Christian Myths Archives : Proslogion

Why Ancient Sailors Knew the Earth is Round

I have written about the concept of a flat earth several times before (here, here, here, here, and here). Since before the time of Aristotle, most philosophers understood that the earth is a sphere. In fact, Eratosthenes was able to measure the circumference of the earth’s sphere around 240 BC. Thus, the idea that most ancient scholars thought the earth is flat is a complete fabrication.

Before Christ was born, even uneducated sailors knew the earth is round, because they saw something that I happened to witness myself two days ago. I am currently on a Thanksgiving cruise. Saturday, however, I was sitting on the beach. I spent most of my time reading, but I would look up from time to time to take in the view. One time, I saw this:

This picture was taken using the maximum zoom on my Android phone (30x). All of the pictures you see in this post were taken with the same camera at the same zoom setting. What is that? You might think it’s an offshore oil rig or something, but I knew it hadn’t been there the last time I had looked out at the ocean. Thus, I knew what it was – the top of a ship. So I continued to take pictures of it as it moved to my left and towards shore (where the port of Ft. Lauderdale is). After a while, here is what I saw:

Notice that now you can see more of the rigging on the top of the ship. After a while, even more appeared:

Now, even more is visible:

Even more:

And now you see most of the ship’s hull:

Now please understand that I could see this with my eyes as well. However, the camera isn’t as good as the eye, so the zoom was necessary in order to get pictures.

This is why even uneducated sailors understood the shape of the earth before the birth of Christ. They could see a ship’s mast before its hull when it came towards shore, and they could see its hull disappear before its mast when it moved away from shore. Only the curvature of the earth’s surface could explain this. On a flat earth, you would see the entire ship ship seem to grow larger as it approached. Alternatively, if it was sailing away, you would see the entire ship get smaller and smaller until it was too small to see. On a round earth, however, the bottom of the ship is under the curve of the horizon, so you can’t see it. The farther the ship is from you, the larger the portion of the ship that is hidden by the curve.

It doesn’t take any modern technology to understand the shape of the earth. You just have to be observant, like the ancient sailors were.

NOTE: Someone I respect suggested I should add a note about the Rayleigh Criterion, because some flat-earthers use it in an attempt to explain the photos shown above. Not surprisingly, only someone who doesn’t understand physics would do that. This article shows why the explanation doesn’t work.

More Evidence That the Early Church Believed in the Divinity of Christ

An early Christian mosaic found in the Megiddo church, near Tel Megiddo, Israel. Based on several clues, it is dated around AD 230.

For some reason, I missed the discovery of this amazing mosaic when it was announced. However, a pastor friend of mine recently shared this article, which indicates that the mosaic might be coming to the Museum of the Bible here in the U.S., so I looked into it and decided some of my readers might be interested.

The story begins in 2004 when a prison in northern Israel was planning some new construction. Archaeologists came to ensure that the construction wouldn’t destroy any historically-valuable material, and it’s a good thing they did, because they found that the prison had been built over an ancient Christian house of prayer. It is now thought to be the earliest known Christian prayer hall, dated to be from approximately AD 230!¹

More importantly, a portion of the mosaic (shown above) says, “The God-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”² The table isn’t there, but it probably functioned as an altar. However, the message of the mosaic is clear: Jesus Christ is God. This is important, because some popularizers of Christian scholarship claim that the early church didn’t believe in the Divinity of Christ. For example, in her book, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Karen Armstrong claims:³

After his death, his followers decided that Jesus had been Divine. This did not happen immediately; as we shall see, the doctrine that Jesus had been God in human form was not finalized until the fourth century. The development of Christian belief in the Incarnation was a gradual, complex process.

If that sounds familiar to you, you might recognize it from Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. No serious scholar of early Christianity believes such nonsense, because there is ample evidence that says otherwise. Nevertheless, since it was in the popular book-turned-movie, I encounter a lot of people who believe it. Well, here is a mosaic that predates the fourth century by about one hundred years, and it says that at least those who came into this prayer hall knew that Jesus is God.

Of course, we don’t need this mosaic to tell us that the early church believed in the Divinity of Christ, since lots of early church fathers are on record about it. Here is a sampling:

Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 50 – c. AD 110):

I Glorify God, even Jesus Christ, who has given you such wisdom. For I have observed that you are perfected in an immoveable faith, as if you were nailed to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…
[Epistle to the Smyrnaeans]

Hence every kind of magic was destroyed, and every bond of wickedness disappeared; ignorance was removed, and the old kingdom abolished, God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life.
[Epistle to the Ephesians]

Justin Martyr (AD 100 – AD 165):

And that Christ being Lord, and God the Son of God, and appearing formerly in power as Man, and Angel, and in the glory of fire as at the bush, so also was manifested at the judgment executed on Sodom, has been demonstrated fully by what has been said.
[Dialogue with Trypho]

…but now you will permit me first to recount the prophecies, which I wish to do in order to prove that Christ is called both God and Lord of hosts…
[Dialogue with Trypho]

…the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old He appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, for the salvation of those who believe on Him…
[First Apology]

Irenaeus of Lyons (c. AD 130 – c. AD 200):

For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man…. He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God, coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men;—all these things did the Scriptures prophesy of Him.
[Against Heresies]

Like many things we learn from our culture, then, the idea that the early church didn’t believe in the Divinity of Christ is demonstrably false. This Mosaic simply adds more evidence to the huge pile.

REFERENCES

1. Yotam Tepper and Leah Di Segni, A Christian Prayer Hall of the Third Century CE at Kfar ‘Othnay (Legio), Publication of the Israel Antiquities Authority, p. 50, 2006.
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2. Ibid, p. 36.
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3. Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, (Ballatine Books, 1993), p. 81
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A Really Good Flat Earth Documentary

I have written a lot about the idea of a flat earth. While you might think that most ancient people believed it, that’s just not true. (see here, here, and here). I have also compiled a list of resources that have observations you can make today which clearly show the earth is not flat. Well, a reader of those posts made me aware of a documentary called Behind the Curve, which you can watch for free. I don’t watch a lot of documentaries, but the premise of this one sounded intriguing, so I decided to give it a try. I am glad that I did!

The documentary follows several flat-earthers as they try to make a case for their position. It allows the flat-earthers to talk and never attempts to refute any of their arguments. Between these scenes, however, there are scientists who discuss the flat-earth movement. Those scientists don’t offer any criticisms of the flat-earth arguments, either. They just discuss their impressions of flat-earthers. Refreshingly, the scientists don’t insult the flat-earthers. Instead, the scientists just discuss their impressions of how flat-earthers think as well as why they believe in such an easily-refutable idea. It’s a very interesting juxtaposition.

What I loved most about the documentary, however, is how it shows flat-earthers doing experiments that attempt to “prove” that the earth is flat. In one of the experiments, for example, a person bought a $20,000 ring laser gyroscope. Once it is set to point in a specific direction, it unerringly points that way, no matter how it is moved. Well, if the earth is flat and not rotating, the gyroscope would never change its orientation once it is set and left stationary. However, if the earth is mostly spherical and rotating, the gyroscope would have to change orientation to continue pointing in the same direction. Since the earth goes through a 360-degree rotation every 24 hours, the gyroscope would have to drift 15 degrees every hour.

The flat-earther discussing this experiment (Bob Knodel, an engineer) says that when they set it up, they did, indeed, see it drift at a rate of 15 degrees every hour. They didn’t like that result, of course, so they decided that there must be something else going on. Thus, they repeated the experiment, this time putting the gyroscope in a container that excludes magnetic fields. They thought that the dome of stars above the flat earth was influencing the gyroscope in some way, and the container should remove that influence. Unfortunately for them, they got the same result. Now they are trying to find a chamber made out of bismuth into which they can put the gyroscope. I am not sure why they think that might stop the dome of stars from influencing the gyroscope, but Knodel says it is the next step of the experiment.

The other experiment is much more direct. Jeran Campanella wanted to shine a laser down a nearly 4-mile stretch of canal. He wanted to put three posts along the way and measure where the laser hit the posts relative to the canal’s water level. On a flat earth, the laser would hit each post at the same height. On a curved earth, the laser would hit the middle post at a lower point. Of course, a normal laser pointer wouldn’t be visible over such a distance, so he bought a 3-Watt laser, which is very powerful. Unfortunately, when he and others did the experiment, there was just too much dispersion. As a result, the “spot” on the laser was so large that it was impossible to find where the center hit the post.

In the end, they did an ingenious variation of the experiment. They made two blinds with holes that were 17 feet above the the surface of the water. They put a camera on one end of the roughly 4-mile stretch of canal and a person holding a light on the other end. The camera was positioned level at 17 feet above the water, pointed at the hole in the nearest blind. With that setup and a flat earth, the person should hold the light at 17 feet above the water for the camera to see it, as shown in this diagram that is in the documentary:

On a curved earth, the person would have to hold the light higher for it to hit the camera, as shown in this diagram, which is also in the documentary.

The documentary shows them trying to see the light on the camera’s screen when it is held at 17 feet, and they don’t see it. However, when the person with the light holds it high above his head, they see it on the camera’s screen. Campanella’s comment upon seeing this demonstration of earth’s curvature was, “Interesting.” Another experimenter suggested that the light was hitting leaves, which is why it was blocked until it was raised higher.

If you are interested in trying to understand why people today believe an idea that was thoroughly refuted more than 2,300 years ago, this documentary might provide you with some insights.

How Well Do You Know The Bible?

May 1940 British troops line up on the beach at Dunkirk to await evacuation. (click for credit)

NOTE: According to a historian I respect a great deal, the beginning of this article (in brackets and italics) is not correct. Apparently, the first mention of the message “But if not” seems to be from sources that occur in the 1990s. Thus, the phrase “But if not” as it relates to Dunkirk is almost certainly an urban legend that fooled me. I am keeping the post up, because I do think the last four paragraphs are important. However, I have also added this to the Christian Myths category so that people might find out that this oft-repeated story is not verifiable.

[You are a high-ranking officer in an army that is at war. You receive a three-word message from a large contingent of your soldiers who you know are about to face the enemy:

But if not

Would that mean anything to you? Fortunately, it meant something to British commanders in World War II. In 1940, more than 350,000 Allied soldiers were trapped at Dunkirk, and the German forces were on their way. The soldiers stood no chance of defeating the enemy, and an officer wanted to communicate the situation to his superiors in London. However, he didn’t want to give away any vital information. As a result, he sent those three words. They spoke volumes…to anyone who knows the Bible well.

They are the first words of Daniel 3:18, which contains the response Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego gave to King Nebuchadnezzar when the King threatened to throw them in the furnace if they didn’t worship the golden image that he had constructed in Babylon:

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (Daniel 3:16-18, KJV)

Those three words became a rallying cry that caused a rag-tag group of fishermen, pleasure boaters, merchant mariners, and yacht racers to sail to the shores of Dunkirk and evacuate the trapped soldiers. In the end, they saved more than 338,000 of the soldiers in what is commonly known as The Miracle of Dunkirk. A 2017 film tells the story, albeit without the three words that inspired the entire event.

Now think about that for a moment. The officer who sent the message knew the Bible well enough to recall the passage, and he expected the commanders in London to know the Bible well enough to recognize the passage and realize what it meant. Fortunately, they did.] Do you think they would today? Almost certainly not, because most Christians today don’t really know the Bible.

I recall sitting at a lunch with a well-known politician, a group of Christian homeschooled seniors, and their parents. One senior was telling the politician that he wasn’t concerned about attending a secular university, because he knew the Lord would protect him. The politician smiled and said, “The paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, huh?” All the seniors and all their parents looked at the politician with blank stares. There was an uncomfortable silence, and I had to tell them what he meant. It’s a quote from 1 Samuel 17:37, in which David tells Saul that he is not afraid of Goliath: “The Lord who saved me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, He will save me from the hand of this Philistine.” (NASB)

I am sure the parents of these seniors spent a lot of time discussing the Bible in their homeschools. They probably even read books on having a “Biblical Worldview.” Nevertheless, none of them recognized what I would consider to be a very important passage from the Old Testament. Why? I can’t give you a definitive answer, but I can at least say this: Far too many Christian homeschools study books about having a “Biblical Worldview” but don’t spend enough time studying the Bible itself. In my opinion, there is only one way to have a Biblical Worldview, and that is to know the Bible so well that you can quote large sections of it from memory and recognize phrases like “But if not” and “the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear.”

After all, having a Biblical worldview means evaluating everything you encounter through the lens of the Bible. If you don’t know what the Bible says, you won’t be able to use it as a lens! So if you want a Biblical worldview, don’t read books that tell you how to have one. Don’t attend talks that tell you what it is. Spend that time studying the Bible so well that you know it backward and forward. That’s the first step in developing a Biblical worldview.

More on the Flat Earth

The logo of the 2013 Flat Earth Society
(click for credit)

I have written about the concept of a flat earth several times before (here, here, here, and here). Since the time of Aristotle (and probably before), most philosophers understood that the earth is a sphere. In fact, Eratosthenes was able to measure the circumference of the earth’s sphere around 200 BC. Thus, the idea that most ancient scholars thought the earth is flat is a complete fabrication. Indeed, the idea that people thought Columbus would sail off the edge of the world originated in works of fiction, not works of history. Nevertheless, from time to time, I encounter a modern person who believes that the earth is flat or knows someone who does. Such was the case this past weekend when I attended the Indiana Association of Home Educators annual convention.

I love attending that convention. Not only is it close to home, but the organization that runs it is incredible, and the speakers they invite are usually quite wonderful. I don’t always get to attend, because I am often asked to speak at a different convention that same weekend. However, this year, I had no previous commitments, so I went to the convention to sit at my publisher’s booth and give a brief talk about my new award-winning elementary science series. At the end of my talk, a homeschooling mother asked to speak with me about the fact that some people in her family were beginning to believe that the earth is flat. She asked what she could do help debunk that notion.

I talked with her for a while and gave her a couple of resources, and I also gave her my e-mail address in the hopes that her family members would send me any questions they had on the issue. However, as I started thinking about our talk, I decided it would be best to produce a page where I could gather some of the resources that clearly show the earth is not flat. It’s rather ironic that an idea which could be easily refuted more than 2,000 years ago still requires refuting today. Nevertheless, I am happy to do my part.

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Memes: Spreading False Ideas Since 1980

heisenberg

If you have spent much time on the internet, I am sure you have seen memes like the one shown above. They usually contain a picture and some sort of message. I really enjoy the funny ones, but I typically don’t like the serious ones. It’s not because I don’t enjoy being serious. It’s because you rarely know whether or not the information in the meme is trustworthy. Consider, for example, the meme shown above. It attributes a quote to Dr. Werner Heisenberg, a giant in the field of quantum mechanics. Indeed, his work continues to guide our understanding of the atomic world. I fully agree with the quote, and I deeply respect Dr. Heisenberg. There is only one problem: the meme is almost certainly false.

A Facebook friend posted it on my wall because she knew that I would agree with it. However, I had read a lot of Heisenberg’s work, and the quote didn’t seem to fit the person who I had come to know through my reading. Consider, for example, his main work on the relationship between science and religion. It is called “Scientific Truth and Religious Truth,” and it was published in 1974 (two years before his death) in Universitas, a German review of the arts and sciences. In that work, he seems to argue that science and religion each arrive at truths, but the truths are unrelated to one another. Consider, for example, his own words:

The care to be taken in keeping the two languages, religious and scientific, apart from one another, should also include an avoidance of any weakening of their content by blending them. The correctness of tested scientific results cannot rationally be cast in doubt of religious thinking, and conversely, the ethical demands stemming from the heart of religious thinking ought not to be weakened by all too rational arguments from the field of science.

This is a common view among religious scientists. It often called the “Nonoverlapping Magisteria” (NOMA) view, and it was championed by Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, an ardent evolutionary evangelist who died in 2002. I strongly disagree with the NOMA view, so when I read Dr. Heisenberg’s work, I was disappointed that he seemed to hold to it.

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Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Is a Fake

The papyrus fragment that is now known as 'The Gospel of Jesus' Wife.' (click for credit) — The papyrus fragment that is now known as ‘The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.’ (click for credit)

I am in China right now, and I have been here for almost two weeks. However, internet access is sporadic (at best), which is why I haven’t added any articles recently. Things are a bit better today, though, so I thought I would share my thoughts on a story I recently ran across.

On September 18th, 2012 at the International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome, Dr. Karen L. King announced the existence of an astounding 4-cm by 8-cm papyrus fragment. It contained what she thought was a 4th-century Coptic translation of a gospel that she suggested had probably been written in the late second century AD. While the discovery of any ancient papyrus that has writing on it is interesting, this particular fragment was especially interesting because it contained the following phrase:

Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…”

As a result, this papyrus fragment came to be known as “The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.”

In a peer-reviewed paper that was later published in the Harvard Theological Review, Dr. King presented the results of several tests that had been done on the papyrus fragment. Those tests led her to conclude that it was from the 8th century AD and was not a forgery. In the same issue of the journal, however, another scholar wrote an article concluding that the papyrus was a forgery. The Vatican weighed in as well, dismissing the fragment as a “clumsy forgery.”

Since then, there has been a lot of discussion about the papyrus fragment, and a website was set up to provide all of the latest information about it. Based on subsequent tests done on the fragment and its ink, Dr. King became so convinced that the fragment is authentic that she told Time:

I’m basically hoping that we can move past the issue of forgery to questions about the significance of this fragment for the history of Christianity, for thinking about questions like, ‘Why does Jesus being married, or not, even matter? Why is it that people had such an incredible reaction to this?’

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No, Dr. Michio Kaku Hasn’t Proven God’s Existence!

Dr. Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and "futurist" (picture from his Facebook page) — Dr. Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and “futurist” (picture from his Facebook page)

The headlines are screaming it. Christian Today says, Top scientist claims proof that God exists, says humans live in a ‘world made by rules created by an intelligence.’ The Geophilosophical Association of Anthropological and Cultural Studies proclaims, Scientist says he found definitive proof that God exists. ChristianHeadlines.com says, Respected Scientist Says He Found Proof God Exists. At last! We now have definitive, scientific proof For the existence of God, right? Wrong!

I guess this story broke when I was busy getting ready to go to Salt Lake City to speak at a homeschool convention, because I hadn’t seen it until someone emailed me the Christian Today article and asked me what I thought of it. Since then, several other people have contacted me via email and Facebook to get my thoughts. Initially, I only glanced at the article, but even with that little glance, I was incredibly skeptical. The article claims to report on the work of Dr. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist who had done some cutting edge research a couple of decades ago, but is more of a “scilebrity” today, promoting science and his ideas about the future on television shows, etc.

According to the article, Dr. Kaku was conducting tests on “primitive semi-radius tachyons” and decided that his tests told him that we live in some sort of “matrix” that was made by an intelligence. This bothered me a lot. Tachyons are theoretical particles. We have no idea whether or not they exist. If they exist, they travel faster than the speed of light, so it’s hard to know how in the world we could ever detect them, much less conduct tests on them. I have no idea how such particles can tell us something about the nature of the universe. I looked in vain for an article on the subject authored by Dr. Kaku himself. I then went to his Facebook page, which made no mention of this “monumental discovery.”

Since I couldn’t find anything written by Dr. Kaku, I decided to investigate these “primitive semi-radius tachyons” myself. I had never heard that term before, but then again, I am not a particle physicist. So today, I tried to find the term in my reference books. I could not. When I did an internet search on the term, the only hits I got were to articles about this supposed discovery. As a result, I seriously doubt that primitive semi-radius tachyons exist, even in the minds of theoretical physicists.

However, searching for that term did lead me to some Spanish websites, which show that this is actually an old story. This website posted the same story more than a year ago. Through the magic of Google Translate, I learned that this website decided the story was a hoax more than two years ago. Apparently, the hoax started on Spanish websites and has now made its way to English websites.

I think science offers a wealth of evidence to support the belief that God exists. However, as far as I can tell, Dr. Michio Kaku has not offered any.

Another Bad Sermon Illustration

My first post on a bad sermon illustration led a person on Facebook to ask me about a different sermon illustration. That also turned out to be a bad one. Well, that post led another person on Facebook to ask about another sermon illustration:

If a shepherd has a sheep that is always straying and getting into trouble, sometimes what the shepherd will do is break two of the sheep’s legs. Then the shepherd would set the bones and carry the lamb on his shoulders. It would take about five to eight weeks for the sheep’s bones to heal, and in that time, the lamb would grow closer to the shepherd. Once the sheep was well, he wouldn’t want to stray anymore because of the bond that developed between him and his master.

Maybe something traumatic has happened in your life because this is God’s way of breaking your legs.

Like the other two sermon illustrations I wrote about, this one is false. Breaking an animal’s bone is a risky business, and it causes an enormous amount of trauma. In addition, there are chances for complications, poor recovery, etc. In his classic book The Sheep, William Arthur Rushworth discusses what you should do with a sheep that has a broken leg.¹

A sheep will, as a rule, nurse a broken leg and make a good recovery if the parts have been properly dressed, but unless the animal be a valuable ram or ewe, especially desired for breeding purposes, it is best not to try treatment, but to turn the animal at once over to the butcher.

I could not find any work from any reputable source that indicates a shepherd would ever intentionally break a sheep’s leg.

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Another Bad Sermon Illustration

An adult bald eagle in flight (click for credit)

I posted my previous blog article on my Facebook page, and someone asked about another sermon illustration that involves eagles. A typical version of that illustration is:

To convince the little eagles that the time has come to leave the nest, the parent eagles “stir up the nest.” That is, they rough it up with their talons, and make it uncomfortable, so that sticks and sharp ends and pointy spurs stick out of the nest, so that it is no longer soft and secure, ruining their “comfort zone.” The nest is made very inhospitable, as the eagles tear up the “bedding,” and break up the twigs until jagged ends of wood stick out all over like a pin cushion. Life for the young eaglets becomes miserable and unhappy. Why would Mom and Pop do such a thing?

But to make matters worse, then the mother eagle begins to “flutter her wings” at the youngsters, beating on them, harassing them, and driving them to the edge of the nest. Cowing before such an attack, the little eagles climb up on the edge of the nest. At this point, the mother eagle “spreads her wings” and, to escape her winged fury, the little eagle climbs onto her back, and hangs on for dear life. As if that were not enough, then the mother eagle launches out into space, and begins to fly, carrying the eagle on her back. All seems safe and serene, the little eagle never expected such a thrilling ride — but that was nothing to what was to come shortly. For suddenly, without any warning, the mother eagle DIVES, plummeting downward, depriving the little eagle of its “seat,” and the next thing it knows, it is in free fall, falling, and tumbling down, down, down, in the air, its wings struggling to catch hold of the air currents, but flopping crazily due to its inexperience. For it must learn to flow, and there is nothing like “experience” to teach an eagle to fly! Instinct alone is not enough!

Just at it thinks all is hopeless and lost, however, the mother eagle swoops down below and catches it once again on its back, and soars back into the atmosphere. Much relieved, the young eagle hangs on for dear life. But just when he thinks everything is “OK” once again, the mother pulls another sneaky trick, and dumps him into the air, alone, again! Once again, the little eagle struggles, this time his wings begin to work a little better, and instead of tumbling like a rock pulled by gravity to certain destruction below, he manages to slow his descent, and is able to stay aloft a little longer, as his wings begin to strengthen. Again, if necessary, the mother eagle rescues him from death, and soars back into the heavens. But just as he thinks everything is finally “hunky dory,” she does it again! And down he goes! Finally, he learns how to catch the air currents and ride the winds, and begins to soar “like an eagle” — and now experiences the thrill of total “freedom” and “liberty”! Now he is no longer confined to the parameters of the nest. Now he is free to soar in the sky, and to be a true “eagle.”

Like the previous one I wrote about, there is nothing true in this illustration.

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