It's always hard for me to listen to Ken Ham for more than a full minute without getting upset, I think it's the fact that he's actually damaging America's future in science and by extension the rest of the world.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/.....onist-ken-ham/

I've met Mr. Nye years ago. He really doesn't need a reason to discuss science :) He's a lot like Neil de GrasseTyson in that respect that often needs an aide to force him to stop talking after a presentation :)

Science Guy wins!

Wish I'd known about it before it began.

I watched a video interview with Bill that was talking about what he expected to happen during the debate. He knew that it was unlikely that he would change anyone's mind as a result of the debate. His goal first and foremost was to educate people and the next generation of the importance of science and thinking critically about the world around us. Especially the next generation. Its always seemed like his goal to educate kids in science and get them excited about discovering neat, science-y things (I'm sure this is why he did the tv show years ago). It was also repeated in his discussion that we need educated people in our economy and that these people could easily have faith of any kind. Its unfortunate that individuals of faith, like Ken, get upset and feel like science (which should really be exclusive from faith) is an attack on the way they live. If they can adapt the words of their book to suit the needs of their new lifestyle, why not remove the parts that no longer make sense and keep the stuff that does?

Either way, the debate played out as I expected. Even Ken claimed that "nothing would change his mind".

Honestly, I disagree that it's unlikely to change peoples minds. Creationists parts of the south exist in pretty much the ultimate echo chamber.

Every time you listen to an atheist podcast or tv show and the subject is "the story of my deconversion" there are two reasons that pop up over and over and over again. Probably almost 100% of the reasons are these two.

1. I finally read the bible through, both testaments from cover to cover. This is always the number one answer.

2. I had never been exposed to any other explanation other than god dun it. I bet a LOT of admirers of Ken Ham, people who were home schooled and taught evolution and deep time only in the context that it's bullshit and just the proclamation of a handful of evil atheist scientists, if even that.

I've personally without even trying to deconverted 6 people now from christianity. Literally all that happened was we'de get into discussions, somehow religion would come up and i'd mention i'm an atheist. They'de mention "well how do you explain US existing?" or "how did the world get here huh smart guy?" And i'd explain to them the natural processes, many very well understood that explain it, and why we know they're true. They never renounce anything on the spot but it plants seeds of doubt, they look up to see if what i'm saying is true and see even more evidence, next thing i know months later they sheepishly admit they feel pretty silly for what they had been raised to believe and it's just bullshit to them now. Every time as a child they asked a question about the world the ONLY explanation they had ever got was "Well Jebus loves you so he made it for you!".

I don't see ANYBODY that's an atheist and science literate or just a science literate being swayed by ham's argument but i could definitely see quite a few being swayed by nye, not on the spot. Shedding superstition is for most not an overnight process. For me it took about 5 seconds lol, but it took my mom decades of watering down her concept of god before talking with me finally got her to abandon it entirely.

"I had never been exposed to any other explanation other than god dun it."

Technically there is "A god dun it," "Sum alien fella dun it," "Time travellers dun it," "(insert favored greater power here) dun it,) etc, but that doesn't make it an explanation.

It's more of a lazy-ass excuse. "CHEESE WEASELS DID IT! THE EXPLANATION STOPS HERE! COME EAT STALE CRACKERS AND BAD GRAPE JUICE WITH US AND WEAR THIS CHEESE WEASEL HAT AND DO A SPECIAL DANCE!"

It's just dropping a big ol mountain on the thing and ignoring it.

What I don't get is how people can just stop there. "Some dude did this thing, and that's good enough for me!"

If some dude did this pretty super amazing awesome thing, my reaction to some dude doing a cool thing is "I wonder how he did that thing?"

Intelligent Design is "NO, CHEESE WEASELS! *stuffs head in cheese weasel hat and hums show tunes off key and loudly* Our method is special and the right one, teach it in schools alongside this other one, pwease!"

Evolution is all like "Oh, look at all the life the developed from this piece of moldy cheese!. Hey, looking at this bit of mold and poking it like this, we just found out something about the human immune system, kick ass!"

One of these things is all about going through life with your head up your ass, the other one is going through life with eyes wide open.

That and "OUR CHILDRENS AREN'T BELIEVING IN CHEESE WEASELS ANYMORE! ALL THE CHILDRENS SHOULD LEARN ABOUT THE CHEESE WEASELS IN SCIENCE CLASS BECAUSE WE SAID SO, SO WE CAN HAVE MORE PEOPLE TO WEAR THESE HATS AND TALK ABOUT CHEESE WEASELS WITH!"

cheese weasels is good. I like the chupacabra. If something can't pass the chupacabra test then it's not supported by enough to use as an explanation.

If you replace your deity or causes (spiritual energy or some nonsense) with "chupacabra" and it's supported with the same amount of empirical data, then it's time to rethink your position.

"The chupacabra created the universe in 6 days then conceived himself with a woman who gave birth to himself then he beat the crap out of some business owners and cloned loaves of bread."

I read that last line as "beat the crap out of some business owners with loaves of clove bread," and was going "You know, that's kind of bad ass."

Cheese weasels! EPIC!

I believe tonight's debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye was amazing and yet necessary. It was existential in a way that it needed to happen now. With technology, science, medicine (backed by the majority of science) and the evolving/changing world as we know it keeps going, its time to look at the facts. Science is always predicting things, either proving or disproving it's theories, and eventually will fill in the gaps that we do not have the answers to just yet. Creationism is based off a book, The Bible. Yet Science and all of it's parts in it; evolution, quantum theories, physics, biology, the list goes on, are all based on theories tested, facts that are eventually proven through thorough testing. Not books. We learn about those proven and disproved facts through books written about them. As a last thought, I am not slamming religion and nor will I judge others. But with the world it is in now, and the debate that has been inevitable in happening, I believe this only the start of science becoming more predominant.

I saw the very end of the debate and I think that bill nye is getting a little old, but he's still really good. Ham was just a little too hammy.

This may be surprising to you, but I had no idea Bill Bye was a real figure of note in the scientific field. I honestly thought he was just an actor with maybe an interest in the subject.

Also never heard of Ken Ham, but that's because I don't pay any attention at all to bullshit or people's made-up drama. Which brings me to the point that having read your journal, Ham is an idiot that peopel SHOULD be angry at any time he opens his mouth.

This is no different than the debate over teaching creationism in US schools. For those who don't know, it ended in utter disgrace for the creationists whose ideas who completely disproven and put on display for the whole world to see as fanciful fabrications of religious zealots. Even the most well-researched attempts by creationists to find a single example supporting their claims was thrown back in their fact because science is fucking SCIENCE. The premise of science is to find things out, and there will NEVER be a question religion has an answer to that science doesn't have a more logical answer to.

CDESIGN PROPONENTISTS

That is all.

Lol, that cracked me up so hard when i first saw that.

I didn't get to see it, though I'm not sure I could've withstood more than five seconds of listening to Ken Ham. I will say though... I think we need to officially name Ken's followers as... "hamhocks"

The problem is: It's not a debate. Either the United States commits itself to reality or we don't. It we reject science, then we lose out to every other nation on the planet that has something other than a third-world economy. Jesus never built an automotive manufacturing plant. Great guy - don't get me wrong - but it's time for the U.S. to get back to being reality based.

We started going nuts with religion after WWII in reaction to the godless commies and the Russians. THAT'S when we added "god" to the pledge of allegiance. It was getting nuttier and nuttier - like today - until the Russians launched Sputnik. THEN the shit hit the fan and even conservative Americans decided we needed to be REALITY based again and get our asses into the science books so we could build missles and rockets as well.

Let's get back to reality. Right now, the U.S. is number one in three things:

Number 1 in number of adults who believe angels are real
Number 1 in incarcerated citizens per capita
Number 1 in defense spending where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies.

I have to wonder if the first issue led to the second two issues...

Well the good news is that in america and in general around the world, people, especially young people are abandoning their parents religions in droves. Atheists and non religious are by a big margin the fastest growing demographic in that category in the US. For some weird reason though, fundamentalism is on the rise, it's like they're reacting in the most extreme way they can to the threat of irrelevance by doubling down on the superstitions.

As the baby boomers pass away though, theres gonna be over a span of just a few years an utterly enormous shift in the religious demographics away from belief to non belief, and also of course a HUGE shift away from conservatism and the nonsense that keeps people voting against science known as fox news (their average viewer audience is like is like 68 iirc. They might lose 70% of their audience all at once).

Without the conservative ideology which is of course tethered to religion to tell us that climate and evolutionary science are bullshit and their mobilizing effort to keep people voting creationism in public education and voting against climate change action, things could make a change for the better VERY fast.

I also think that religion will continue the massive decline it's been on since the enlightenment.

Like the mid-1960s? When the baby boomers became hippies? Before becoming Reagan yuppies in the 1980s?

The problem is, when these young, progressive people work for about 10 years and pay taxes for 10 years, they start to get CONSERVATIVE and don't want to pay for "welfare cheats."

I'm betting 35 - 45 is when most people start to throw themselves into religion.

Don't forget racial demographics. The rise of the right wing was whites clinging to a fading power base. The problem is that Hispanics are notoriously conservative in politics and religion, preferring the right-wing version of the Catholic Church.

Frightened people clinging to religion and guns will ALWAYS be with us, with the whites becoming increasingly fascistic. Get ready for White/Aryan terrorism starting in the 2020s.

Yeah, i disagree. The conservative rise is over, even by their own admission they will likely never win another national election again unless they drastically change, and the only change they're doing is getting WORSE, more fundamentalist, more conspiracy john bircher loony, more disruptive to the process. I think the only rise in conservatism we're seeing now is that the democrats are ACTING LIKE FUCKING CONSERVATIVES which is really frustrating me. Hell in recent polling they determined if the 2014 election happened today the republicans would lose a shit load of seats in congress.

Also, hispanics overwhelmingly vote democrat in national and state representative elections, they seem to vote conservative only in local and state bills and propositions for some reason. That stuff is important but not near as important as congress and the white house.

Also from what i recall, religiosity trends upwards at very old age, like late 60's when people are faced with their mortality is when they find god, but i see no reason to think that more people from the least religious generation in american history will flock to religion in old age, and they will of course not raise their kids religiously.

I dunno, i'm almost always a pessimist but i see good futures ahead for america and rationality.

That's ALWAYS a mistake...

What's always a mistake?

Seeing good futures ahead for america and rationality.

Why? We've living in the best time to be a human being in one of the best places to be a human being.

Look at the history of america, we've been on a slow steady progression towards reason and progressiveness. Belief in irrationality IS dropping, and it's dropping fast.

And the buying power of the middle class is collapsing. One percent of the U.S. population controls, what, 60 to 80 percent of the wealth? We've built a whole world on a fuel source that can't be replaced. There are no new oil fields in Alaska - they 've looked. Most builders are building apartment complexes - even in smaller towns - as they realize that owning a home is increasingly unlikely.

Things CAN and DO get worse for nations, and I think the U.S. may be getting there. When that happens, people will cling tighter to their bibles and their guns. Obama was right about that.

We're getting dumber and we can't stop having kids so there's more people to feed and food and water and breathable air is disappearing. With global warming, when the U.S. can't grow its own food anymore, what do you think will happen?

Yes, I think we're in a golden age, but we're toward the end of it. In our lifetime, givens like air travel will end. My guess is that the U.S. will balkanize into the East Coast, the South, the West and Midwest with dominant state governments and federal government that is almost non-existant.

And as things collapse, they're going to want scapegoats. I'm thinking liberals, gays and athiests will be ripe for "Patriot Camps" where we keep the evil-doers concentrated for the good of the Homeland.

I and a surprising number of people I know and don't know have plans for the coming bad times. Remote locations, number-one. As much food storage and self-sustaining food production as possible for another, and an energy system off thr grid.

I could be wrong, but... Systems break down. Entropy is the way of the universe.

I don't think you can exactly map Baby Boomer behavior to more recent generations. The Boomers got a lot of "scripts" handed to them - including the "you officially change the world in your 20s, and by your 40s you've earned your prosperity and anything that might threaten it is horrible" - but unlike their parents, who got to see conservatives break the world, or us younger folks who got to see conservatives break the world, they never got their worldviews challenged that much.

People being people, I think conservatives will always be with us (there's a lot of appeal to securing as much money as you can, who needs a livable world, viable markets, or thriving communities) and I think religion will always be with us (it's something people emotionally want). But I think this little nasty chunk of time is historically unique - a little like how we have a lot of really horrible racism out there right now, but we aren't technically fighting Jim Crow or slavery as a big political deal.

Yes, but some patterns never change, just the players. Racism is growing, but when it's against whites, it's called "justice" these days. Nothing changes - only the players.

It took me about half that time to turn fiscally conservative after once identifying as full-blown liberal.

Yeah, I'm getting there, but I'll never be full-blown right-wing.

Frankly, I'm disappointed in Nye for participating in this debate. Doing so is implicitly giving value to Ham's ideas. The venue puts both sides at equal footing and gives equal legitimacy to both. This is, quite purely, wrong. If someone claims the sky is green, you don't debate them. If they disagree with any and all evidence, no matter what, there is no merit in debate.

I was hesitant too but given how it turned out, i think it was a good thing. THe only thing i really don't like about it was that it was basically a funding scheme for the creation museum.

The creation museum btw is in dire straights. They owe millions to creditors they don't seem to have any means of getting.

The KOCH brothers will bail them out. I DID read an article in a Christian magazine about how there are fewer churches being built in the U.S. right now than in just about any other period, but that's because there was a church building boom in the early 2000s.

Yeah but church attendance is WAY down as well. In fact they're doing "Flash masses" now because so many churches have like 90% of their pews empty, congregations will descend on mass to one empty church after another each sunday.

Did the koch brothers say they would bail out the creation museum? that's news to me. Far as i know it very well might not exist by the end of the year unless Ham comes up with some major cash.

Maybe it's best for a creation museum to exist. Sort of like Westboro Baptist - they are the logical extension of all anti-gay-rights talk. Telling people that we all descended from one family 4,000 years ago might open the eyes to a few of them as to what bullshit it is. Entymologists says it would have taken six vesssels the size of the ark to transport the thousands upon thousands of beetle species alone - and only two of each!

The place should be a museum of idiocy. a place people go to for amusement only.

It kind of is already like that.

Because their exhibits don't change.

There is nothing new discovered in their "science."

So you go to the museum once if you believe or for the lulz, and you've seen it and you don't need to go back.

Actual museums on the other hand are always swapping around stuff with other museums. So it's seldom the same twice.

Buddy of mine and I went there for the animatronic dinosaurs. The rest was epic retardation and a hijacking of science. They claimed "Science" to make idiotic statements and then defended it by saying "It's SCIENCE!".. guh.. but the animatronic dinos were cool!!

I have to agree with deko. Don't wrestle with pigs. You get covered in mud and the pig enjoys it.

...I dont know, I -still- wanted the epic rap battle instead :P

I love Bill lol

I can't watch that kind of stuff. A person being an idiot doesn't bug me as much as knowing there are MILLIONS of retards behind him going YEAAAAHHHhhhh!

Drive me bug nuts.

Wow. As a conservative libertarian and Christian, the hate on this journal is just astounding.

Queue wall of hellfire in three.… two… one… now.

Don't worry. You aren't the only one here. I identify largely as a conservative, even being agnostic and gay.

I was a little more surprised you weren't drowned out by Rachel Maddow and Bill Maher quotes though.

Ok, and now that you guys are here i'm surprised we're not getting drowned out by science talk that demonstrate a 5th grader's understanding of the subject.

what hate exactly is that?

I do have a legitimate question though, if there is no God, and I honestly have no proof, simply my belief ( I readily admit that) why does it matter?

First you'll have to tell us what 'it' is, so we can tell you why it matters. Do you mean the non-existence of a deity? Existence of the universe? Or existence on a personal level?

Well, it matters because the dominant - or most vocal - group of Christians in this country seem to be anti-everything: Anti-gay, anti-welfare, anti-woman. Gays can't marry and are "sexual perverts." Women are secondary to men. Liberals hate America. Athiests want to destroy our children. Islamists want to take everything over and run our lives (like conservative Christians).

When I see a good, healthy civil war amongst open-minded Christians who understand that you must render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and those hate-filled right-wing Christians who keep promising a holy war/jihad to "take back this country," then something as seemingly harmless as a debate on how the world started is important.

I thank right-wing Christianity is openly, proudly hateful. That is my interpretation. And then they're shocked when they get labled hateful.

If that's not you, don't attack or criticize us - tell your fellow Christians why what should be a message of love is coming of as hate on the level of the KKK.

Well. Let's see, you're a christian conservative libertarian.

Your party votes against fair pay acts for women and every single woman and gay anti discrimination law.
Your party introduces and passes bills that mandate women be raped by the state with a foreign object if they want to terminate a pregnancy, which is a fundamental right in this country.
Your party fights tooth and nail to control women's reproductive processes via legislation.
Your party has been non stop fighting to get noah's ark taught to our kids as science in public schools.
Your party is fighting non stop to deny 80% of the people on this website a right that is available to you or your parents.

THey fight for these things due to religion reasons. You teach your children that they're wicked evil sinners from birth, poisoned and deserving of eternal torture and dangle an antidote in front of their noses provided they act and think like some absurd ideal that's contrary to our inherent nature. As an outsider, I saw how this ruined dozens of childhoods, kids afraid to live and kept up at night by the fact they just might end up in hell. You teach kids that the author of morality is also the author of a book urges the murder of gays, the keeping of slaves and the subjugation of women. It's just an unbelievably divisive and hateful theology.

Seriously, you mentioned hate earlier, i don't think anybody hates you. Me personally, i DESPISE your beliefs. Beliefs dictate actions. That's why it matters.

I must add it's an absolutely bizarre cognitive dissonance to be a libertarian conservative AND a christian. I don't think i could imagine two ideologies more contradictory to Jesus's portrayal in the bible.

Ok, for staters, you are aware I'm gay right?

Secondly, how are my beliefs contradictory to my political ideals?

I am mostly a fiscally conservative libertarian, so I simply believe that government regulation is not the path to fair pair, that it costs jobs, and hurts business, not to mention the massive misconceptions surrounding the unfair pay of women.

And the abortion (my one not strictly libertarian belief) subject… rape is a hard issue to deal with, I'm not even sure entirely where I stand on the issue, however, if to consenting people have sex, and she conceives a child, no I do not think that abortion should be a legal option.

Well since you didn't state it, I was most certainly unaware you were gay, being a conservative christian i was pretty sure you WEREN'T gay. So basically you're voting for the party that has fought to ban the freedom to be gay and fought for the subjugation of gays in every way imaginable for the last 50 years and you ascribe to the theology that says you MUST be murdered on sight and deserve to be tortured for eternity . Being gay, christian, and voting republican is basically the political and theological version of battered wives syndrome, if you do in fact vote republican.

Massive misconceptions about women's fair pay? There is truth to the popular figure even if it's not the whole truth but they AREN'T paid an equal amount for the same amount of work at the same job. That is not a misconception. The GOP and libertarians have fought tooth and nail against every attempt to rectify this.

"I'm mostly a fiscally conservative libertarian." Fascinating, so you vote for the party/or ideology that fights every attempt to help the poor, they fight every social safety net that helps the poor including feeding hungry kids with wic, snap and the federal school lunch program, they're responsible for our bloated military budget and portray the poor as a nation of takers, leaches. Yes, dumping all our money into killing brown people and telling the poor to fuck off, you don't deserve a little help is just such a christlike ideology. Question. Under your libertarian fiscally conservative ideology, what would happen to people like my brother who was born with a three chambered heart, his life was literally paid for by state and federal social programs because my parents couldn't afford the well over million dollars the 7 open heart surgeries that saved his life cost? Because if the libertarians and republicans had their way, NONE of those social programs would exist. Without government regulation, they wouldn't have even had to treat my brother when he was born with his heart not beating if they weren't required by the federal government to. I have actually not yet met a libertarian that said they think my brother should be alive today, they would prefer the system in which he was allowed to die at birth

I just don't get how you can rationalize worshiping the guy that spoke incessantly about helping the poor, urged you to sell ALL your possessions and give the money to the poor, fed the poor for free, gave them medical care for free yet vote for the side that wants to remove ALL safety nets for the poor, deny food assistance to poor children, and the libertarians specifically who either infer or outright say that yes, when people are sick and can't afford treatment, we should let them die, too bad so sad but that's life.

If you're a libertarian and DO support social programs, thnn that's another universe of cognitive dissonance i can't even imagine.

And great, another guy that hates "big gov't" yet supports the most intrusive government imaginable that takes away a woman's control of her own reproductive organs. that is just delicious hypocrisy. Better hope a bunch of catholics don't get in charge and make it illegal to masturbate because their personal religion dictates that that is an atrocity.

If you take a women and a man, both without kids, who work the same hours, and do the same job, with the same education, and the same number of years on the job, they make virtually the same wage. The differential is directly tied to the facts that men are more likely to take higher risk jobs, (miners, sewer workers, etc.) and are usually the people who stay in the workforce when kids are born, pulling them out of the workforce for 20+ years! putting them behind their male counterparts when they return to the workforce. Furthermore, women, who remain in the workforce after the birth of a child, are more likely to seek part time jobs, or one with a schedule that allows them to be home with their kids, and are more likely to be the parent to call in if the child is sick, these things inherently lower their pay. The issue of here is not one of unfair pay, it's about antiquated gender roles, although some more progressive families do have the dad stay at home, and mom work, most families still, to some level or another, stick to the 1950's June Cleaver role of a mother. We need to attack these social acceptable ( but morally abhorrent) ideas as a society to fix these issues. However if you remove mothers from the wage differential, it shrinks to women making about 97% of a mans pay. So yes, we fight against rectifying a all but non existent problem, the republicans of course fight against rectifying the social issue, libertarians do not.

Your brother would have been paid for the same way my cousin was, private charities. My cousins 2.4 million dollar hospital bill was all but paid for by CMN. See here's the thing, libertarians and republicans give way more to charities than liberals. Furthermore, religious people give more to charity than do non-religious. I don't want the poor to starve, freeze, etc. I give time and money to various local food pantries, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, as well as a couple of national charities. I feel the government (famous for being so very efficient... Oh... Wait.) should not be dipping their hands in my paycheck to redistribute my wealth, while wasting oodles of it on pointless administrative and other assorted costs. This does to things, as I mentioned it is way less efficient than direct giving, secondly, it removes personal responsibility, something society is loosing, but desperately needs to function.

I don't like big brother, the government should have virtually no control over my life, as long as I am not robbing, murdering, raping, etc.( including basic social no brained issues) I don't support social programs instead personal responsibility, and the libertarians (myself included) believe the military should only be used for one thing, self defense, we don't fund the war machine.

Giving screentime to nutters only helps the nutters.

I would have thought it was a pointless exercise in validating fantasy until I saw this video from one of the YouTubers I watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwodDeXHf-0
The expectations for Ken Ham from believers are that he should be able to EASILY provide real answers to his faithful—answers that are compelling, straightforward, verifiable and most importantly, TRUE. Failure to do any more than spew platitudes and Bible verses (as he inevitably does) will leave them more disturbed and unfulfilled and questioning why he cannot give better answers than anything that Bill Nye could say.

Glad you like bobby allison too. He's got a great channel.

Honestly, a LOT of people who mention reading things like god is not great or the god delusion and the pivotal role those books played in making them shed their faith express the same things bobby does there and this is why i don't think debates like the nye/ham debate are always a terrible idea. When people hear REALLY good arguments against their faith, they often have a crisis of faith and ask their fellow christians or whatever what's a great book to defend the faith, usually the same things come up, stroble, turek, or worst case scenario, Rick Warren (that book seriously seems like it's written for toddlers). When they realize the better arguments on each side simply aren't in the same league of reasonableness, that often is what starts them on the road away from religion. They look for the hard answers that will redeem their faith and find they just aren't there.

I just don't see ANY atheist or even anybody on the fence being swayed by anything ken ham could possibly say. Ken ham preaches to the choir, and preaches to raised in the choir to make sure they bring their kids up to make that choir a bit bigger. Reality and reason sway people all the time. Due to this I really don't think theres a whole lot to lose with these debates.

I would see issues with like eminent evolutionary biologists doing it because it's so beneath them but Bill isn't one of them. He's just a guy that had a tv show that's passionate about science.

I was amazed at Ken Ham's ability to dodge questions. He's reallllly good at it.

He's a professional apologist. Watch ANY debate with one and that's what they do.

Except John Lennox who's a mathematician. He had a great debate with Dawkins and i gotta say he seems to be one of the only really fundamentally honest debaters on the theist side I have ever seen and while not persuasive, has much better and much more unique arguments.

I just watched the debate they did at Oxford. I'd have to agree with you that his argument is unique but not persuasive. I can't think of a better way of putting it. One thing theists seem to fail to understand is that science isn't about knowing everything, it's about providing a method for understanding the world around us in a logical, testable way.

Unlike Ken Ham's, which was uneducated and physically painful to listen to. He said at one point in trying to debunk radiometric dating that we have to assume decay rates are constant, as if to suggest that they are not.... but the are. I wish I could find it but at one point he was asked a really hard question and said a few words to start the explanation, made sort of a weird noise, and then started repeating some pre-caned script in which Jesus and God and Bible were mixed in.

Oh i don't think he's persuasive, he's WRONG haha. But he's eloquent and he has his own arguments. I just think he's a good debater, he has a good honest response for just about any question.

I dunno, i usually come away from "Existence of god" debates with a bad taste in my mouth from the theist side because they use so many just laughably dishonest tactics. Whether it's Willian Lane Craigs patented "Throw out 2 dozen truth claims in 5 minutes rapid fire and focus the rest of the debate on the ones he didn't have time to answer and say he CAN'T answer them" or Dinesh D'souza's "Just make shit up and hope your opponent doesn't know any better." tactic, I never have come away from a John Lennox debate with a bad taste in my mouth.

Right, I had said -not- persuasive... because his arguments still don't make sense.

You are one hella smart guy

Well I'm certainly not DUMB that's for sure haha

:D