Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham Creationism Debate

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Question: What, if anything, would ever change your mind? SC Well, the answer to that question is, I'm a Christian, and as a Christian, I can't prove it to you, but God has defhnitely shown me very clearly through his word, and he has shown himself in the person of Jesus Christ, that the bible is the word of God. l admit that that is where I start from I can challenge people that you can go and test that, you can make predictions based on that, you can check the prophecies in the bible, you can check the statements in Genesis. I did a little bit of that tonight. I can't ultimately prove that to you, a"' can do is to say to someone look, if the bible really is what it claims to be, if it really is the word of God, (and that's what it claims), then, check it out, and the bible says that if you come to god believing that he is, he will reveal himself to you and you will know. As Christians we can say we know, and so, as far as the word of God is concerned. No, no one is ever going to convince me that the word of god is not true Ken Ham We would need just one piece of evidence. We would need the fossil that swam from one layer to another, we would need evidence that the universe is not expanding, we would need evidence that the stars appear to be far away but are not. We would need evidence that rock layers could somehow form in just 4000 years as opposed to just the extraordinary amount, we would need evi dence that somehow you can reset atomic clocks and keep neutrons from becoming protons Bring on any of those things and you would change me immediately

Just because an animal has sharp teeth doesn't mean it eats meat, it just means it has sharp teeth

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About

On January 2nd, 2014, American science educator, Bill Nye, and the founder and president of the Creation Museum, Ken Ham had a debate arguing over the legitimacy of Creationism. Nye argued that the Earth was created billions of years ago and its life forms developed millions of years ago through the processes of evolution and natural selection while Ham debated that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago by the Christian God and that all life forms on Earth are the same now as they were when they were first created. The debate was streamed live by debatelive.org^[6] and occurred at the Creation Museum^[7] in Petersburg Kentucky.

Anticipation

Before the debate actually occurred, the event was announced on January 2nd, 2014, by the Christian evangelist website Answers in Genesis.^[2] Later that day, the announcement was posted to the subreddit /r/skeptic^[7]. The post received over 1,000 upvotes and 220 comments during that month. On January 16, the Richard Dawkins Foundation^[8] posted an article including reasons on why Nye shouldn't debate Ham, which included the opinion that arguing with Creationists legitimizes their arguments.

Spread

The debate spawned various image macros based off of screen captures taken from the event on Reddit that reached the front page.^[10]^[11]^[12]

Question: What, if anything, would ever change your mind? Well, the answer to that question is, I'm a Christian, and as a Christian, I can't prove it to you, but God has definitely shown me very clearly through his word, and he has shown himself in the person of Jesus Christ that the bible is the word of God I admit that that is where l start from I can challenge people that you can go and test that, you can make predictions based on that, you can check the prophecies in the bible, you can check the statements in Genesis. I did a little bit of that tonight I can't ultimately prove that to you, all I can do is to say to someone look, if the bible really is what it claims to be, if it really is the word of God, (and that's what it claims), then,check it out, and the bible says that if you come to god believing that he is, he will reveal himself to you and you will know. As Christians we can say we know, and so, as far as the word of God is concerned No, no one is ever going to convince me that the word of god is not true. Ken Ham We would need just one piece of evidence. We would need the fossil that swam from one layer to another, we would need evidence that the universe is not expanding, we would need evidence that the stars appear to be far away but are not. We would need evidence that rock layers could somehow form in just 4000 years as opposed to just the extraordinary amount, we would need evi- dence that somehow you can reset atomic clocks and keep neutrons from becoming protons. Bring on any of those things and you would change me immediately. Bill Nye

On February 5th, the viral content site BuzzFeed published an article^[13] including 22 images of Creationists who viewed the debate holding up handwritten signs including messages that they would like to address to people who believe in evolution.^[4]