with Ham's premise and see what logically follows. If the world is constantly subject to arbitrary revision by God, then there is no causality proper to the world itself; i.e., everything is directly caused by God. This necessarily entails the moral quality of human actions. If we define, as Christians do, God as good then logically whatever God directly causes is also good. In Ham's framework, God must be the direct cause of me murdering someone. And he must also be the direct cause of me not murdering someone. Given that both of these results are directly caused by God, they must both be good. Moral distinction becomes impossible and therefore the Christian concept of sin collapses.

Now, this is only one of the problematic theological implications of Ham's repudiation of natural law but it is probably the easiest one (and it is still very difficult) to talk about with an audience that is generally familiar with Christianity. We can see that natural law is not only the necessary foundation that makes science possible; it is also the necessary ground that makes Christianity possible.

Thank you very much for educating me on this. Very interesting.

@DjPyro3: I made a few revisions to kind of bookmark where debate might arise. The thrust and conclusion of the argument, however, does not change.

As Mr. Ham said during his question, Literally and naturally are hand in hand when asking if the bible is to be taken literally. He stated that there are parts that are history, and there are parts that are poems. Nye's rebuttal was that it seemed like he can pick and choose what parts he feels are history and should be followed.
Different part of the debate:
My favorite part was the Kangaroos reference regarding the great flood

 conker249 wrote:
My favorite part was the Kangaroos reference regarding the great flood

Quote for the work-impaired?

Sorry, But basically(I don't have a link for it yet.) it was regarding the great flood(bible event) and it being illogical. One of Bill Nye's examples was kangaroos being indigenous to Australia and since the arc landed in where we call the middle east today, and they would have had to walk to Australia via a land bridge. Since no skeletons or fossils remain to show kangaroos outside of Australia it was illogical to think that they just walked there after the flood and getting off the Arc. This is what I remember from the debate.

 Peregrine wrote:
I don't see why a final answer is required. It's perfectly acceptable to say "we don't know yet", and the religious scientist who concludes "god did it" is still making an unjustified claim that should be criticized.

If a person says "I believe God did it" isn't making an unjustified claim and needing to be criticised. They are making a personal statement about their own beliefs, and nothing more.

And if they are a scientist, and that belief doesn't impact how they study the world, then it is completely irrelevant to their work.

It's still an impact, because concluding "god did it" when the only rational answer is "we don't know yet" requires a fundamental worldview in which it's ok to arbitrarily declare things to be true and wall them off in their own special section of belief where the usual rules of evidence and argument do not apply, and where "I really want to believe in this" is considered an acceptable reason. It might not be as bad as the young-earth creationists, but it's still not an ideal situation.

What's problematic is your insistance that people holding personal religious beliefs that differ from your own is an issue.

So far in this discussion, folks have included some scientific claims in the category of religious belief. I agree with Peregrine that doing so is problematic. It's not that being religious precludes one from understanding science; but if one gets the claims of faith mixed up with scientific claims (for example, about the nature of the big bang), then one has demonstrated a lack of understanding about science (and religion). This isn't a sentence or a punishment handed down by me or Peregrine or anyone else. It's just a consequence of thoughtlessness/confusion.

No one asked where all the water went after the flood, even if the ice caps melted there would only be a 200 ft sea level rise. Devastating but livable.


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Ham also debunked himself when he mentioned his own lab results on the basalt and the wood.

 Manchu wrote:
So far in this discussion, folks have included some scientific claims in the category of religious belief. I agree with Peregrine that doing so is problematic. It's not that being religious precludes one from understanding science; but if one gets the claims of faith mixed up with scientific claims (for example, about the nature of the big bang), then one has demonstrated a lack of understanding about science (and religion). This isn't a sentence or a punishment handed down by me or Peregrine or anyone else. It's just a consequence of thoughtlessness/confusion.

So saying that God caused the big bang is somehow wrong? It is completely possible to say God caused the big bang and still believe the science behind it. If God created everything, then he also created science. He also created man, and how man perceives his creations.

Obviously if someone believes in literal interpretations of the bible, then yes that would be problematic. But just believing that God had a hand in creating the universe, is not really an issue, unless said scientist allows it to be, which most don't.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
So saying that God caused the big bang is somehow wrong?

Let's ditch the word wrong; a better term is non-scientific. The statement "God did ___" is always non-scientific. If you claim "God cause the big bang" is a scientific insight, then you are incorrect.

 Manchu wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
So saying that God caused the big bang is somehow wrong?

Let's ditch the word wrong; a better term is non-scientific. The statement "God did ___" is always non-scientific. If you claim "God cause the big bang" is a scientific insight, then you are incorrect.

I don't think anyone ever argued it was. That's a pretty obvious point. But what I have been reading here (I believe by Peregrine) is that people that do have religious beliefs make inferior scientists, that's just not true, unless they allow their belief to interfere with their science, in which case the statement is true.

There is plenty of religious, social and even scientific dogma that can get in the way of good science. Good scientists can ignore these. Remember a good scientist does not set out to prove a result, but observe one.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
If God created everything, then he also created science. He also created man, and how man perceives his creations.

Christians do not believe that God created everything; they believe that God created Creation. The idea that God is somehow responsible for the existence of reality is very, very different from saying God created cars and ballpoint pens and English and Shinto rituals.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
So saying that God caused the big bang is somehow wrong?

Let's ditch the word wrong; a better term is non-scientific. The statement "God did ___" is always non-scientific. If you claim "God cause the big bang" is a scientific insight, then you are incorrect.

I don't think anyone ever argued it was.

That is explicitly what the God of the Gaps fallacy is. "Until we find otherwise, God caused the big bang." This is non-scientific.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
That's a pretty obvious point.

There's a great deal of evidence in this thread to undermine that statement.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
But what I have been reading here (I believe by Peregrine) is that people that do have religious beliefs make inferior scientists

Peregrine is free to step in to correct me, but I don't believe you understood what he meant. It seems to me that he meant, anyone who does not understand the fundamental differences between how science works and how faith works will be a poorer scientist for it. He may also have implied that understanding that difference is pretty difficult, with which I also agree. The prevalence of the God of the Gaps mentality is good evidence for both points.

That is explicitly what the God of the Gaps fallacy is. "Until we find otherwise, God caused the big bang." This is non-scientific.

Whats wrong with that? Obviously it's non scientific, its just a belief. Its only a problem if science just sits on its butt and accepts that as the official explanation, which just does not happen anymore with good scientists religious or not.

There's a great deal of evidence in this thread to undermine that statement.

Not from most of the posters. Yeah, there are a couple of radicals on both sides here saying that it has to be either science or religion, but for the most part people are arguing you can have both as long as you accept science as the real physical explanation. What part your god or religious system plays in that should always be secondary.

As a personal belief, I see no issues in it, so long as you're not willing to call it good enough.

I think most of the fear is that people will call it good enough. What Nye was hitting on was the drive to fill in the blank being the reason why we do. If "god did it" is good enough, you might never find the real answer, even if you were capable of it.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

That is explicitly what the God of the Gaps fallacy is. "Until we find otherwise, God caused the big bang." This is non-scientific.

Whats wrong with that? Obviously it's non scientific, its just a belief.

It's not just a belief, as in the sense of faith, it's a claim about the natural world. It is an attempt to paper over the difference between non-scientific and scientific ideas. To the extent that it is an opinion, it's a rather meaningless opinion. It doesn't tell us anything about God, except that he only matters in areas where we don't have adequate scientific explanations, and it doesn't tell us anything significant about the natural world, either. In effect, it is being used as substitute for the scientifically meaningful insight "we don't know." But as I have explained above, "God did it" and "we don't know" aren't actually equivalent, either for the purposes of science or faith.

 daedalus wrote:
As a personal belief, I see no issues in it, so long as you're not willing to call it good enough.

The trouble isn't about it being considered good enough. As Ken Ham demonstates, creationism is "good enough" if all you want to do is invent MRI machines or whatever. The actual trouble is (1) that is neither a claim of faith or a claim of science (see above) and (2) people invoke it to further claim that this how science and religion are reconciled in a unified approach to investigate the natural world, which is false.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
you can have both as long as you accept science as the real physical explanation

If you can have both, then why are you only describing the physical explanation as "real"?

 daedalus wrote:
As a personal belief, I see no issues in it, so long as you're not willing to call it good enough.

I think most of the fear is that people will call it good enough. What Nye was hitting on was the drive to fill in the blank being the reason why we do. If "god did it" is good enough, you might never find the real answer, even if you were capable of it.

Right. But who does that, besides a few people that are complete whack jobs? The fear is that the whack jobs might get politically powerful enough to effect future science, unfortunately a possible growing concern in parts of this country.

The way to deflate these people however is not to fight them by saying any belief in God is silly, or that religious people make poor scientists. That's just throwing fuel onto the fire and creates more resistance. Let people believe whatever they want, as long as they accept the science behind what is really happening in the physical universe.

I have no resistance to real science. But if you make people choose between science and religion, you are going to ruffle feathers and drive people right into the arms of the wackos. The two can coexist just fine.

It's not just a belief, as in the sense of faith, it's a claim about the natural world. It is an attempt to paper over the difference between non-scientific and scientific ideas. To the extent that it is an opinion, it's a rather meaningless opinion. It doesn't tell us anything about God, except that he only matters in areas where we don't have adequate scientific explanations, and it doesn't tell us anything significant about the natural world, either. In effect, it is being used as substitute for the scientifically meaningful insight "we don't know." But as I have explained above, "God did it" and "we don't know" aren't actually equivalent, either for the purposes of science or faith.

You know its not just yet unexplained phenomenon that people attribute to God right? I understand the movement of celestial bodies, I can still believe that God does that though, or created the universe so that happens. That belief has no effect on how the planets move.

If you can have both, then why are you only describing the physical explanation as "real"?

Because science explains how things happen, not why. I know how quantum physics works, I don't know why...as in why are we here? Also Religion is a personal belief, my religious beliefs are completely different from most anyone else's. I can accept that. I may be completely wrong. I can prove science.

I don't think people have to choose between religion and science absolutely. I think people who choose to investigate the natural world as a matter of religion accomplish nothing. I think people who choose to evaluate the claims of faith scientifically accomplish nothing.

What I am saying is that we have more than one tool in the toolbox, more than one project to work on, and that mixing up our tools means the projects don't progress.

I don't think people have to choose between religion and science absolutely. I think people who choose to investigate the natural world as a matter of religion accomplish nothing. I think people who choose to evaluate the claims of faith scientifically accomplish nothing.

I'd agree with that 100%. But I've seen some remarks here basically saying that religious scientist are inferior. Its a pretty ridiculous assertion. Religion can not explain science, science can not explain religion. Its a fools argument to try to do either.

Out of curiosity Manchu, what's your take on a universe-creation stance of "it is unknown now, it could be God/divine thing, but it needs evidence either way."

Which side of the fence does that fall on?

 sebster wrote:
If a person says "I believe God did it" isn't making an unjustified claim and needing to be criticised. They are making a personal statement about their own beliefs, and nothing more.

But that's not true at all. The literal words they are saying might only be a statement about their own beliefs, but that statement implies a claim that belief in "god did it" is a reasonable thing to have. You know, since most people tend to feel that their beliefs are correct ones and not just randomly believe stuff just to believe it. And "'god did it' is a reasonable thing to believe" is an unjustified claim because there is no good argument to support it.

And if they are a scientist, and that belief doesn't impact how they study the world, then it is completely irrelevant to their work.

Of course it's relevant to their work. It implies a belief that it's ok to jump to an unjustified conclusion ("god did it") just because it's something you want to be true, instead of just saying "we don't know yet". Once you establish the precedent that it's ok to do that it makes it a lot more likely that you'll jump to other unjustified conclusions, some of which might be more directly part of your work.

What's problematic is your insistance that people holding personal religious beliefs that differ from your own is an issue.

Why shouldn't it be an issue if someone is wrong? If someone says "I believe that 1+1=3" should we just leave them alone and let them pass that incorrect belief on to other people? Of course not. Same with religion. It might not be as much of a problem as the young-earth creationists like Ken Ham, but I don't see any reason to dismiss the problem entirely.

 Manchu wrote:
I think people who choose to evaluate the claims of faith scientifically accomplish nothing.

I strongly disagree with that. Unless you have the kind of minimalist "divine watchmaker" religion where god stands entirely apart from our world (and the vast majority of religious people do not believe that) then your religion makes claims that science can deal with. For example, if you believe that prayer works (as in actually works and produces results, and isn't just a tool to help you meditate on an issue entirely in your own mind) then you're making a claim about how the world works that can at least in theory be tested. You might do a study of whether patients respond to prayer for them to get better*, or average rainfall after major "pray for rain" events compared to historical averages, etc. If your religion claims that a miracle happened then science can look for an alternative explanation, or simply disprove the claim that anything happened at all. The only reason to exclude those things from science is that science tends to give an answer that the religious people don't want to hear.

*In fact such a study happened, and the conclusion was that prayer had no effect.

What I am saying is that we have more than one tool in the toolbox, more than one project to work on, and that mixing up our tools means the projects don't progress.

But just what project does religion work on, and how does it contribute more to that project than purely secular things?

 Manchu wrote:
That is explicitly what the God of the Gaps fallacy is. "Until we find otherwise, God caused the big bang." This is non-scientific.

God of the gaps is only wrong when it develops specific, psuedo-scientific ideas like that one about God being the reason atoms don't fly apart. When kept at the general level, 'God created the big bang' there's nothing problematic or unscientific about it at all.


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 daedalus wrote:
As a personal belief, I see no issues in it, so long as you're not willing to call it good enough.

I think most of the fear is that people will call it good enough. What Nye was hitting on was the drive to fill in the blank being the reason why we do. If "god did it" is good enough, you might never find the real answer, even if you were capable of it.

Yeah, that's been a criticism levelled at a lot of Muslim groups, as a reason for a lack of scientific development in that region. I have no idea how true that is, and the only two sources that come to mind for the claim are Israeli, so maybe a bit dodgy, but the idea in general is sound.

The other problem, of course, is when you use science to go looking for God. This causes all sorts of problems, as seen in the nonsense Mr Ham and others have invented with creationism. The problem isn't so much because science and religion bad, but because in going to look for God, you're attempting to use science to 'prove' something that you've already decided is there, in a form you already fully understand. The only result possible from that is bad science.


Note that the above doesn't include stuff like the divine watchmaker, which is one example of many where science and religion can sit beside each other without causing any problem.

 sebster wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
That is explicitly what the God of the Gaps fallacy is. "Until we find otherwise, God caused the big bang." This is non-scientific.

God of the gaps is only wrong when it develops specific, psuedo-scientific ideas like that one about God being the reason atoms don't fly apart. When kept at the general level, 'God created the big bang' there's nothing problematic or unscientific about it at all.

Well its unscientific, but its not problematic.

Of course it's relevant to their work. It implies a belief that it's ok to jump to an unjustified conclusion ("god did it") just because it's something you want to be true, instead of just saying "we don't know yet". Once you establish the precedent that it's ok to do that it makes it a lot more likely that you'll jump to other unjustified conclusions, some of which might be more directly part of your work.

Or you can say God did it, we just don't know how yet. Lets find out

I believe that 1+1=3

But almost no scientist are saying that. They are saying 1+1=2 because thats how god laid it out.

 Manchu wrote:
What I am saying is that we have more than one tool in the toolbox, more than one project to work on, and that mixing up our tools means the projects don't progress.

Absolutely agree. Attempting pseudo-science to try and prove one's faith is not just bad science, it's also really bad religion.

My issue with the position taken by Peregrine is that he seemed to be saying that a person couldn't attempt to use two different tools at all, if you get my meaning.


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 Peregrine wrote:
But that's not true at all. The literal words they are saying might only be a statement about their own beliefs, but that statement implies a claim that belief in "god did it" is a reasonable thing to have. You know, since most people tend to feel that their beliefs are correct ones and not just randomly believe stuff just to believe it. And "'god did it' is a reasonable thing to believe" is an unjustified claim because there is no good argument to support it.

And here we are... your issue is that you don't think it's reasonable for people to believe in God. You can talk about evidence and all that, but really what it comes down to is you really, really don't like the idea that some other people believe something you don't.

Get over it.

I strongly disagree with that. Unless you have the kind of minimalist "divine watchmaker" religion where god stands entirely apart from our world (and the vast majority of religious people do not believe that) then your religion makes claims that science can deal with.

That is exactly what the divine watchmaker refers to.


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 Andrew1975 wrote:
Well its unscientific, but its not problematic.

It's problematic when it is framed in ideas that are bad science, and spread as rival theories. That 'God makes atoms stick together' isn't something I made up, you'll find creationists saying 'gluons are poorly understood and not explicitly proven therefore it must really be God holding all the atoms together'.

That, like all the other bad science Ham and other creationists spread, is most definitely problematic.

That differs from stuff like the divine watchmaker, which is not problematic at all.


And can you fix your quote tags, the rest of the stuff you quoted wasn't from me.