For the record: I don’t think Nye was rude, abrasive, or anything like that. Nor do I think he was not. (I suspect he was not, at least in any overt or particularly blameworthy way.) I hope my posts have not given the impression that I think otherwise.
-FrL-
Speak for yourself! I’m a christian, and an evolutionist, and a non-literalist. I think the Bible and evolution coincide just fine thankyouverydamnmuch!
Nye should be commended for making those backwoods imbeciles look like the lemmings that they are. Idiots like that give real Christians a bad name.
I would respectfully remind you that I did not start this pitting, and I remain a Bill Nye fan. But frankly, everything is speculation in this thread, and I thought discussing a just-as-likely scenario would be an entirely reasonable response to an OP that itself was rather presumptuous.
ETA: if6was9, I’m going to hope that you don’t seriously think anti-evolutionists/creationists/ID-ers/whateverthehelltheycallthemselvesthesedays are not “real Christians”. That’s arguably even dumber than Protestants who don’t think Roman Catholics are “real Christians”.
I knew I shoulda just said Chief Wiggum and been done with it! :smack:
I’m just saying they’re the vast minority. And stupid to boot. Willingly stupid. Something that makes me madder than anything.
Or sunrise?
Well, since God is a Watchmaker, 
I’d have to say 24.
I have to say this is a rather lame Pitting since we don’t even have a real cite. Please wolf_meister come back when you have a fact or two. Really, the cite you linked to could be grossly exagerating the circumstances.
I’m going to hope that you don’t seriously think anti-evolutionists/creationists/ID-ers/whateverthehelltheycallthemselvesthesedays are in any way the majority or in any way possessing an original thought in their heads.
That’s arguably even dumber than some fundie mother who walks out on a GOD DAMN Bill Nye appearance. :dubious:
Moonshine is better in the sunshine.
Too bad these lemmings insist on following the real world lemmings and not the Disney version.
Regardless of the lack of a cite, I think it’s safe to assume Nye brought Genesis into his science talk. Something that could be perceived as inappropriate. Science can easily be used to ridicule any number of silly beliefs, but what’s the point?
Why the need for nannyism? To me it seems the problem was not introducing facts but using them to contradict a belief system.
Let’s see how this might work in practice:
Camper #1: “Hey, did you bring the flashlight, it’s pretty dark out and I need to use it.”
Camper #2: “Ya, here it is”
Camper #1: “It doesn’t seem to turn on, did you bring batteries?”
Camper #2: “Oh that one doesn’t need batteries”
Camper #1: “Well, how do you turn it on?”
Camper #2: “You don’t really turn it on, per se, it works by gathering all of the available light aimed in it’s direction and then it reflects it back to where you aim it”
Camper #1: “But…there is no other light”
Camper #2: “Ya, I know, the ones with batteries do seem a little better…”
Again addressing Liberal’s viewpoint:
The light reflecting off the surface of the moon comes from the sun. So essentially, we are seeing the moon’s “ground” merely being lit by the sun. When it’s daytime at your location on the earth, do you look at the ground and think “oh, a light!”? If you were on the moon and saw the earth lit up, would you think “oh look the earth is a light too!”?
Of course it’s both a light and it’s not a light, just depends on the context. I think the problem with Liberal’s post was the apparent simplification that there is really only 1 context in which to use/define the term.
Yeah, I think that’s kind of an obnoxious, elitist viewpoint. Equally as obnoxious as certain people who believe that if you don’t accept Christ, you are bad/evil/lost/etc. The best way to overcome ignorance is to put the facts out there and let them speak for themselves.
I can’t recall what famous scientist had this confrontation, or maybe it’s apocryphal.
Little old lady: Everyone knows the earth is flat and rests on the back of a turtle.
scientist: Well, what does the turtle stand on, ma’am?
little old lady: You’re very clever, young man – but it’s turtles all the way down.
There was a time when I used to feel (for who knows what reason) that everyone’s belief or opinion should be given respect - even if that respect was fake and was just a social courtesy. Now, having reached middle age, I don’t see it that way anymore. To much, I’ve seen people who demand “respect” while giving none in return, and demanding that the entire world bow down to them and their views - no matter how ignorant, ridiculous, and stupid they may be. They want to receive tolerance and respect, but they have nothing but abuse and sometimes outright hatred for any who don’t believe the same things.
No more. There is a quote somewhere that I don’t feel like looking up right now. The gist of it is, you can have any moronic opinion or belief you want, you have a right to that moronic opinion or belief, but I do NOT have to respect it. I don’t have to pretend it’s all OK either.
Maybe I’m jaded, maybe my “tolerance capital” has been all spent.
Sure. But here we don’t know who is being an asshole- the dudes who walked out of the Nye seminar, or the dudes who made up that story out of whole cloth. Since we don’t know that nice little story actually happened, why do you scorn their beliefs? :dubious:
I was never bothered by that. Our sun was not the first light in the universe. Truth be told, I always assumed that the big bang was a brightly lit explosion, but apparently that’s not the case. Even still, the first light that managed to break out of the original darkness (IIRC, around 300,000 years after the big bang?) could be the light referenced in the first day of Genesis.