Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham

...Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I wasn't calling you names, just calling you out on your distortion. In a country that is nearly 3/4 Christian, to claim there is hostility toward Christians is preposterous. And to claim hostility toward your minority sub-sect of Christianity simply because the rest of the country doesn't share your eagerness for violating separation of church and state is equally preposterous.I think what most identifies your Christian sub-sect is its lack of the shame and embarrassment gene. You can't just make up how the world really is - the rest of us live in the same world and can tell when you're lying.--Percy

Sadly, we cannot. There's no question that many of their claims about what is happening in the world are wrong, but I've yet to meet anyone who can definitively distinguish between lying and delusion.I certainly don't claim to be an expert on the subject, and it's quite possible I'm just being fooled, but the delusions are so widespread and seem to be so genuinely believed that I can't help but believe that at least some people actually think that the world is as they represent it to be. I've known people whom I believe to be good, honest people, who believe the queerest things, and no amount of evidence can convince them otherwise.We can tell when they are wrong. We can't tell what they actually believe.

Ouch, whiplash again. As Subbie noted, your interpretation of the First Amendment described in the first paragraph of your Message 709 could not be more different than the Supreme Court's interpretation that Subbie quoted in Message 719. You do disagree with it, or at least you did just yesterday.Would it be too much to ask for a cessation of denials of things you've said earlier so that we can have at least a modicum of consistency? If you don't want to defend stupid, indefensible positions then stop stating stupid, indefensible positions.Predicted response, if there is one: "Nothing I've said is stupid or indefensible. What I said was ..."--Percy

The strongest Biblical support for slavery comes from Genesis 9:25-27 concerning Noah's curse of Ham on his grandson Canaan after Ham had seen him naked:

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"Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers. He also said, 'Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japeth live in the tents of Shem and may Canaan be his slave'. "

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Since Canaan settled in Africa, people in Africa were slaves. That was the very common Biblical interpretation for centuries.But Christianity's interpretation of the Bible regarding slavery has of course evolved along with society. Before the Renaissance most Christians believed the Bible supported slavery:

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"In the early years of Christianity, slavery was a normal feature of the economy and society in the Roman Empire, and this persisted in different forms and with regional differences well into the Middle Ages.[1] Most Christian figures in that early period such as Saint Augustine, accepted slavery as an inevitability whereas some, such as Saint Patrick (a former slave), were opposed to it. Both the Old Testament and New Testament treat slavery as a given, to the extent of (in the case of the Old Testament) laying down regulations for its "just" practice. Historically this has presented a challenge for Christians advocating against slavery." (Christian views on slavery - Wikipedia)

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But the most significant collision between opposing schools of Biblical interpretation occurred in the United States when growing differences between North and South on the institution of slavery forced a schism in the Baptist church:

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"By the 1830s, tension had begun to mount between Northern and Southern Baptist churches. The support of Baptists in the South for slavery can be ascribed to economic and social reasons. However, Baptists in the North claimed that God would not "condone treating one race as superior to another". Southerners, on the other hand, held that God intended the races to be separate. Finally, around 1835, Southern states began complaining that they were being slighted in the allocation of funds for missionary work.

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"The break was triggered in 1844, when the Home Mission Society announced that a person could not be a missionary and still keep his slaves as property. Faced with this challenge, the Baptists in the south assembled in May 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, and organized the Southern Baptist Convention, which fully supported slavery (though later renounced it in the mid-20th century)." (Christian views on slavery - Wikipedia)

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During the Civil War while armies faced each other across battlefields, ministers of North and South faced each other over their Bibles, each citing Biblical arguments for why God either favored or opposed slavery. You're the poster child for the very point subbie is making. Fundamentalists the world over bark that those in disagreement are misusing religious texts.So bringing this point back to the topic, Biblical interpretations and religious beliefs are not unchanging. They evolve and develop over time. Religious adherents in this country possess the freedom to practice their religion as they see fit. If they want to be closed and discriminate on any basis, they are free to do so. But when religious people create secular organizations or businesses then they must follow the same laws as everyone else.--Percy

Agreed. I probably should have said, "...and can tell when you're lying or deluded." Faith makes statements that are at odds with reality and sometimes even of simple logic, and my point is how fruitless this is since the evidence that she is wrong is so tremendously obvious. Her willingness to argue the indefensibly stupid at length doesn't make wrong any less wrong.--Percy

Gosh I would have thought that what I encounter at EvC would be evidence enough, and how atheists target us and so on. Looks a lot like hostility to me. But maybe it's really admiration and love, huh? Anyway I did accommodate to your statistic and what you claim wasn't calling me names, to make it clear that it's only my subset of Christians that is subjected to hostility, the ones I consider to be the true Christians of course as against all the others who go by the name but reject most of the Bible and so on. They are often very popular indeed. So I'm quite happy to accept your title for my subset, From now on I expect to refer to my subset fairly frequently as the Fanatically Conservative Paranoid Fundamentalists. It has a ring to it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I should have said I liked it, because I did. I thought it was remarkably neutral as secularist interpretations go, and as I said, that it should defend some of us FCPF's in some situations in which it seems we aren't often defended. Subbie corrected me, however, turns out in his opinion it wouldn't defend us anyway.What the original First Amendment actually intended may be something else, but I like this one anyway.

Using the Old Testament to justify slavery is a perfect example of a misuse of the Bible. Period.

Funny, I would have thought I made some good points on this thread. Turns out I'm stupid. Oh well, must be whatever I was born with that turned me into a FCPF, right?

I read the supposed quotes from the bible that Percy supplied and it seems to me that slavery is right if it is the right people that are enslaved -- that is, they deserve to be. Are they not in the bible? Are they out of context?I can only read the English supplied so maybe you think the translations are wrong?How does that not say that slavery is acceptable under the right circumstances?

It's a prophecy. Prophecies aren't commands.

The charge you're supposedly defending yourself against is that fundamentalists of all stripes around the world always claim that interpretations different from their own are misuses of their religious texts. Instead you're just providing more examples of a fundamentalist doing more of the same.The fact of the matter is that most Christians disagree with you about separation of church and state, at least as you viewed it around 6 PM yesterday. Now given your recent enlightenment on the First Amendment, have your views changed on what Ken Ham is trying to do regarding employment at his publicly funded ark park--Percy

My dear lady, what on earth could have given you such an impression? The only encouragement you have received can only be coming from within your own brain. You continue to spew non sequiturs at an incredible rate. There seems no position too obviously wrong for you to adopt. Correcting your errors is impossible because you commit them far faster than any clarifications or illuminations could ever catch up with. In fact it almost seems that the more grave your error the faster you issue more minor errors as a cloud of distraction.If you ever figure out how Ken Ham isn't conspicuously and undeniably trying to evade separation of church and state to his own financial advantage, and if you also figure out how to express it in clear and unambiguous terms that go beyond saying, "I trust that Ken Ham has good reasons," then you please let us know.--Percy

No, I also said you were wrong about experiencing hostility, that it isn't hostility to refuse to give in to your every whim. The great problem for you is that the label contains neither exaggeration nor inaccuracy. You exhibit fanaticism and paranoia in nearly every post. You're right, everyone else is wrong, we hate you and persecute you because you're right, we'd better change our ways, and if we don't heed this warning then we're going to hell. Thank you Mrs. God. Can we expect a declaration of Christian Jihad on us sometime soon?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.