Determining similarity statistics between the human and chimp genome

What bollocks! There is sin all over the place. There was sin in the old days and sin today.

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Well, according to pedigree collapse, all of us by now are biologically related to Abraham, and in fact, “everyone on Earth is at most 50th cousin to everyone else.”

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I’d hesitate to accept this unquestioningly. It seems like something a mathematician came up with without accounting for populations which have been historically separated from most of humanity for much longer than that. Australian aborigenes and uncontacted tribes in South America come to mind.

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There you go again with that “thinking” thing. It’s very frustrating … :slight_smile:

It certainly seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Then again, even tribes unknown to outsiders likely interbred with their nearest neighbors, who likely interbred with their neighbors, etc., until one of the latter comes into contact with, say, a Western European and interbreeds with them, and suddenly all of the subsequent European descendants have a common ancestor in an unknown tribe in South America … I see how it could happen, even if it does stretch common sense to the limit. Come to think of it, isn’t that a common complaint against evolution, too? Higher-level math certainly can be mysterious to us common folk…

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That’s a good way to put it. I’d be perfectly happy if it’d said “most people,” but in order for the “everyone” claim to bear out, every person on earth has to have at least one ancestor within the past 51 generations who came from a different continent. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I’m curious if it’s just a single study saying this or what?

The main study, or at least the one I’m familiar with, is this one. You can evaluate their assumptions yourself.

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What a most charming turn of phrase I must say. You would do very well as a Diplomat representing your country at the UN.

Where in my post did I say there is no sin?

Quite evidently you failed to understand that which I will suggest is most clear to just about everyone else even if they may not accept the scenario of a real literal historical Adam created in the manner as described in Genesis.

Had you managed to suspend your disbelief you would have understood that in the Genesis scenario Adam was the first human and logically there was no sin PRIOR to him. Sin only came into the world and spread to all humanity as a consequence of his wilful disobedience.

Now do you understand?

I personally know someone who expressed a similar sentiment about the parables Jesus told. So if it turned out that there wasn’t actually a wealthy father with a couple of sons --one of them a prodigal; or if there wasn’t an actual shepherd who left the 99 and went in search of the one – she was scandalized by the thought that any of these might merely be “just-so” stories. So do you agree with her in that then? That if any parable Jesus told turns out to not be a literal history, then it becomes worthless for anything? If so, then I can only point out that the New Testament peoples (for the most part) did not and were not expected to have this dismissive attitude toward stories spun “merely” for the purpose of making important spiritual points!

Actually, I didn’t mean evolutionary thought, or deep time, or even science at all by that. What I meant by “modern understandings” as may pertain specifically to our exchange here is this: the understanding that all truth (certainly all truth worth calling by that name) must be empirically verifiable even if just in principle – i.e. that if or when there are truths attached to any narrative, they are subordinate truths to the literal historicity of that event and necessarily evaporate away should that historicity ever be shown to be not factual. I (somewhat mistakenly) call this a “modern” understanding only because our science-centered mentalities of recent centuries have exacerbated this (hence the revealingly-prized label: “creation science”), but in actuality early disciples struggled with exactly the same thing. “What do you mean we’re supposed to eat your flesh!!?” or “ahhh -we forgot to bring along our lunches – that must be why he’s going on about yeast …” Jesus always seems surprised at how dense they were in not grasping the deeper (and only) points being made. Apparently it was pretty much expected that most folks ought to grasp (without being explicitly told “Okay, now this is only a parable, okay?”) that narratives can and do communicate Truth without needing to first be literally true. But we share in at least some of the early disciples intellectual stuntedness in this. Nineteenth-century atheists imbibed this toxin and then fed it to the reactionary fundamentalists
who swallowed the bait whole and many of you are still trying (or not as the case may be!) to recover from that today. Hence my use of the word “modern”. Our creationist brothers and sisters need to be called away from these terms that were (and are still being) dictated to you by anti-theists and called back instead to the Bible. So when you say …

[added emphasis mine.]

… it is telling that you aren’t quite willing to concede to Paul that we might actually be heirs to Abraham because … well … how could it actually be true unless it’s not physically true first? (And as Lynn has already noted we are speaking here of being descendants instead of related to … which we are all in agreement here that we are.) [quote=“Frank, post:79, topic:35009”]
Paul, or Saul as he had been known, had been a Pharisee and an expert in Scripture and he believed in a literal real historical Adam as described in Genesis, did he not? And Paul did say, did he not, that “All Scripture is inspired of God” i.e. God –breathed.

If he was right back then how can he be wrong now? It would be totally illogical, would it not?

Either he was right or he was wrong? Which is it?
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Paul probably did think of the O.T. narratives (or some of them anyway) as being literal history. They would have had no reason to think differently about such things then. We know a few more things now that Paul was not privileged (so far as we know) to know for himself. If this bothers you, we can discuss it more. As to whether he [Paul, or Scriptures] is right or wrong – this is a bit of a simplistic question, is it not? Are we not permitted to question your understanding of how to read Scripture without thinking that this must be equivalent to questioning Scriptures themselves? For you to insist that you have access to the line on how we must understand Scripture is to insist on two things: 1. Scriptures are infallible in all they affirm. 2. You are infallible in determining exactly what that is. On the first proposition, many of us here would accept it though perhaps not all of us. Proposition #2 is not at all biblical in any way or form and is rejected by nearly everyone who has the humility to see this about themselves. It is a huge blind spot for recently fundamentalist creationists who have trouble even acknowledging the existence of #2. We can discuss that more if needed.

More can be said about other interesting observations you made (regarding circumcision), but I see others have given some response already too. Let me just leave this again, with an expression of appreciation for your patience and civility with me (and all of us). You are to be commended, sir. And I hope and pray that I don’t write anything here that will end up discouraging or shipwreck your faith. I am acutely aware of Jesus’ words about those who create stumbling blocks for others. Such a curse falls on me if I do – and also impels me to passionately warn brothers or sisters if I am convicted they may be engaged in the same dangerous practice. Hence our labors here to sharpen each other on these points.

Blessings to you. Will continue responses as you may wish.

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Hi Lynn,

Here below is Mervin’s words:

“Then ask yourself, are you a direct biological descendant of Abraham? I’m not.”

As to your latter point I will suggest to you that cutting the foreskin off an 8 day old baby is more than just a “minor wound” and unless Vit K as a blood clotting agent was at its peak (on the 8th day) the baby would have been at risk of bleeding to death.

If you want to see this procedure as you seem to be implying conducted on some sort of trial and error or hit and miss affair based on the proposition of Abraham having observed babies with minor wounds which produced blood on days in range from 1 to 8 and even higher that’s a matter for you.

Frank: Yes, I can see quite clearly that common courtesy doesn’t rate high on your behavioural list.

Steve: Your continued attacks on my tone and character are off-topic, inappropriate and, dare I say it, discourteous and aggressive. Could we please confine ourselves to a discussion of the science?

Frank: That comment coming from you who has made a scurrilous attack on the work and character of Tomkins is rather rich in irony – which you obviously fail to see.

Steve: Now, I note that you haven’t answered my question about Tomkins’ work. Do you understand why using an ungapped alignment is an incorrect way of assessing how similar two genomes are? Do you agree or not? There’s not a lot of point to moving on to other topics if we can’t settle this one.

Frank: The particular area that I confess to finding problematic is this seeming dependency in project such as this is the reliance (or perhaps over reliance?) on software programmes. So, I’m looking into this particular issue.

Perhaps if you can set aside your feelings for YEC’s you may just offer your input into that particular matter?

If you’re too busy to complete a discussion may I suggest it’s better to give consider to that factor before entering such a discussion.

Steve: Entering into a discussion on one topic does not imply willingness or ability to discuss all other possible related topics. I offered to discuss any topic of your choosing. Why not choose one and and start discussing it, instead of starting a discussion about not discussing the topics we’re not discussing?

Frank: In an earlier post I did suggest that we stuck to one topic at a time – maybe you missed that post. Anyway I will be very pleased to discuss another topic of my choice thank you – when once this is put to bed, okay?

I have made no comment at all on Tomkins’ character. If you want to continue to discuss scientific matters, I’m happy to do so. If you want to continue to attack me, you’ll have to do it without my further participation. [quote=“Frank, post:92, topic:35009”]
The particular area that I confess to finding problematic is this seeming dependency in project such as this is the reliance (or perhaps over reliance?) on software programmes. So, I’m looking into this particular issue.

Perhaps if you can set aside your feelings for YEC’s you may just offer your input into that particular matter?
[/quote]
There is no alternative to using software to compare genomes. But in this case, it really doesn’t matter. If you carry out an ungapped comparison of sequences by computer, you’ll get a meaningless estimate of their similarity. If you carry out the same comparison by hand, you’ll get an equally meaningless estimate (probably with more mistakes).

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Yes, you may do it for me. Strangely enough, I don’t feel embarrassed at all. Despite the fact that U.S. hospitals routinely circumcise millions of male infants prior to discharge (and no hospital these days will pay for a stay of more than a day or two), there hasn’t been a sudden outbreak of bleeding deaths caused by “premature” circumcision.

In any case, I can’t see the argument as being particularly convincing to non-believers. Has it actually been tried in person? I can’t imagine a good outcome …

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Yep, looks to me like he said what I said he said, and not what you said he said. Thanks for providing the quote though.

I didn’t say circumcision was a minor wound, just that observing minor wounds (probably over far more generations than just Abraham’s) would be informative even without knowing anything about Vitamin K.

That would be the 63rd post on this thread, incidentally the first one I responded to. It is possible you did not mean it the way it sounded, but it did sound somewhat absurd.

Sure, I understand a lot about you. Put your stick down.

Lynn: First off, I need to apologize for not stating right up front that I am one of very few non-Christians on these boards. I am trying to gain a deeper understanding of the Bible and the ways people interpret it, but you are quite correct that I don’t believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture and, moreover, I don’t even understand how that doctrine is supported by Scripture. For example, earlier in 1 Corinthians, Paul specifically says of some statements he is making that he has “no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.” In other words, he is giving a trustworthy, yet still mortal and fallible opinion, and he is careful to distinguish it from words which came directly from God.

Frank: Thanks Lynn. May I ask if you have a religious faith other than Christianity or are you atheist or agnostic? It does help me to get a clearer understanding and how best to respond, okay?

As to your point about Paul here is a relevant extract from: Are the writings of the Apostle Paul inspired (see 1 Corinthians 7:12)? | GotQuestions.org

“But Paul is not offering his own opinion here. What he is saying is that Jesus never addressed this issue directly during His earthly ministry. If we search the Gospels, we will not see any direct teaching of Jesus that addresses the situation of a believing spouse married to an unbelieving spouse. But Jesus did give only one legitimate reason for divorce (Matthew 5:32; 19:19), and being married to an unbeliever was not it.”

Lynn: But I do want to try to respond to the points you brought up, since you took the time to reply to me in detail.

Lynn: How about a “real literal historical figure” who just isn’t the ancestor of all humanity? Can that be?

Frank: IF the sinless perfect (to begin with) Adam wasn’t the ancestor of all humanity then you can’t “be of Adam” and if you are not of Adam then neither can you be of Jesus Christ and in that case you cannot be saved.

… instead kindly refer you to 1Corinthians Chapter 15 and with special emphasis on verses 45 - 49

Lynn: Thank you indeed for the referral! I just went and read it. I note several points. First, what Paul says “is written” is not a direct quote as we would expect today.

Frank: Which Bible translation are you using may I ask? In my NIV version there is a footnote not contained in the KJV in which it refers to Paul quoting directly from Genesis 2:7 “… and the man became a living being.”

Lynn: Second, nowhere is it stated that Adam was “perfect” as you claim.

Frank: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them… God blessed them …. God saw all that he had made and it was very good.” Genesis 1:27-31

So, Adam was made in the “image” of God meaning that he was sinless and morally pure – and although at that time he was not immortal that state was possible for him to attain.

Lynn: Third, although Paul says Adam was the first man, he also says Jesus was the “second man” and the “last Adam.” Should this be taken literally too? There were no real men between Adam and Jesus, but there were definitely some other 'Adam’s?

Frank: Adam, the first man, was created sinless and morally pure and would be the father of all humans and had he not disobeyed sin wouldn’t have entered the world and we wouldn’t be in this appalling mess.

Jesus Christ was sinless and morally pure and he was only the second man in that state and that’s why Paul called him the “last Adam ( a living spirit)”

Unfortunately for us we have inherited the sin of Adam and so when you suggest “there were definitely some other Adam’s” you are just about spot on – in actuality we are all Adam’s.

Lynn: Or is it a clue that perhaps Paul is not speaking in a detailed, literal, historical framework?

Frank: Was Paul a real literal historical person? Was Jesus a real literal historical person? Are you a real literal person with a history?

Lynn: Your claim that you can’t “be of Adam” (or Jesus) if Adam was not the ancestor of all humanity makes no sense.

Frank: IF Adam was not the ancestor of all humanity he obviously couldn’t be the “first man” and so Paul had that wrong. And IF he had that wrong then logically he would be wrong about Jesus being the “second Adam.”

And IF Adam wasn’t the first man and Jesus wasn’t the second Adam it makes no sense whatsoever that Jesus with foreknowledge allowed himself to be tortured and crucified on behalf of the descendents of an Adam who didn’t exist!

This is a point that theistic evolutionists cannot seem to grasp – and I will suggest this is due to their a priori commitment to evolutionary naturalism as the explanation for the origin of and diversity of life. Strangely enough this is a point that the militant atheist Richard Dawkins grasps very clearly.

Lynn: Or is it necessary to assume also that all Christians are the literal genetic descendants of Christ? Why would you read one into the text but not the other?

Frank: God aka YHWH aka the Logos aka the Word aka Jesus Christ is the creator. He created Adam. And as I’ve been arguing we are all related to Adam.

As fallen sinners we are all condemned to death. But the “second Adam” Jesus Christ has dealt with sin and for those of us who have faith in his warnings and promises he makes us spiritually alive i.e. he “quickens” our spirit i.e. we are “born again”.

Speaking as a former atheist who was dead. Dead spiritually, you understand, I have experienced the transformation from death to life – “born again” – regenerated.

This offer of a new life “born again” “regenerated” is open to you too. Why not take him up on his free offer?

The Bible doesn’t specifically mention the term “Trinity”, does it? But you believe in the Trinity, do you?

Lynn: You are quite right to note that the Trinity is another example of a human interpretation which is not technically claimed by the Bible.

Frank: The apostles and early disciples of Jesus didn’t even need to talk about the Trinity because they understood this explicitly. It wasn’t until a few centuries later when apostasy and heresy entered the Church that it was necessary to introduce the term.

There were two main heresies the Early Church Fathers had to confront.

Arius introduce the notion that Jesus Christ was NOT God aka YHWH and that he was merely a created being. The Church Fathers removed Arius for heresy. Modern day Arians are Jehovah’s Witnesses of the WatchTower Bible Society who too believe that Jesus is a created being and not YHWH.

The other heretic was Sabellius who taught that God was One in different “modes.” The best analogy, not perfect, I can think of is that of Superman who interchanged roles with Clark Kent – and if you then imagine another role for Superman/Kent/Mr X you may get the picture.

So, to end such disputes the Church Father introduced the term Trinity out of necessity.

Frank: Speaking as a former atheist I do take this matter most seriously to the extent that I rigorously investigated Darwinism to find out that it does not stand up to scrutiny. And then with the same rigour I investigated the claims for the veracity of the Bible which entailed carrying out research into many areas including that of textual criticism

Lynn: I would be surprised indeed if it were actually the case that Darwinism did not stand up to the most rigorous scrutiny. I have been learning about it for years and I’ve found it to make elegant, logical sense in every avenue of investigation. I have only minimally studied the Bible so far, but thanks for taking the time to converse anyway!

Frank: Of course you – as a “committed” Darwinist – would be surprised that Darwinism doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

From where does the specified information and the nanomachines in the cell of even the least complex organism come from?

This has been a rather lengthy post and so I cannot go into the details of Darwinism at this time.

So I should like to conclude by saying this. IF you really want to know the truth you will find it. But speaking from personal experience there are two caveats. If you’re not really interested or have only a casual or surface interest I think you will not find truth. You need to have a hunger and a thirst for truth. Let me reappraise that. You probably could find truth even if you were semi-interested but it would, I think, take you longer.

The second point is vitally important. You have to be ruthlessly honest with yourself and be prepared to challenge your own assumptions and prejudices – and we all have them. This can be quite painful believe me. But it’s worth the effort.

I hope I have given you food for thought.

The stuff posted about vitamin K and bleeding in this thread is, as you should have suspected, wrong.

Vitamin K is given prophylactically specifically to reduce risk of a disorder called VKDB, in which the baby is severely deficient (abnormally) in vitamin K. There is nothing about the 8th day that matters at all in this. Nor did the 1930 discovery of vitamin K have anything at all to do with the 8th day. You can read the paper yourself, discovering that not even the scientist’s name was correct in the misinformation provided above.

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Frank: That comment coming from you who has made a scurrilous attack on the work and character of Tomkins is rather rich in irony – which you obviously fail to see.

Steve: I have made no comment at all on Tomkins’ character. If you want to continue to discuss scientific matters, I’m happy to do so. If you want to continue to attack me, you’ll have to do it without my further participation.

Frank: Here below are comments you have made about Tomkins and the work that he, a fellow Christian, and professional Ph.D scientist produced.

Steve (in connection with Tomkins): “fatally flawed piece of sciency-looking silliness, , to bad science. That doesn’t mean we don’t like the person responsible (although that happens too). It means we don’t tolerate crappy science

I am hostile toward professional creationists, because they produce and promote those bad arguments and falsehoods; based on decades of experience with the material they produce on science, it is routinely wrong, misleading and unscientific. I am hostile to attempts to stake the truth of the gospel to the rejection of science”

Frank: If those are not attacks on his competency and character I do not know what would qualify as such.

Had you made such comments face to face I would have dropped the matter but as you’ve made them in a public forum in which his reputation is trashed by you without giving him the opportunity of redress I have pursued this matter.

Furthermore Tomkins – you didn’t mention to me – actually presented new research with a different figure in which it’s obvious he accepts that his original figure was not accurate.

And what about you? You’ve never erred? Everything you’ve done in the way of research is absolutely 100% correct? You’ve always held the views you currently hold? You’ve never discovered new evidence that’s caused you to change your mind?

How would you react if someone threw such scurrilous remarks at you calling into question your competency and character?

There’s no need for you to answer. Given your super-sensitivity to my observations I can imagine your reaction.

Quite frankly, I can well do without your participation given your hostile attitude and so we shall call it a day.

My final word on this topic is this. Even IF the similarity between chimp-human was as high as 95% that would mean around 150 MILLION differences – an enormous figure that you seemingly don’t want to acknowledge.

End of.

The particular area that I confess to finding problematic is this seeming dependency in project such as this is the reliance (or perhaps over reliance?) on software programmes. So, I’m looking into this particular issue.
Perhaps if you can set aside your feelings for YEC’s you may just offer your input into that particular matter?
There is no alternative to using software to compare genomes. But in this case, it really doesn’t matter. If you carry out an ungapped comparison of sequences by computer, you’ll get a meaningless estimate of their similarity. If you carry out the same comparison by hand, you’ll get an equally meaningless estimate (probably with more mistakes).

sfmathesonStephen Matheson
27m
Jay313

Despite the fact that U.S. hospitals routinely circumcise millions of male infants prior to discharge (and no hospital these days will pay for a stay of more than a day or two), there hasn’t been a sudden outbreak of bleeding deaths caused by “premature” circumcision.

The stuff posted about vitamin K and bleeding in this thread is, as you should have suspected, wrong.

Vitamin K is given prophylactically specifically to reduce risk of a disorder called VKDB, in which the baby is severely deficient (abnormally) in vitamin K. There is nothing about the 8th day that matters at all in this. Nor did the 1930 discovery of vitamin K have anything at all to do with the 8th day. You can read the paper yourself, discovering that not even the scientist’s name was correct in the misinformation provided above.

Frank: May I ask if you are a Christian?

Strangely enough I’ve encountered many people who identify as Christians and yet when it comes to matters of Scripture and the Authority of God’s revealed word to man they act as aggressively as certain militant atheist who would wish to see Christianity proscribed.

Do you have any thought to offer?

Below is an extract that will not be of any interest to you given that you have evidently made your mind up on this issue of Vit K and circumcision but perhaps others may be interested.

I do sincerely apologise for a typo in misspelling the name of the Dr who discovered Vit K and getting the year wrong - it is after all such a big point in connection with this ever so friendly and tolerant discussion between fellow Christians, don’t you think?

Apologetics Press - Biblical Accuracy and Circumcision on the 8th Day
apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=1118

A close examination of the Bible reveals startling proof of its inspiration. Sometimes that proof comes in the form of prophecy (always minutely foretold and completely fulfilled). Sometimes the proof comes in the form of scientific facts that were placed in the divine record hundreds or thousands of years before they were known to the modern scientific mind. This brief article deals with the latter—an important piece of scientific foreknowledge found with the biblical text that was completely unknown to man until fairly recently.

In Genesis 17:12, God specifically directed Abraham to circumcise newborn males on theeighth day. Why the eighth day? In 1935, professor H. Dam proposed the name “vitamin K” for the factor in foods that helped prevent hemorrhaging in baby chicks. We now know vitamin K is responsible for the production (by the liver) of the element known as prothrombin. If vitamin K is deficient, there will be a prothrombin deficiency and hemorrhaging may occur. Oddly, it is only on the fifth through the seventh days of the newborn male’s life that vitamin K (produced by bacteria in the intestinal tract) is present in adequate quantities. Vitamin K, coupled with prothrombin, causes blood coagulation, which is important in any surgical procedure. Holt and McIntosh, in their classic work, Holt Pediatrics, observed that a newborn infant has “peculiar susceptibility to bleeding between the second and fifth days of life… Hemorrhages at this time, though often inconsequential, are sometimes extensive; they may produce serious damage to internal organs, especially to the brain, and cause death from shock and exsanguination” (1953, pp. 125-126). Obviously, then, if vitamin K is not produced in sufficient quantities until days five through seven, it would be wise to postpone any surgery until some time after that. But why did God specify day eight?

On the eighth day, the amount of prothrombin present actually is elevated above one-hundred percent of normal—and is the only day in the male’s life in which this will be the case under normal conditions. If surgery is to be performed, day eight is the perfect day to do it. Vitamin K and prothrombin levels are at their peak. The chart below, patterned after one published by S.I. McMillen, M.D., in his book, None of These Diseases, portrays this in graphic form.

They are attacks on his work, not his character. I do not pretend to know why he does what he does. [quote=“Frank, post:99, topic:35009”]
And what about you? You’ve never erred? Everything you’ve done in the way of research is absolutely 100% correct? You’ve always held the views you currently hold? You’ve never discovered new evidence that’s caused you to change your mind?
[/quote]
Of course not. I make lots of mistakes. When I learn that I’ve made a mistake, I acknowledge it and fix it, if possible.

How would I react if I was attacked after I’d made that bad an error and kept making it after it had been repeatedly pointed out to me? I have no idea – I literally cannot imagine being that person. I hope I would quit my job and find something I was better suited to doing.

Unfortunate. I feel no hostility toward you, by the way. I wish you well.

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Just to clarify again, I wasn’t saying you were being uncharitable. I was trying to explain why none of your conversation partners were getting in trouble with moderation as you seem to think they should. They are abiding by the guidelines. It is acceptable to say someone who publishes their ideas is guilty of shoddy science. That is not any more un-Christian than a Christian restaurant critic whose job it is to evaluate cooking noting that a Christian chef served disgustingly undercooked fish, or a Christian literary critic noting that another Christian’s novel was full of trite plot turns and unrealistic dialogue. Neither evaluation would be a comment on the other Christian’s faith or character, simply one Christian doing their professional job of evaluating another Christian’s professional output.

I assume you must feel defensive because that is how I would feel if I was on a forum where everyone was strongly disagreeing with me. It wasn’t a criticism or a reprimand, it was me expressing empathy.

If you feel there is hostility or incivility directed at you personally, please flag the offensive post, and we will review it.

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