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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

One reaction to the Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye debate

This post summarizes the Ken Ham Bill Nye debate well, and brings out some important points.

Thanks for reading.

5 comments:

atibertytosay said...

I totally disagree with the premise that Ken Ham was roasted in the debate.

I thought both sides did well.

I do agree that Nye really called out Ham's 7 24 hour day theory well. I believe that as a creationist, Ham must accept the rather common alternate of a day is as a 100 years to God.

My biggest problem with anyone who claims to be a Christian and not believe in Creation Theory is … what exactly is your point? Does your argument further salvation of souls? Are "they" trying to understand the mysteries of God or justify man's superiority.

I think there's a clear fact … A timeless, ageless, eternal good God did it. Thank you, God.

atibertytosay said...

* 1000 years

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks, atlibertytosay.

There are different opinions on who won, if anyone did.

Ham's scheme is based on literal days of creation in Genesis 1. Don't hold your breath until he accepts a thousand years, or some indeterminate longer period, for them.

Two points against Ham's position (There are more):
1) The Grand Canyon evidence Nye presented just is not compatible with the notion that the rocks that the river cut through were laid down by a catastrophic flood.

2) And, as the post I linked to said, but I hadn't grasped, Ham said that there may have been only 1,000 kinds in the ark. If that were true, it's difficult or impossible to see how they could have evolved into the millions of species we now have in a mere 4,000 years or so (since the Flood).

As to the argument and its affect on people finding Christ as savior, I have read all too many stories of people who have looked at the geologic evidence, and then at the Young-Earth interpretation, and said, to themselves, or publicly, "OK, if your Bible is so wrong about that, why should I think it's right about sin and salvation?"

FYT said...

I would say ... Visit the creation museum about the "proto species argument".

But, I have (not Ham) a slightly alternate theory. What if the ark was a purge of man like the story says not a purge of animals, insects, etc?

It's pretty presumptuous of us to say ... God put all the animals here and Adam named them, but then he couldn't do it again however he wanted. The Bible says God created the animals. Period.

What if the animals and their "gathering" was more of a test or even a testament to Noah as to how serious this would be.

You can't use "what ifs" in any debate. But to me, anything beyond human history is a what if. Scientific theory dictates observation, who observed it first hand?

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks, Philip Smith.

Yes, the whole point of the Flood, whether it was world-wide or local, seems to have been about the behavior of people, not about wiping out all of the animals.