“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world— he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” (Isaiah 5:20-21; Revelation 12:9)

There have been a few times in history when a mass psychosis seems to have taken hold of an entire civilization. We are living in such a time. It would be interesting to go back a few generations, bring a person into our own time, and observe their reaction to where we are as a culture. I think disbelief and shock would characterize their response to our current state of affairs.

In the not-too-distant past, right living was taught and expected. Universal truths regarding morals and ethics were accepted and lived by. When those standards were broken, swift consequences followed. When a man and a woman married, they were expected to work through their problems. If an individual committed a crime, they were expected to face judgment. Kids were taught to respect their elders. People were taught personal responsibility and held accountable by their peers. Lying was always wrong. Hard work was expected. The family mattered; motherhood was cherished; babies were a blessing; fathers were expected to take care of their families. God was honored; His laws obeyed; and the church respected. Teachers taught kids reading, writing, and arithmetic. The police were seen as the good guys; criminals were not held up as role models; and Hollywood understood that modesty was a necessity for a moral society.

There were standards upheld on the geopolitical front as well. When the evils of Hitler’s National Socialism captivated the German people and created a mass psychosis there, the rest of the Western world acted to stop the madness. When it became clear that communist Russia was ambitious about world domination, the West again curtailed its advances. Today, the world is no longer capable of acting decisively against evil. The people of the West have been paralyzed by political correctness and the politicization of life.

Political correctness has sown doubt in people’s hearts about right and wrong, truth and falsehood, and has even led them to obsess over their own motivations. The politicization of life has emasculated people

Some thoughts on tonight’s debate: Bill Nye is a very good speaker. He is very personable and inviting. He has a good sense of humor. He is very likable. I also think that his debating skills are very good. But … he presented only one real argument. His main argument, indeed, his only argument, was based on a grand presentation of doubt. He did not prove evolution. He did not debunk creationism or a young earth. He did not prove the superiority of naturalism. He simply raised the specter of a single question: Is it reasonable? He failed to prove that creationism was unreasonable. He failed to debunk any of the arguments Ken Ham presented. He simply exalted man’s ability to be skeptical and doubt what he does not want to accept.

At the core of Bill’s argument was the philosophical position that man’s doubt and skepticism are the ultimate authority. Notice that while he promoted science, he only presented skepticism. Even the so-called scientific arguments he presented were actually props to raise doubts about creation. For example, he presented ice cores and said that for those cores to have formed in 4,000 years, there would most likely have to be around 170+ summer/winter cycles per year. However, he did not present scientific evidence that those cores are old and that they were developed in the manner he suggested. He did not present a scientific argument based on evidence that they are as old as he claimed. He simply used the assumption that they are old (he mockingly spoke about injecting bubbles into the ice) to raise doubts about the world being young. He succeeded in that endeavor, but failed to present any real scientific argument that would have led one to a reasonable conclusion that creationism is wrong, based on evidence.

Ultimately, Bill Nye, the “Science Guy,” is a product of his culture. Instead of promoting science, he promoted man’s ability to declare himself the sole authority on matters of truth and falsehood. Notice, he had no problem appealing to “mystery” when it was convenient to do so. But when Ken Ham appealed to God, Bill mockingly said Ken was relying on “magic.” His appeal to “mystery,” however, was intended to promote the unlimited imagination and wisdom of man; and was instead to be a grand appeal to man’s ability to define the boundaries of life for himself. According to Bill, an appeal to God is small and unworthy of man’s intellect. But, an appeal to mystery, and man’s ability to imagine the possibilities, is the real god that should be enshrined.

If Bill Nye proved anything, he proved that man’s quest for self-deification has only intensified since the fall (we are the universe becoming itself). I did not walk away from Bill’s arguments having gained one shred of meaningful information. I walked away from him with the feeling that man’s only legitimate quest is to enshrine human imagination as the ultimate source of wisdom and knowledge.

In the end, he proved Ken Ham right.