Aonghas Shrugged

1) I always thought that searching on "read" would force Google to search for that set of four letters exactly. {And this search yields 6.74 billion hits}

But Google help seems to imply now that "read" (or perhaps only when quote marks are omitted) includes conjugated forms??????

2) But if I go down to the bottom of the left side-column of the results page and click on VERBATIM, I get 25.27 billion hits !

SO I AM COMPLETELY BAFFLED!

(And if the feature that expands "read" to related derived forms such as read/reads/reading/reader/readers [???] have some way to tell you the entire list of forms it is using? The documentation is quite ambiguous.)

How could a "verbatim search" for "read" produce FOUR TIMES AS MANY HITS as what would presumably be a more "general" search for the word (which Google seems to say causes conjugated forms like read/reads/reading/reader/readers, and perhaps the past tense strong verb irregular verb complications of "wrote" when dealing with "write"???)

.....especially when they've been taught "rules" that create a false dichotomy between the Bible and Science?

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OPTIONAL DETAILS:

Examples:

1) "If you refuse to believe that the earth is 6000 years old, you have accepted atheist science and have rejected the clear revealed truths of God himself."

2) "You can't affirm the theory of evolution while claiming to obey the Bible. You can't serve God and the world at the same time. YOU MUST CHOOSE ONE OR THE OTHER."

I hear stories like these from many who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian church but eventually gave up both their church and the Bible, because they decided: "I can't throw my brain away when I go to church."

As one evangelical-turned-atheist described it to me, "From an early age my church told me that I had to believe the equivalent of 2+2=5 OR I couldn't be a Christian. And that was fine until I got old enough to understand that 2+2=4, and because they told me that I must choose only one or the other, I chose to use my brain and left the church."

So, is dogmatic Young Earth Creationism PRODUCING MORE ATHEISTS THAN "EVILUTIONISTS" EVER COULD?

Do Mormons today believe that their statements were true at the time they made them?

.....as "the entire earth" instead of "the whole land"?

Jewish scholars have long understand the Noah's Flood scriptures to refer to a regional flood, also realizing that KOL ERETZ throughout the Tanakh refers to "the entire country" and "the entire land" and can only with difficulty be extrapolated to mean "the entire globe" or "all of the planet earth".

So why does the translation tradition of a planet-wide flood persist? Is it simply to please the masses who would reject a Bible translation which didn't reflect the tradition?

In Hebrew, just as in English, the phrase "it was very good" is a long way from "it was perfect".

So how did this TRADITION of "everything was perfect before the Fall" get started?

......evolution, radiometric dating, and a 13+ billion year old universe?

If a YEC had to pick the three strongest arguments/evidences for a young earth, what would they be?

How often are our Bible interpretations more about cherished traditions (which are often incorporated into English Bible translations) rather than what the Biblical text states in the original language?

....evolution led to the Holocaust?

For example, a self-described Muslim posted this a few minutes ago:

>Your turn has come at last, you offspring of apes and pigs, you most accursed creatures created by >Allah, you people who have harmed the Prophet again and again.

>

He clearly identified these "offspring of apes and pigs" as Jews. Considering that Isa was a Jew, does this curse and trash talk apply to Isa?

After all, nothing in Genesis denies that evolution has taken place in bringing about the diversity of species. (After all, the Bible speaks of God creating everything, but never provides details about when, how long, and through what processes God created the biosphere we observe today.)

.....possible, why do they have the same preferences for symmetrical faces and fertility-maximized features as everyone else?

If evolutionary processes (such as Richard Dawkins' THE SELFISH GENE) are bogus, why do anti-evolution Christians of both genders tend to choose mating partners who are their physical and sexual (and most fertile, feminine/masculine) equals or greater---just like everyone else?

If evolutionary forces were not at work, wouldn't we see lots of marriages of vastly contrasted age, attractiveness, fertility, and general appeal because non-fertility factors would be more important? (I don't doubt that one can always find anecdotal exceptions. But does anyone doubt the general trends?)

Do not evolutionary factors dictate much of our mating behavior, whether we affirm the theory of evolution or not?

....Bible itself discourage non-believers from considering the claims of the Gospel?

How can non-YEC Christians best counter "creation science" pseudo-science?

And are the 6 YOM of "Creation week" in Genesis 1 describing the creation of the entire universe or just the events/stages after the earth already existed?

....pre-Civil War ministers to justify and promote slavery?

e.g., Rev. Thornton Stringfellow

Or do you think most people are able to distinguish the central message of Jesus' teachings from the cherished traditions of particular sects which are artificially imposed upon the scriptures?