Re: Observe the trend

On 11/03/2025 4:54 am, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

On 2025-03-10 11:13:56 +0000, MarkE said:
 

On 10/03/2025 6:27 pm, Martin Harran wrote:

On Mon, 10 Mar 2025 15:14:27 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
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On 9/03/2025 8:59 pm, Martin Harran wrote:

On Sun, 9 Mar 2025 17:48:41 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
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[...]
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You're finally getting it! To creatures like us, special creation by God
looks like magic, yes. God conceives in his mind and speaks into existence.

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""Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the
heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and
orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about
the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years
and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so
forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and
experience.
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"Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a
Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking
nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such
an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a
Christian and laugh it to scorn."
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St Augustine
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Augustine is referring to the _what_, not the _how_, right?

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He is referring to exactly what you are doing.
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Once again we disagree.

 You may like to imagine you are disagreeing with Martin, but it's quite clear to me that you are disagreeing with St Auustine, probably because you haven't bothered to try to understand his point.
 

My understanding is Augustine is warning that if Christians claim the Bible teaches something demonstrably false about the natural world, it brings Christianity into disrepute and invites ridicule from educated non-believers.
If my understanding is correct, then it's not applicable here, since I'm making no claims of or reference to the Bible.