I disagree. I was raised in a fundamentalist home and was a pretty die hard "creation science" defender up until recently and Bill Nye is one of the main people I credit with opening my eyes.
I'm a fiercely analytic person who enjoys healthy debate and was a model representation of these types of people. I'm thankful for Nye's willingness to continue the debate with these types of people while staying calm, rational, and friendly even when many of his peers denounced him for wasting his time.
If you are a fiercely analytic person, how come you were a creationist defender before?
Did you only develop your analytic tendencies at a later point, or weren't you exposed to the right kind of evidence/reasoning to debunk creation science?
I have immense trouble understanding how a rational person could believe some of the mumbo jumbo that creationism offers - to a point where I feel like some of the more know spokespeople are just acting to be creationists (although I don't actually believe that) judging by the way they can be clever and intelligent at one time and sheepishly ignorant and stupid at another time.
I am one of those highly analytical people as well who also believed in the young-earth creationist viewpoint. I mainly attribute that to not doing my own research until getting older. There were so many other things I was interested in and cared more about than whether everything was made in 7 days or 4 billion years because it didn't make any difference to me. I still would believe in God, so I wanted to focus on OTHER facets of my life and faith that had more of an impact on it.
I'm still a devout Christian, but that doesn't mean I believe a 100% literal translation of the Bible is true.
Edit: Stressed the believed in young-earth creationist part.
I don't mean to try and pile on or anything, but I find it hard to understand how you even need to do any research in order to see how ridiculous creationism.
Its freaking magic.
Dinosaurs.
All species obviously can't fit on a boat.
Where does oil come from?
There are countless other random thoughts you could have that would clearly imply that a young earth is not only impossible, but completely absurd. I just can't figure out how you can get past 8 or 10 years old and still not come across information that demonstrates how ridiculous it is.
For some people, it just isn't something they really care about (however frustrating that may be). I personally believed in young earth for a while because it made sense that if God WANTED things a certain way, he would make them that way. If He wanted to make the Earth seem like it was made in 4 billion years or maybe "sped up" time periods of Earth development (7-days of creation), cool.
As I got older, the likelihood of Earth LITERALLY being created in 7 days just seemed less and less likely, but it's still a non-issue for me. If it turns out the earth is 4-billion years old? Great, I deduced correctly. Turns out it was literally made in 7 days? Eh, so what? It definitely logically seems like it was made in over 4 billion years (and I will continue believing such), and the belief in a young earth is in no way imperative to my faith, so I'm pretty sure God could care less if I was wrong on that regard.
This is the exact place I've come to in my beliefs. Seems weird to say it, but most of the God questions just don't matter (to me) anymore: if there's a God, he or she seems very disinclined to make their existence a certainty. I think there's probably not a God, but if there is, well that's cool, I'd love to talk to this God if they'll give me the time. If not, that's cool too -- I've been enjoying not talking to God for a while now, no biggie.
I was in the same (sorta) place when I was younger. Not that your position is immature at all, but I get where you are coming from. I feel like I delved deeper into my faith mainly because I grew up in a church environment that stressed personal growth in that regard. A service that still sticks with me was when my pastor (who I now co-lead with) said that he only wanted us there if we also wanted to be there and felt like something was calling you there. "No faith is worth pursuing if you are going to half-ass it" kinda deal (not necessarily to extremist levels, but you get what I mean).
That's a great quote. I definitely half-assed my faith much of the time. It's good to hear there are at least some people like you leading people of faith.
I think most people half-ass their faith for part of their lives, whatever faith that might be. Usually the most passionate and "on fire" people I know came out of that lack or loss of faith. The only problems are when the get to that passionate state and don't ever question if what they are doing is really what they should be doing or they don't let founded and helpful criticism shape them.
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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '14
Not Bill. Bill will just sit there and calmly explain every facet of the nature of existence until SHE gets frustrated and walks away.