- 1720 derisive comments
- Blue-skipping placemarker
- Troll pictures
- etc.,etc.,etc.
You are getting back some of what has been dished out by Darwininians for well over a year.
What is it we are getting back that is equivalent to unacknowledged errors (false Gould bibliographies, we don't see light, etc.)
First of all there are no substanitive errors in what I posted. The only issue is whether I intended to insult God, which is impossible, or whether I intended to insult people who believe God causes babies to suffer and die for the sins of their greatgreatgreat greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreat grandparents. I happen to think there is a real issue to discuss with those who think diseases are deliberately designed by the creator. I certainly accept that they are part of creation, and that reality is such that bad things can exist. But I draw the line at believing that infants suffer and die because some fool 6000 years ago behaved badly.
Neither is 1720. It is an omitted zero, a mathematical kin to a spelling error. And what mistake substantially is called a troll?
As to causes and consequences, soldiers died and were injured recently in Iraq due to the navigational error of an army captain who escaped unscathed. What do we do? Do we accept it and say s**t happens? Or do we acknowledge the error for what it was and correct the cause of the error?
I've long though any theism is just an elaborate exercise in reification or anthropomorphization - hence my atheism. However, I think a general concept of God & His relationship to the real world can at least be mostly (or maybe even completely) self-consistent. For instance, I have no problem with the problem of evil in a generic sense: "Good" has no real meaning apart from comparing it to "bad", so even an all-loving creator would have to allow the bad to exist in order for the good to exist, etc.
It's when theists attach to this generic "God" concept a specific story that purports to explain actual historical events performed by a specific God-person that the contradictions really start to clash. At least the Judeo-Christian story does. (Maybe some other religion out there is more internally consistent, I don't know.)
And of course, creationists have tied their emotional commitment to their religion to a belief that this specific story of historical events is actually true & accurate in a literal sense. IMO that's their only real blunder.
Which is why I wish ALS would answer my question of the flagella and the Fall. I suspect he never considered the contradiction before, and is flummoxed by it.