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Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Turn It Around

Have you ever noticed how often arguments can simply be turned around on the one making the argument? Perhaps you've seen this before:
If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with the world we observe, that's fine. But don't make your kids do it. Because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need engineers that can build stuff and solve problems. - Bill Nye
I've always wondered about rants like this. You know, "You Christians are so judgmental and intolerant!!!" "Oh? Sounds very judgmental and intolerant of you." So, why does Nye's quote not work in reverse?
If you want to deny God's existence and live in your world that completely ignores everything in the world we observe, that's fine. But don't make your kids do it. Because we need them. Our future requires people with a genuine sense of purpose, with a basis for morality, with real-world answers for the hard things that happen. We need Christians that can love people beyond the best enlightened self-interest of your minimal materialism. We need much more than mere scientific literacy.
Nye goes on to say, "In another couple centuries I'm sure that worldview won't even exist. There's no evidence for it."

Again, in reverse, "This evolutionary worldview has been around for merely a century and denies much of what science finds and most of what the Bible says. It offers no morality, no purpose, no hope. Scientifically, it keeps getting moved from its moorings, including such theories as Darwinism, gradualism, punctuated equilibrium, symbiogenesis, quantum evolution, Lamarckianism, zoogenesis, orthogenesis, pangenesis, and neo-Darwinism. Christianity, on the other hand, has survived executions, persecution, assaults, heresies, and time all the while remaining, at its core, unchanged from the first century, built solidly on 4,000 prior years of biblical history. I suppose you might think that Christianity will vanish in a couple of centuries, but there's no evidence for it."

Sometimes these "well thought out arguments" don't seem that hard to handle.

2 comments:

Danny Wright said...

How about: "If you want to order your life according to an objective reference point go ahead, but it is wrong for you to impose your objective reference point onto your children. They ought to be able to order their lives according a subjective reference point like I do. In fact I feel so strongly about this that I think that we ought to make a law."

Sherry said...

Good points, Stan!

Let's pray for Bill Nye. It's not too late for him to "see the light". I saw him dancing on a clip from Dancing with the Stars. Ow, Science Guy. (He was brave to go on there however and, in my opinion, should keep that wig and wear it every day. He actually looked like kind of a cool dude; I mean aside from how cool most young people already perceive him to be.) But Mr. Nye's still got some years in him in which he could do a big turn-around. Anything's possible, right?

"Now this is the message we have heard from Jesus and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him." I John 1:5

Daniel 2:22 "He reveals what is profoundly deep and mysterious and knows what is in the darkness; with Him dwells light." I John 1:5

Bill should dig the profoundly deep and mysterious part of knowing our God.