Friday, February 07, 2014

Bill Nye the Crafty Guy

Wednesday night AIG’s Ken Ham and Georgia Purdom discussed Tuesday night’s creation vs. evolution debate on a live web broadcast, recapping and touching on various aspects. I listened to this recap on my Thursday commute to work. AIG conservatively estimates five million people watched on line. The debate “play” button was clicked 2-1/2 million times. Most did not watch alone, and at least 13,000 schools, churches, and other groups watched the debate in auditoriums of various sizes, from the 93 that watched at Living Science to over five thousand at Liberty University. More people watched the debate on YouTube than watched either the recent State of the Union Address or Super Bowl.

Going back and reviewing the debate makes Nye’s craftiness all the more evident. Nye never mentioned the Creation Museum or the Answers in Genesis organization by name, and portrayed all the Christian/creation scientists as working in house for Ham, when in fact most work out in the real world. While Ham repeatedly mentioned how creation science could accurately predict future results, Nye repeatedly said “Ham’s version” could not do this. Before the debate Nye told Ham that even if Nye were to have a saving experience, he could never accept the young earth theory. During the debate Nye was crafty and prepared to only speak of his side of the argument – never leaving an opening for creation to be possible.

Ham explained that there just wasn’t time during the debate to delve into the detail needed to refute Nye’s arguments. That’s why both he and Nye stuck to comments prepared in advance. It was my own personal expectation that more science detail would be covered that was off base. Throughout the debate Nye refused to accept Noah’s flood as an actual historic event, despite all sedimentary evidence to the contrary. Yet later Nye said he would be open to believing in creationism should evidence be presented.

Instead of using known details, Nye deliberately confused the number of species on the Ark by including ALL species in his total, instead of just the number of KINDS of land animals as mentioned in Genesis. Nye’s total included bacteria and microscopic creatures and sea animals, which greatly add to the total. Ham did refute this during the debate. While Nye said it took millions of years for fossils to be buried, Ham responded with the example of airplanes abandoned on ice that had been deeply buried after a decade or two. During the recap webcast Ham and Purdom reminded the audience that the AIG website has much evidence and science rebutting evolution.
   
As I expected, spreading the message of Christ was Ken’s main goal. He reiterated that believing in the creation story has nothing to do with an individual’s relationship with God. It does not play a role in whether a person is going to heaven. Only faith in Christ determines that. While the creation vs. evolution debate greatly interests me, I understand that it is not at all central to winning souls to Christ. Loving people and trusting and worshipping God are much more important.

Many Christians separate themselves from the creationists at Answers in Genesis. From the context of their comments it is obvious that they hadn’t deeply researched the topic – that the theory of evolution is built on supposition and shaky science, while time and time again actual, provable science confirms the creation story. Christianity is being attacked on many battlefields in the world today, perhaps more so than any other time in history. Hollywood, Government, media, and Education all seek to keep God out of the national consciousness. Tolerance of Christianity and American tradition is continuously being taken out of schools and replaced with focus on other cultures and religions. Even before the debate was announced evolutions held the position that any mention of creationism detracted from creationism. Many Christians seem blind to the battle waging all around them. Both Nye and Ham agree that how this next generation of students is taught is crucial.

It was apparent to both evolutionists and creationists that the crux of the argument was the differing approaches taken by Nye and Ham. While the Science Guy and other evolutionists proudly lean on human reasoning to build their theory of the world around them, Ham and his brothers and sisters in Christ trust in the Creator God of the Universe. There were many stories in the media about the debate, which was the number one trending topic on Twitter, Facebook, and Yahoo. Many declared Ham the winner (unlike this blog). Ham counted this as great publicity for God and the AIG website, which experienced a record number of hits.

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