The debate.
Is it a Presidential One? no. Senators? nope. Superbowl commentators? na (After last Sunday’s debacle I doubt they would have much to talk about).
It is the debate of Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis and Bill Nye the Science Guy (someone I used to enjoy watching as a child), each debating the issues of creation and evolution. Now you may be wondering in this post if I am going to weigh in on the debate itself. My answer is no simply because I have not seen it, so it would not be a fair assessment. I am here rather to blog about how Facebook has blown up with the responses from said debate. There have not been many responses from the Christians I know, (for various reasons including the fact that several of them do not agree entirely with Ken Ham), but I am sure that to many atheists, skeptics, and the like, the silence is only further “alleged” proof that all of us who claim a religious worldview are just ignorant and stupid and now we, thanks to this one debate, have been silenced once and for all.
If you think I am being harsh, some of the posts and memes have included name-calling (always a great way to appeal to the masses to advance a cause), crying out against the debate in the first place (because a scientist like Bill Nye should never have given a “stupid” Ken Ham the time of day), and I even had one friend post (and I am paraphrasing), “Creationism is so illogical and Ham is such an idiot that if you are a creationist, you best un-friend me because I have no time for that”.
Am I missing something? The stereotypes of Christians that I hear from skeptics is that we are mean, we are name-callers, and that we only surround ourselves with like-minded people because we are so close-minded, etc. So either the actions of certain critics of religion are just as low and condescending as that of the worst of religious bigots, or the skeptics should at least consider continuing the discussions and debates about worldviews and their implications (because ideas have consequences) rather than looking at this as the end all/be all to the matter.