Unless I seriously misread TFA, this error has nothing to do with the spectral content of the data. Spectral content certainly influences the way things scale, but it seems to have no connection to this particular bug.

Look at the test picture in the "Explanation" part of the article. http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma.html#explanation Filtered or not, the test picture should not result in the second column being dark grey.

Where do you get the idea that the "overwhelming majority" of Christians believe this? Anything beyond anecdotal evidence?

This may be a prominent view in Calvinist churches, (reformed baptist, presbyterian, etc.) but is certainly not a prominent view in churches with a more Arminian flavor (methodist, pentecostal, etc.)

In some branches of modern (and less modern) Christianity this is believed, and in other branches of modern (and less modern) Christianity this is not believed. The beliefs of the christian community are far from homogeneous.

I think we can agree the passages you've cited are clearly talking about the human death. To my reading, there seems to be no strong indication that animal and plant death are included or excluded.

Sorry, you did raise that point earlier, and I should have addressed it then..Anyhow, if the account is in some ways allegorical or symbolic, that does not necessarily mean that it has no bearing on the literal world. And there are a large number of possible interpretations as far as which parts may be literal and which parts may not.

This is such a large issue that, unfortunately, there is no slam dunk argument possible here. There are too many possible interpretations to debunk all of them with such a simple argument. I'm not saying that you're not right. I'm saying that your attack is unfair and oversimplified.

I'm not sure that death is necessarily indicated by Rom 8:19-23; death is never mentioned. It seems to me that a world where nothing ever died would be more cursed than a world with death. As far as I can tell, the Bible only mentions death as a result of sin when it is referring to man's death. Decay could be read in any number of ways. There is no one obvious meaning.

I don't really subscribe to this "long day" viewpoint. I really don't care very much how the world got here. I'm just afraid of calling seemingly reasonable ideas unreasonable without a rational and conclusive discussion.

"19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that[i] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."

Where does this say that anything about "death"? Also, what's wrong with an allegorical meaning? The long day theory is clearly non-literal.

"In this way death came to all men"

I'm pretty sure I agree with the entirety of your post here, but it doesn't seem to support the idea of creation and evolution being mutually exclusive. The biblical account of creation still doesn't preclude death of organisms before an accountable-for-sin "man" appeared.

There is sin. "Original sin" and "sin" aren't identical. Adam doesn't need to have to have sinned in order for another individual to be guilty of sin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semipelagianism
The beliefs of the christian community are far from homogeneous.

Also the "original sin" mentioned in the GGP seemed to be the Calvinist version of it which is quite different from the Arminian version of original sin, to the point where many Calvinists will claim that Arminians don't believe in original sin.

The bible says that sin causes death, not that death is always caused by sin. (Decapitation causes death, but not all death is the result of decapitation.)

There are quite a few possible interpretations of the account of creation that could reasonably coexist with evolution. I'm not extremely familiar with the long day theory, but I do know that its proponents generally believe either A. that at some specific point in the evolution of mankind, man received a soul, and subsequently committed the original sin. B. Animals and plants evolved, guided by God, and when God was happy with the environment on Earth, he created man.

Both of those perspectives allow evolution and Christianity to peacefully coexist, although the second one takes some more mental gymnastics than the first.

I'm not trying to make a case for Christianity here, I'm just saying that evolution is not the reason to abandon it.

No. The long day theory doesn't dismiss the account of creation, so "original sin" can stay. Furthermore, "original sin" isn't really necessary to Christianity.

I'm not sure what this has to do with free speech. Clergy are free to say anything they please. The only danger is that their churches may lose their tax-exempt status. Unless you think political organizations should be tax exempt, I don't see what the problem would be.

Speaking as someone who was homeschooled for religious reasons, I thought that it was excellent social and mental preparation for life. I share the sentiment against education based on religious propaganda, I just don't think it is worse than traditional American education.

The main advantage for me was social. When I went to college, I was extremely disturbed by the herd mentality exhibited by most of the other students, whose main goal in life was to look macho for their friends. (primarily by getting drunk and taking advantage of females) I certainly felt better equipped to deal with peer-pressure than the average student was. When you have friendships with people in every age bracket, it's way easier to stay grounded than when all of your friends are the same exact age.

I can't say that far right ultra-religious education is a good thing, but the artificially age-segregated traditional school certainly doesn't seem like a lesser evil to me.

Furthermore, I think independent thinking is more encouraged by homeschooling than one might imagine. I had to learn to learn on my own, an extremely valuable skill. Creationist propaganda gave me the discipline of questioning seemingly obvious conclusions. This gave me the mental tools (and the balls) to question the creationist propaganda itself, as well as many other things that I had previously accepted without question.

Speaking as a (somewhat fundamentalist) Christian, your statement makes me sad, but I can't disagree with it. (and being in the north doesn't decrease it's accuracy much, unfortunately.) I think that my religion offers beauty and hope to the world, but I don't see how any significant good can possibly come from a subculture that willfully dismisses objectivity. A scary situation indeed.

Perhaps I totally misunderstood in biology class, but I was led to believe that standard, non-mutating genetic replication is not rearranging of the four bases, it's rearranging of strings of bases, aka genes. Genes are the "information". These foxes cannot evolve into a cow without mutations, because it does not have the appropriate genes in it's gene pool. If I am mistaken, and it is possible to rearrange DNA in arbitrarily sized pieces through breeding, then my whole previous post is pointless. (except for the part about wanting a pet fox.)