I watched all of the debate; I would've seen it all live if it hadn't been for cooking dinner.

Leading up to it, I felt like it was the evolutionists were treading dangerous water and that it was a great opportunity for the creationists given the magnitude of the platform. Honestly, though, I was pretty disappointed.

While I thought that some of Ken Ham's arguments were interesting (the forty thousand year old wood found inside basalt that was millions of years old, for instance—I would like to research cases like that further), it seemed like his viewpoint always came back to believing in the Bible, or rather a specific interpretation of it, perhaps. While that's totally fine, it's not going to do much to persuade the creationism skeptics tuning in, especially since the validity of the Bible wasn't even included as part of the debate, so far as I could tell.

I was really hoping to see more evidence that supports Ken Ham's specific interpretation of Genesis, but in watching the debate, you get the impression that if it hadn't been for having access to the Biblical creation story, Ken Ham's particular model of creation wouldn't exist—at least, not by examining the earth and universe alone. Certainly not at this point of time, though I'm not at all ready to say that there won't be future discoveries that could radically shake what is commonly accepted as fact in current mainstream science.

The idea of a specific religious text being in perfect accordance with the findings of scientists all over the world regarding the nature of earth and the universe is a very exciting and intriguing idea. I don't really blame people for getting caught up in studying the possibility and trying to prove it. At the same time, though, the whole thing feels rather ironic to me.

Even if someone was able to prove that the answer to the existence of Life, the Universe and Everything was the same whether gleaned from scientific methods or found in [an interpretation of] Genesis, it doesn't necessarily mean that said person would be any closer to God than if they didn't have such proof. Knowing that God exists isn't the same thing as knowing God. Knowing God is about keeping the commandments, about knowing Jesus and conforming ourselves to his image, about being "perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

I'm sure many might argue that evolution is turning people away from Christianity and that if the creation account in the Bible was proven to be literally true by somebody like Ken Ham, then people would study the Bible more and take its message more seriously and come home to God sooner—but I just don't think that's the problem when it comes to people meeting Jesus. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul wrote:

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20 NIV.

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them. Romans 2:14-15 NIV.

It's fine to debate and discuss—it's just a very interesting topic, and naturally we as humans are fascinated by where we come from!—but I do think that Christians should primarily focus on living like Jesus and, by conforming to his image, allowing others to meet Jesus through them. I really believe that we need to avoid making it seem like a person's relationship with or understanding of Jesus or the Bible is fundamentally flawed unless they believe in a specific interpretation of the creation story in Genesis or they read the scriptures through a particular lens. At the end of the day, I just don't think that's what Jesus came to teach us, and therefore, it's not going to save us, either.

My apologies for the tangent.

I was really hoping to see more evidence that supports Ken Ham's specific interpretation of Genesis,

Here is a link to the articles on the subjects he didn't have time to get to. I think these address many of your comments.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-ans ... te-answers

Here is a link to the articles on the subjects he didn't have time to get to. I think these address many of your comments.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-ans ... te-answers

Thanks very much for the link! I'll take a look at it; it looks like they cover a lot of different topics on that page. Should have a lot of helpful information regarding their views and theories!

I watched the debate and it appeared to me that neither party were good at debating. Ken Ham had some good points about the biblical creation model, but he was unfocused, far too repetitive and rather nervous. He didn't try to break down the evolutionary model and avoided many questions. Billy Nye seemed to be charming but he used many dirty tricks and presented evolutionary theory poorly (and I'm a biblical creationist). He also misrepresented Ham and the Bible numerous times. The 'debate' was interesting at times but very long-winded and messy. I know Answers in Genesis etc. are capable of so much more but for some reason Ken Ham was like a polite deer stuck in the headlights. Maybe Creation Ministries International would've provided a better candidate (they seem to know more).

I was really hoping to see more evidence that supports Ken Ham's specific interpretation of Genesis, but in watching the debate, you get the impression that if it hadn't been for having access to the Biblical creation story, Ken Ham's particular model of creation wouldn't exist—at least, not by examining the earth and universe alone.

But isn't that the case also for Bill Nye? If he didn't have evolutionary theory to inform his worldview in how he recognises the evidence around us, neither would the model of naturalism exist by just examining the earth and the universe. There is a bias of faith at hand, for both sides (and others not represented in the debate).

But isn't that the case also for Bill Nye? If he didn't have evolutionary theory to inform his worldview in how he recognises the evidence around us, neither would the model of naturalism exist by just examining the earth and the universe. There is a bias of faith at hand, for both sides (and others not represented in the debate).

It's one thing to have the Bible inform your personal worldview, and another thing to present it as your sole evidence in a scientific debate with someone who doesn't believe in the Bible.

~Riella

W4J. I too must admit that I was dissapointed. While I don't mind the Gospel being presented, as well it should be, Hamm spent far too much time on it when he should have been presenting extra-Biblical evidence to support the creation, and the flood.
Nye showed his lack of credibility when he did not acnowledge Hamm's pointing out the ice layers evidence was disproven. Also his insistance that those who believe in a Biblical creation will somehow weaken america's scientific standing, dispite Hamm's witness's otherwise showed the bias faced by creationist's in acadamia.

But isn't that the case also for Bill Nye? If he didn't have evolutionary theory to inform his worldview in how he recognises the evidence around us, neither would the model of naturalism exist by just examining the earth and the universe. There is a bias of faith at hand, for both sides (and others not represented in the debate).

Well, I'd agree that just about everybody's biased to some degree, but as far as I could tell, Bill Nye didn't seem to be criticizing Ken Ham's theory of creation solely from the standpoint of evolutionary theory. He also referenced evidence like tree rings, ice layers and rock formations to challenge the assertion of a young earth, for instance, and I'm not an expert on this sort of thing, but I don't think any of those have to do with evolution per se. I would imagine that Nye would still be interested in those methods of dating the world and thus likely believe in a very old earth even if evolutionary theory had never been "invented", so to speak.

I'm having trouble pinpointing the exact time in the video, but I think I remember Nye saying that if there was new evidence that challenged the mainstream ideas about the age of the earth or the origin of life, such as anachronisms in the fossil record, he would evaluate it and change his opinion if necessary. Whether or not he really would, I don't know; I can only go by what he says. Ham, on the other hand, seems to be rather set against accepting evidence that contradicts his interpretation of Genesis, based on his belief that you cannot prove anything unless it can be observed in the present—if I've interpreted his views correctly, that is. I'm rather new to his arguments.

In general, Nye's views seem to be based on a variety of information coming from a variety of different sources, whereas Ham's all ultimately originate from the Biblical record and don't appear to have much support when excluding Genesis from the discussion—but of course, I've yet to read much about his work and I've only formed these impressions based on what I saw in the debate, so take it all with a grain of salt.

Riella, I can agree with you on that much. It's sort of like the conversion progression for C.S. Lewis. He had to go from atheist to agnostic to Christian. And that's not even introducing biblical creation and evolutionary theory into the mix.

Rose, tree rings, ice layers, rock formations - all of those are explained at Answers in Genesis and Creation Ministries International (the archive articles sections). As for whether Nye would change his mind on evolutionary theory if presented with contrary evidence, I doubt he would. You'll find time and time again that scientists etc. do find evidence that doesn't support evolutionary theory and because it doesn't line up with their beliefs, they don't consider the evidence and include it in their peer reviewed journals. The contrary evidence is certainly not revealed to the general public.

There is no room for critical thought in secular science. It's evolutionary theory or nothing. There's no room for critical discussion because there's no other option provided. That's disingenuous. Therefore, science journals won't accept creation-based science articles because they don't align with their humanistic worldview, and therefore they won't publish them. They want to push their evolutionary agenda as the only option and they do it well. With biblical literacy on the rise and evolution being taught as fact, the religion of naturalism finds its foothold much more easily and even many Christians begin to take to believing man's reason over God's revelation, as found in the Bible.

Rose, tree rings, ice layers, rock formations - all of those are explained at Answers in Genesis and Creation Ministries International (the archive articles sections).

Oh, I wasn't asserting that Nye was correct when he referenced those. I don't know enough about it at this time to say one way or the other. Thank you for pointing out where I can find more information on those topics from a creationist point of view, though.

I brought those up to say that Nye was basing his rejection of Ken Ham's creation model on more than just the theory of evolution. Although I should clarify that Nye used the evidence of tree rings and rock formations to challenge the idea of a worldwide flood 4,000 years ago, not so much to challenge the idea of an earth that's 6,000 to 10,000 years old, though the ice layers do fall into that latter category. It was rather late when I was writing my last post.

As for whether Nye would change his mind on evolutionary theory if presented with contrary evidence, I doubt he would. You'll find time and time again that scientists etc. do find evidence that doesn't support evolutionary theory and because it doesn't line up with their beliefs, they don't consider the evidence and include it in their peer reviewed journals. The contrary evidence is certainly not revealed to the general public.

Did Ham bring up any such instances when Nye was beseeching the audience for just one anachronism in the fossil record? I don't remember; I suppose I need to re-watch it.

There is no room for critical thought in secular science. It's evolutionary theory or nothing. There's no room for critical discussion because there's no other option provided. That's disingenuous.

Based on what I've seen, though, I think you could probably make a similar argument about Answers in Genesis. Because they seem to come from the standpoint of the Bible being what they believe it is, and that their particular interpretation of it is the right one, they appear to be far more occupied with defending their theories than they are with critically examining them, and they don't seem to be very open to the possibility of opposing theories being correct, either.

In fact, it seems to me that it's gotten to the point where accepting an opposing theory would be tantamount to rejecting the Bible in their eyes, and I think that's really sad.

Therefore, science journals won't accept creation-based science articles because they don't align with their humanistic worldview, and therefore they won't publish them. They want to push their evolutionary agenda as the only option and they do it well. With biblical literacy on the rise and evolution being taught as fact, the religion of naturalism finds its foothold much more easily and even many Christians begin to take to believing man's reason over God's revelation, as found in the Bible.

Well, I don't think that believing in evolution automatically makes you a humanist, nor would it necessarily mean you don't believe in the revelation of God found in the Bible—you just might not agree with others on the nature or purpose of the revelation.

At the same time, I recognize that agenda is rampant in human culture, for a multitude of reasons that usually involve money, either directly or indirectly.

However, if I were an editor of a secular science journal and I got an article written by someone who was working with Answers in Genesis, I might feel that I had good reason to deliberate over its publication because of concerns about their agenda and whether or not it had affected the integrity of their paper's assertions.

I think that, overall, we've just got too many different agendas locking horns all the time, and probably won't get much closer to the truth until everyone's willing to critically examine what they accept as fact or belief, evaluate whatever new evidence comes their way, and just discuss instead of always debating like we've got everything already figured out.

I don't think that's ever going to happen in this age, but it would be nice.

Apples + Oranges = Bible + Science?

At least we are having the debate this time around. Remember Galileo Galilei, born in 1564 AD and died in 1642? He argued for heliocentrism and against geocentrism and found himself being hauled before the Inquisition. In those days, the Roman Catholic church urged Galileo to recant, because his support of Nicholas Copernicus' findings that the Earth went around the Sun were against Genesis and therefore against Scripture.

By 1939 AD the Pope, Pius X11, said the Church regretted their stance with Galileo. At least they didn't actually burn Galileo at the stake as the Inquisition often did in those days.

I fear I won't be alive before this debate about evolutionary theory being against Scripture is finally settled.

In those days, the Roman Catholic church urged Galileo to recant, because his support of Nicholas Copernicus' findings that the Earth went around the Sun were against Genesis and therefore against Scripture.

I'm curious. Why did they think the idea of the earth going round the sun was against Genesis?

~Riella

Basically because this is what people saw and understood. Only a few people had the time, the education or the inclination to think about more than the Sun coming up of a morning and setting at evening, the passage of time, and the seasons of the year, apart from the needs of farming or sailing. Even in medieval times, and the Renaissance, people, including many of the priests, were illiterate, or semi-literate, even in their own languages, and even if they did learn to read well, the Bible, invariably, and often everything else, was in Latin. Furthermore, it took the invention of paper and printing before much knowledge was disseminated widely and affordably among the populace, who often clung to superstition and myths and legends. In some ways, people in pre-Renaissance Europe lived little better than in Biblical times. It took until the 19th Century before London got to be anywhere near as sanitary as Ancient Rome, for instance.

The vast bulk of people who lived in Biblical times, including the folk who built Stonehenge, had various beliefs about who made the Earth, and as Rose-Tree Dryad has pointed out, they apportioned various things about time, weather, oceans and life to various gods and goddesses. Phoebus Apollo was the Greek god of the Sun and his sister, Artemis, was the goddess of the Moon. She was called Diana by the Romans. Phaeton, after whom a Victorian horse-drawn vehicle was called, drove the Sun's chariot, and a picture of this Graeco-Roman being was on the Sydney Morning Herald masthead every week day in much of the last century.

Back in the time of Babylon, when they first calculated that a day equalled twenty four hours, that an hour equalled sixty minutes and that a minute equalled 60 seconds, the Moon and stars of a night and the Sun in the day is what most people, including mathematicians and astronomers, saw. Writing materials, including stone columns, clay tablets, papyrus paper, waxed wood tablets and, eventually, vellum and parchment, were in short supply. The writing systems were hieroglyphics in the case of Egypt, which later became demotic writing, and in the case of Babylon, Ur and Assyrian Nineveh, were cuneiform writing.

It doesn't mean that the people of those times were entirely illiterate. Priests in Egypt could read and write, but artisans and other workmen of one kind or another had to have been literate to make the many monumental inscriptions which dot Egypt and other places in the Middle East. You can see the Code of Hammurabi, the Moab stone and other inscriptions attesting to the sort of rules lived by and the deeds of the kings, at least, in the British Museum and the Louvre. However, the illiterate Assyrian kings tended to leave reading and writing to their scribes and merchants. And the Babylonian kings also left such matters to people like Daniel, whom you will meet if you read the Biblical book of that name.

The Assyrian exception to the rule of illiterate kings was Assurbanipal, the grandson of the Biblical Sennacherib, who not only learned to read and write, himself, but also compiled a library, though I wouldn't like to know what the overdue penalties were like. This library of clay tablets, written in cuneiform, is still being deciphered, having been found in the ruins of Nineveh some decades ago.

Alphabetic writing, according to my archaeological magazines, was invented by closely linked Phoenician traders, and, earlier, by Canaanite or Hebrew artisans, well before the building of Solomon's temple. Even earlier, a Sino-Canaanite script was used among turquoise miners in the Sinai desert. That was a fairly revolutionary development, and this script gave rise to the later Hebrew, Greek and Arabic scripts of today. The Latin script we use was derived from the Romans who used an earlier Etruscan alphabet.

I'm mentioning all this to show you how slowly human thought has progressed over the years. Back in Babylon, although they had an idea of what a day was, calculating it into seconds, I believe they still hadn't quite made up their minds about what a week was. A week, for centuries afterwards, could have been anything from a few days to something like nine or ten days. Rosters in the nursing profession or in the armed services can still be like that, even today, depending on what the whims are of rulers, employers, social betters, slave drivers or the government.

But in the Bible, in Genesis, we have a very distinct idea of what a week is, and a thoroughly good reason why we should adhere to the idea of a seven day week. In Genesis, I may say very pointedly. The days of such a week are called by a myriad of names world-wide, and it is rather fun to pick out their names in various languages, and how these names might reflect beliefs and names of gods of days gone by. Perhaps the Babylonians adopted a seven day week, and so did the Greeks and Romans. Especially after the rise of Christianity.

We also have the even more revolutionary idea of only one God doing the lot. Among the Hebrew captives, at any rate, and possibly also among the Zoroastrian Medes and Persians. However, because this is what the people of the time, and for many centuries afterwards, saw and understood, Genesis is written the way it is. It still is perfectly valid to believe the Genesis account since it does not delve into processes and means and insists only that God said and God ordained. And that these things therefore came to being. Eventually. There has to be a start for everything, you know. And how were the ancient people to know that the Sun is as important as it is in the Solar System? Though Akhentaten, the heretic Pharaoh, and predecessor to Tutankhamen might have said "I told you so". Before the priests, who liked their bit of power, returned things to the way they were before his reign.

Greek philosophers, like Aristotle, did think about whether or not we had a flat Earth and the Sun, Moon & Earth. I've heard of ancient peoples even finding ways to calculate the size of a round Earth, though I think this information should be checked out. Even the Bible, itself, does say something about the circles of the World. But the release of Greek/Roman knowledge, from the Muslim world, after the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, stimulated ideas about science. And so, first Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), in the relative safety of Poland, then Galileo, in Florence, Italy, found out about the Sun being the centre of the Solar System.

This possibly was too much for the church of the 1600's to take, especially coming on the heels of the Reformation, and especially as the Catholic Church of the time did not like dissenters of any sort. Only two centuries beforehand, they had had to get used to the idea that the world was round. Proved by Christopher Columbus, the circumnavigation of the world by the likes of Ferdinand Magellan and Sir Francis Drake, and, initially, by the likes of the Portuguese sailors who rounded the Cape of Good Hope under the auspices of the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator.

Incidentally, did C.S.Lewis believe in a flat Earth or the Sun not being the centre of the Solar system, I ask very playfully?

Oh, I wasn't asserting that Nye was correct when he referenced those. I don't know enough about it at this time to say one way or the other. Thank you for pointing out where I can find more information on those topics from a creationist point of view, though.

My pleasure, Rose.

Did Ham bring up any such instances when Nye was beseeching the audience for just one anachronism in the fossil record? I don't remember; I suppose I need to re-watch it.

Yes, Nye did.

Based on what I've seen, though, I think you could probably make a similar argument about Answers in Genesis. Because they seem to come from the standpoint of the Bible being what they believe it is, and that their particular interpretation of it is the right one, they appear to be far more occupied with defending their theories than they are with critically examining them, and they don't seem to be very open to the possibility of opposing theories being correct, either.

In fact, it seems to me that it's gotten to the point where accepting an opposing theory would be tantamount to rejecting the Bible in their eyes, and I think that's really sad.

Ah, but they do consider what evolutionary theory says and that's how they counteract it (certainly in their articles and books). Ham just didn't do a very good job. I've read extensively from the two main biblical creation websites - Answers in Genesis and Creation Ministries International, and while they hold to the Bible, they most certainly do think through and examine the evidence critically.

These biblical creation ministries don't believe those who believe in theistic evolution are non-Christians, but I can see how the debate may have communicated that idea.

Well, I don't think that believing in evolution automatically makes you a humanist, nor would it necessarily mean you don't believe in the revelation of God found in the Bible—you just might not agree with others on the nature or purpose of the revelation.

No, I realise that, as do they, but I believe it weakens the foundation of ones faith if the foundation (Genesis) is called into question and/or treated as just truthful mythology.

At the same time, I recognize that agenda is rampant in human culture, for a multitude of reasons that usually involve money, either directly or indirectly.

Yes, there's definitely an agenda. I don't know that it's greed based, although that has something to do with it. More that society doesn't want anything to do with God, because that would make them accountable to a higher power and that would mean they were lost and needed salvation.

However, if I were an editor of a secular science journal and I got an article written by someone who was working with Answers in Genesis, I might feel that I had good reason to deliberate over its publication because of concerns about their agenda and whether or not it had affected the integrity of their paper's assertions.

Sorry, I should've clarified. I'm not talking about the ministries submitting papers but biblical creationists who work in their scientific fields and aren't associated with any ministry. They just do their job and happen to be biblical creationists.

I think that, overall, we've just got too many different agendas locking horns all the time, and probably won't get much closer to the truth until everyone's willing to critically examine what they accept as fact or belief, evaluate whatever new evidence comes their way, and just discuss instead of always debating like we've got everything already figured out.

There's some truth to this but still, the Bible should be our ruler for everything.

This has been a very interesting discussion and it's a tribute to our members that it's been done in such an articulate and gracious manner.

The astronomer in me can't help peeking in to make a few comments.

Greek philosophers, like Aristotle, did think about whether or not we had a flat Earth and the Sun, Moon & Earth. I've heard of ancient peoples even finding ways to calculate the size of a round Earth, though I think this information should be checked out.

The Greek Eratosthenes used mathematics to calculate the earth's circumference around 240 BC. The result is reasonably accurate, especially considering he did it without ever leaving Egypt.

Incidentally, the ancient seafaring cultures, such as the Greeks, understood the world was round. They would have seen evidence of it every time a ship sailed away over the horizon (it disappeared from hull to sail rather than all at once as it would were the world flat).

This possibly was too much for the church of the 1600's to take, especially coming on the heels of the Reformation, and especially as the Catholic Church of the time did not like dissenters of any sort. Only two centuries beforehand, they had had to get used to the idea that the world was round. Proved by Christopher Columbus, the circumnavigation of the world by the likes of Ferdinand Magellan and Sir Francis Drake, and, initially, by the likes of the Portuguese sailors who rounded the Cape of Good Hope under the auspices of the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator.

The issue with Columbus was not a prevailing view of a flat earth, but (ironically, given Eratosthenes' measurement) a significant underestimation of the size of a spherical earth (he thought he'd sailed all the way to India, hence the old term Indian for Native Americans).

Copernicus, Galileo, and the others weren't so much opposed by a flat-earth church, but one that held Ptolemy's model of a round earth at the center of all. Imagine Galileo's surprise when, in 1610, he turned his crude telescope to the heavens and found four small objects (now called the Galilean satellites) orbiting Jupiter rather than the earth! Here was observational evidence that the earth wasn't the center of the universe, and that was the problem.