Bill Nye's Disqualifying Ignorance or Lies about the Bible

Troubling.  Troubling.  Troubling.  Troubling.   Ken Ham's science is "troubling" to Bill Nye.  Remember how many times Nye said that, head wagging?  Bill Nye's talk about the Bible is troubling to God.  It should be troubling to you.  It should be troubling to the whole world.  But does anyone care?   I wish Bill Nye would start to care.

In that nationally televised debate between Ham and Nye, Nye ventured into the Bible a few times to lecture Ham.  Ham treated him respectfully and calmly.   I wouldn't have.  Nye needed a verbal comeuppance.  He required an annoyed or exasperating voice.  He should have been put down.  He was a joke.   He deserved a ROFL or LOL.  He was a less than Jeopardy level of Bible knowledge.  There should have been a loud buzzer that went off, and then a voice from the judges, telling him to stop.  Nope.  Stop.  No.  Noooo.

In this post I'm going to discuss everything that Nye said about the Bible for the heap of garbage that it was.  His major foray into biblical knowledge came after the following question in the last part of the debate:

Do you believe the entire bible is to be taken literally? For example, should people who touch pig's skin be stoned? Can men marry multiple women?

That was a question directed to Ham, and it is a typical kind of question from an atheist or just plain Bible ignoramus.  The question itself shows ignorance.  I'm not going to delve into what Ham said.  He gave a reasonable answer for the time he had.  But here is what Nye said:

So it sounds to me just listening to you during the last two minutes that there's certain parts of this document of the bible that you embrace literally and other parts you consider poetry. So it sounds to me in those last two minutes like you're gonna take what you like, interpret literally and other passages you're gonna interpret as poetic descriptions of human events. All that aside, I would say scientifically or as a reasonable man that it doesn't seem possible that all these things that contradict your literal interpretation of those first few passages. All those things that contradict that, I find unsettling when you want me to embrace the rest of it as literal. Now as I say I'm not a theologian. . . .

The SAT has a critical reading section.  It seems that the laws applied to critical reading are lost on secular Bible readers and no wonder.  Nye displays a woeful lack of understanding of even high school level literature.  Nye ends this comment with "I'm not a theologian."  It's worse than that.  He lacks in basic reading comprehension.

I guess you could say that he deserves a disclaimer because of beginning with "it sounds to me."  But you don't get that kind of mulligan in a debate.  Well, I should say that evolutionists do get those.  Pablum can pour out and they get a pass.  All the time.  They can say about anything wrong that they want with full disclaimer.  There's that much bias.  Let's think about it.

He says "document of the bible."  What?  Document of the Bible?  What's that?  Certain parts of the Bible, not certain parts of the document of the bible.  Ham wasn't talking about a document of the Bible, whatever that is.  It would be like referring to Disneyland like "certain parts of the amusement park of the Disneyland."  It's like a Bosnian, who doesn't know English, trying to explain an idiom.  Big laughs.  The fact that people didn't break out in laughter shows how much we accept imbecilic conversation about the Bible any more.

Ham explained a literal interpretation.  He explained that he takes the whole Bible literally, but a literal interpretation doesn't read every genre of scripture the same.  Ham could have done a better job explaining, but Nye opened his trap with a partial foot already sticking out.  A literal interpretation of poetry is not the same as a literal interpretation of a narrative or of law.  A literal interpretation requires historical context, and understanding of the meaning of the words in the day the book was written.  Poetry, for instance, uses figures of speech.  Some people think, when you say literal interpretation, that you take a metaphor literally.  If God's voice was like mighty rushing waters, that the language of God sounded like Niagra Falls.  No.  It's a poetic description, that when taken literally, considers a figure of speech.  That's all Ham was saying.  Literal interpretation of poetry takes into consideration figures of speech.

The question asked, which showed incredible ignorance on the part of the questioner, indicated that the person didn't know that a big chunk of the Old Testament law is in fact civil law that applied only to the nation Israel.  There is spiritual and moral value to the judicial laws of Israel, and we can make an application today, we are not required any longer, because of what the Bible says in other places, to obey the letter of those laws any more.  I don't have to obey the laws of Albania.  That's a point that Ham was making.  These laws were written to Israel.  Bill Nye doesn't know that.

The Bible part of Nye's brain is the near equivalent to juice in a blender.  It's like reading Klingon to him.  So when he speaks, just enjoy it for sheer entertainment value, like listening to Latka on Taxi.  It's humorous.  However, know this.  It should disqualify him.  When he speaks with such sheer nonsense, we should know that he has lost.  He doesn't know what he's talking about.  We don't want to follow his point of view.  Understand?  People who know what they're talking about, stop talking when they don't know what they're talking about.  Not only did Bill Nye not know what he was talking about, but he didn't know that he didn't know what he was talking about.  Sometimes at that point, medication might be offered.   Secularists nod like they get something.  That's a give away right there that you need to back out of the room and put your arms up to ward away possible sharp objects.

Then Nye, even worse, takes his Slurpee consistency bible knowledge and tries to lecture Ham about being consistent.  He moves into conspiracy theory.  Ham was following the parts he likes, and the parts he didn't like, that gave him trouble, he would just call it poetry.  (Mad scientist laugh here)  Yeah, Ham's got trouble with touching pig skin.  The Denver Broncos had trouble touching pig skin (rim shot), but I'm guessing someone named Ham (another rimshot) doesn't have trouble touching pig skin.

Right after this point in his comment, Nye calls himself a reasonable man.  He turns around and there is the "hit me" sign taped on the back of his coat.  This gives new meaning to reasonable.  I've been around that kind of reasonable before with the drool and leather restraints and everything.  Nye finds it "unsettling."  We take a moment to shine the mini flashlight into his eyes to see if the pupils are dilated.  Patting him on the shoulder, "You're going to be OK, Mr. Nye.  I understand that this is 'unsettling,' and we don't want you 'unsettled," so let's say we get you back to your room and we think everything will be OK.  We'll get that bow tie off, get some oxygen, a straw in a soothing beverage, and you'll settle right down.  Just come with us."

I'm not commenting right now on the science or so-called science of either Nye or Ham.  I'm talking about Nye's wandering into comments about the Bible.  He said all of the following in his five minute rebuttal, all of these about the Bible:

So I, uh, I, uh, understand that you take the Bible as written in English translated, eh, countless times, uh, not countless, but many, many times over the last three millennia.

Uh, I give you lions teeth, uh, you give me verses as translated into English over, uh, like thirty centuries?

If you've ever played telephone.  Uh, I did very well when I was in kindergarten, when you have a secret and you whisper it to the next person and to the next person and to the next person.  Things often go wrong.

If we accept Mr. Ham's point of view, that the Bible as translated into American English, is, serves as a science text.  And that he and his followers will interpret that for you.  Just.  I want you to consider what that means.  It means that Mr. Ham's word or his interpretation of these other words is somehow to be more respected than your, what you can observe in nature, what you can find literally in your back yard in Kentucky.

The Bible was written in English.  Is Nye a Ruckmanite?  And then it was translated countless times!!  Do you see how evolutionists get their statistics, their numbers?  Billions!!  Countless!!!   You don't want to believe Mr. Ham!!!  (Foaming at the mouth).

Nye gives us lions teeth (maybe for a lion's teeth necklace).   Something you can observe.  Like the teeth of fruit bats, razor sharp.  The Bible is like playing telephone.  Cutting edge stuff there, as sharp as lion's teeth.  You didn't know that, did you?  We got the Bible by someone whispering to someone, who then whispered to someone and finally someone wrote it down in American English.  We're very specific here, whispered in American English.  One person happened to whisper in Liverpool and was kicked out of the game.  No, I'm afraid it was Mr. Nye who got his view of the biblical text playing telephone, and things did go wrong.  Catastrophic wrongness.

And then Nye gives his very interesting view of hermeneutics.  No straw man here.  Christians wait for Ken Ham to tell them what the Bible means.  The entire history of Christianity waits for Ken Ham to appear to report to them their meaning in life.  People at home, reading their Bibles, clueless, except for Ken Ham sending them their signals, maybe by satellite, potentially intercepted by the NSA.  I would say that they get their signal through nano-technology, but it has to be smoke signals because Christians can't figure out technology.   Nye offers an alternative.  Thankfully.  Here goes.  The way to really understand is by yourself, you, looking in your back yard in Kentucky.  I learned everything I know in a backyard in Kentucky.

He stated the following chestnut also during the five minute rebuttal.  Pure gold.

And then about the disease thing.  Uh, were the, are the fish sinners?  Have they done something wrong?  To get diseases?  Uh, that's sort of an extraordinary claim, that, um, takes me just little past than I'm comfortable with.

This fish, the sinner, is a red herring.   Nye and his obsession with fish.  But, oh yes, Nye has the historic, biblical doctrine of sin down.  Yes sir.   You can tell he really understands what the Bible says and what Christians think about sin.  Very, very common view out there.  Thank you, Bill Nye.  Enlightening.

If you go back and watch Nye's five minute rebuttal, it really did add up to one rock sliding on top of another, lions having sharp teeth, a Bible written in American English.  American.  English.  And him being very, very, very unsettled, very troubled.  Hmmmmm.  Very.  Baaaad.

I don't think Nye was lying, so it really was disqualifying ignorance of the Bible.  It's a free country.  You don't have to like the Bible.  No one is coercing you to believe it.  But if you are going to represent it in a debate, you must be required to understand it better than that if you're going to talk about it.  Insanity should not be able to win.  No one should respect blithering idiocy.  Talk about unsettling, about being troubled. You are disqualified, Mr. Nye.   You lose by default.