I watched parts of the debate. Ham's first 30 minutes seemed to have one main point.
Some scientist are creationist; creationist can be scientist. So what. Spending the majority of your opening comments on this undisputed pointless fact is a waste of everyone's time.
Ham said two very important things.
1. His evidence of how the world works is the bible. The bible is infallible. Nothing will ever change his mind. Anything that contradicts the bible, is wrong. We know that because the bible says so. The bible should be a science book in United States public schools.
As far as our laws are concerned, the debate is over right there.
No matter how right you think creationism is, no mater how incorrect you think evolution is, does not matter. For Ham to win this debate he has to convenience you that the U.S. public school system should change it's laws to the following...
A) Religious texts can be used as science books. Unless you want to be completely unfair that means we can teach kids from any religious book, not just yours and
B) Science books can be infallible. If scientific evidence and science books disagree, you keep the book and throw away the evidence.
2. He said some of the bible is literal history, some are laws from god that we should continue to follow today, some are laws from ancient man that no longer apply to us, and some is just poetry that should not be taken literally. When he said that he implied that these sections were easily grouped together, his example Genesis is literal history, Psalms is poetry. Leviticus is ancient laws that no longer apply to us. However his "evidence" through out the night were from multiple sections and did not fit this idea of easily identifiable segmented literal vs poetic license.
As Nye pointed out that means you need an authority such as Ham to instruct us. A layman can not pick up the bible and know what is meant as scientific fact and what is meant as poetry. If the Bible is a science book in our class rooms then you need someone from Ham's camp to teach our kids which parts are literal and which parts are poetry and which parts are outdated.
Do you want to teach public school children that the following even might just possibly be infallible unquestioning scientific laws.
"All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman."
2 Chronicles 15:13
"Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the LORD must be destroyed."
Exodus 22:20
"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, 'Let us go and worship other gods' do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again. If you hear it said about one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you to live in that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, 'Let us go and worship other gods', then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt"
Deuteronomy 13:6-16
The last two passages come from the same two sections that the 10 commandments come from. As far as literal vs poetic vs outdated, they are on equal footing with the 10 commandments. I would wish an adult to contemplate if that is the literal word of god, much less a child or the next generation.
As far as the dabate goes, I doubt there were many changed minds on either side. The format was not very debat-y. During the question and answer section I saw Ham reading his answer from his computer which seemed odd. Either the questions were planted or he anticipated most possible question. There was only a handful of likely questions so anticipating and per-writing answers, while it seems like cheating to me, would be possible and hopefully more likely than planting questions.
---------- Post added at 01:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:52 PM ----------
Most of my "news" comes from here and Facebook. I find it interesting that I had no idea that the Super Bowl was happening but both here and my FB were filled with talk of an evolution vs creation debate.
---------- Post added at 02:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:54 PM ----------
In other news
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=effb2JYiKXM"]Luge - YouTube[/ame]
I'm not familiar with all details but I think the gist is Russia is hosting the Olympics and they are anti-gay so other countries (Canada and Germany) are trolling them.
Your new nightmare XXVII:
Linear Mode
