Yes Micheal be a lark and provide writen arguments to that Symbolic Logic that explains god. I think it is also imporant to remember that a logical argument is not always correct, just logical, it is not incorrect because of error in logic, it can still be incorrect because the data used for the premises are incorrect, thus the a premise being false or unknown truth can make any logical argument wrong or open to being wrong. Anyways all that is besides the point, I now beleive Bill is most likely going to be creamed much to the creationist communities delight and funding.
Idk I gotta believe the guy is just passionate about education and science towards youth. I'd like to think hes bringing some attention to these issues. "The takeaway: A recent Pew poll found that, 60% of American adults said they believe in evolution, while 33% do not. But a 2011 polling in the National Survey of High School Biology Teachers showed that the majority of high school biology teachers don't take a definitive stance on evolution with their students. Sixty percent of the teachers polled didn't take a direct stance on the subject. Fewer than 30% of teachers take an adamant pro-evolutionary stance on the topic. In addition, 13% of these teachers advocate creationism in their classrooms. With the U.S. ranking 21st in science amongst 65 nations, it’s time we address the startling indifference with which our educators are treating evolution, a critical component of the sciences. With insurmountable evidence that the world was, indeed, not created in 6 thousand years ago, it is a tragedy that our educational system even entertains creationism as a viable topic within the sciences. The 13% of public school teachers who present only creationism are deeply impeding our growth on a national scale." That's pretty freaking sad....http://www.policymic.com/articles/78137/bill-nye-to-debate-guy-who-started-creation-museum-in-kentucky
Of course, God is the Big G. How did I miss that? Now. What is the upside down A? Adam. Meditating. There is a back to front E as well. That would be Eve, not speaking to Adam, because she got the blame over the apple business. Wouldn't this puzzle be easier if Godel said what the letters stood for?
That is a very fair appraisal. The money might be an attraction too, but you are probably right. There is no reason why people can't accept real science, and leave their religious faith intact. In the UK, no faith schools teach creationism in Biology. There is no need for "Creation Science". You can't have different brands of science. Either something conforms to the scientific method or it does not. Science is not a fixed star. Some things I was taught decades ago as accepted hypotheses, are now proven wrong. Being wrong is part of science. It is a journey towards scientific truth. That doesn't mean that everything that you honour, and hold dear, has to be scientifically provable. Hopefully a few of the audience might come to understand that science cannot be used to support a belief system or a culture.
I agree, it's a scandalous state of affairs, but that's not my point. My point is that agreeing to a TV debate with this man is not a good way to tackle the problem. It's a long, grinding process of education of people. Good TV about evolution, sensible debates with non-creationist theologians, better museums, there is a lot that can be done but looking for a knock-out blow in A TV debate is a superficial showman's approach that risks backfiring.
A professional creationist apologist would be 100% prepared for the rebuttal because he/she would have worked this over in practice many many times beforehand. AND, they would "win" the debate - because at the end of the day they'll cleverly force the Scientist to admit to the problems of induction (for which they'll have ample stock and supply of field-tested easy to understand analogies pre-tested against theists and atheists alike) and once the problems of inductive of reasoning are made clear 'enough' to be understood by 'most people' they'll then begin to pick apart deductive logic through the major premise and *poof* before you know it the Scientist is having his/her arse handed to them. Thus 'Science' and 'Empiricism' is seen as no different than 'any other philosophical position including belief in God'. Equal is ALL these people are trying for. That IS the win. I've watched these debates many times and there's no way to "win" against a professional apologist - whom you'll never know is a Christian because none of their arguments will BE about Christianity. If any attempt is made to 'put' Christianity into the debate you'll be chastised by the referee (lose points) and things only go down from there and you lose the debate. There is no way to win and the best that this can go to is a draw. Thus, there's only ONE way this debate CAN go for a "Scientist" and that is to make magic-thought appear to be 'equal' to 'empiricism'. Which it most certainly isn't AND is depending on just how terms are defined. The fact Bill Nye doesn't recognize this suggests this could go the wrong way. I have no problem with the debate between professionals, preferably by letters. What I have a problem with is the format. I am 99.99999% sure Bill Nye would have his arse handed to him if he stepped into the ring with a professional Christian apologist. So, I have to agree, his ego got the best of him. Let's hope the person he is debating has an equally large ego and is a dumb-arse.
No dinosaurs described in the Bible? No problem, according to creationism proponent Ken Ham, who recently argued that despite popular opinion, dinosaurs and Biblical characters did co-exist -- in fact, they traveled together on Noah's Ark. Ham, the president/CEO and founder of Answers in Genesis-U.S. and the Creation Museum, made the unconventional claims during a new 60-second radio ad for the museum released this week. Titled "What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs?" the ad explains that while evolution proponents have used dinosaurs to “indoctrinate children,” the scaly beasts actually back up a more Biblical creation story. "Evolution has claimed dinosaurs evolved over 200 million years ago, that nobody ever lived with them," Ham says in the ad. "But the Bible gives a different history. God tells us that he created all land animals the same day he created man, about 6,000 years ago. What's more, there are even dinosaurs on Noah's Ark because God told Noah to take pairs of every land animal." In this way, "dinosaurs are no mystery at all," Ham concludes, as long as you believe in a literal interpretation of the Biblical creation story. Why is this dumbass being given even more public acknowledgement?
The facts are all in this song: [video=youtube;J60LNkqsxz8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J60LNkqsxz8[/video] Here's the words so you can sing along. A long time ago, when the earth was still green, There were more kinds of animals than you've ever seen; They'd run around free while the earth was being born, The loveliest of all was the Unicorn. There was green alligators and long-necked geese, Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees, Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born, The loveliest of all was the Unicorn. Now God seen some sinnin' and it gave Him pain. And He said, "Stand back, I'm going to make it rain." He said, "Hey, brother Noah, I'll tell you what to do. Build me a floating zoo." And take some of them green alligators and long-necked geese, Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees, Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born, Don't you forget my Unicorn." Old Noah was there to answer the call, He finished up making the Ark just as the rain started fallin', He marched in the animals two by two And he called out as they went through, "Hey, Lord: I've got yer.... Green alligators and long-necked geese, Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees, Some cats and rats and elephants, but Lord, I'm so forlorn, I just can't see no Unicorn." Old Noah looked out into the driving rain, Them Unicorns was hiding, playing silly games, Kicking and splashing while the rain was pouring, Oh, them silly Unicorns. There was green alligators and long-necked geese, Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees, Noah cried, "Close the doors 'cause the rain is pourin', And we just can't wait for no Unicorns." The Ark started movin', it drifted with the tide, Them Unicorns looked up from the rock and they cried, And the waters came down and sorta floated them away, That's why you'll never see a Unicorn, to this very day. You'll see green alligators and long-necked geese, Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees, Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born, You're never gonna see no Unicorn.
People actually believe the earth is only 6000 years old - I find such magic-thought quite fascinating. Particularly when there's human-made objects much older than that. The only answer is god is a trickster. Who'd voluntarily worship such a thing? Anyway, given the recent publication on de-aging a mouse, I put biological immortality pretty much right around the corner. I don't expect the monotheism's to last much longer than a couple more generations in any way, shape, or form as they are now. I suspect Christianity will morph into a sub-sect of neo-Christian Buddhism. Combining the meditative practice with self-forgiveness.
Well it wasn't much of a blood bath. Probably one of the strangest debates I've ever watched... Almost puked after hearing some of Ham's arguments. I doubt there will be any Christians taking their kids out of private schools tomorrow.. But I know know Ham didn't gain any more followers after watching that ridiculous spectacle.
I still don't see how such attempts to appeal to logical structures will automatically win against someone like Lawrence Krauss who has a strong technical background and can see right through the BS. When you're talking about mathematical induction, Godel only showed that induction must be taken as a second degree logical postulate, a proposition about the objects defined by the remaining axioms of number theory which cannot be proven or disproven from those same axioms. That doesn't stop you from deducing logical, consistent results via induction, it just means the principle of induction or an equivalent principle must be taken as a fundamental assumption in number theory rather than derived from simpler postulates. The axioms underlying mathematics cannot themselves be proven to have a physical reality in nature, they will always be contingent assumptions, but it's easily demonstrated that these assumptions lead to a consistent set of results and patterns which can be matched to countless phenomena in nature. Godel's "proof" of God makes various axiomatic assumptions which cannot be matched to anything observable in nature, and hence religion cannot be related to empiricism. Hence I say if someone threw up Godel's symbolic argument, I would ask my opponent to walk the audience through the argument and symbols, and by the time we get to the second or third axiom, when discussing something like what "moral good" means or why something has to be "necessarily exemplified in nature", I would only need to say "hold on a sec, why should I assume that?" We could tie up the theist's entire debate time either explaining an argument that they themselves either don't understand or don't know how to explain to the audience other than to say "take my word for it", or discussing why there's no reason the assumptions contained in the "proof" should be taken a priori to apply in our universe. Then when it gets around to my turn, I would simply say "now let me tell you all about some assumptions that do work in describing nature, in a way that you can see for yourselves without requiring a degree in formal logic, Egyptian hieroglyphics or any other specialties my opponent will use to try and bamboozle you." All that being said, I myself have personally experienced the frustratingly rigid structures of formal debate and how with certain anal retentive types, technical execution is even more important than the substance of the debate itself. I remember losing a debate about the French revolution because my opponent (who has since went on to become a greasy self-absorbed rule-bending lawyer/politician) made the opening remarks and in the process attempted to limit the debate to the earliest years of the revolution, which was like saying we're going to discuss the 20th century- all 50 years of it. A friend had told me this guy was planning the tactic a full day in advance, I balked and planned to ignore it altogether as a tasteless non-sequitor, only to be forced to apologize to the speaker moderating the debate and lose because apparently you have to formally request a change of scope in the topic directly with the speaker whenever your opponent decides to be a smug, arrogant, disingenuous little shit.
One of the main steps in Godel's logic is this: If something is truly perfect it will exist. There are a couple of problems with this. 1. How does really existing make a concept more perfect? 2. Is this existence physical or non-physical? If something physically exists, then it is subject to quantum randomness, and subject to decay, therefore imperfect. If something exists without physically existing, that is a contradiction.
