Bill Nye Boo'd In Texas For Saying The Moon Reflects The Sun
Bill Nye, the harmless children's edu-tainer known as "The Science Guy," managed to offend a select group of adults in Waco, Texas at a presentation, when he suggested that the moon does not emit light, but instead reflects the light of the sun.
As even most elementary-school graduates know, the moon reflects the light of the sun but produces no light of its own.
But don't tell that to the good people of Waco, who were "visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence," according to the Waco Tribune.
Nye was in town to participate in McLennan Community College's Distinguished Lecture Series. He gave two lectures on such unfunny and adult topics as global warming, Mars exploration, and energy consumption.
But nothing got people as riled as when he brought up Genesis 1:16, which reads: "God made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars."
The lesser light, he pointed out, is not a light at all, but only a reflector.
At this point, several people in the audience stormed out in fury. One woman yelled "We believe in God!" and left with three children, thus ensuring that people across America would read about the incident and conclude that Waco is as nutty as they'd always suspected.
This story originally appeared in the Waco Tribune, but the newspaper has mysteriously pulled its story from the online version, presumably to avoid further embarrassment.
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2006/04/06/040620...
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Comment by archaeopteryx on December 5, 2012 at 1:11pm -
Food for thought, Stephen --
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that" and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic." --
Douglas Adams
"A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy"If it were only so easy --
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Comment by archaeopteryx on December 5, 2012 at 1:48pm
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Stephen, your earlier comments were so simplistic and smacked of naivete, that I misinterpreted them. I retract any remarks that in hindsight might appear patronizing. Once you revealed what I can only hope is your true self, you strike me as someone who would fit right in. Welcome!
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Comment by archaeopteryx on December 5, 2012 at 2:48pm
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More accurate to say, "The main, big picture, is that the sun's light, as reflected off the moon, often governs the night." Unless Gen 1:16 says something to that equivalent, it is incorrect.
RE: "and im not a typical young idiot." - as your subsequent comments attest. I don't need to research your credentials to determine the quality of your comments, I have credentials of my own, but here, I rise or fall based on what I say, rather on what I did. I accept you at your word.
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Comment by archaeopteryx on December 5, 2012 at 2:52pm
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Some of my best friends are excellent chemists - their meth labs hardly ever explode --
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Comment by Heather Spoonheim on December 5, 2012 at 3:27pm -
@Stephen Russell
And what I said was Bill took a very softball approach to pointing out that the bible is dead wrong about the cosmos - he's much more diplomatic than I - yet the typical Christian cannot address facts and only become emotional when any aspect of their cult scripture is thrown into question.
This thread was posted almost 4 years ago and the only people who keep bringing it back to life are Christians. Read through the 33 pages of comments and you'll see the thread dies and then some Christian shows up here to tell us how we are all totally wrong about Bill, or Bill was out of line, or grammatically a case could be made for that verse based on the English translation - and that has been going on for 4 years. It's not Atheists keeping this thread alive.
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Comment by Heather Spoonheim on December 6, 2012 at 1:24am
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Outer space is not filled with water - astronauts wear space suits, not scuba gear. They sky is not a solid dome covering us like some sort of snow globe. The earth did not come into existence before the sun. On these matters the bible is dead wrong and I'm willing to bet my life on it.
The story is #3 in google because Christians just won't stop coming here and beating a dead horse on the very issues I just mentioned.
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Comment by Heather Spoonheim on December 6, 2012 at 1:27am
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Christian 'scientists' do nothing but try to shoe-horn Bronze Age doctrines into our modern understanding of the universe - in spite of understanding how it works rather than to better understand how it works.
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Comment by archaeopteryx on December 6, 2012 at 2:41am
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Stephen - but if you said you beat me to the mail by flying, that, just as saying that the moon emits its own light, would not be true.
RE: "if you find a full proof way of taking away what they believe, everything they stand for crumbles. Their whole life. There would be no purpose in them giving money, pastors would be useless, etc. this applies to everyone. Muslims, atheist, Buddhists, etc. I mean imagine if you were wrong."
WOW! Who mislead you? Most of us here were raised in a theist household, and when we rejected theism, having logically concluded that no gods exist, not only did the bottom NOT drop out for us, the whole world opened up!
True, pastors would be useless, but then they've always been - maybe they would go out and get REAL jobs and actually contribute to the society they've been milking all these years.
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Comment by archaeopteryx on December 6, 2012 at 2:45am
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@Stephen - RE: "I only said the young idiot comment because you called me young and naive." - which I retracted, remember?
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Comment by archaeopteryx on December 6, 2012 at 2:55am
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@Stephen - once you have thoroughly explained to me why you don't believe in Zeus, then you will understand why I don't believe in Yahweh.
I don't like religions because they prey (not pray) on Human insecurities and fears, in order to promote doctrines for the purpose of controlling the behavior of others. But as the world's population becomes more and more educated as to how the world REALLY works, religions will automatically recede further and further into oblivion.
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