Analysis and aftermath of the Bill Nye - Ken Ham debate

Let's get this out of the way...Bill Nye won the debate with Ken Ham.

Ouch. In this debate, which was covered at least in some measure by major news outlets, Christians had an opportunity to take a crack at many atheists, but it ended in a bit of a flop. The pain of this failure is made worse by how rare these debates are. For the past few decades, in order to discredit creation and avoid the issues, atheists have made it clear that their tactic is to avoid debating creationists. This cowardly tactic is no secret or conspiracy theory, but is vocally promoted by prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Eugenie Scott. Even in this case, many told Bill he shouldn't do this debate at all. So, I certainly respect Bill Nye for having the guts to stand up and argue for his position. Since I feel that Ken Ham's performance was poor, and in order to help bring about some good from this event, I'd like to offer some commentary and analysis. The point is not to slam Ken, but to learn from this experience to see what Christians can do better in the future when we engage with atheists.

First off, I'd like to explain why I say that Ken Ham lost the debate. It's quite simple really: he just didn't sell any of his points because of a failure to be assertive/aggressive. He made some good comments, but failed to hammer the point home. His initial 30 min. presentation was quite good, but he fell apart quickly after that. It's unfortunate because the rebuttal section is generally where debates are won or lost. Ken spent most of his first rebuttal talking about Christians who don't believe in creation, leaving Bill unchallenged and ignoring the topic of the debate, thus leaving a very weak impression. Bill Nye wasn't terribly on-topic either, but at least made a few clear points and drove them home. In the rebuttals, Ken lost because he just played defense and when he finally tried to make a positive attack on Bill's position, it was too little, too late.

Calling out Bill's bad arguments

I'd like to now analyze some things that Bill said and show how Ken should have called him out on it. As a reminder, let's clearly state the topic: Is creation a viable model of origins in today's modern, scientific era? In general, Bill's tactic involved bringing up a lot of irrelevant things and acting like they proved his point. For example, he spent a lot of time discussing advancements in medicine, engineering, etc. but these are irrelevant to the creation/evolution issue. Bill also brings up the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as evidence for his position, but this again is irrelevant. The CMB appears in creation models also. In light of this, Bills argument melts away. What is his point? How is the creation model invalid? He never says.

It was also clear that Bill wasn't familiar enough with creation models to even know what he's arguing against. Bill brought up several issues that have already been well-addressed by creationists: feasibility of the ark, ice core dating, radiometric dating, etc. Reasonable models have been presented on all of these topics. (To get an overview of some of these issues, see A short course in creation/evolution). Again, I ask, in what way is the creation model invalid? Where is Bill's argument?

This is a little off-topic, but I think it's also worth addressing Bill's ignorance of the Bible. Frankly, a lot of the atheists I meet are just as ignorant. They make the same claim as Bill, “Well, the Bible is unreliable because it has been translated so many times and it's kind of like the telephone game.” Seriously guys, get some facts before speaking. Want to know how many times the Bible was translated to get an English text? Once. From the original languages of Greek and Hebrew. By the way, those Greek and Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible are the most well-established historical documents. Long story short, If you have a Bible translated from the textus receptus (KJV), you can guarantee that you hold in your hands a translation of what was written thousands of years ago. The evidence is that sound. Now, I partly understand the confusion of the atheist due to the multitudes of Bible versions out there, but that's another topic for another time.

The attack Ken should have made

Now for some offense. Here's a short summary of what I think Ken should have said: Compared to evolution, creation is a far superior model of origins. Evolution survives in the scientific community merely because of an imposed absolute adherence to naturalism. Evolution predicts that organisms would be simple things, able to be generated by many small steps, evolved to be little more than sufficient for their environment. Creation predicts that organisms will display complex patterns and well-engineered forms that evidence the work of an intelligent creator. The prediction made by the creation model is true, and is the grounds of a whole multi-disciplinary branch of science called biomimicry. Evolution predicts that natural selection and random mutation can work together to generate creatures of increasing complexity. Creation predicts that natural selection and random mutation acting on an initially perfect creation will have a detrimental effect, causing loss of complexity and ultimately disease. Modern genetics confirms the prediction of the creationist, that if positive mutations occur, they are few and far between, and that they get “washed out” in the sea of bad mutations. Therefore, creation is not only a viable model of origins, but indeed seems to be the correct one. I could go on in this comparison, but I think you get my point.

The Christian reaction to the debate – driven by laziness?

When I first set my mind to write this post, this section was not included. However, after reading so many Christian responses to the debate, I feel there are major issues that need to be addressed. I've seen many private comments that concerned me, but for now I'll focus on the response written by Al Mohler since it is a good representation of the problem. In general, many responses that I've seen from Christians intimate a dismissal of the whole debate, an attitude of “who cares” or “debates don't change anyone's mind/heart, so why bother?” This is particuarly ridiculous to me, because debates on the creation/evolution issue were helpful to me in coming around to a creation position, which then made me open to the gospel. If I determined 10 years ago that the Bible was merely a book of stories, I'm sure any Christian that tried to share the gospel with me would have a much harder time. In other words, I know this stuff is important because it was helpful to bring me to Christ.

Now, looking specifically at the article from Al Mohler, he expresses a sentiment that I see coming from many Christians when he says that the real problem is “autonomous human reason”. In essense, Mohler sees human reasoning as the enemy. He intimates in this article that human reasoning is corrupt and therefore only divine revelation will help the lost sinner. In other words, don't engage the sinner's reasoning because it can't possibly work. How silly. Mohler seems to imply that we should do nothing more than walk up to an atheist, deliver a monologue about the gospel, then expect God to save them. I've seen a lot of Christians saying similar things...or at least showing that they give up way to easily. What happened to pleading with the lost, reasoning with them (as Christ and the apostles did, by the way), working, and doing whatever it takes to bring them to an understanding of the cross?

Now, when sharing the gospel, there are certainly times to move on. If they stop listening and are merely mocking, don't waste your time, but find someone else. However, in my experience, that's only about 30% of atheists. The majority are willing to have a reasonable conversation, about creation, the gospel, etc. Oh, and don't think that apologetics aren't important. Yes, sharing the gospel is the most important thing, but using just enough apologetics to shake his naturalistic foundation is a wise move.

In all these responses, it seems that Christians have given up way too easily, so much so that we no longer expect dialogue or debate to do any good at all. I can only imagine that this is driven by laziness. There are so few Christians that share the gospel in the first place. So, to ask someone to go the next step and try to learn a thing or two in order to better engage with atheists...well, that's just asking too much, right? Is this how cold Christianity has become? Is our passion for reaching the lost so dead that we give up after a single half-hearted attempt? It's so much easier to just say, “well, he's entrenched, unreachable, etc.” than it is to examine ourselves and question if we are actually giving the atheist a compelling argument. If you have a desire to see people saved, don't fall into that trap. Try to put yourself in their position...if you were an atheist would you be compelled by the things Christians say? Try different things, learn, improve, find someone passionate about evangelism and learn from them. Eventually you'll get quite good at talking with atheists. But please, whatever you do, don't just act like it doesn't matter.