Try not to subscribe to big things for risk of ascribing onto yourself that which suffocates your freedom to think, because once you do, you’re obligated to carry the weight of that institution on your back, like a dogmatic donkey. So be skeptical about institutional religion; don’t feign atheism; agnosticism pretends ignorance, so instead be cynical where you can relish in doubt; science and theology are fun but they’re not God.
However, if a hot, green-eyed Mormon girl/guy likes you, definitely go Mormon.
As the great English empiricist, David Hume, argued: There is a poignant distinction between what is and what ought to be. That being said, we need to look at this debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham descriptively, over what actually transpired, instead of going up the inference latter and judging the debate as a political farce.
So who “won” the debate? Well obviously, neither one of them really won the debate. I’m going to quote one of my friends, who said it best on why “winner” or “loser” are misnomers for the outcome of this debate:
The main issue with this type of debate structure is that we’re asking a scientist to use facts, figures, etc. to debate an ideology. There’s a reason that opinions about presidential debates (and their corresponding election results, for the most part) are usually split 50/50: Ideology doesn’t “win” or “lose” debates. Good and bad performances do. As long as Ken Ham showed up, talked coherently, and stood his ground, his side will always think he won.
On first glance, it seems that my astute friend’s observation of the debate challenges my claim that this debate achieved stasis on what was argued. Well, yes & no. And here is why.
I agree with everything my friend said. However, I’d like to take it a step further. In the debate, at some point, both men created stasis in agreeing to argue what constitutes science writ large. Bill said that science must have predictive value. Dr. Ham understood this, or fell into Bill’s trap (whichever), creating stasis, and argued that Creationism as a science does have predictive value through the Bible. Thus the onus was on Dr. Ham to prove it. BAM — this was the crowning glory of the debate!
By predictive value, both men understood it as science’s ability to create theories so to either provide practical value for the future or to build upon previous knowledge to advance science. The most poignant example that came to mind is The Theory of Relativity.
Einstein’s Theories of General and Special Relativity brought about the creation of our beloved GPS. These theories were developed by Albert Einstein at the beginning of the 20th century. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, military scientists used Einstein’s theories to make GPS possible. This is a solid example of science’s predictive value.
Does Creationism have predictive value? Dr. Ham had the burden of proof, which in my opinion he completely failed to accomplish. Noah’s Ark and the Creationist theory explaining it is not predictive, it’s retrograde, explaining after the fact.
On the other side, though, Bill took it upon himself to try to show how the normative science of evolution (or what he called “normal science”) had predictive value. Bill presented the preponderous of evidence that hinted to the validity of Darwinian evolution, which put him at an advantage. But he also failed in completely prooving the predictive value of the theory of evolution. In other words, Bill presented all this great evidence, but failed to connect that evidence adequately to the overarching theory of evolution as predictive.
To Bill’s credit, his task was nearly impossible, I think, without finding the “missing link” in the hominid record, which would definitively connect us with the primordial apes. If that “missing link” is found, I believe that the theory of evolution would prove itself as having predictive value.
So the argument of Creationism having predictive value was the essence of the debate, as I saw it. Both Bill and Dr. Ham acknowledged that they would talk about (i.e. Stasis) the predictive value of science, so in order for Creationism to be a legitimate science it had to have it. Bill tried using Darwinian evolution as an example of predictive value and failed. However, that was just extra. Dr. Ham just flat out fell on his face; he proved nothing except that Creationism is an ideology.
I’m sure other people have different interpretive descriptions to what transpired, more power to them.
Now for the actual assessment of the presentations: (1) Dr. Ham had the most polished presentation, though Bill was obviously far more dynamic and charismatic. (2) Bill was exceedingly belligerent as the debate continued, while Dr. Ham retained his composure throughout and occasionally inserted some of his quick wit. (3) Bill’s strongest part of the debate was surely the question-answer portion, which was also Dr. Ham’s weakest. Bill usually went over in time, but that did not indicate weakness to me, rather the contrary. Dr. Ham always met the time limit, which indicated to me that he had either little to say or a pre-determined, dogmatic answer. (4) Dr. Ham was the most articulate. (5) Both men are incredibly intelligent. My favorite part was when Bill was explaining the theory to why humans reproduce sexually rather than asexually — utterly blew my mind! Fascinating stuff… (6) Gotta give Bill kudos; he entered hostile territory to do this debate. In Kentucky, a bastion of Christian conservatism, and at the Creation Museum, he held his ground.
On purely pragmatic grounds, I fervently and wholeheartedly believe Bill Nye the Science Guy won the debate because he made 4+ different shoutouts throughout the debate for the need of more funding and further encouraging of the sciences for our youth. At some points I felt that Bill was a salesperson for science! In a relatively recent New York Times article, the statistics on how the United State lags globally in science and math education is astonishing and deeply saddening. And in an age where the government is increasingly cutting back in funding science, the need for the public to place emphasis on science is paramount.
I counted only one shoutout for science by Dr. Ham throughout the debate and it was only reactionary to one of Bill’s own shoutouts. This in my mind further solidified that Creationism is inherently retrograde and has no predictive value whatever. I felt that Creationism is more satisfied in explaining the world by making it compatible with the Bible, than actually predicting future advancements in science. But of course, this is just my personal judgment and is not descriptive of the actual debate.
In conclusion, this debate was FANTASTIC! Not because there was a “winner” or a “loser,” but because it made us think that much more about science. It’s probably overly idealistic of me to conclude with; but does not science first begin with an idea?
Just the other day, I was shopping at my local neighborhood Walmart (actually, the only Walmart in Nowhere, North Dakota). I was in the hardware section looking for something that I could use to help me fix my console in my car; my car had been broken into a couple of months ago and the burglar had broken my storage console where I keep a whole bunch of my car stuff. As I was looking for the thing that I did not know I was looking for, a young man and young woman approach me.
I was surprised at how they accosted me. At first, I was not quite sure what they wanted. But it soon became apparent that they wanted to solicit God to me. They were not Jehovah’s Witnesses; though, even if they were, I would just as well be surprised at their new tactic of assaulting people with Christianity at the local Walmart. Now, don’t judge my acerbic words too much; I enjoy very much having philosophic conversations about religion with people. It is stimulating. I’ve invited Jehovah’s Witnesses into my home, where which a riveting discussion about God, Christianity, and the Bible was had, over some fine wine and cheese.
Upon approaching me, these two young folks ask me if I was new to Minot? I say, sardonically, no; unfortunately, I have been living in the frozen tundra for quiet a while now. They nervously laugh in unison. There is an awkward silence afterwards. I stare at the dude because he seems to be the main one tasked to talk, while the girl just stands there as moral support or something. Finally, after the seemingly infinite pause, the dude asks me if I had a couple minutes to talk about God. I say, sure.
I don’t know why I said sure. I really had to do some grocery shopping. And I still had not found the thing that I did not know I was looking for. I really had to go. I did not have time for this. But I suppose I was curious. And I didn’t want to be rude. Besides, I really enjoy listening to people talk. It’s strange: most of my life, I’ve focused on being a superb public speaker; I’ve focused so much of my mental energy thinking of how to refine words and in what way to communicate them etc. Only recently in my life I have come to realize that listening to people is so much more fun and definitely a lot harder to do than to speak. Active listening is a virtue. To converse with other individuals is to be able to speak and listen at an equal calibre of capability, or even more so the latter — I think that, anyways.
I’m listening actively to what the dude is talking about. He starts to spout about his church. I say, Is that the Lutheran Church with the really witty lines on their signs? Oh I love those signs! They always make me chuckle when I drive by them! They always make my day! He says, no. That is not his church. He continues to talk about his Church. I’m interested in what he is saying: God’s divine love, Jesus the son, redemption, and all that nice stuff. But then he begins to talk about something that makes me really anxiously annoyed. So, he says, did you know that in the Holy Trinity there is a “God the Mother?” I say no. Then I think, WTF. Yea, he continues, most Christians have been getting it wrong from the scriptures; part of the trinity includes the love of God the Mother. Oh! I say, Like the Virgin Mary? I think I understand now. No, no, he retorts, that is Catholic nonsense.
So I’ve written in here about my intellectual struggles with religion. In my younger years, I so badly wanted to please God and follow the right religion, which I though was Christianity. I prodigiously read the Bible. But I personally struggled, like an impatient Job, over which of the myriad of denominations in Christianity was right. I went to a different Christian Church every Sunday hoping I’d have a revelation like the one St. Paul had on his road to Damascus. Nope; that never happened. Though I did discover that Methodists make the best homemade loafs of bread; the Baptists love to give you books about stuff; and Catholics are frugal. (Side note: That new Pope, though, is a cool cat. I like him). Eventually, it occurred to me that if nearly 2+ billion peoples in the world don’t believe in the Bible or in Christianity, does that mean God and Christianity is elitist? Only a select few, relatively speaking, are allowed to taste the Truth of Christ? What about those Aborigines in Australia or those never-discovered Natives in the jungles of the Amazon? Ignorance is damnation? I’ve read the Christian apologetic explanations to this; but when I read them, I’ve always felt as if they sounded like excuses. Like, the “Holy Spirit” pervades the Earth, so just because they don’t “know” of Christ does not mean that they don’t “have” Christ etc. Well, as you can imagine, I was the unpopular fellow at the Bible studies who asked the heretical questions.
After years of trying to discover the truth, searching for the right religion to please God, and trying to settle my personal qualms — I gave up. No divine revelation ever came to me, even though I prayed for it everyday. Nothing. Nothingness became more real to me than the Christian God. I became unsettled and bitter about this. Today, I have little patience by people who exclaim that they have found the truth of divinity that is only privy to themselves and a selected few.
Now, I never became an Agnostic. As Stephen Colbert once said, “Agnostics are just Atheists without balls.” He was likely being facetious when he said that. But I do believe there is some truth to it. It’s untenable to perpetually live in such uncertainty about such a magnanimous question like that of God’s existence; saying “I don’t know” all the time is for philosophers, but even some philosophers make the leap of faith to believe in God. As Dr. House exclaimed, you either believe or you don’t; whatever is in the middle is no way to live. So after I gave up on religion, for a little while, out of bitterness for years wasted on God (and for the latent hypocrisy in modern Christianity), I became a misotheist. Then when I calmed down and sobered up, I just became totally and utterly indifferent. I really didn’t care. I don’t believe there is an “ism” for this type of indifferent view on religion and God. It’s not an agnosticism where one dwells on not knowing the truth of a God. Rather, I just didn’t take these kinds of religious questions too seriously anymore, and like Stephen Colbert, just laughed the question of religion off by being facetious. I’d be asked, “Does God exist?” And I’d say, “Only as a Conspiring Comedian!” I skirted the question because I didn’t want to delve into it, opening Pandora’s Box, and making a mess of things in my head; indifference is equanimity. Though, when I was in the mood for it, my indifference also allowed me to gain much intellectual pleasure in discussing religion as a philosopher (hence, why I had so much initial patience to talk to the young man and young lady at the Walmart). I think most non-believers, who are not atheist, are really indifferent. There is too much life to be lived to dwell on the existence of God and the veracity of religion. Indifferents may claim to be “agnostics,” but they’re really just indifferent. To be a life-long agnostic requires a lot of philosophic mental energy to live in perennial uncertainty.
All that being said, things changed for me all of a sudden.
Finally, when the dude finished talking about God the Mother and all that nonsense, he asks me if I believe in God. I say suddenly, No; I’m an atheist.
I completely shock myself. It was the first time I had ever accepted the label “atheist”; it was at that moment that I became an atheist. And to my own chagrin, it felt good. I felt superior. Maybe narcissistic? I don’t know. I just liked the feeling of being sure about something religious for the first time in my life and it felt empowering. The brevity of my answer felt good. In the past, when I was asked that question, I’d go on and on about my convoluted beliefs and uncertain struggles. But this time, I didn’t. Maybe I was just in a rush and I wanted this conversation to end? But that didn’t explain the pleasure I gained by saying “I am an atheist.”
The dude stares at me awkwardly. He doesn’t know how to respond. I suppose he feels bemused that he went on-and-on for quite a while about his Christian beliefs to an atheist. I guess he assumed I had some religious sensibility when he approached me and wanted to recruit me to his Church. I notice the uncomfortableness in his face. I try to reassure him with a smile, saying, I really enjoyed our conversation; what you said was very interesting and intellectually stimulating to me, but I have to finish my shopping; and besides, as a resolute atheist, there is little chance you could convert me at a Walmart and get me to go to your church. I shake both the dude’s and chick’s hands, then they hasten away. I smile to myself, thinking, well I guess I’m an atheist now.
But what kind of atheist am I? That profound sense of indifference towards the absolute truth of religion still lingers over me. I suppose I’m an atheist in the vernacular of Dr. Gregory House. When asked if he is an Atheist, in classical Dr. House manner, he says, “Only on Christmas and Easter; the rest of the time, it doesn’t really matter.” But more empathetic? Well, for sure, I’m no more an atheist than Benedict Spinoza and Albert Einstein.
Yet… I feel inside me a thirst for Faith. I do believe in Faith. Just as the scientist has faith in the arbitrary belief that gravity will not all of a sudden go the other way and the laws of the universe will not randomly deviate, so can faith be emulated in the belief in God. I have faith in faith. And if I ever met and married an utterly magnificent woman who I loved and adored with every fiber of my being, who had faith in a God, then I might be cajoled to admit: “Well, there must be a God for such perfection to exist in this beautiful woman.” But of course, this is the hopeless romantic in me speaking silliness!
Well, I shouldn’t take atheism too seriously. Because if I do, I’m no better than I was before in my religiosity.
Idk 
