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.

Ah, that's very good to hear! I can't be too critical because I'm pretty sure I'd do a terrible job if I were in a public debate, but it's such a shame that Ham didn't give the best impression of his organization during the discussion, mainly because so many people were tuning into that and a lot of them have probably formed opinions and may not ever care to scratch the surface any further in regards to AiG. Hardly anything drives me more bonkers than misinformation and wrong impressions.

Perhaps someday Creation Ministries International can set up a debate with a leading evolutionary scientist and do a better job presenting their case than Ham did. I'd really like to see that.

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.

I understand that and respect it, too. I'm coming from a little bit of a different angle at this point in my journey with Christianity, because I've attempted to just clear away pretty much everything I've ever been told about the faith and just read. Trying to look at all of the texts, the translations and original languages, the times that they were written in and what they meant to the people who were first writing them and reading them, all the different interpretations of all the different issues that have sprung up across the centuries—basically anything I can get my hands on about the religion.

I find that it's helping me a lot in cultivating a much more rounded view of the faith in general.

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.

Oh yes, I'd definitely agree with that as well. I'm not even sure you can separate the malady of greed from lack of God in one's life to begin with; they really go hand-in-hand.

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.

Ah, I see now. Well, I agree that ignoring someone's scientific work solely because of their religious beliefs is pretty despicable. The same standards and methods of assessment should be applied to them as everyone else.

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

Well, I think I would definitely agree with you on the general principle of that, especially since not that long ago I realized that trying to have a relationship with Jesus while being at complete odds with the majority of historical writings that talk about him doesn't exactly work that well. Hence the obsessive reading these days.

wagga and stargazer, I really enjoyed your posts!! One of my very favorite aspects of this thread is that oftentimes the discussion of religion and philosophy will shift into history and and archaeology and science as well. It's just a wealth of fascinating information and conversation!

I've been pondering what you've written about the significance of monotheism in Genesis considering the period of history in which the creation story was first told, wagga, and something that I've found especially intriguing is the concept of Genesis being told as oral history.

Now, whether the creation story was first passed down as an oral history or was written down the moment God moved the writer (Moses?) is highly debatable, but I think that most people can agree that Genesis 1 would become an oral history at least in some circumstances, primarily because of illiteracy, lack of always having the text at hand, and times of persecution. Those difficulties wouldn't keep people from wanting to share their faith with others and pass it down to their children—hence the likelihood of it being recollected from memory.

The reason why I find pondering this interesting is because if you polled modern Christians and asked them recount the exact process and order by which God brings creation into being in Genesis 1, I'm pretty sure that at least a significant percentage of them wouldn't be able to get the order exactly right, or even accidentally leave out aspects of it altogether. This doesn't speak against the soundness of their faith; it's just human fallibility and the imperfection of our (often muddled!) brains.

What I do imagine that most could tell you is that God created everything—and by and large, that's a pretty good summary of Genesis 1. I have a feeling that this basic understanding of the Judeo-Christian creation story was probably just as common in ancient times among the faithful as it is today, if not more so because of much lower literacy rates and the difficulty of reproducing texts on a massive scale. I think it lends well to the idea of monotheism being the primary lesson in the first chapter of Genesis.

That is not to say that the order and details are not important, not at all—but it does make me inclined to think that monotheism is ultimately the primal theme.

And again with the long post. It's hard to stop once my brain gets going.

Thanks for sharing, Rose! I agree that trying a blank-slate approach to reading the Bible is a great idea, taking into account the context (after all context is key, isn't it?)

I've read, and I'm not sure if there's any truth to it, that God may have humbled Ham in the 'debate'. But if the science side wasn't well communicated during the 'debate', God sure provided many opportunities for Ham to share the gospel during the presentation (which he took). If nothing else, maybe some of the huge numbers that tuned in heard the gospel for the first time. The Holy Spirit does the work, we're just God's instruments.
Thanks again, mate.

Has anyone seen David mitchells third possibility in relation to pascals wager?

Lets just think if there was only an afterlife for certain people or different after lives for different people. Imagine having an afterlife that only accounts could go to and you were accidental mixed up with some accountant and ended up having to listen to people discuss math and tax for ever.

All this is just what if by the way.

IlF, I think you would enjoy a novel written by Robert A Heinlein, called Job: a comedy of justice. This particular book has a rather funny description of Heaven in which Alex, the book's "Job", finds himself at a Revivalist meeting where he is accidently caught up in the Rapture and marshalled into Heaven by a bunch of bossy angels. Unfortunately, his beloved Margrethe, a pagan Norse cruise liner tour guide, is sent to hell. Alex finds that Heaven isn't so heavenly, not only because of the absence of Margrethe, but also because of the absence of books and libraries. Not to mention librarians, despite their patience in answering questions, even silly ones.

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).

Thank you, especially as I'm not all that good at maths, and couldn't remember Eratosthenes, though I remember Pythagoras' theorem, and what Archimedes was famous for. Considering that Eratosthenes did all his working out about the size of the Earth, whilst based in Ptolemaic Egypt, then you wonder why Ptolemy (which number was he, by the way?) thought up that idea of the Earth being surrounded by the planets and Sun, and why, despite the classical ideas being dug up after 1453, the Catholic church would believe Ptolemy and say that Galileo was being unbiblical.

I also take your point about the Greek sailors, though sailing in the Mediterranean is not quite the same as sailing in the Atlantic Ocean. Judging by the Bible's book of Jonah, and Homer's Odyssey, ordinary sailors would have been as superstitious and fearful as anyone else in those times who had to work hard for a living, whether they were Greek, Phoenician or Carthaginian. And yet, some of them reached the Atlantic and Cornwall with its tin and iron mines, so they couldn't all have been hugging coastlines and island hopping because of trade.

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.

Egotism and wounded pride again. By the way, just where, officially, did this idea of the Earth being flat originate? I mainly learned about it at school when learning about Henry the Navigator, one of the more useful descendants of England's Edward III, whose patronage set the ball rolling for Diaz, Vasco da Gama, Columbus and Magellan.

What I do imagine that most could tell you is that God created everything—and by and large, that's a pretty good summary of Genesis 1. I have a feeling that this basic understanding of the Judeo-Christian creation story was probably just as common in ancient times among the faithful as it is today, if not more so because of much lower literacy rates and the difficulty of reproducing texts on a massive scale. I think it lends well to the idea of monotheism being the primary lesson in the first chapter of Genesis.

That is not to say that the order and details are not important, not at all—but it does make me inclined to think that monotheism is ultimately the primal theme.

Yes, you are right. And I like what you said about an oral history, especially as in an earlier post somewhere as well as in an old edition of one of my archaeological magazines, I found out that in Jesus' time the Jews, themselves, or at least the Pharisees and scribes, tended to prefer oral teaching rather than getting people to study books. Even in Judea of the 1st century AD, when Jesus lived, and obviously did read and write, educational standards might have depended very much on class, occupation and income.

Besides, I'd be very surprised if Moses did manage to write up Genesis whatever else he did. It is said in Exodus or Deuteronomy that the 10 Commandments were carved in stone, and stored in the Ark of the Covenant. But that would be quite enough heavy luggage to troop around the desert with, even if Moses never wrote another thing. And it is fairly obvious from the tale of his leadership of the Israelites, in Exodus, that Moses was pretty well bogged down with all those laws in Leviticus and the rest, which, by the way, do show signs of later amendments to include things not necessarily thought about by people on the move.

Reading and writing are much harder when moving around, even for more modern people. The Aborigines left galleries of rock paintings, to inform each other of things they needed to know, but mainly exchanged Dreamtime stories which were so accurately told that there was little difference between tales told in Darwin and in Sydney. If Genesis was an oral tradition at one time, it is far more likely that it was written down by Levites and colleges of priests and prophets when Israel became a more sedentary nation under the judges and the later monarchies. Unless there is something else we don't know yet.

The archaeological magazines I have been looking at include that Australian magazine, Archaeological Diggings, I told you about. As well as biblical stuff this magazine also does Egypt, Iran as well as other places, like Russia, UK and the Americas, plus telling us about exhibitions in Australia, where the price is $7.95 AUD per issue. The February/March edition is already out, and I'm looking forward to picking it up tomorrow. There are also two others:

1. Archaeology. Boston, MA, Archaeological Institute of America, ISSN: (nil). http://www.archeological.org This magazine, like Archaeological Diggings, includes biblical items but reports from around the entire world.

2. Biblical Archaeological Review. Washington, DC, Biblical Archaeological Society. ISSN: 0098-9444. The latest edition (Jan/Feb) has an interesting article on David's palace in it. Previous editions already draw attention to the difference between minimalist interpretations of archaeological findings which refuse to draw links with biblical events until it is proven beyond any doubt, frequently ignoring what the Bible says. The maximalist interpretation is to use the Bible to locate the item in the first place. But as the author of this article points out: "Evidence from the Bible and from Archaeology must be interpreted independently of each other, but in the end they must be compared and interpreted". (Nadav Na'aman, Jan/Feb 2014, p. 57).

Whilst looking for the url for the last magazine, I came across a website where your Mr Hamm was questioning the discovery of an alternate flood story with a round ark. This is either from the Gilgamesh creation story of Babylon, from Akkad, or a much earlier version from Sumer, each of them being deposited in Assurbanipal's library. This collection contained much about laws, mercantile transactions, etc as well as the literature of the region up to his time. However, since the Assyrians had demolished Israel and its capital, Samaria, in 722 BC, it is possible they might not have wanted the literature of people whom they wanted to disappear.

Sorry for the long post.

I've been out of the loop for a few weeks with a broken laptop and too much schoolwork. However, I did get time to finally watch the Nye vs. Ham debate, my version of the superbowl.

My impression was that neither Nye or Ham really wanted to talk about the debate topic.

Nye wanted to encourage kids to pursue careers in science, particularly engineering, his former profession. Engineering has nothing to do with creationism or evolution, and Ham pointed this out.

Ham seemed more interested in preaching the Gospel and riling up the audience on his percieved political/sociological implications of accepting an evolutionary worldview. That's nice and all, I suppose, but it doesn't relate to the topic of whether evolution is actually true. Also, with the Creation Museum ad at the beginning of the livestream and several plugs to his website, I think Ham recognized the publicity he would get from such an event and used it to advertise his business endeavors. This all happened at a time when AiG's next big project, the Ark Encounter, is desperate for funds too.

Bottom line: both used the publicity of the debate topic as a platform to talk about unrelated agendas.

Sorry for the long post.

Please don't apologize for your long posts! I love reading them and learning about history.

Wagga, regarding the flat-earth myth:

Non-Christians often mock Christians and say we're ignorant for believing, throughout history, in a flat earth. But as Jeffrey Burton Russell mentioned in his definitive study, "Inventing the Flat Earth", the flat-earth belief was extremely rare in the Church. There were two main proponents of the belief but they were hugely outweighed by tens of thousands of Christian theologians, poets, artists, scientists, and rulers who unambiguously affirmed that the earth was round.

Stephen Jay Gould (a famous evolutionist) said in reviewing this book:

"There never was a period of 'flat earth darkness' among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology."

The flat-earth myth came about from the tales of Washington Irving's "The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828). The book had the historical integrity of a Dan Brown novel, but then became recognised as scholarship, so it could be used against Christianity.

John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White aggressively pushed the belief by presenting flat-earth teaching as typical rather than the almost forgotten, extreme minority view that it was.

Medieval European rulers used a golden sphere or orb called the globus cruciger to represent the earth under Christ's rule.

A final irony: the leading flat-earther today is an evolutionist.

This is a detailed summary of the content found in the scientific article entitled "The Flat Earth Myth" by Jonathan Sarfati.

In effect, the flat-earth myth just became another form of propaganda to use against Christianity.

Considering that Eratosthenes did all his working out about the size of the Earth, whilst based in Ptolemaic Egypt, then you wonder why Ptolemy (which number was he, by the way?) thought up that idea of the Earth being surrounded by the planets and Sun, and why, despite the classical ideas being dug up after 1453, the Catholic church would believe Ptolemy and say that Galileo was being unbiblical.

It was Claudius Ptolemy, who lived around AD 90-168. One of his major works, now known as the Almagest, is the one which spelled out the geocentric model of the universe and was accepted as fact for some 1400 years. But apparently he just formalized an idea developed earlier by Plato and Aristotle.

There is observational evidence for the geocentric model; for example, the sun, moon, and stars seem to move around the earth each day. If the earth were moving, the argument went, motion in the positions of the stars relative to each other would be evident. (This motion, parallax, does indeed exist but is quite small, because the stars are much farther away than the ancients thought).

But the basis also seems to be philosophical - surely the earth is the center of all because we live on it.

Thank you again, stargazer. To improve what is left of my mind, I found this Wikipedia article about the Flat Earth idea, which was very interesting.

The flat earth idea, held by a variety of ancient peoples, including the Chinese, came from the perception that the Earth resembled something like those little glass ornaments where there is snow on a landscape inside the dome. Or perhaps a wheel or like a table. What you say about Ptolemy and Eratosthenes is correct, but it was the Abbasid Caliphate which developed the ideas of Claudius Ptolemy (the Almagest). The Wikipedia article I linked to says that Bede, among other prominent Christian thinkers did accept the Earth was round. Bede, of course, is responsible for the way we presently calculate Easter, his mission being to bring the Celtic church into line with Roman Catholic celebrations.

What you say about Christians being blamed for flat-earth theories, W4J, seems to be a result of 19th & early 20th Century thinking up to 1945 about the existence of a Dark Age after the fall of the Roman Empire. And so, at school, I was taught along these lines, also, since I was born in 1948, before the late 20th century space race. As you say, the idea that Christians believed in a flat-earth myth might have been used to discredit Christianity, a tendency in 19th & 20th century.

But when I was young, Evolutionary theory was taught as verifiable fact in mainstream science, and also that there were those in the past who thought the Earth was flat, as well as having scripture lessons where the teachers were careful not to contradict the rest of the curriculum. I've got a lovely picture of my eldest daughter when she first was able to sit up, watching one of the early 1970's Moon missions on TV.

It isn't only Christians who have thought the Earth was flat, when the present-day Islamist Nigerian leader of Boko Haram also stated his belief in a flat earth. And I can't blame my teachers for the inaccurate perception that Christians at the time of Columbus endorsed a flat earth, when, even in the 20th century, the International Flat Earth society was founded in 1956, and was referred to every now and then, for the remainder of last Century. Also, one of the evolutionists whom, you claim, wrote about a flat earth, seems to have been an advocate of reigning in overpopulation and so wrote satirically about the ability of Earth's resources to sustain present population growth.

Wagga, I'm confused by your post. You say, "But it isn't only Christians who have thought the Earth was flat..."

The point of my post was to show that this flat-earth belief was exceedingly rare amongst Christians and that it's been perpetuated by some and many have taken it as fact and used this fiction against those of us who believe in Christ.

Good point about the evolutionist but he still seems pretty adamant about his belief.

Yes, W4J. Many Christians did accept the world was round, as you say, and much earlier than 1390 when Prince Henry the Navigator was born. But, even if it was much rarer among Christians than 19th or 20th century people thought, there undoubtedly were some Christians in the past, and sometimes prominent people, who did think the earth was flat, just the same. The criticisms of these views were fuelled, I think, because people up until the mid 20th century often thought there was a Dark age in which learning, after the fall of Rome, virtually ceased to be. However, it was never that simple, I learned, and people, especially sailors, were not as naive as has been painted. And I'd say that since both Homer & Hesiod thought the earth was flat, it seems, that 19th century education was a bit too reliant on thinking Christianity accepted the views of these well-known ancient classics, whilst neglecting Eratosthenes and Pythagorean mathematics.

You can't blame 19th century people for thinking the way they did about Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World when Washington Irving's 1828 account was considered the definitive authority before being discredited over a century later, when people were more likely to ask questions. Just as people often swore by 19th century Gibbons' Fall of the Roman Empire. And when in the early 20th century there even seems to have been a school in Zion, Illinois, run by a Christian sect which actually insisted teaching the Earth was flat, there is hardly any need to talk about propaganda being used to discredit Early and Dark Age Christians.

I've been reading a lot about the Documentary Hypothesis over the past week and found it very interesting. Granted, it is only a hypothesis and not a theory but it does do a remarkable job at explaining some clunky narratives in the Pentateuch.

Wagga, I would be interested to know your thoughts on this video since you are a historian.

I most certainly have no problem blaming people for believing William Irving's fiction was fact, it happens all too often and causes lots of misinformation. We even have examples of this happening in our so-called 'enlightened' period of history. How many people thought Dan Brown's novels were fact not fiction? It boggles the mind. And the Church had to correct people about the very basics. It's silly. I have no sympathy for people who believe in fiction over fact.

W4J. I have been reading these posts with much interest, and must heartily agree with your last statement. Whenever the subject has to do with religion, Christianity in particular, people seem to have developed an intellectual lazy streak. Be it books, or movies dealing with Biblical topics I have heard people reference them in conversations as if it were direct gospel. If I ask where in the Bible can the reference be found I get a blank stare, or am told I need to be more open minded.

Many non-religious people say many Christians do not even know their bible properly. A few times I have been talking to Christians and I know more about there religion than them(and I am no expert on it).

Have any of you seen bible man? It is very badly made which makes it very funny.

It's true that Bible illiteracy is at an all-time high, but I really question if those people where Christian then. Also, I have yet to find a non-Christian who knows more than most Christians about their religion. They proclaim to know much but they seem to twist it and turn it to their own liking or to discredit the Bible.