In one of his rebuttals or his closing statement, it would have been refreshing to hear an Elijah mock the prophets of Baal.
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Mr. Nye, I’ve heard you reference Creationism with words like “extraordinary” and even faux surprise as if you could not fathom the foolishness of a mind that would hold to a literal, six day Creation by an omnipotent God as is recorded in the Bible.
Yet textbooks across our nation commonly teach that the Big Bang happened 14 billion years ago followed by a rock forming over the next 10 billion years or so. Life then sprang from this rock when water from some fantastic source chanced to fall upon it.
So, all life that we see today came from a rock. Consciousness, personality, spiritual entities like the laws of logic, morality, and science, maternal love, the pleasure we feel when we do good, information in cells—and we have not even mentioned irreducibly complex systems like blood clotting, the nervous system, and reproduction—all of these immaterial realities of life came from a rock.
That is what you believe. We came from a rock. Everything we see in this room from the people to the live streaming internet to our own eyeballs, came from a rock. Now, I like you as a person, and I would be glad to have you as a neighbor, but that particular belief can only be looked at honestly as a kind of insanity.
And you have the boldness to call the view extraordinary that says that an all-powerful, infinite Person could create a complex world? Again, I like you, and I want to be gracious toward you, but that conclusion is ridiculous.
The only possible way I can explain obviously intelligent people holding to that view is that they must really hate the God who makes my view both possible and necessary. And interestingly enough, that is exactly what John 7:7 says, “The world hates me [Jesus Christ].” Paul and Peter make some similar comments in their writings, so it would appear that the real divide between us is something in the heart rather than the head.
I mean, a rock over an infinite Person? Mr. Nye, you’ve got to rethink this one.
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I know in a dialogue you have to think on your feet, but he could have prepared a few slides on that theme and had them waiting for the finale or something. As far as the potential complaint that this little speech is not “nice,” let’s not forget that it is true, it could be said graciously, and we are in far greater danger of trying to be too nice, than too bold. What would a John Knox have said?
