I Asked 22 Self-identifying Creationists At The Bill Nye/Ken Ham Debate To Write A Message/question/note

22 Messages From Creationists To People Who Believe In Evolution

I asked 22 self-identifying creationists at the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate to write a message/question/note to the other side. Here's what they wrote.

I saw this article and I must admit, there was a lot of facepalm. After my initial facepalm session, I decided to redirect my despair and actually provide some answers.

Caveat: I make no claims of being any kind of expert, I just wanted to form my own ideas gleaned from a lot of miscellaneous reading into some kind of an answer that wasn't an incoherent stream of rage.

1.       “Bill Nye, Are you influencing the minds of children in a positive way?”

I would argue yes, Bill Nye espouses an evidence based, critical thinking centric way of looking at the world, is this a good thing? I’d argue yes, teaching children to look at things critically rather than just believing the first thing they’re told sounds fantastic to me – okay you might not want your children to ask awkward questions, but man the fuck up, that’s what children are for.

 2.       “Are you scared of a divine creator?”

Being scared of something is an acknowledgement and admission of its existence, so I doubt it very much. Besides, have you actually read the bible lately? The God of the Old Testament isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. The question I ask in return is this: are you more afraid that ‘he’ does exist, or that he doesn’t?

 3.       “Is it completely illogical that the earth was created mature? (I.e. trees created with rings, Adam created as an adult”

In a word: yes. In more words: that makes absolutely zero fucking sense and presents a serious cosmic mindfuck.

 4.       “Does not the second law of thermodynamics disprove Evolution?”

Citation: “The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems spontaneously evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium”

Short answer: not really, no. more here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html

 5.       “How do you explain sunset if there is no God?”

Well, the Earth revolves around that giant gaseous ball in the sky called the Sun, this is handy for us to see things by because the Sun produces light (as a by-product of a process of nuclear fusion and fission using hydrogen)

Due to certain other factors, the Earth also spins around a central axis (whilst revolving around the Sun too) meaning that only half of its surface points towards the big shiny thing in the sky at any given moment. This means that on the side that’s pointing away from the Sun it’s dark. On the edges between these zones you have either a sunrise (where that point of the earth is coming towards the Sun) or a sunset (where it’s moving away).

Ask a four year old’s question, get a four year old’s answer.

6.       “If the Big Bang theory is true and taught as science along with evolution, why do the laws of Thermodynamics debunk said theories”

See 4. Additional childish answer: “Because you touch yourself at night.”

7.       “What about Noetics?”

What the actual fuck do they have to do with anything?

8.       “Where do you derive objective meaning in life?”

From its brevity. You get one chance. There is no ‘round 2’ there’s no take-backsies, you live for an amount of time and then you’re not there anymore, to me the only real meaning we can derive is to make the best of it, to try and leave this tiny lump of rock better for our fleeting presence.

9.       “If God did not create everything, how did the first single-celled organism originate? By chance?”

There are thousands of possible hypotheses that can be (and are being) made on this subject, we may never actually know for sure – that’s one of the redeeming features of science, it doesn’t claim certainty until all the results are in (and often not even then.) What I’m driving at however, is that just because we don’t presently know for certain how the first cellular life arose, does not automatically default to “God did it!”

10.   “I believe in the Big Bang Theory… God said it and BANG it happened”

While this is an admirable attempt at marrying up Evolution and creation, it is an entirely unscientific one, I reiterate from above, just because we don’t know exactly how or why something happened doesn’t automatically mean “God did it!”

11.   “Why do Evolutionists/Secularists/non-God believing people reject the idea of there being a creator God but embrace the concept of intelligent design from aliens or other extra-terrestrial sources?”

Holy straw-man Batman! How about you ask these people this question? Perhaps you’ve just invented them for the purpose of this question or perhaps they believe in another religion (yes, those exist!)

12.   “There is no inbetween… the only one found has been Lucy and there are only a few pieces of the hundreds necessary for an ‘official proof’”

Wow… just wow, there are thousands of transitional fossils, just literally thousands – go and ask any university biology department, they have drawers full of the fuckers. But I know that creationists love transitional fossils, as soon as you’ve found one; now you have two gaps to be smug about.

13.   “Does metamorphosis help support Evolution?”

I don’t see why not, it’s an example of how animals change over time, how their forms are not fixed and how two animals of the same species will not necessarily develop the same way – sounds pretty good to me.

14.   “If evolution is a theory (like creationism, or the bible) Why then is evolution taught as a fact?”

Because creationism is at best a hypothesis, in basic terms it’s what you have before you get any supporting evidence. Evolution is a theory, one step below absolute fact – it’s taught as such because until evidence that discredits it is brought forward, it is considered as such. Remember please that gravity is referred to as a theory, did you leave your house this morning from the ground level or the top floor?

Additionally: the bible is what we call ‘a book’, not a theory.

15.   “Because science by definition is a “theory” – not testable, observable, nor repeatable. Why do you object to creationism or intelligent design being taught in school?”

What the actual fuck? ‘testable, observable and repeatable’ are exactly what science is. You throw a ball upwards, does it A) continue rising indefinitely? B) hover, ominously? or C) fall back to the ground, hopefully hitting you in the face? Congratulations, through a very basic bit of scientific reasoning you’ve just proved gravity and hopefully been hit in the face (saving me effort)

Why do people like myself object to creationism and ID being taught in schools? Because they are exactly opposite, they make zero scientifically provable claims, present zero evidence and are a waste of tax payers money.

16.   “What mechanism has science discovered that evidences an increase of genetic information seen in any genetic mutation or evolutionary process?”

The answer was in your own question: ‘mutation’. See: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

17.   “What purpose do you think you are here for if you don’t believe in salvation?”

I wouldn’t say we have a purpose; we’re here to be here, what we make of it from that is up to us.

18.   “Why have we only found 1 “Lucy” when we have found more than 1 of everything else?”

Because we haven’t? Multiple fossils of Lucy (Australopithecus) were found in the 70’s – Lucy is just the most famous of her kind.

19.   “Can you believe in ‘the Big Bang’ without faith?”

Believe is the wrong word, science has no use for faith. The scientific method at its very core is based on doubt, it’s based on asking the questions and finding out where they lead, not taking a stab at the answer and having faith that you’ve found the right one.

20.   “How can you look at the world and not believe someone created/thought of it? It’s Amazing!!!”

While I agree, it’s amazing, that doesn’t mean it has to have been intelligently designed/created. The existence a watch is in no way evidence of a watchmaker – upon further examination, you can provide a receipt to prove where the watch came from and then their records will show who made it. Just because that works for a watch doesn’t mean it works for a planet, do you have a receipt?

21.   “Relating to the big bang theory… where did the exploding star come from”

Okay, so the big bang was not caused by an exploding star. We’re talking about all the matter in what is now the universe compressed into a point, things that are compressed get hot and all that energy has to go somewhere.

Where did it come from originally? I don’t know, but again, that doesn’t automatically mean “God did it!”

22.   “If we came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys?”

We came from a common ancestor, that’s like saying “If me and my brother both came from the same parents, why do I still have parents?” the answer: you’re a fucktard.