Watch Anti-Science Christians Have a Long Conversation About Science… June 5, 2012

Watch Anti-Science Christians Have a Long Conversation About Science…

By Hemant Mehta
June 5, 2012

It aired on Trinity Broadcasting Network last week.

It featured Ray Comfort, Eric Hovind, Ken Ham, and several other Christians who make their livings miseducating people about science.

It’s a Who’s Who of WTF.

And if you haven’t heard them speak before, you’re in for a treat. Especially when you consider how many Americans agree with them… I would start at the 19:30 mark and go from there:

My favorite part is the debate between Ken Ham and Dr. Hugh Ross at the 27:00 mark over who has the less distorted view of Creation. Even Ross, who believes what the Bible says, seems to be thinking, “Ken Ham has no idea what he’s talking about.”

Which part made your jaw drop the furthest? The part where they say atheists really believe in a god, but just refuse to admit it? The part where we learn science must fit into the Bible (and not the other way around)? The part where no women were invited into the discussion at all?

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  • Nah

    Yeah, I started at  19:30 and made it to 20:15. Still, Eric Hovind made me proud of the atheists at the Reason Rally. If every word of the Bible was true, I definitely wouldn’t worship that god either. He’s a monster.

  • This is just another day in the life here in Oklahoma!

  • Gus Snarp

    People believe this crap? Atheists don’t think they can ever know anything because we know all knowledge comes from god? I have never heard worse logic anywhere. Every single argument is a non sequitur, false premise, or both.

  • Winkus Rex

    It must be exhausting exerting all that energy to continue pretending not to know what is blatantly obvious to anyone with the barest modicum of intelligence.

  • Gus Snarp

    He just said Genesis follows the scientific method and the scientific method comes from the Bible. “You keep using that phrase, ‘scientific method’, I do not think it means what you think it means…”

  • I cant listen to this, I want to shoot myself. 

  • Secular One

    Wow, what a sea of dumb white guys.

  • Justin Miyundees

    “Dr.” Fauxhok got the question exactly right starting at 11:10 – either this beautiful amazing world is a cosmic fluke or we were put here by a god who knows how many hairs we have on our head.  Amazingly he gets it exactly wrong.  Magic – he indicates – is the real explanation.  Classic.  He then goes on to conflate his misgivings (giving as often as he can) and blames loneliness and depression on not buying the “Poof! There it is” theory.  

    Oh – and Ken Ham is a total whackowhackowhacko…..  Whew!

  • Gus Snarp

    I made it from 19 to about 33 where Hovind starts saying that god isn’t on trial, the unbeliever is and they don’t even have to bring any evidence because we’re on trial and not god (he repeats himself more than that). I couldn’t take it any more after that. Why do they insist on fabricating evidence and getting lousy scientists to sign on to their views if they believe that? If they don’t have to bring any evidence for god, then could they please stop pretending that they have any and stop trying to infiltrate our science classrooms?

  • Josie

    Ok, I don’t want to start a terrible debate here, but I just want to show some insight as to how these people think. This statement you made above: “The part where they say atheists really believe in a god, but just refuse to admit it?” reminds me of my very catholic family, especially my sisters. When my family discovered that I was an atheist, my one sister made the statement that “atheism IS a religion!” Of course I had to correct her, after I was done picking my jaw up off the floor. But it reminded me of another equally, if not more, ignorant statement that my other sister said years ago. I hope she doesn’t truly believe this, but just the fact that she said it made my jaw drop just as much: “Gay men have goatees so that when they’re having oral sex, it simulates having sex with a vagina.” I gave her the huge “Silverman WTF?” face back before it was a meme.

    But what is it about believers that they so strongly want to believe everyone not like them really does believe like them? I guess it makes them feel better about their beliefs? Maybe it’s deep-down subconscious insecurity about their own beliefs that make them want to project them onto others? … 

    Ok, now I’ll actually go watch the video. I’ve got my barf bag handy just in case. 🙂

  • Justin Miyundees

    I got that argument from one of my most admired and cherished friends – he’s articulate, humorous, intelligent and kind and, like you, my jaw dropped to hear it from him that “atheism is a religion”.  I said “then baldness is a hair color and NOT collecting stamps is a hobby.”  

    I think it goes to the base of the argument between faith & reason.  The faithful want to paint reason with that brush because they recognize faith as a weakness and so, if atheism is a religion, it is based an faith and therefore cannot stand up to reason.  Circular?  Yes.  But that’s what they do isn’t it?

  • Actually Hemant, I’m fine with the fact that no woman was invited to stand up for religious stupidity.

    Let the men slog it out with each other…, women can point and laugh.

  • Tinker

    That was my thought also. I could be wrong, there could be God, but I still wouldn’t worship him because he is not deserving of worship.

  • Wild Rumpus

    19:51  Eric Hovind – “I got to interview dozens and dozens of atheists, and I would get point blank with them and say, “If I could prove the God of the Bible exists… to your satisfaction – would you worship Him?” …and what do you think they said? “No”.”    “…they hate the god they KNOW exists.””…they know the truth but they are suppressing that truth”

    …the stoopid -it hurts…

  • Christy

    Complete gibberish masquerading as rational thought. I didn’t make it through the whole video.

  • Sam

    I tried to watch it, I really did. I lasted five minutes before I couldn’t take any more stupid…

  • Guest

    best part for me: astrophysisis as what astrophysicists teach, somewhere around 9:30.

  • It’s not like there are no women who were insane enough to sit in on such a panel, like there were no women to choose from or something… it’s that no women were invited. They were left out intentionally. I shouldn’t have to tell you what the Bible says about women and their role and place in society.

  • Gus Snarp

    And, complete nonsense of the content aside, do they actually think these production values contribute to the strength of the message? What’s with the voice over announcer? And the host’s hair? It’s like self satire. These people make Poe’s Law work.

  • I would describe this as an example of seven-way mutual mental masturbation.

  • observer

    Ironically I stopped roughly halfway because they were arguing with each other over who’s a young earth creationist, or who’s an old earth creationist, and I found it boring.

  • Kladar101

    “The scientific method came from the Bible.”  Oh boy. 

  • eonL5

    I always think, if there were a god, it wouldn’t be even a little bit like human religious folk imagine it to be. Not even one smidgen; not one iota; not one subatomic particle. That bible/quran/whatever dude is completely human.

  • Brian Pansky

    don’t do it.  The world is better with you IN it lol.

  • Can’t watch now, but is OEC Hugh Ross on there?
    This one is a bit old, but pretty funny.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HrWJKWCeTE 

  • Gus Snarp

    OK, I watched a little more. Freaking liars for Jesus. Comfort goes on about how atheists will backpedal when asked “So you believe nothing created everything”, and that he can get them to say “something created everything, it just wasn’t God”. Then he makes a huge leap from there to: “It’s a moral issue, the atheist doesn’t want there to be a god because he loves his pornography, blah blah blah list of random awful sounding things…” (not an exact quote). Now I know that Comfort has had conversations with atheists who would have explained that, no nothing was “created”. There’s no “creating everything” because that implies an agency that does not exist. What we mostly believe is that there’s always been something, even if it was a gravitational singularity, maybe our universe emerged out of another, whatever, but no something or nothing “created” everything. But he’s fundamentally dishonest. He will admit when he debates atheists and loses that the evidence is against him and say that just doesn’t matter because he had a religious experience. But he has the debates so he can go on shows like this and lie and say “I talk to atheist and they say….[insert crap made up by Comfort]”, knowing that people think all this must come from really smart, thoughtful atheists Comfort has debated, when nothing could be farther from the truth. He either made it up or he got it from some random person on the street who he labels an atheist because they don’t believe exactly in his view of god. He’s so disgustingly dishonest.

  • CultOfReason

    Ray Comfort is a living, breathing straw-man.

  • CultOfReason

     “Atheism is a religion like baldness is a hair color”….LOL!!!!  I hope I remember that one the next time I’m in a position to use it.

  • Glasofruix

    Managed to watch 3 minutes (starting at 19:00) is that for real? I mean how do these guys even manage to breathe and walk at the same time?

  • John

    I couldn’t watchpast the part where the one guy said that he’d interviewed “dozens and dozens of atheists” at the Reason Rally and every one said that he/she would refuse to believe in a god even if presented with irrefutable objective facts. I don’t know any atheists that bullheaded. He’s just a liar. I know . . . big surprise.

  • DKeane123

    +1

  • Gus Snarp

    He doesn’t say they said they would refuse to believe, he says they say wouldn’t worship, and not just god, but specifically the God of the Bible. Big difference. Scroll down to the comment by Nah, basically, the God of the Bible is a sadistic, perverse, genocidal monster. There are plenty of us who would proudly say we’d never worship such a being even if it existed.

    But he’s still a liar, it’s just that that statement might be technically true. Of course, he wouldn’t mind a bit if the audience took away your interpretation of his words instead of the technically correct one.

  • Gus Snarp

    BTW, if anyone’s wondering whether there’s anything else good later in the video, forget it, once they get on young earth versus old earth they’re still arguing about it at an hour in. Still debating the meaning of “day”.

  • Mandocommando23

    Did anyone notice right in the beginning how the host of the show belittles his own intelligence compared to the panel experts before telling the audience, “I’m with you.” So basically he says, “These guys are really smart, so all of us idiots should listen to them.” It sets up the appeal to authority that so many of the viewers will fall into.

  • A True Martyr.  Thanks!

  • Wild Rumpus

     Oh, then you’ll love “Atheism is a belief like abstinence is a sexual position” – Bill Mahr

  • Darius

    Do you ever think that in their wildest dreams the ancient Israelites that wrote Genesis would imagine that they would have people 2500-3000 years later still believing this crap that they knew they made up?

  • It’s like watching middle-school kids talking about sex.
    They know it is out there, they know it is important, but they have no freaking clue, don’t want to ask for fear of looking stupid so they make it up on the spot.

  • “It’s a Who’s Who of WTF.”

    🙂

  • Annie

    Oh my goodness.  I think just watching a few minutes broke my Bullshit meter! 

    I love the 22 minute mark, where (I don’t know the name of the guy) “shares” how his 7 year old is so much smarter than atheists.  Good stuff.  Good stuff.

  • Why do they consistently pick their bibles up and move them around, shake them, tap their hands on them, etc?   

  • A Morris

    From watching Ken Ham’s interaction with Dr. Ross, I believe Ken wants to be the Pope – only his interpretation of scriptures must be accepted.

    I wonder how many audience members departed with their faith having been fractured! 

  • A. Redel

    I often think it will take another 4 generations for a majority to believe in a natural creation.  When I hear creation defenders, I am certain it will happen in 3 generations.

  • James

    Apparently there are a whole bunch of fossils on the moon which got blasted out of Earth’s gravitational pull from a huge meteorite. That’s pretty much pure science in a nutshell.

  • Georgina

     That Eric Hovind, he hates UNICORNS, he is just suppressing the truth!
    Well, Mr. Hovind, guess what, you keep your soft-back history book, I have thousands of books about science, so I guess I win.

  • a_fire

    1:43:50 – essentially saying “Don’t think your own thoughts, let god do the thinking for you!”

  • MartyM

    At about 22:20 Mr. Hovind says “it’s a matter of authority”.  This hits the nail on the head.  They will not accept independent research, peer review, and consensus.  To them it has to come from some authority figure.  The problem is they can’t distinguish between their God’s authority and their own.

  • “with astronomy, we can see withing a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second of the creation, its not inference, we are seeing it”
    … um, no, its inference through scientific theory.. we cant see it!

  • Blanc_Slate

    It’s not surprising that the more I watch programs like this, the less hope I have in the intellectual capacity of Christians. The sheer fact that an educated person, a scientist no less, inserts a god “into the equation” for things not yet explained is baffling. What happened to reserving judgement until the evidence either proves or disproves a causal agent, as in the case of the origin of the universe and all things therein? It just doesn’t follow that for the things yet unexplained, a god we know nothing about including whether or not it exist, is directly responsible.

  • Ottsiii

    It is funny how these guys are even judgmental of each other. Pathetic and arrogant.

  • Ottsiii

    It is funny how these guys are even judgmental of each other. Pathetic and arrogant.

  • Ottsiii

    And by “funny” I mean incredibly sad.

  • BigIdeaSeeker

    Greatest moment is at 15:15 when Ray Comfort calls for the collection of all the “pastas”, all the American “pastas” to declare the wrath of God, presumably the Flying Spaghetti Monster.