Bill Nye to debate creationist

SemperFiDawg said:

Oh yeah. You're gonna be well received here, quite possibly even more than me. In case you ain't figured it out many of those who have already made your acquaintance ain't real fond of, nor have any regard for intelligent conversation, much less intellectually honest intelligent conversation. Just don't get your hopes up, be prepared to counter endless lies and overlook all the denigration and you will be fine. Hope you stay a long time. If you get burnt out, take a break for a while or just quit altogether. It ain't worth becoming bitter over. The guys here are here because they hate the very idea of God no matter what they say. Chances are they will never change. Just keep in mind that there's a larger audience than just the few that post here, and when you post it's those who you are presenting to and unlike these guys, they will recognize truth when it's presented to them. And if you ain't figured it out yet you can't lose as long as you tell the truth, so just stick with the truth and let the atheistic arguments be exposed for the foolhardy notions that they are.

Click to expand...

EverGreen1231 said:

In my first post I said that I would avoid the God vs. No God debate; since no one will be persuaded to deviate from their current belief system based off what they read on the GON forum (at least, I wouldn't think so). Suffice to say: Science, by definition, must be taken on literal grounds; religion is founded in faith and things of the metaphysical realm. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen". I love science, but it does not hold all the answers.
I don't see, nor do I have, any contradictions with my faith and science: they complement each other rather wonderfully.

Click to expand...

ambush80 said:

EverGreen,

Did you watch the Debate? Would you? Would you watch the other show that I linked?

http://www.pbs.org/your-inner-fish/home/

I'd like to know what your objections would be to any of the information offered in either.

Click to expand...

WaltL1 said:

I just find the two opposite mind sets interesting. No more, no less. Its not specific to you and in fact its fairly common.

I think the majority of us agree. Actually what ends up happening is the opposite.
Although debates can appear "heated", most of us have a good deal of respect for most of us.
Heck, given the opportunity, some of us might even hunt or fish together away from here.

Click to expand...

ambush80 said:

A talking burning bush or a talking donkey would change my mind. It really, really would. If God exists he knows that because he can see into my heart.

Click to expand...

EverGreen1231 said:

I might consider it, provided It get more than 5 - 15 minutes of free time. I generally avoid videos since I can't seem to keep focus on the argument for the mannerisms of those debating; I generally opt for books or articles the debaters have written or were quoted in.
Silly? Why yes, yes it is.

Click to expand...

ambush80 said:

On the contrary, I like the notions of God and Karma and Fate, I just don't have any evidence of them.

What do you think about those people in the "larger audience" who have never heard about Evolutionary Theory or those who have heard it but have dismissed it because their parents or pastors told them it was of the Devil? Are they better off? Do you think that most of the A&A's here haven't examined Christian philosophy and history? What percentage of the A&A's here do you think have studied other religions?

You know I have always conceded that if a God being exists that it could most certainly make a burning bush or a snake or a donkey talk. Is that intellectually honest enough for you? Now let me ask you, and answer in the most intellectually honest way you can, what is the likelihood of such things ever happening?

Now tell me the TRUTH so that we will all be better off, did a man live in a fish for 3 days?

Click to expand...

stringmusic said:

Evergreen, if you haven't noticed, Bullet really, really wants to tell you that God doesn't exist.

Click to expand...

SemperFiDawg said:

Oh yeah. You're gonna be well received here, quite possibly even more than me. In case you ain't figured it out many of those who have already made your acquaintance ain't real fond of, nor have any regard for intelligent conversation, much less intellectually honest intelligent conversation. Just don't get your hopes up, be prepared to counter endless lies and overlook all the denigration and you will be fine. Hope you stay a long time. If you get burnt out, take a break for a while or just quit altogether. It ain't worth becoming bitter over. The guys here are here because they hate the very idea of God no matter what they say. Chances are they will never change. Just keep in mind that there's a larger audience than just the few that post here, and when you post it's those who you are presenting to and unlike these guys, they will recognize truth when it's presented to them. And if you ain't figured it out yet you can't lose as long as you tell the truth, so just stick with the truth and let the atheistic arguments be exposed for the foolhardy notions that they are.

Click to expand...

SemperFiDawg said:

100% and sho did.

Click to expand...

EverGreen1231 said:

No; it really, really wouldn't.

Click to expand...

From JB: Ambush would believe if a donkey talked to him, most of these guys would. These debates work better when folks are taken at their word.

Click to expand...

ambush80 said:

What's your basis for this?

Click to expand...

SemperFiDawg said:

He rinsed off with the melt water from my cooler

Click to expand...

SemperFiDawg said:

I was there. Saw the whole thing, but it wasn't a whale. Actually have it on video. Was fishing for redbreast when I heard this commotion out by the jetty. Looked up just in time to see this giant flathead kinda come up and spit this fella out like a watermelon seed. I grabbed my camcorder just in time to catch it all. Jonah landed in a patch of gallberry bushes and that helped break his fall. He come stumbling out of the bushes and man he was a mess. He was all covered in catfish emesis. Had a half digested minnow stuck in his left ear. He rinsed off with the melt water from my cooler(didn't want to go back near the edge for some reason), ate a handful of my crickets(said they tasted like locust) and then just took off down the trail toward Nineveh. It was like he was on a mission or something.

Click to expand...

ambush80 said:

.....what was all that talk about low ceilings?

Click to expand...

EverGreen1231 said:

High Falls? I seem to remember an article in GON, not to long ago, That told of some fine bass fishing there. I think it was last months article, can't recall.
That little restaurant is my grand fathers favorite place to eat on Friday and Saturday nights, he goes any time he's not in the mood for pizza (or when he's too tired to drive to Newnan ). I usually tag along with him. And yes, it is good (especially the catfish on Friday evenings).



Yes, it's sad really; and is also the reason why I refuse to give him that opportunity. If his science is so unequivocally irrefutable, he'd have silenced the likes of me many 'a post ago without too much effort or the need to know my side of the story. He is correct in asserting that my beliefs are based the same as his: nothing but my faith.

Addendum - Yes, the believe that evolution is fact relies on faith. And to those that would ask me to prove the existence of God, I can't. No one can. To those I would ask to disprove the existence of God, they can't. No one can. I feel or don't feel, see or don't see his existence; there for I do, or don't, believe. These assumptions rely on faith; faith that your assumptions can be correct (which is far from sure given fallibility of human nature): this is my overarching point. If evolution is scientific fact; like the fact that light and electrons are constituted by a Wave/particle duality (E = mc^2); or that in order for a power system to be balanced all phases must have the same magnitude and phase serving the same amount of load; or that, by Faraday's law, a changing magnetic flux will induce an electromagnetic field in a coil of wire, producing electron flow and current; it must be founded in fact, proven in such a way as to require no faith, on the part of the one studying the subject, to hold as fact. The above examples have been proven beyond reasonable doubt; however, Evolution has been proven by no such facts. Should, one day, we have sufficient knowledge and technology to design experiments that can adequately test the hypothesis, and should the experiments conclude, beyond reasonable doubt, that, yes; evolution is the process by which the plethora of species that currently exist, and those that have perished in the course of time, came to be: I will gladly welcome it to the fold of the many other scientific wonders that govern life and the universe, and I will hold it as a marvelous blessing to know such a fact exists: to see it proven with my own eyes. However, until such proof exists, I will remain, respectfully, skeptical.

Click to expand...

drippin' rock said:

Congrats. I think you just won the "longest sentence ever" award for Woody's. And from Woodbury too!

All that talk about writing programs, I bet you went to college. Hey, me too. I just learned to type real slow so the unwashed masses around here could keep up. you might want to not get so wordy, folks might think you drink your sweet tea pinky out.

Click to expand...

JB0704 said:

It's like those drawings where two people look at it, and one sees a princess and another sees an old lady. It's not that one person has better vision than the other......it's just that in our case we believe we see the intent of the artist, and they see a circumstance of chance creating the illusion of intent.

Ambush would believe if a donkey talked to him, most of these guys would. These debates work better when folks are taken at their word.

Click to expand...

EverGreen1231 said:

I find it difficult to believe that someone who so strongly cleaves to the idea of there not being a God would then, when faced with something that is inexplicable with what little science they know or can be reasoned away, turn around and recant that belief. It’s the negative of, in older times, people using thunder and lightning as evidence proposing the existence of a Deity; much the same way a child will think that “bump” they heard in the night to be a monster lurking around in their closet. It would be like me saying “I can’t provide a logical explanation for *insert phenomenon here* so therefore there must be a God”, a statement, of which, is a cornerstone of the atheistic argument against God. So, no; it really, really wouldn’t.

Click to expand...

HawgJawl said:

I've been staying out of this sub-forum for a while, focusing on my personal relationship with God, but this relates closely to an issue I'm currently dealing with, so I couldn't resist.

If God attempted to make His presence known to Ambush, do you think God would fail?

Or do you think that Ambush would know with all certainty that God exists but lie and deny that fact for some reason?

Click to expand...