We now know that talking requires a big fancy brain, such as humans have and snakes conspicuously don't (and don't have room for), and the right sort of vocal apparatus, ditto.

How big and fancy a brain does a parrot have?

Never underestimate the utility of properly describing a problem. I've found that it's really amazing how often, by the time you've figured out what question you really want to ask to solve the problem, you're already most of the way to the answer...

Elections aren't everything.

Yes, I know that I, personally, have had (and will have) absolutely zero effect on the American 2016 November elections. I am fully aware that I, personally, will have absolutely zero impact on Donald Trump's candidacy, and everything that goes into that. And I am perfectly fine with that, for a single, simple, and straightforward reason; I am not American, I live in a different country entirely. I have a (very tiny) impact on a completely different set of elections, dealing with a completely different set of politicians and political problems.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with why I am here.

I've taken a (very) brief look over your blog. And I don't think I have much to say about it - it is very America-centric, in that you're not talking about an ideal political system nearly as much as you're talking about how the American system differs from an ideal political system.

Having said that, you might want to take a look over this article - it seems to cover a lot of the same ground as you're talking about. (Then note the date on that article; if you really want to change American politics, this is probably the wrong place to be doing it. If you really want to change the mind of the average American, then you need to somehow talk to the average American - I only have an outsider's view of America, but I understand that TV ads and televised political debates are the best way to do that).

Good luck!

Yep, that's what I had.

More generally: Sbe nal vagrtre a terngre guna gjb gvzrf k, cvpx gur onfr (a zvahf k) gb jevgr a fhpu gung vg raqf va gur qvtvg k.

Noted. Thanks, this tells me that to someone with some knowledge of mathematics it really is as obvious as it looked.

There is a fairly trivial proof^ that every prime number except 3 can be written such that it ends in a 2 if the base in which it it written is correctly chosen.

For example, 11 (base 10) in base 3 is 102. 37 (base 10) in base 7 is 52. 101 (base 10) in base 3 is 10202.

Of course, the base has to always be odd.

^ Deliberately left as an exercise for the reader. It really is trivial, but it seems so obvious once it's known that I'm honestly curious how obvious it is (or isn't?) when it's not already known.

Why doesn't Christianity hinge on their being talking snakes?

A bit of googling on the Vatican website turned up this document, from which I quote:

The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. ^264 Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents. ^265

So, the official position of the Vatican is that Genesis uses figurative language; that there was a temptation to disobey the strictures laid in place by God, and that such disobedience was freely chosen; but not that there was necessarily a literal talking snake.

In other words, the talking snake is gone, but there is still original sin.

And you will also have to question if not everything else in the bible is also just stories.

As to the question of disagreement between the discoveries of science and the word of scripture, I found a document dated 1893 from which I will quote:

If, then, apparent contradiction be met with, every effort should be made to remove it. Judicious theologians and commentators should be consulted as to what is the true or most probable meaning of the passage in discussion, and the hostile arguments should be carefully weighed. Even if the difficulty is after all not cleared up and the discrepancy seems to remain, the contest must not be abandoned; truth cannot contradict truth, and we may be sure that some mistake has been made either in the interpretation of the sacred words, or in the polemical discussion itself; and if no such mistake can be detected, we must then suspend judgment for the time being. There have been objections without number perseveringly directed against the Scripture for many a long year, which have been proved to be futile and are now never heard of; and not unfrequently interpretations have been placed on certain passages of Scripture (not belonging to the rule of faith or morals) which have been rectified by more careful investigations. As time goes on, mistaken views die and disappear; but "truth remaineth and groweth stronger for ever and ever."

And, if I am wrong in that Christianity doesn't need that particular story to be true, then there is still a weaker form of the argument. Namely that a large percentage of christians believe in this story, and two hundred years ago I'd guess almost every christian believed in it, but you cannot find any leading evolutionist who claims that monkeys gave birth to humans.

It's only fair to compare like with like. I'm sure that I can find some people, who profess both a belief that evolution is correct and that monkeys gave birth to humans; and yes, I am aware that this mean they have a badly flawed idea of what evolution is.

So, in fairness, if you're going to be considering only leading evolutionists in defense of evolution, it makes sense to consider only leading theologians in the question of whether Genesis is literal or figurative.

Right. I apologise for over-nitpicking.

Hmmm. Fair enough. But even if they're not squeamish about it, it would make sense for them to select the material from which they make their walkways according to flavour (among other factors, such as strength and durability).

Okay, I see what you're getting at, and it's a good point; but as a minor quibble, "starfish aliens" are, to my reading, pretty completely alien, while rubber-foreheads have strong similarity. You could have species 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... with each neighbouring pair being rubber-foreheads relative to each other, and becoming less and less similar as you travel down the line, but given those constraints I don't think you can have proper starfish until you're a good distance along that line; say, 10+ spaces. (Starfish and rubber-foreheads are extremes of, respectively, "different" and "similar" - and there are a lot of gradations between those extremes).

Of course, in any realistic lineup, it won't be a neatly spaced line; number 4 might be missing entirely, and numbers 5 and 6 surprisingly close, and so on.