Debate Review

Dr. Kent Hovind, has been a teacher, pastor and is currently the operator of Dinoland; as sort of Creation themed learning center and park. Kent is a Christian and believes that everything was created from nothing by God roughly 6,000 tears ago. Kent has participated in many debates over the years.

Jordan Karim studied Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at VCU and has a reoccurring Podcast entitled Reasons2Doubt. Jordan is currently an atheist but had been a follower of Kent’s when he was younger. Jordan now believes the atheist montage that everything came from a singularity about 13.7 billion years ago.

Most Creation vs Evolution debates usually degrade into shouting matches within about the first 3 minutes and because of poor to inept if not down right non-existent moderation, continues that way until either the viewers quit watching or the shouting match finally reaches the allotted amount of time. The Standing For Truth moderator (sorry, I haven’t caught his name) did an excellent job though for the most part, his duties was regulated to just giving time warnings because of the civil nature for the debaters. Moderators should clamp down on the debaters when they exceed their time or when they interrupt their counterpart. Unfortunately this really happens and not just in Creation/Evolution debates but in political ones as well; that’s part of why this debate was such a nice change fo pace. Kudos to the moderator and the debaters.

One thing I noticed in this debate, that I hadn’t thought of or recognized in myself as doing, is making the same assertion that both Christian and Evolutionists\Atheists do, and that is that if they don't know the answer, they just assume or assert that it happens they way that fits their narrative. As a young creation Christian (or Young Earth Creationist), I believe (know) that God created everything about 6,000 years ago out of nothing. So when asked something that a YEC can’t answer, a YEC will usually either either give an answer of ‘God just done it (yes it did happen but it isn’t a very good debate answer). Of course an evolutionist/atheists does the same with their narrative, it just happened in the Bang.

Often times, Creationists (not just debaters) will just high-lite or emphasize the bad science (really it isn’t bad science but bad interpretations or poor starting assumptions) to show that evolution, whether cosmetic or biological (I left out the other 4), doesn’t and can’t work as proof that it didn’t happen. However, the sometimes the same happens from the Creationists. Typically, both sides will employ the God done it/Big Bang done it and choose the tidbits of data that support their claim while rejecting others.

Evolutionists/atheists are bad about stating that every credible scientist this believes in their take. If you doubt it or question it then that person can’t be a real scientist. Instead of listening to an opposing idea their character is questioned, their educational degree belittled and they are silenced. This happens often if even the proposed differentiating view is still of evolutionary form and not an introduction of God into the fray. And YEC often do something similar.

If I may digress once more from my Debate Review, I have heard Christians argue, not discuss or debate, over whether or not God finished creating on day 6. One standing fast to nothing else was created while the other had very valid reasons to believe that He did not stop creating on day 6.

For instance, where did the manna come from? If God didn’t create anything after day 6, then God had to bring the manna in from somewhere else. But manna is described as something that was never before seen and never saw again after the Israelite's entered the promise land. Did He pull it up out of someone’s garden in a far off land? How about the oil that kept coming out of the ladies pot? If He didn’t create it then, then God had to take it from someone else pot (God would have had to stole it). How about the wine that Jesus made? If He didn’t create it, then He stole someone else wine to put into the vases. What bout when Jesus feed all those people with just a little bit of fish? Did he just perform a slight of hand magic trick to entertain people while the disciples caught fish out of the lake or pulled them from under tables? Clearly, God can and does still create from time to time; it’s just not at our whim. And we surely shouldn’t argue with other Christians about such things but should find a manner that we can disagree without damaging the Church.

And evolutionists/atheists prey on each other as well. A few years back a cosmologists was looking at compiled data of red shift and noticed something unusual about the red shifts of pulsars; a type of star. Red Shift data, used to measure the astronomical distances, was showing that some pulsars that were in front of galaxies, thus closer, were showing that they were farther away than the galaxies. If a person (P) was sitting in a chair in their living room measured a couch (C) in the same room as being 20 feet away, but then their pet dog (D) came in and sat in between them and the couch and they measured the dog (D) as being 30 feet away, I think a lot of people would question something. Either the data, the measuring apparatuses, the objects being measured and/or their placements and perhaps even the person that brought all of this to light. It sounds like the scientific community questioned the person in this case but they didn’t. Because an acknowledgment that the methodology in which everything s measured, which is what the entire Big Bang is based on was questioned, not that evolution didn’t happen or that God done it, his telescope time and associated lab things were removed, he was let go from his place of employment and no one would look at his papers or works. I have to ask, is this science? Is your theory or model so flimsy that it can’t handle alternative data?

OK, digress number 2 done.

The Kent and Jordan debate was primarily limited to the age of the Earth. Kent, having done so many of thee debates over the years , comes super prepared for any, and has a kazillion power point slides to counter nearly topic or sub topic that comes up. He also has a rhetoric that he is known for, for instance, evolutionists believe that we all come from a rock. I like it but it doesn’t sit well with everyone. Jordan is one and critiqued Kent on a Podcast sometime before the debate (I don’t even think there was a debate planned at that time). Although Kent would like for people t come to the Lord through his debates and videos, I’m not sure that is his target audience. I believe his target audience are Christians, and though humor and science, he does present the topics and data necessary to converse (which often devolves into a shouting match), debate and defend much of the creationist view point against evolutionists and atheists.

And unlike the dull supposed debate between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Ken Ham, both very entertaining and humorous people, this debate was humorous, lively, spirited, mostly on topic and cordial.

At one part of the debate, while discussing nuclear half-life's and thermoradiadic (if that isn't a real word, it should be) temperatures and how that would have to have affected Noah and the Ark crew, Jordan mentioned the naturally occurring nuclear fission reactor that was located in Africa. It isn’t to surprising that I hadn’t heard of it before but Kent hadn’t either. Jordan went on to make his point and Kent said he needed to study up on it. I really can’t recall Kent not being up on a topic or even a location, especially like this; often his debaters will spew something that they hard from someone about a place or incident and that is understandable that Kent or anyone else on either side wouldn’t know about it. But Kent said he would study up on it, Usually, debaters on ether side never actually study up n anything and just com back to the table and vomit the same stuff. Although Kent does say the same things, because they are appropriate, he also does his homework.

Jordan had several reasonable questions with reasonable examples that Kent was unable to answer. And Kent had the same for Jordan. As many like to say of their man (or woman) against the opposition, ‘They Got Owned’; I can’t say that for either. If I were truly a person using this debate to make my determination of whether or not there was a God, or if I was truly open minded and would this debate to decide to become an atheist, I would still be on the fence. Often times, in my opinion, the Christian says well your science doesn’t answer this so you have to believe in God. It is the same argument that the evolutionist/atheist employees except they use a different god; that god being time. Evolutionists need more time to find eh answer or state that their science says it happened ions ago and thus science can’t be used on it; you just have to believe it.

The ‘win’ of most these debates, or rather any debate, often goes to the person that yelled the most or interrupted the other debater the most. But these aren’t good qualifiers for the win. Reasonable arguments presented with sound data with as few presumptions as possible usually dictates the winner. As the topic of this debate was the age of the earth and more specifically, ‘determining the age of the earth’ using primarily one method, I have to say that Jordan did a very good job presenting his view. In fact, if I just took everything from this debate and left all my other knowledge out, I would give Jordan the win, though I wouldn’t say he ‘owned’ Kent.

Where I give Kent the loss is in his not countering Jordan on the same level as the data presented him. Jordan made what is probably a valid claim concerning the amount of the daughter element lead left in a crystal was to great to allow for a young earth. Kent replied with information about potential or loss or gain in the whole rock, a valid objection or point for a different radiometric age determination. So the score goes to Jordan. A tactic that I feel would have been served by Kent would to have pointed out the amount of the daughter element helium that is left in these crystals; there is far to much helium in there for the earth to be old as most of it should have escaped.