My Finch Challenge

and this -- The moth files - creation.com

"The whistle blows
The bubble started to burst as people finally faced the awkward fact that Peppered Moths do not rest on tree trunks in the daytime. Instead, they hide under leaves in treetops. As the story unravelled, it turned out that:

• The famous photos of light and dark moths resting on a lichen-covered tree trunk were faked by pinning and/or gluing dead moths onto logs or trunks.
• The filmed ‘experiments’ involved either dead moths, or laboratory moths (so stuporous they had to be warmed up first), placed on tree trunks in the daytime.

We reported the reaction of evolutionist Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago. He said that finding out the moth story was wrong was like when he found out at age six that it was actually his father who was bringing the Christmas presents."

Occams Barber said:

Thanks Carl. That will be useful.



When was back then?

The Hebrews had an alphabet well before JC. They were just a bit short on vowels. In fact the Hebrew alphabet, after passing through multiple cultures adding and deleting bits, became the basis for our alphabet.

OB

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Yes but the Hebrew for Left and Right doesn't work with the shape of the human hand...

Carl Emerson said:

Yes but the Hebrew for Left and Right doesn't work with the shape of the human hand...

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You're right.

Sorry Carl - I'm a bit slow today. I didn't link the Hebrew alphabet thing with your left/right comment.

OB

Hans Blaster said:

The bible "teaches" all kinds of things. Those things and many others. You can find almost anything in it (at least things that were known to human civilizations prior to 100 CE.)

It certainly provides the instructions for how to buy, treat, keep, sell, and free slaves. In other places it tells slaves how to regard their masters.

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ancient systems and modern don't perfectly overlap and there are many reasons why different class systems can be healthy for a society and many reasons why one culture may demonstrate this unjustly and another culture may demonstrate this justly. Slavery in threads like these is like playing a Hitler card whereby any association of Hitler is immediately evil like Hitler's knitted socks his grandmother made for him surely should only be burned and can't possibly have any good use. We view the word slavery as 1 dimensional and because it is wrong in x system must mean it's wrong in a, b, c system or 1, 2, 3 system as well without actually considering the systems in question or the surrounding context and the fate of these slaves should slavery had been abolished in that same system.

today we walk into McD and order whatever we wish and have no concern for the person behind the counter who may be in forms of generational poverty and struggling in life. but we make our own bed in the west so we absolve ourselves of any wrongdoing while freely leaning upon the services of those who can't afford to get sick or feed their kids. our systems have pinned down many in these bottom levels that will be passed to their children and their children and to their children. But our morals and values are better than the ancients who called this slavery.

hierarchal systems are not innately evil, even if words like slavery and master appear in those hierarchies. these are just arbitrary words and what carries more meaning is the treatment of people through these systems. in an ancient system, a slave can have a better life than their former pre-slave life or they can have a worse one it all depends on how they are treated. In Christianity, we are all slaves to Christ, and Christ is our master. In the 10 commandments, there is the Sabbath commandment that states that not just you need to rest but your whole household including slaves and animals. This is a powerful metaphor for salvation because just as a slave cannot take rest themselves and it must be given to them neither can we take salvation ourselves by our own merit and it must be given to us.

HTacianas said:

The notion that all men are created equal is a philosophical idea. It's not scientific.

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The knowing that all human beings are created equal could also be a spiritual trajectory. But that's more experiential in nature.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

That really has no bearing on what I said: the Americans that made up the majority of the Confederate states were Christians who believed that the Bible, which does condone slavery in the Old Testament, meant they could view African slaves as inferior.

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No, they didn’t believe the Bible nor do the teachings of Jesus or they couldn’t have chosen as they did. You think a survey of who went to church tells you that they were christians. That tells us that you have no idea what it means to believe the Bible. My point is completely valid.

Dorothy Mae said:

No, they didn’t believe the Bible nor do the teachings of Jesus or they couldn’t have chosen as they did. You think a survey of who went to church tells you that they were christians. That tells us that you have no idea what it means to believe the Bible. My point is completely valid.

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Now your making excuses for them. Trying to "de-Christianize" them because you disagree (I think) with a moral position they took. Not all Christians interpret proper religion the way you do. I find your view alien to my past experience.

Hans Blaster said:

Now your making excuses for them. Trying to "de-Christianize" them because you disagree (I think) with a moral position they took. Not all Christians interpret proper religion the way you do. I find your view alien to my past experience.

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I’m actually using the standard the Bible teaches, the one Jesus taught. I’m sorry your experience with what you deem believers to be different.

HitchSlap said:

It’s quite easy for me. All I need do is identify the person who is charitable and accepting of others.

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Isn’t that a true Scotsman argument?

Subduction Zone said:

As to your question, no.

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Ah, so no true good father behaves that way....the true Scotsman argument. Why is this now acceptable to use?

And you really should study the Bible some day. It does a lot more than tell us (it does not "teach us") to love one another. It also tells you where to buy slaves. How long they are yours (if they are not Hebrews they are yours for life). How to trick your fellow Hebrew into being a life long slave. And that it is fine and dandy to sell your daughter into slavery. And by context that appears to be sex slavery. So that father may not be raping his daughter, but does it really matter at that point?

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As typical atheist, you know neither scripture nor what it means to read an ancient account. But you do know the personal attack as a main defense. So tell me, where does one buy a slave today since you claim it gives this information?

Dorothy Mae said:

I’m actually using the standard the Bible teaches, the one Jesus taught. I’m sorry your experience with what you deem believers to be different.

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Why would I need sympathy for that aspect of my (former) Christian experience? I find you view of Christian teaching narrow, harsh, and exclusionary. Too quick to dismiss the Christianity of other because they don't meet some standard you hold. I have some sympathy for those believers who are dismissed by those who hold a position like yours about "true Christians".

Dorothy Mae said:

As typical atheist, you know neither scripture nor what it means to read an ancient account. But you do know the personal attack as a main defense.

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As I was saying...

Hans Blaster said:

The bible "teaches" all kinds of things. Those things and many others. You can find almost anything in it (at least things that were known to human civilizations prior to 100 CE.)

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Many atheists simply have no clue when it comes reading the Bible. You don’t seem to understand, for example, that the Hebrew nation described was set up millennia ago for that time and purpose. You think instructions given to them apply to us. It’s like reading Plato and thinking we should do all written although worse.

It certainly provides the instructions for how to buy, treat, keep, sell, and free slaves. In other places it tells slaves how to regard their masters.

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What are the instructions to buy a slave? I’m curious.

Hans Blaster said:

Why would I need sympathy for that aspect of my (former) Christian experience? I find you view of Christian teaching narrow, harsh, and exclusionary. Too quick to dismiss the Christianity of other because they don't meet some standard you hold. I have some sympathy for those believers who are dismissed by those who hold a position like yours about "true Christians".

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I find your answer to me narrow, harsh, unfounded and as hominem. Is that you atheists can do?

We are talking people who are not alive and whose lives are known. They have faced the judgement of their lives by the One who determines if they were truly His or just following the required societal form.

That is, however, individual. How we treat the living whose fate is not determined is different. It’s a fallacy to declare me such from how I view those who bought and sold human beings.

Dorothy Mae said:

Isn’t that a true Scotsman argument?

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It’s not an argument. It’s my belief.

Dorothy Mae said:

Ah, so no true good father behaves that way....the true Scotsman argument. Why is this now acceptable to use?
As typical atheist, you know neither scripture nor what it means to read an ancient account. But you do know the personal attack as a main defense. So tell me, where does one buy a slave today since you claim it gives this information?

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I guess this makes me an atypical atheist, as I know about the Bible than most Christians.

Dorothy Mae said:

Ah, so no true good father behaves that way....the true Scotsman argument. Why is this now acceptable to use?
As typical atheist, you know neither scripture nor what it means to read an ancient account. But you do know the personal attack as a main defense. So tell me, where does one buy a slave today since you claim it gives this information?

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LOL!! You really do not understand the No True Scotsman fallacy at all.

I have never seen such an epic fail. Just because a Christian does not agree to your standards of what a Christian is does not mean that person is not a Christian. You might want to work on your morals a bit. That is the key to your failure.

And please, do not pretend that atheists do not know scripture. Most of them know it better than most Christians. In fact the beliefs of your particular sect probably get in the way of a proper understanding by you.

As to slavery, it was made illegal despite what the Bible says. You see for most people morals do not come from the Bible.

BobRyan said:

and this -- The moth files - creation.com

"The whistle blows
The bubble started to burst as people finally faced the awkward fact that Peppered Moths do not rest on tree trunks in the daytime. Instead, they hide under leaves in treetops. As the story unravelled, it turned out that:

• The famous photos of light and dark moths resting on a lichen-covered tree trunk were faked by pinning and/or gluing dead moths onto logs or trunks.
• The filmed ‘experiments’ involved either dead moths, or laboratory moths (so stuporous they had to be warmed up first), placed on tree trunks in the daytime.

We reported the reaction of evolutionist Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago. He said that finding out the moth story was wrong was like when he found out at age six that it was actually his father who was bringing the Christmas presents."

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Citation needed. No lying sources please. Go to the original works and quote and link them. Not the very minor complaint of posed moths. That is done quite often in biology to show specific traits. That does not refute the work. You need to show that Coyne said what you claimed with the context that you implied.

Again, I'd like to point out that it's against forum rules to claim that any self-declared Christians are not actually Christian.

Dorothy Mae said:

Deist? Is that the word?

Do think every American was and is a Christian?

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Deist is a word, but it's not the correct term for the Puritan/Protestants that fled Catholic persecution in the 16th and 17th centuries. The white settlers of North America were overwhelmingly Christian.

Not to mention it all predates Darwin and the concept of evolution by about 200 years.