Debate v2: Ken Hamm vs Pat Robertson?

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But I think he should take Answers in Genesis and noted Ark enthusiast Ken Ham up on this offer:

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I wonder if Pat Robertson would be prepared to discuss these issues with me or one of our AiG scientists [sic] on the 700 Club? Or maybe in some sort of debate format at Regent University? We are certainly willing to do thatmaybe all of you reading this could challenge CBN/Regent University to allow such a discussion, debate, or forum to occur publicly. I wonder if Pat Robertson, who is allowed to state these things so publicly through CBN will agree to have his statements publicly challenged and tested!

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"I came across that challenge thanks to Right Wing Watch (where they watch Pat Robertson’s show so you don’t have to). Apparently Pat Robertson has been repeatedly taking swipes at young-earth creationism, calling it a joke, and insisting that you’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to think that this Earth that we live in only has 6,000 years of existence, ...

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It’d also benefit the broader American Christian culture. For whatever reason, the media and the political sphere often treat American evangelicals as the default form of Christianity in the US, with Catholics treated as something vaguely other and mainline Protestant churches (the largest bloc of believers in the US) completely ignored. That means that Catholics and mainline Protestants wind up taking theological cues from evangelicals (however inadvertently), hence (in part) the spread of creationist ideas since the ’20s and anti-abortion politics since the ’70s. Seeing two evangelicals staking out a range of views on whether people of faith should automatically reject any science that might seem at odds with their religious faith could only help members of less conservative churches think more deeply about their views on science and religion.

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It’d benefit evangelical Christians by reminding them that even within their theological community, there are a range of responses to science, and they don’t have to set themselves at odds with science just because some of their fellow evangelicals interpret the Bible as saying something at odds with what science textbooks say. That is why Ham is so scared of Robertson’s repeated criticisms (and why Robertson seems to find Ham worthy of a response). Robertson may be the most visible American evangelical leader since the retirement of Billy Graham ... And Robertson sees Ham leading a large chunk of his flock toward absurd beliefs, and wants to hold onto them.

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