Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
301

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:<<< The reason the discussion became more energetic was your absence. >>>
[/quote]That’s not a very neighborly way to start a friendship Matty. If I misunderstood you I apologize. I’m in a hurry like always. I never intentionally overlook ANYthing that ANYbody says.[/quote]
You constantly do this. From page 8

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

I stopped reading right here.[/quote]
Surely a man such as yourself wouldn’t be so easily put off on his search for truth.

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:<<< I have a question for you, but I’m sure you’ll dodge it, why don’t you believe in the Gods of Hinduism?
[/quote]Galatians 2:20[quote]<<< I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. >>>[/quote]

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
My faith in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ precludes out of hand and by definition the possibility of any competing proposition, object of knowledge or worldview from being true.[/quote] [/quote]
Your circular reasoning shows again. I hope you’ll take what I’m about to say as motivation I honestly doubt you’ll do this because your study of the bible has taught you to be closed-minded. How about this, why don’t you read the religious Hindu texts? Are they not as equally valid as the Christian ones? After all there’s about 1 billion people that believe that those texts provide the truth, what makes yours more right? They have just as much of a basis in their claims as yours.
If someone were to walk up to you today and say “I have all the answers, you needn’t look anywhere else” you would realize what a trap they’re laying for you and tell them to get lost. Heck, you might even feel the need to warn others of the maniac.
Maybe it’s my own stupidity but I seem to be incapable of understanding how you feel that a ~2000 year old book written and edited by men enables you to make the claim that your God is the right one and everyone who thinks otherwise gets to go to hell.

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Just like your faith in your own ability to reason from yourself, by yourself and for yourself precludes out of hand and by definition the possibility of the true and living creator God from having jurisdiction over your life. If we ever have an actually meaningful conversation I will gently and lovingly push your face into the inescapable truth of exactly that. In Jesus name =] [/quote]
Despite my inability to talk some sense into(or should I say evict nonsense out of you?) these discussions have been meaningful to me, I’m sorry if you don’t feel the same way. I seriously hope for anyone’s sake and your own that you’ve never acted on this urge to push anyone’s face to truth. Do me a favour and put yourself into the shoes of someone like me, and read what you’ve written. Maybe then you’ll be able to see that it is utter nonsense. I really wish you would take the time to watch those Robert Sapolsky videos that I had posted.
Truly I do. Should you change your mind here are the links again

[quote] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNSe4Ff57n4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8GFQRAlDmE [/quote]

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Oh yeah. Yep, Puluxy was a mistake. Long dealt with. You listened then to the man destroy your view based on the realities of bio information? Because I know you understand that being sometimes wrong is not the same as being always wrong or you definitely couldn’t be an evolutionist. [/quote]
I’m not quite sure what you’re bantering about, my view on evolution was not destroyed because someone tried claiming human footprints with dinosaurs.

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
I loved Hitchens btw. I started a thread mourning his loss. Try this debate with D,Souza [/quote]
I’ve seen it, but thank you for the link regardless. Have you seen this short?

When you do have time, please diligently observe those Sapolsky videos I linked, I would be very much interested on having a discussion of your thoughts on his claims.

302

[quote]pushharder wrote:

The inexplicable aspect to the conversation is about those folks, e.g., Sloth, (feebly) trying to bridge the two diametrically opposed positions. It can’t be done if one wants to remain intellectually honest.[/quote]

I’ve absolutely no desire to do a young earth creationist vs. Evolution debate. Questions were asked about the how of natural selection/abiogenesis, and I gave brief and simplified answers, to the best of my knowledge on the subject. The issue doesn’t concern me.

  1. From my doctrinal/theological worldview–it’s not an issue tied to salvation. So if young earthers want to believe in a young earth, fine.

  2. How many careers require believing in evolution? How many biology degrees do we really need? Even that degree doesn’t require you to accept evolution, only understand the theory.

  3. I will never argue the creation account with a ‘literalist’ who doesn’t also hold that NASA must be using the gates of the heavens to pass through the firmament into the waters above. No offense to you or anyone else. Not gonna do it. This one point is as close I get to addressing this from the ‘versus’ perspective. Take care.

303

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

I would say yes they did have that right.[/quote]

Faith.

304

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

I would say yes they did have that right.[/quote]

Faith.[/quote]

And?

306

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

I would say yes they did have that right.[/quote]

Faith.[/quote]

And?[/quote]

You tell me? I don’t find it offensive that man has faith in things he can’t falsify.

307

[quote]pushharder wrote:

There is no way out of that conundrum. Replaying your fatigued “firmament” argument doesn’t even remotely grease the skids. You’re in a box canyon, my friend.[/quote]

Ok. I appreciate your comments.

309

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Matty’s arguments throughout this thread are chock full of faith.

My point all along.

Discussions about origins and unobservable, untestable events, therefore causing a detour from the employment of the scientific method, ALWAYS include faith.[/quote]

Would you please point out those instances of faith?

310

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

I would say yes they did have that right.[/quote]

Faith.[/quote]

And?[/quote]

You tell me? I don’t find it offensive that man has faith in things he can’t falsify.
[/quote]

srs
What is it that I’m having faith in that you’re pointing out?

312

[quote]pushharder wrote:
The sheer emotionalism of your posts is illustrative of faith.[/quote]
No, that’s not faith.

[quote]
The fire and brimstone-esque denunciation of the opposing theory is illustrative of faith.[/quote]
No, that’s not faith either.

[quote]
Your passion and non sequiturs, ala the Deuteronomy post, are illustrative of your faith.[/quote]
In that passage in Deuteronomy it says

[quote]If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;

20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.[/quote]
Where’s the faith in what I wrote? It says right there, stone your son.

[quote]
The failure to acknowledge the huge gaping hole in evolution, that of the NO provable instances of increases in genetic information, are illustrative of your faith. Nothing other than adaptation and limited speciation has EVER been observed either in the present or in the past. Admit this and thus present yourself intellectually honest. Many leading proponents of evolution have already done so. Follow their lead.[/quote]

Look up insertions, deletions. Basic biology.
http://home.nctv.com/jackjan/item13.htm

[quote]
Your failure to admit that evolutionists start with a bias - just like creationists - is illustrative of your faith. [/quote]
What is this bias? Stop making statements without following it up please.

[quote]

  • [i]Professor D.M.S. Watson, one of the leading biologists and science writers of his day, demonstrated the atheistic bias behind much evolutionary thinking when he wrote:

    Evolution [is] a theory universally accepted not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.

D.M.S. Watson, Adaptation, Nature 124:233, 1929.[/quote]
One person in 1929, thanks Push. Evolution has been proven, so I don’t know what you’re getting out of that statement.
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/StupidSci.HTM

[quote]
[i]Modern day geneticist and Marxist Prof. Richard Lewontion says,

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin, Billions and Billions of Demons, The New York Review, 9 January 1997, p. 31.[/i] [/quote]
I’m not quite sure what information you’re trying to relay to me with this. IMO, it would be more constructive to the discussion to state what you make of this, then I should be able to better understand what you’re saying.

[quote]
Along that line, C.S. Lewis’ comment here is quite pertinent:

[i] If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our thought processes are mere accidents, the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the materialistsâ?? and astronomersâ?? as well as for anyone elseâ??s. But if their thoughts, i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give a correct account of all the other accidents.

C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), p. 52â??53.[/i][/quote]

Again, I’m not sure what to make of this. You’ve never come across as someone to base their beliefs on a single persons opinion. Either way, this quote you’ve supplied doesn’t provide any existence of a God or Gods, so I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish with it.

313

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:<<< Surely a man such as yourself wouldn’t be so easily put off on his search for truth. >>>[/quote]I’m not on a search for truth.

314

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

I would say yes they did have that right.[/quote]

Faith.[/quote]

And?[/quote]

You tell me? I don’t find it offensive that man has faith in things he can’t falsify.
[/quote]

srs
What is it that I’m having faith in that you’re pointing out?[/quote]

I asked if you believed African slaves (or anyone) had inalienable rights. You said yes. That’s a statement of faith. We can’t falsify an inalienable right.

315

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

I would say yes they did have that right.[/quote]

Faith.[/quote]

And?[/quote]

You tell me? I don’t find it offensive that man has faith in things he can’t falsify.
[/quote]

srs
What is it that I’m having faith in that you’re pointing out?[/quote]

I asked if you believed African slaves (or anyone) had inalienable rights. You said yes. That’s a statement of faith. We can’t falsify an inalienable right. [/quote]

Since it has happened in the past, then it isn’t an inalienable right is it?
Does that make sense?

316

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

I would say yes they did have that right.[/quote]

Faith.[/quote]

And?[/quote]

You tell me? I don’t find it offensive that man has faith in things he can’t falsify.
[/quote]

srs
What is it that I’m having faith in that you’re pointing out?[/quote]

I asked if you believed African slaves (or anyone) had inalienable rights. You said yes. That’s a statement of faith. We can’t falsify an inalienable right. [/quote]

Since it has happened in the past, then it isn’t an inalienable right is it?
Does that make sense?[/quote]

No, inalienable means it existed regardless. With that in mind, are you saying that not only were slavery era United States free-men not morally obligated to emancipate slaves, but that the reason is because African slaves had no rights, inherent to them, that were infringed upon?

317

Matt, Sloth opened the door and you walked right into that one. He is right, you cannot hold a view that there are inalienable rights without a higher power to maintain them in existence.

My view is that there is no such thing as an inalienable right. Rights are things societies and their members agree to grant each other, and their existence is subject to those individuals and societies continuing to honour them.

318

[quote]Neuromancer wrote:
Matt, Sloth opened the door and you walked right into that one. He is right, you cannot hold a view that there are inalienable rights without a higher power to maintain them in existence.
[/quote]
Yeah I had a feeling I was walking into some trap, I wasn’t sure what he meant by inalienable right, so that’s why I only wrote, that they have the right to not be made slaves. The fact that they were made slaves is evidence to me that it is not in fact an inalienable right.

I can agree with this.

319

[quote]Neuromancer wrote:
Matt, Sloth opened the door and you walked right into that one. He is right, you cannot hold a view that there are inalienable rights without a higher power to maintain them in existence.[/quote]

Well, I was going to ignore the higher power bit…Just focusing on this ‘inalienable right’ deal. Something inherent to us, but can’t be measured/observed/falsified.

Which is why I take comfort in the fact that if we do manage to outlaw abortion, state recognized gay marriage, and–just for kicks in this thread–porn, there is at least one other world view which would say that no rights are being infringed upon.

320

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

The fact that they were made slaves is evidence to me that it is not in fact an inalienable right.[/quote]

It’s not evidence that inalienable rights are non existent, per it’s definition. Inalienable means they exist regardless of circumstance. They are inherent to the individual, not the present might of the authority.