“When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox must be stoned, and its meat may not be eaten, but the ox’s owner is innocent. However, if the ox was in the habit of goring, and its owner has been warned yet does not restrain it, and it kills a man or a woman, the ox must be stoned, and its owner must also be put to death. If instead a ransom is demanded of him, he can pay a redemption price for his life in the full amount demanded from him. If it gores a son or a daughter, he is to be dealt with according to this same law. If the ox gores a male or female slaves, he must give thirty shekels of silver to the slave’s master, and the ox must be stoned. . .When a man’s ox injures his neighbor’s ox and it dies, they just sell the live ox and divide its proceeds; they must also divide the dead animal. If, however, it is known that the ox was in the habit of goring, yet its owner has not restrained it, he must compensate fully, ox for ox; the dead animal will become his.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
When I lived in Denver several years ago, the city experienced a wave of high profile dog biting incidents. They were high profile not because of the identity of the victims, but because of the viciousness of the attacks. And in each instance, a pit bull was the guilty breed. Now, some of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever met were pit bulls. But as a breed, they can be very aggressive if not raised properly. The city responded then by banning the breed entirely from being owned as pets within city limits. I thought the move was rather a bit of an overreaction myself, but the city leaders understood they had to be seen as doing something to maintain its generally very dog-friendly image. The driving idea was that animal owners are responsible for the behavior of their beasts. This is not a new idea. The next couple of passages, and the last we’ll look at in Exodus 21, deal with something similar. Let’s talk about goring oxen and unexpected barbecues.
It’s easy for us to fall into imagining when reading through sections of the law like this one that MOses gave these to the people in the same context as the Ten Commandments; like he finished delivering the initial ten and then just kept right on rolling, giving one law after another. That’s probably not how it happened. Remember back to chapter 18 with me. When the people weren’t actively traveling from one place to another, most of the days were spent doing normal life. In the course of this, things happened that upset them or were recognized as not right. When this happened, they went to their local magistrate. Bigger issues were elevated through the ranks until they finally came to Moses, the supreme judge under God. His decisions in this higher profile cases likely often became what we know of as the laws.
Because of this, sometimes when you encounter a law in the Old Testament, you just have to shake your head and wonder how many situations the law touched on occurred before the law was delivered to the people. How many Israelites or Israelite oxen were gored before Moses had to address the issue? Better question: why were so many people dumb enough to mess with the business end of an ox that didn’t belong to them? Did they just have really aggressive oxen back then? I suspect we’ll have to wait until Heaven for the answers to some of those questions.
Sometimes animals attack people. This is even more common in other parts of the world than in my neck of the woods. Most often these are instances of wild animals behaving like wild animals. In some circumstances, though, as with the dog biting incidents in Denver several years ago, the animals are pets. In this case, for a first time offense, the owner isn’t likely to be seen by anyone as at fault. Animals are still animals even once they’ve been domesticated. They act on instinct and rational thinking doesn’t factor into the equation. After a first offense like this, though, the owner is expected to take some steps to prevent an attack from happening a second time. If he doesn’t and the animal does it again, now we have a bigger problem on our hands. The animal has to be dealt with more directly and the owner bears a great deal more responsibility for the attack.
During the Exodus journey, people likely kept their animals fairly close to where they were staying. Unless they practiced branding their herd animals, which could have happened, but for which we don’t have evidence that I’m aware of, there would not have been common fields where they could graze large numbers of animals very easily. Also, being a nomadic people, not very many likely had large numbers of flocks or herds like a more settled people might have. So, animals and humans often shared the same space. This meant it was more important than usual for people to keep a pretty tight rein on their animals because the opportunities for them to interact were more frequent than they might have otherwise been. It is because of all this perhaps that goring incidents were apparently common enough to warrant laws that specifically spelled out the consequences for certain outcomes.
An ox’s goring a person meant the ox had to be killed. The designation of stoning as the means of the death seems a little odd, but that was likely for symbolic reasons. When a person murdered another person, and capital punishment was the sentence, stoning was the method of execution. For the goring ox to be stoned didn’t mean the ox was viewed to be the same as a person, but rather to demonstrate the seriousness of taking a human life. God values human life highly, and this was a chance to demonstrate for the people that value in legal terms. If the ox “was in the habit of goring,” the owner was guilty of a capital offense as well. Now, the animal’s being in the habit of goring could mean it had gored other people to death, but it could also mean that it was known to the owner’s neighbors to be a particularly aggressive beast that had gored other oxen to death in the past. Whether animal or person, though, the owner had evidence of an aggressive beast, didn’t do anything to isolate and restrain it, and so is guilty of the victim’s life.
The specific line here setting the value on the life of a slave is a shock and seems really awful to us, but this fits the larger pattern of the Law’s approach to slavery that we have already talked about twice. God was meeting the people where they were on the matter, making sure they were learning slaves actually had value as people, and pointing them from there in the right direction.
When an ox gored another ox in a freak accident, the goring ox’s owner had to sell the animal and split the sale price with the owner of the dead ox. They also split the meat of the dead ox between them. This gave the offended owner the funds to purchase another ox, it cost the offending owner a mature and productive beast (meaning he would have to go through the same hassle of purchasing and training a new animal like the offender owner was going to have to do), and they both got to have a barbecue with the remains of the dead animal. This was perhaps a chance for the two families to be reconciled to one another for the offense over a meal. This addressed the personal offense of the matter, the economic impact of the matter, and knitted the community fabric back together in a way that kept it strong. In a case where the animal was known to be aggressive, the penalty was a bit stiffer. The owner had to sell the offending animal and give all of the money to the victim, and he got all of the meat of the dead animal for himself. In other words, in addition to the economic impact, he was socially isolated as part of his punishment.
So then, what on earth does any of this mean for us? Well, not very much, honestly. As we have talked about time and time before and will yet talk about again, these laws don’t apply to us. They weren’t given for us. They were part of the Old covenant God made with Israel. We live under the new covenant. What this does remind us of, though, is that God is a just God who holds us accountable for our actions. When we have done or allowed something to happen to offend another person, it is right for us to make amends for that. We don’t need a specific law to be given such direction anymore under the new covenant, though, as our one and only law gives us all the direction we need. We are to love one another the way God in Christ has loved us. No, this doesn’t mean God has offended us, but love demands right relationships. When we have broken a relationship whether through intention or accident, it is right and proper to do what we can to repair our relationship with a person we have offended. The necessary steps to restoration are going to look different from one case to the other, but they still need to be taken either way.
God’s own love for us is so great that He sought to restore His relationship with us when He didn’t have anything to do with its being broken in the first place. As the apostle Paul told us, “God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He doesn’t expect us to do anything He isn’t willing to do and in fact hasn’t already done in Christ. Let today be one in which you reflect with gratitude on God’s gracious kindness to us in Christ (and also that the new covenant is so much simpler than the old).
The Nexus 
” God’s own love for us is so great that He sought to restore His relationship with us when He didn’t have anything to do with its being broken in the first place.”
Other than his flawed creation in the first place, of course.
And even after he… oops… He exterminated all life on the planet because he wanted a Do Over he still royally screwed the pooch with the family he so lovingly (sic) spared.
Perhaps it was a genetic thing after all the incest that must have taken place on and off the Ark?
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And here I thought you were above just outright mocking…
Sin was our fault, not God’s.
As long as you insist on taking the stories in the Scriptures through the lens of skepticism rather than own their own terms, seeking honestly to understand what they are trying to communicate both on their own and as part of the larger body of Scripture through which God revealed Himself to us, you won’t be able to make any positive sense out of them.
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And here I thought you were above sweeping unsupported assertions and yet when faced with the evidence you revert to type, the first sign of a closed mind.
I read well. If the stories were meant to be read otherwise I am not at fault;
blame Yahweh.
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Read well, yes. Understood, no. I’m afraid that if there is any type-reverting here, we’re both guilty of it.
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Out of interest then, how do you think the bible should be read if not as written?
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As written, yes, but fully in context. In the immediate context, in the story arc context, in the context of the whole document in which it is found, and in context of the whole of the Scriptures. And, everything we encounter in the Old Testament has to be understood through the lens of the New. There are a whole variety of verses and even stories than when read by themselves seem awful. But when you place in the proper framework, while the story or verse itself may still be hard, you can begin to see why it is as it is.
You have only ever meaningfully engaged with the Scriptures through a skeptical lens. As long as you have that lens in place, and as long as you aren’t willing to take it on its own terms, to assume on a Biblical worldview, you aren’t going to be able to make positive sense out of a great deal of it. Everything you see will only reinforce the presuppositions you bring to it. The same is true of me, of course, but as a result of the position I take, I am able to understand it in ways you won’t and can’t. But, even my saying that won’t make sense because of the worldview framework you have in place. Everything goes back to worldview.
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Any prepositions I have are based on evidence or lack thereof.
But we can examine your assertion with regard context
What is the context of Yahweh annhialating all life on the planet save for a handful of animals and one incestuous family?
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If you really want an answer to that question, I can give you one, but it’s going to be longer than you usually like to read, and I don’t have time to write it up today. And, given your worldview presuppositions, it’s not going to make sense to you.
We’ve talked about this before. Your understanding of evidence, what counts and doesn’t, and what should be accepted or not are all the result of philosophical decisions you may not even realize you have made, empiricism being one of them, that, when pushed, turn out to be not very good philosophical decisions. As I’ve said before, if you want to get into the philosophical weeds, we can.
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Well, we know through evidence the tale of the Noachian global flood is simply myth, a story borrowed from the epic of Gilgamesh so any explanation will simply be whichever theological line one follows.
You aren’t YEC so what context is there for such Genocide?
Pleasectry to be succinct.
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It’ll be a couple of days at least, and it won’t be succinct. You’re asking a complicated question that anything short of a pretty thorough answer won’t appropriately address. We’re getting into my busiest season of the year. Sit tight.
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Complicated? Really?
It is already a work of fiction so anything you come up with will pretty much be your own interpretation, or that taught by your particular denomination.
No doubt it will include such things as sin, just, love, and in essence be little more than a convoluted apology for the genocidal Canaanite deity, Yahweh
But I’m game for reading something more interesting if you have a better take on the story prepared?
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If you are already set to not take seriously any answer I have to offer that doesn’t have skepticism as it’s starting point, why would I waste my time composing one?
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Okay, then let’s see if there is common ground before you start.
First. The tale is myth.
Scientific evidence conclusively shows there was no global flood as described in the Bible.
This is simply fact.
There is no margin for equivocation.
Do you acknowledge the scientific evidence. Yes or No?
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Well, as we have talked about before, I reject your first premise. We’ve also talked about my views on the scientific evidence. I’m not sure what else there is to cover here.
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As you cannot show why the scientific evidence is wrong or misinterpreted then your views are merely those of someone whose unqualified opinion is met by those who do understand what they are talking about with a polite smile and a quick glance around as they look for the nearest exit.
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I guess this will have to be another of those agree to disagree moments.
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Not really. As you have failed to produce any sort of evidence to refute the science then your rejection of the scientific evidence involving many years study and innumerable highly qualified individuals simply means you are simply expressing yet another religiously based and completely unsubstantiated opinion which can be summarily dismissed.
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Are there atheists who eat meat? I assume there are. Are there disagreements with your views religiously based? Nothing I’ve argued here beyond an opening statement has had anything to do with religion at all. We’re just doing philosophy. You’re giving me bluster here, not arguments. What I’m doing is worldview thinking, and I actually am somewhat qualified to do that. I’m sure their experiments were well-constructed, I’m simply observing what the possible worldview impacts are.
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Of course there are atheists who eat meat.
Are you sure you are responding to the right thread?
Here we are talking about the Noachian global flood myth.
It did not happen. Period.
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Oof. We have so many different ones going I can’t keep up! I don’t agree, and we’ve long ago talked about why. I’m not sure we need to hash back through that again.
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Then my previous reply stands.
That you reject the evidence has no bearing on it much in the same way creationism has no bearing on the theory of evolution.
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I don’t reject it. I understand it through a different worldview lens than you do. There’s a difference.
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You are rejecting the science.
It didn’t happen.
It is a myth.
You need to acknowledge this fact and recognize why.
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Looking out from the limitations of the worldview you have chosen, I can understand why you can’t see anything beyond that conclusion, but I see things a different way. Worldview matters.
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Nonsense. Your continual equivocation is simply a refusal to face reality.
Trying to rationalise the Noachian global flood tale so that it fits in with your supernatural perspective when every scrap of evidence shows it is a scientific impossibility is risible in the extreme.
It puts you in the same bracket as a YEC or a flat earther.
If you consider such a worldview matters then we should afford Ken Ham a similar luxury and start teaching such rubbish to children.
Only an ignorant bloody fool would do that.
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Once again, given the worldview position you hold, you couldn’t see that as anything but nonsense, and I understand that. I really do. That doesn’t make it true, of course, but I really do understand why you react like that. But also again, I don’t agree with Ham’s take on much of the Genesis account of creation. The reason, which might surprise you at this point, is that I take the available scientific evidence far more seriously than than to agree with his take.
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And yet, you expect me to accept your convoluted equivocation because you refuse to acknowledge the Noachian flood tale is a mythological piece of nonsense for which science has so thoroughly refuted that only a wilfully ignorant individual would assert otherwise. Furthermore, the damn story is not even original, for goodness sake having been ripped off from an earlier tale, and you KNOW this.
This makes your claim about taking the scientific evidence seriously not only risible but, quite frankly, disingenious.
SMH.
But just for shits and giggles, ‘scuse my Francais, what scientific evidence is there that supports your assertion the Noachian global flood tale has any merit.
I’m having a mid morning coffee and am not needed in the kitchen so go for it.
Show me what you have.
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I’m not a coffee guy, myself. Our oldest did get up early this morning, though, and make breakfast for everyone. Muffins (pouch, not scratch), sausage, and eggs. It was really tasty.
It’s kind of funny to me that you are getting so riled up about all of this. I’ll bet your conversations with Christians on this topic haven’t generally gone this way. Usually, they’re the ones getting all riled up while you calmly sit back and pick apart their worldview beliefs. The thing is, and as we have talked about before, in comparison with the question of whether or not Jesus rose from the dead, this one doesn’t even matter. I could be wrong. I don’t think I am, but I could be. And if I am, Jesus still walked out of His tomb on the third day, so it’ll all be okay.
As for what I “KNOW” here, no, I don’t know that at all. I’ve compared the two stories more than once. While there are some broad similarities, the details are such that to call one the copy of the other just doesn’t ring true with how the stories are actually constructed and what their purpose is. Here’s another take on the matter: Perhaps there are so many ancient stories of a global flood, including those from cultures that would not have been potentially influenced by the Gilgamesh story, because there was a collective human memory of a catastrophic, global flood at some point in the ancient past. It was so significant that many different cultures preserved it in their founding stories. And while, no, the few scientists who have seriously studied the matter haven’t found anything in the way of evidence to empirically prove it happened, perhaps they just haven’t looked yet in the right ways or the right places. Archeologists are still finding things today that shed new light on how we understand the ancient world. It may be that they will yet find something here.
Or maybe not.
And again, I could be wrong. But Jesus still rose from the dead, so I’m not going to worry myself about it all that much. On matters like this one, though, you can’t be wrong. If you are, you have to reevaluate everything about how you understand the world. That’s a scary place to be. For me, if the global flood really was just a morality tale, Jesus still rose from the dead and everything He said is true, so I’m set either way.
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So to clarify.
You have no evidence to refute the scientific data and are clinging to some weird vestige of perceived veracity because you are unable to deal with reality when it confronts and or conflicts with your supernatural worldview?
Your closing assertion about Jesus walking out the tomb is also factually insupportable.
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Looking at things through the lens of your secular worldview, yeah, I suppose that would sound about right to you. It’s a good thing too, because if it didn’t, you would have some really big questions to start sorting through. If you ever get to that point, I’ll be glad to help with the processing. That is part of my job, after all.
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You have still to clarify what are the foundational tenets of the Christian Worldview.
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I promised I’d get to that. I haven’t forgotten.
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Does it differ at all from the OED definition?
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It’ll certainly be a more robust presentation than the good folks at Oxford probably gave. If you’re actually interested I’ll take the time. If not, I’m not going to bother. But again, it’ll be a few days. I’ve got several other things going on right now and not much is going to happen on that front this weekend.
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Do yyour worst….
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Stay tuned…
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By the way, I did send a note to my cousin. He said that, no, asking God to grow back his leg had never been something he had even considered until I asked him about it, but that he’s not really worried about it because the promise of guys like Jesus and Paul is that when God’s new kingdom arrives someday, everyone in it will receive a new, resurrection body designed to last for eternity. Being without a leg for a few years is a pretty light duty, if that’s what God has called him to, in comparison with an eternity whole doesn’t bother him much.
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While I feel genuine sympathy for your cousin it truly is sad he is so indoctrinated as to accept that rubbish while believing someone a few pews down from where he sits might be claiming Yahweh cured their cancer and the bloke next to him is praising your god because out of the blue they found a bank willing to refinance his mortgage so his kid could afford to go to college.
🤦
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Or, it could be that he’s tapped into the worldview that more accurately describes the world as it really is and thus in the face of a terrible, life-altering accident, he has a hopeful confidence in the future and a framework that allows him to make positive sense out of what happened. And those other more hypothetical folks see God’s hand moving in what you can only call random chance or good luck. Worldview matters.
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Lol
You should start an online prayer group called:
Waits and Don’t see.
Include a patreon account.
You’ll make a small fortune and as a registered god-botherer it’s non taxable.
However, in the interest of full disclosure you should include an honest caveat along these lines.
While we can probably help cancer patients, 50/50 up to stage 2/3, Amputees need not join. We apologize for the inconvenience.
While some of you might consider we haven’t got a leg to stand on it’s not our fault. God just isn’t entertaining the idea of limb regeneration at this point in time.
But there’s no ‘arm in a bit of honest wishful thinking, now is there?
So chin up, and please sign on to our Patreon account. Any excess funds will go towards the purchase of state of the art self-drive wheelchairs with free Wi-Fi, GPS, drone and built in cup-holder.
Remember: Prayer Works. Jesus loves most of you. Hold Faith!
Senior Pastor Jonathan Waits.
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That’s hysterical!
Don’t forget about the raising and lowering feature on the wheelchairs. That’s key to reaching those hard-to-reach places.
I should probably grow some bigger hair if I’m going to do that, though. All those kinds of preachers seem to have really well-coifed dos. My steadily graying buzz cut won’t be very marketable, I’m afraid.
We could split the profits from it 50-50. Half for the answered prayers, and half for the unanswered ones. We’ll both be rich. 😉
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Well, if you’re serious about sharing I have a better idea about fund distribution .
Every answered prayer, verified and notorised, all patreon funds go to you at the end of the financial year to do as you see fit.
Conversely, all the unanswered prayer funds are split as follows:
50 percent will be used to set up a logic and critical thinking school which you and every child under thirteen in your congregation must attend once a week for half an hour before Sunday School or Morning Service.
25 percent to go to a local animal rescue center.
10 percent to go to the purchase and distribution of contraceptives
10 percent to go to a vasectomy fund at a local health clinic.
The final 5 percent go to my beer fund.
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I don’t plan on setting up the prayer account in the first place, of course, but I’d only quibble with some of those. Would I get to choose the teacher for those logic and critical thinking classes? And would a notary sign off on an answered prayer? How would that work, I wonder?
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Well the teacher would have to be secular for obvious reasons.
Of course a notary would sign off on an answered prayer. You need a witness.
You surely know all the problems when there are no eyewitnesses?
I would recommend he/ she be paid per job rather than held on a soul retainer basis. Sorry, I meant sole retainer. Unless he/she is okay sitting around a lot doing nothing?
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We have a notary who’s a member of the church. I suspect she’d do it pro bono.
It might be better to do those classes after the sermon. It would probably be easier to pick it apart then. If your teacher went first, I would be able to get the last word in. That gives me the advantage. Unless you were thinking to do that in the spirit of charity.
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Maybe your notary would like to attend the class as well?
Charity?
You and yours have had 2000 years.
What’s the matter Jonathan, not so confident?
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No, see, I was trying to make things easier for your guy. I wasn’t asking for charity, I was asking if you were giving it voluntarily. If he goes first, I get the last word. That let’s my argument be the last things in their minds which makes it more likely to win the day. If I wasn’t confident, I would want to be there. By my offering your guy the last word, he has a better chance of undermining everything I say. It’s just the opposite. See now? You’re welcome 😉
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Perhaps I misunderstood? The idea behind attending the class before your service is to enable the children to develop the critical thinking skills enabling them to recognise b. s. when it is presented.
The insistence of you being obliged to attend the class is for your benefit.
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No, I got it. You want to give them a secular worldview indoctrination course before I lay out the contours of the Christian worldview to them. If you give me the last word, though, I’ll be able to help them take those critical thinking skills and see all the gaping holes in the secular worldview. If you want to go that route, that’s good with me. I was just trying to be charitable.
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Let me correct that for you. The term is secular education.
Indoctrination is not required when you tell Children the truth.
Religious Indoctrination ( misnomered education) includes any number of unsubstantiated claims, and a degree of fear to be instilled in the child to encourage compliance.
It regularly requires a willingness to turn a blind eye to a high degree of fact/ evidence and actively lie.
Sound secular education recognizes its limitations but always considers there is more to learn and hence to teach.
Religion considers its doctrine is the final word.
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You’re advocating for worldview training just like I am. The only thing that differentiates what you call indoctrination from what I call education and vice versa is the worldview out of which we’re looking at things. And as you demonstrate here yet again, you can only see the Christian worldview through your set of worldview blinders resulting in your perpetual inability to really understand it. Honestly, even at the point I have time to sit down and lay it out more thoroughly, I’ll confess a rather decided lack of confidence that you’ll be able to understand it then. You have not demonstrated an ability, much less a willingness to see things through any other lens. That’s okay, though, as my job is not to convince you. It’s merely to set what is true before you and leave you to do with it what you will. But, as always, I’m willing to keep conversing back and forth as long as you are interested.
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The Christian Worldview is not supported by evidence.
A secular worldview is.
That’s the alpha and omega of it.
Please don’t patronize me.
Present your case. If it is able to withstand scrutiny all good and well.
If you wish me to understand it then in this particular reply explain why Christian parents are required to ostensibly lie to their children about all the topics we have been discussing?
In particular Hell.
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It is supported by the full scope of available evidence. But you can’t see that because you won’t examine the evidence from the standpoint of anything but your secular worldview. You come at the evidence with the limitations of your worldview in place, examine the evidence within those limitations, and then, presto! you find that the evidence only supports your worldview. It’s a nice little circle.
I’m not patronizing you at all. I’m simply describing what I see.
And who says Christian parents are required to ostensibly lie to their children? Do you mean because they proclaim something you have decided isn’t true they are thus lying?
I’m curious, if one of your kids were to become a committed follower of Jesus and then set about raising your grandkids to be the same, would you unload this level of anti-religious animosity on them? Would you actively stand in the way of what they believe is best and wisest for the rearing and raising of their own kids? Would you attempt to belittle them and talk down to them as hopelessly ignorant? What kind of threat do you feel Christianity poses that you bring such passion as you keep demonstrating here against it? I don’t say this because I feel particularly attacked, although you’ve called me quite a few different things that someone with much thinner skin or less confidence than I have would probably be offended by. I’m just curious why you have such apparent animosity for religion in general and Christianity in particular. Have you been hurt by the church or personally offended by people professing to be followers of Jesus before?
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Let me stop you at the first sentence.
What evidence supports Hell?
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Physical evidence? None. But you already knew that. And, Hell as describe in the Scriptures is a place that doesn’t even exist yet, so of course there wouldn’t be any physical evidence of its existence. As I keep coming back to, the only question that matters is whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. Everything else about the Christian worldview flows from there. Because you have rejected that truth claim, none of the rest of it is going to make sense or seem anything in the realm of reasonable to you. Continue to debate matters that you aren’t going to accept because you don’t accept the starting point seems to me like a waste of both of our time.
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Do you teach that non belief, or rejection of your god will result in the non believer spending eternity in Hell, in whatever form you ascribe to?
Yes or no?
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Yep, but you already knew that as we have talked about it before.
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And in my book this is disgusting and should be regarded as a form of child abuse.
You know of course that the character Jesus of Nazareth never mentioned Hell as you preach it?
He referred to Gehenna.
The place is now a park outside Jerusalem I believe.
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Looking at the matter from the standpoint of your secular worldview, I’m certain it does. Hell isn’t exactly the place you start with kids. There are ways to present hard doctrines in age appropriate ways without being even slightly dishonest about it. Emotional manipulation is always wrong. We agree on that.
As for Jesus’ thoughts on Gehenna, that’s the Greek word that eventually became translated as Hell into English. He also referred to Hades, which occupied about the same theological space in the Jewish worldview of the day. What He was consistently referring to is some kind of place of eternal separation from God for those who finally reject Him that will not be pleasant. Exactly how it is to be unpleasant is not totally clear as He uses different metaphors for it. He spoke about that idea, though, more than He spoke about just about anything else.
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I doubt Hell is the first place to start with children.
There has to be ‘context’ .
But children are savvy enough to ask very early on in any parental ‘chat’, and especially when dad is telling them about a man who is also a god who died 2000 years ago, “What happens if I don’t believe? ”
Of course, while not exactly lying to your child you are nonetheless now obliged to fall back on the same type of unsubstantiated beliefs you were once subjected to as a kid.
And this is the difference between my father explaining the consequences of not doing my homework, or failing to check the oil, water and tyre pressure and you having to justify the Genocide of the Amalakites, slavery, and the Noachian flood. Or even prayer.
I never needed to be indoctrinated to see the obvious need to service my car regularly.
This is certainly not the case when it comes to religion. Children not subject to religious indoctrination ( education…( Sic)) will be no less moral etc than their secular counterparts. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if they were more so.
And there is the added bonus of not having to live with the sword of Damocles hanging over their head.
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Once again, understood through your worldview lens, that’s just how it’s going to come across. As long as you keep examining the Christian worldview through a determinedly secular lens, there’s not really anything I can say to respond to comments like this that will be at all persuasive to you.
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I am examining Christianity on the terms IT ascribes to itself.
In a nutshell.
Belief = Salvation, Eternal life in Heaven.
Non – Belief = Hell, Eternal torment/ separation from Yahweh( God).
Anything I have written that is wrong/incorrect not a foundational tenet of Christianity?
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Nope, but you are doing so through the lens of a secular worldview. And, as I keep trying to explain, you won’t really understand or be able to make positive sense out of them as long as you do that.
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But you refuse to explain so how else am I suppose to view it?
If your religion insisted on ritualistic animal slaughter on your property would you be up in arms if the local council stepped in and prevented you from doing so?
If you took your grievance to court and the judge said “Explain yourself.” would you continue to hand wave away his demand and tell him, “You don’t understand Yer Honour, you have a secular worldview”
He’d very likely slap you with a fine and maybe contempt. If you continues to practice ritualistic slaughter you would eventually end up in jail.
So although I am not a judge… Please for the love of the gods, explain yourself.
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I did explain it before and you rejected my explanation.
Allow me a question for clarification first. The U.S. has a holiday (Memorial Day) dedicated to honoring the self sacrifice of members of the various branches of the armed forces in pursuit and defense of the freedoms we enjoy here (as do many nations around the world). Does that holiday make our nation (or any nation with a similar observation) one rooted in human sacrifice?
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No.
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So then how is Christianity, which is rooted in part in the self sacrifice of one person to defend and secure the freedom of many others a cult of human sacrifice?
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Because your god required blood.
Ergo a human sacrifice.
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Sigh…sure. When you want to make serious arguments again, let me know.
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Oh, so are you saying Yahweh did NOT require blood for remission of sin?
That you wish to reject fact is your choice.
There is a reason Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God.
He is regarded as a human sacrifice.
Why you would try to deny this and put a, spin in it is baffling.
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Yes, the forgiveness of sins required a death. My church will spend an entire evening remembering that this coming Friday. Jesus absolutely sacrificed Himself for us to satisfy the justice of God. Until you are willing to accept Christian claims about God at face value rather than filtering them through a secular worldview, that idea won’t make any positive sense.
What I’m saying is that to put Christianity rhetorically in the same category as actual cults of human sacrifice is a stupid argument to make, not a serious one, and reflects exactly zero understanding or meaningful engagement with Christian theology. If you want to have serious arguments about the Christian faith we can, but this isn’t one.
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You assert Jesus is Yahweh in the flesh.
An omnipotent deity has no need of blood as a token for the remission of sin. He could just wave his hand abd announce everyone is forgiven.
The notion is not only ridiculous but barbaric. However, it fits perfectly with the crude beliefs of humans 2000 years ago.
So yes, dress it up in a party dress all you want, Christianity is a cult of human sacrifice.
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You’re just making my point for me. I mean this just as respectfully as I can say it: You don’t understand what you’re talking about. You’re beating up a poorly constructed straw man. You can keep flailing away, but you’re really not accomplishing very much.
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Au contraire.
It is you who are being wilfully obtuse on this matter.
If blood was decreed crucial by Yahweh and Jesus was the Lamb to be sacrificed, and is to be worshiped then Christians worship a human sacrifice.
No straw man.
Is there anything about this you are struggling to come to terms with?
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Nope. I understand the atonement pretty well, thanks. Jesus’ death was absolutely necessary for the forgiveness of sins. That doesn’t make calling Christianity a cult of human sacrifice along with all that implies any less asinine of an argument against it.
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If the shedding of human blood was “absolutely necessary” ( and by shedding this means death not merely cutting one’s finger) then it is a religion of human sacrifice.
Now, if some obscure Amazon tribe believed their chief was a god incarnate and part of their culture demanded that after twenty years of his reign he
has to sacrificed so his spirit could rise to heaven to watch over them and a new chief enthroned anthropologists would deem this a cult of human sacrifice.
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In that case, they would practice regularly and ongoing human sacrifice and so would warrant the title. Christianity is rooted in one sacrifice. This remains not a serious criticism.
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So by your reckoning, the determinate factor of a cult/religion of human sacrifice is the number of people sacrificed?
Lambs were sacrificed and Jesus was considered the sacrificial lamb.
A sacrifice of blood deemed crucial for the atonement of sin. He was sacrificed for the common good.
Christians worship Jesus.
Ergo Christianity is a religion of human sacrifice.
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If you want to get technical about it, Christians worship Jesus because He is alive. If we are a cult of anything, we are a cult of human resurrection, not sacrifice. The sacrifice mattered, but the resurrection is the main thing. If Jesus had only died, we wouldn’t worship Him. Once again, these kinds of criticisms just aren’t serious.
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You can’t be a cult of resurrection unless something was dead in the first place.
Why didn’t Yahweh simply bestow forgiveness without the barbarism of the crucifiction?
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Because that’s not how forgiveness works. When someone has done something wrong (that is, sin, which is another Christian doctrine you reject and so this won’t likely make much positive sense) to simply say, “Forget about it,” isn’t forgiveness. It’s unjust. That means someone was hurt who isn’t getting justice. There has to be reconciliation and restoration. Well, operating from out of the understanding that God created the world and thus it belongs to Him, when we sin, we are taking control of our lives from His rightful and just control. If we are going to be made right with Him, we have to give back what we took from Him, namely, our lives. That means death. That’s why the apostle Paul said that the wages of sin is death. God didn’t and doesn’t want that, though. So, in His grace and mercy, He sacrificed His own life through the person of Jesus, God the Son, on our behalf. By His death, we don’t have to die. We can be made right with Him by putting our faith in Jesus. That’s the Gospel in a nutshell.
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Exactly!
Your god requires blood for atonement.
And by blood he demanded a human sacrifice.
How can this not be considered barbaric?
.
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You don’t believe in God in the first place, so of course none of this makes any positive sense. I’ve tried to explain that all along.
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I lack belief because of the absence of evidence.
You still cannot explain why blood was deemed crucial for atonement when an all powerful deity could simply offer forgiveness.
In any other circumstance or any other religion you would consider this barbaric.
You have been indoctrinated to consider your religion is somehow special in this regard, when in all honesty, it really isn’t.
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You lack belief because you reject or otherwise interpret differently the evidence that’s available.
Blood was made symbolic over time, but it was the life that mattered. God couldn’t “simply offer forgiveness” because that would have been ultimately unjust and He is a just God.
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Wrong. No evidence for your god Yahweh has ever been produced. Your truly tiresome and somewhat pedantic attempt to yet again besmirch atheism truly is pathetic and merely reinforces the wilfull ignorance you display,
If it was solely life that mattered Jesus could have died of old age and had Yahweh resurrect him. The effect would have been just as powerful.
There is nothing just about an omnipotent deity that commits genocide.
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Nope, but again (and again…and again…) as long as you keep processing though a secular worldview, that’s all you’ll be able to see.
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What has worldview got to do with the fact that your doctrine, which was adapted from the OT, required the shedding of blood?
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Yes, the shedding of blood. Worldview has everything to do with your inability to see or understand that as anything other than you do.
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If you continue to assert that worldview is crucial to the necessary understanding of the shedding of blood to ensure salvation then your world view is by all things decent, barbaric.
And you didn’t respond why Yahweh couldn’t resurrect Jesus after he died of old age.
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Because then no life would have been given.
And, yes, from the standpoint of your worldview, it would indeed look that way.
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Not my worldview
From the perspective of any decent human being who is not indoctrinated to believe otherwise
No life would have been given.
What does this even mean outside of an apologetic arena?
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So then people who believe like you and thus share your worldview or an otherwise non-Christian worldview. And check out today’s post in a little while for more of an answer to your question here.
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Yes, people who recognize that any deity who demands a blood sacrifice is not with spit.
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Thus it is a worldview-driven observation. That’s my point.
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Do you consider not murdering people a worldview-driven observation?
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Go ahead and jump to your point rather than making me wait on it.
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The question is straightforward.
You either do or you don’t. Which is it?
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Nope, not playing ball. Just get to the point you’re waiting to make in response to however I happen to answer that.
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I get the impression you have a good inking what the point is, am I correct?
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Of course. You’re making the same point you’ve been trying to make since the beginning of this particular thread, and I still disagree with you on the matter. We can keep running around in circles on it, but we’re not going to get anywhere.
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Exactly! And this is the level of critical thinking( sic) one can expect from those, like you, who are indoctrinated into a particular r religion, in this case, Christianity.
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So you keep saying…
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Until you or any other indoctrinated believer demonstrate otherwise I can see not reason it would change.
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Then I’ll leave you to think that.
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It is unfortunate you simply refuse to exercise critical thinking on this matter.
One can only hope your kids are not so handicapped.
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Yeah, see, what you call a lack of critical thinking is really just my not agreeing with you. I’ve given pretty much all the matters we’ve talked about a fair bit of critical thinking over the years. I’ve simply come to different conclusions than you have. As you have demonstrated time and time again, though, your present worldview frame of reference can’t allow that any conclusion other than yours could possibly come from any kind of critical thinking, and so you have to just keep labeling all of it as “indoctrination.” I understand the game here.
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Not at all. The evidence is all laid out and you simply reject it because you have been indoctrinated to behave in this manner.
All believers behave in the same manner, more or less. After all, it is what faith is all about.
Thus, those who deconvert are able to understand the reason for their former firmly held beliefs
And I have told you time and again. I am open to changing my views on the presentation of evidence.
It is neither my fault nor my responsibility that you fail on this matter.
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If you say so. You’ll have to count me a skeptic on your willingness to change your views, though, until I see evidence otherwise. (See what I did there? ;~)
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Are you doubting my word? Do you truly consider I would lie and reject evidence simply to maintain a position that would be untenable?
Feel free to present evidence that will demonstrate my current position does, not comport with reality abd/ or the scientific evidence.
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No, I think you’re telling the truth. But I also have watched over our conversation as you have defined what counts as evidence so narrowly that you won’t have to worry about finding yourself in such a position in the first place.
And we find ourselves back to the beginning again. Wheeeeee!
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I do not define evidence.
Evidence is already defined.
You make unsubstanatisd claims for your religious beliefs, the veracity of which you simply cannot demonstrate.
Not only do you fail to provide evidence, you argue ad infinitum that you have evidence, a claim that is patently false, but you also assert the inability to recognize your claims as evidence is solely dependant on one adhering to your worldview, a worldview that by necessity, is wholly dependant on the individual accepting supernaturalism.
Furthermore, in non-supernatural situations where scientific evidence flatly refutes the supernatural claims in the Bible you refuse to accept this evidence. The Noachian Global Flood is just one glaring example.
While in no way unique, your attitude and behaviour in this regard is, in fact, somewhat typical of one whose faith-based beliefs reflect the religious indoctrination every religious individual suffers from, to a greater or lessor degree.
While a view I express, it is not one I
alone have, and similar iterations are expressed by every religious deconvert I have watched, read or dialogued with over the years.
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The definition of evidence is a philosophical question. Specifically, it is a question from out of a philosophy of science. It doesn’t just somehow exist independently on its own. We talked about one long ago, but even those words, when viewed through the lens of differing philosophical positions results in different outcomes. You have consistently demonstrated a commitment to an understanding of what counts as evidence that comes out of a pretty strictly empiricist view. That’s fine to do, but at least recognize that you are making a philosophical decision, not a scientific one. Your ongoing challenge, recognized or not, is that you keep confusing science and philosophy and making statements from one discipline while claiming to be making them from out of the other. It’s a very common mistake among the scientifically secular crowd.
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Aside from the fact the story is simply plagiarized from an earlier myth, the geologic and biological evidence has demonstrated that the Noachian Flood as described in the Bible could not possible have happened.
This is a perfect case of what is evidence.
I am at a complete loss to understand why you are being so blatently dense and obtuse over this matter?
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You know, I keep wondering the same thing. How funny what a shift in perspective can do.
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Wilfull ignorance is nothing to crow about, Jonathan.
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I agree. Entirely.
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Yet you persist in displaying wilfull ignorance at every turn. Why do you do this?
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I wonder the same thing about you. We are not so different. We simply stand on opposite sides of a divide.
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You have never found me guilty of wilfull ignorance and that is scurilous.
That you would stoop to lying is truly contemptable.
We are done.
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Nor have you found me in spite of your repeated insistence otherwise. I’m sorry we couldn’t come to a mutual respect in spite of our deeply divergent views. I’ll be here if you ever decide you want to take back up the conversation.
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“Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods ”
Norte: One or more.
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Sigh…sure. If continuing to call Christianity a cult of human sacrifice helps to justify your rejection of it, I’m not going to be able to persuade you otherwise. Again, when you want to make a serious argument again, we can keep going.
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Let’s call it a religion based on the glorification and worship of a barbaric human sacrifice.
How’s that? Better?
I don’t reject it on these grounds.
The crucifixion ritual is simply one aspect of its overall barbarism.
Surely you understand my position on religion by now?
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Not particularly. We don’t worship the sacrifice. We worship the one who was sacrificed. The religion is based on the fact that the one who allowed Himself to be sacrificed rose from the grave.
And, yes, I think I have your perspective down fairly well. You evaluate all religious claims through the lens of a secular worldview and thus don’t really understand them. You’ve demonstrated that pretty thoroughly.
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So the tale goes…
Yahweh laid out the terms.
How is creation going to be redeemed? He wondered. In the old days I wiped them out and destroyed most of the planet. That didn’t work out as I had hoped.
I know, I shall reincarnate in the flesh then allow myself to be brutally executed as a blood sacrifice.
Humans understabd this type of violence. Life is in the blood. And the price to be paid will be in blood.
Afterwards, I shall resurrect and humans can worship me.
So, yes, your religion is based on the worship of a human sacrifice.
However, because of your ethics/ morality you recognize this is simply barbarism.
Therefore, knowing you would condemn such action in any other setting you justify your own action by pointing a finger of accusation at someone like me and and assert I do not understand and my moral perspective is flawed.
I’m not sure if that is gross hypocrisy or some other deviant rationalization.
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As far as secular caricatures of the Christian faith go…that is one. Nice work. As for the rest…seen from the standpoint of your secular worldview, yes, I suspect it looks just like that to you. We don’t see it the same way because I’m looking at it from a different worldview position. Once again: when it comes to Christianity, I’m sorry, but you just don’t understand what you’re talking about because you steadfastly refuse to take it on any terms but your own, and it simply won’t ever make sense on those terms.
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Your perspective is one of accepting through blind faith that you are a sinner in need of salvation via the blood of the character Jesus of Nazareth.
Such faith does not require any evidence, a noticeable absentee in every theological argument, including the texts, but does require ongoing indocrination especially of children and those who are similarly vulnerable.
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Interestingly in more than one psychological study, kids tend to be more open to the idea of God and to have favorable opinions of religion generally than adults, even when they are raised in otherwise secular environments where they don’t get anything like what you keep calling “indoctrination.” What it seems is that kids trend in generally direction fairly naturally unless and until they are taught to do otherwise.
And, yes, through the lens of a secular worldview, I understand that’s how Christianity seems.
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Kids are more open to Santa Claus and fairies, flying superheroes, talking dogs and cats and rabbits that say, “Er, what’s up Doc?”
In general however, indoctrination is not required for them to grow out of such beliefs.
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It’s not required for them to maintain faith either.
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Of course it is!. Simply compare your kids to mine!
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I didn’t say they would necessarily continue on their own. I said it’s not required for them to continue on their own. You taught your kids to be secular by your words and example. I’m teaching mine the Christian worldview.
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Yes, it is required.
Yes, your example. Because you have no evidence to demonstrate your beliefs you are obliged to further their indoctrination.
And I’ll wager there are any number of little almost seemingly inconsequential points that reinforce your worldview every day.
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Same goes for the secular worldview. You are saying things that, if they are true, are true of every worldview perspective, including your own. You stick with the pejorative language because you so vigorously disagree with worldviews that are not your own.
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You refuse to acknowledge the difference between educate and indoctrinate.
To teach my kids about polar bears I can provide evidence and fact, including showing them a live bear. Therefore I am educating them.
To teach your kids about God, Jesus, miracles etc you can only provide unsubstantiated claims and demand of them faith. To reinforce this you preach among other things the need for blood and the supposed atonement, and the doctrine of Hell.
Once indoctrination has taken place it is the examples you lead by that reinforce the indoctrination.
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Nope again. You have a secular worldview and refuse to acknowledge or otherwise interpret the available evidence. Therefore, you call any kind of religious instruction with which you disagree indoctrination. Indoctrination is teaching people to accept things uncritically. That’s not at all what I’m doing with my kids. Some Christians do take that approach, and I think they’re wrong and foolish to do it, but that doesn’t mean all Christian teaching is indoctrination. To label it so broadly reflects worldview (namely, yours), not reality.
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Well at least you finally acknowledge that indoctrination takes place.
Not you though. So you present evidence of Yahweh to your children?
I would love to hear from them on the subject, but that would be unfair.
Okay, if you are confident you aren’t indoctrinating your children present that evidence to me and we’ll see if it passes muster.
And this time don’t give me any worldview nonsense please.
Evidence will withstand scrutiny.
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Other than the fact they haven’t asked all of the same questions you have, I present the facts to them about Christianity and let them ultimately make their own decision. With respect, your approval or not as a committed atheist of how I’ve done that isn’t something that really concerns me all that much.
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I was never looking for you to ever concern yourself about my approval.
What a ridiculous thing to write.
A twinge of conscience, Jonathan?
Facts? What facts would these be?
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Nope. You asked for the evidence as if your approval was somehow necessary to justify that I’m not indoctrinating my kids.
And as far as the facts go, we’ve already had that conversation.
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I was asking for evidence in the same vein as I ask you for evidence for any claim you make.
I have absolutely no qualms about sharing how or what I taught my kids and am not seeking yours or anyone elses approval.
Why are you touchy about it?
Well, we have had lots of conversations about your religion but none have included lots of facts.
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I suspect they haven’t…
And if I came across touchy, that was a quirk of digital ink instead of being face-to-face.
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Hell aside, which I’m honestly not sure why you’ve brought that back up, I’m still curious for your reflections on the rest of what I asked? Do you bring all this vitriol against religion wherever you find it? Would you bring it against a family member who expressed views similar to mine? A kid? A grandkid someday?
You’ve been happy so far to sit back and try to pick apart my views, but whenever I start pushing back in the direction of considering more fully the broader philosophical implications and impact of your own views, you have so far seemed to pretty quickly bail on the subject in favor of a safer one.
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I tend to bring this vitriol as you put to those of a religious bent who revel in obfuscation and varying degrees of disingenuity during discussion.
I really am only interested in evidence for the claims religion makes.
One reason why I try not to get dragged into the philosophical or metaphysical aspects.
It is merely a blog hobby. I think I explained the details when we first discussed about when I was writing my first book?
In truth I don’t really have skin in the game as I may have mentioned before and unlike the USA religion plays little if any part in the day to day goings on in South Africa and certainly not in politics.
It does irritate me that children are subject to this nonsense, and that irritation increases when I read of some of the stories deconverts went through as kids.
This you may find interesting
I used to blog with a chap called Johnny Scaramanga who was raised in a YEC home in the UK and he attended an ACE school. ( Accerated Christian Education)
To give you an idea. They were isolated from mainstream society and one of their history textbooks featured an illustration of a man dressed as a medieval peasent riding a wagon being pulled by what looked like a small or baby ankylosaurus. I kid you not.
He eventually escaped( his words) and set about forcing the UK government to conduct an investigation.
I believe he succeeded and he went on to write his phd on A. C. E.
A few years back he quit activism against ACE as he wrote that the stress was causing him to become physically and mentally drained and his health suffered quite badly as a result.
As you can see, revolting stuff, and children should be spared all such exposure to such filth.
I truly cannot imagine any family member becoming evangelical as you are. My mother still regards herself as Christian, so dies my Brother in Law. I am unaware of any others. Certainly neither my siblings nor my dad are religious at all. My own kids aren’t and mother is my wife, although she still considers herself Catholic.
Cousins, Aunts and Uncles? Not that I know of.
If any of them turned I would genuinely wonder if they had suffered some form of serious mental and or emotional trauma.
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I have been many things over the course of our conversation, but disingenuous hasn’t been one of them. I haven’t ever intentionally obfuscated either.
I remember your talking about a book, but I didn’t realize that’s what became the blog. I wonder if a book idea may yet come from my blog, but that wasn’t the original purpose.
You may not want to get dragged into philosophical or metaphysical conversations, but those things form the foundation of the worldview you espouse. If the philosophy isn’t correct or leads to places you don’t want to go, then you may want to consider reevaluating the worldview. That’s why I keep bringing them up. If the philosophy isn’t sound, then the conclusions you are running with aren’t either.
South Africa sounds like it’s a western tip on a decidedly non-western spear. Interesting. You have Christianity to thank for that if it is at all to your liking. Christianity created western culture.
On the story about Johnny, I’m so sorry that was his experience. Those kinds of stories break my heart. They break my heart first and primarily because no one should have to go through something like that. They also break my heart because they unfairly give the whole church a bad name. What he experienced sounds ridiculous and sad. The idea of a medieval peasant riding a dinosaur-pulled wagon is outrageous. That anybody claiming any kind of a worldview would teach such nonsense is embarrassing.
I don’t really know what to say beyond that all churches are not alike. What he experienced is not mainstream Christianity, let alone evangelical Christianity. That was fundamentalist Christianity. Those folks tend to miss the forest for the trees when it comes to the things Jesus said. And, they tend to think the Old Testament was meant for our application. It wasn’t. Jesus fulfilled and replaced it with the new covenant.
My only plea to him (and you) is to not paint all Christians with the same brush. That’s the same mistake I would commit if I met someone from somewhere in Africa, had a bad experience, and decided that everyone in Africa is bad.
I do agree with you, though, that children shouldn’t have to experience the fruit of adults buying into bad ideas. I think that no matter what form those ideas take.
Interesting stuff on the family and faith.
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Christianity is so flexible, so vague and so open to individual interpretation it allows for a myriad sects to flourish.
So while I wouldn’t openly paint all Christians with the same brush I can most certainly whitewash the religion of Christianity.
As it’s very foundational core it is a barbaric cult of human sacrifice that has absolutely no evidence whatsoever for a single foundational tenet.
Its doctrine is one of blatent human invention and relies primarily on a Carrot and Stick method of instruction, which functions best when it’s followers perpetuate these unfounded beliefs by indoctrinating each subsequent generation of children.
It could be argued it had relevance when humanity was little more than an unsophisticated rabble, but when you consider the world now and the negative impact religion still has, we need to thank it for it’s contribution then politely show it the door.
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Seen through the lens of secularism, yes, that’s just how it looks. Taken on its own terms (and not its own terms filtered through a secular lens), things look different.
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Really?
Give me some examples.
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Well, for starters, it’s not “a barbaric cult of human sacrifice that has absolutely no evidence whatsoever for a single foundational tenet.”
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Really?
Provide evidence to show otherwise.
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We’ve already talked about that. I don’t see need to go back over it again. You didn’t accept it then. I don’t have any evidence you’ll accept it now.
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So no evidence. My comment stands.
Remember, denial is not just a river in Egypt,
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Sigh…sure. See the other comment I just posted. I think this thread and that are focused on the same thing at the precise moment.
Honestly, to call Christianity a cult of human sacrifice reflects such a profound and willful ignorance of the matter that it’s really not a charge worth acknowledging. Critics like Sam Harris made that argument not because it’s a particularly good one that reflects some amount of serious, thoughtful engagement with the subject matter, but because it is rhetorically eye-catching and provocative. It’s designed to put Christians on their back foot and playing defense on a point that doesn’t actually require any defense because of the sheer asininity of the charge.
If you want to call Christianity a cult of human sacrifice, that’s fine. There is a profound qualitative difference between actual cults of human sacrifice and Christianity. Asking for evidence on the matter is just silly and once again reflects no amount of actual serious engagement.
Call this a win if you’d like, but I don’t see reason to keep running in circles on this point. I’d rather focus our efforts on serious questions.
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Lol… Edit. “Mother is my wife…” 🤣
Er… Neither is my wife!
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That would have been decidedly more awkward…
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Indeed! Curses to WordPress for no edit facility.
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I have it, but I think it’s coming through my browser and phone.
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You can edit your own comments on someone else’s blog?
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Oh, I see. No, but I have grammar checkers built in to help catch stuff.
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So, are we going to see this scientific evidence of the Noachian Global Flood through the Christian lens or will there simply be more equivocation and a few new dance steps?
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Wait, is this a whole new thread? I didn’t get a chance to respond to the last one yet. Had to get the family ready and out the door.
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