![\"White](\"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Wheat_harvest.jpg\")
<\/a>What do you do in a case like that? He was being very sincere, trying to edify the group. To pipe up and say, \u201cActually, you got your wheat based analogies mixed up\u201d would not only be unproductive (and pointless, because, really, the comment didn\u2019t matter that much), it would kind of mean-spirited. I said nothing then, but here I am writing about it now, so the annoyance has clearly stuck with me, and I don\u2019t know the best way to dispel it.<\/p>\n
Or there is the story of the frog in boiling water. I have heard this little chestnut more times than I can count at church or some church-related setting. You know the story: A frog plopped into boiling water will immediately hop out to safety, whereas a frog eased into comfortable water that is gradually heated to boiling will not notice the dangerously rising temperature of the water until he is already frog soup. So don\u2019t you get comfortable with that little sin you\u2019ve indulged in, because that is the slip-n-slide to damnation, my friend.<\/p>\n The problem is, this hypothetical amphibian scenario is no more likely to happen than Kermit the Frog is to be the spokesman for Doc Hopper\u2019s Frog Legs. As Dr. Victor Hutchinson, Research Professor Emeritus from the University of Oklahoma\u2019s Department of Zoology says in this Snopes article<\/a>,<\/p>\n \u201cThe legend is entirely incorrect! The \u2018critical thermal maxima\u2019 of \u00a0many species of frogs have been determined by several investigators. In this procedure, the water in which a fog is submerged is heated gradually at about 2 degrees Fahrenheit per minute. As the temperature of the water is gradually increased, the frog will eventually become more and more active in attempts to escape the heated water. If the container size and opening allow the frog to jump out, it will do so.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Of course, Dr. Hutchison could be wrong, although he appears legit according to a quick google search. To know for sure, I could try this principle for myself. I\u2019ve got a pot and water and stove; all I need now are a few frogs. Unfortunately for this potential scientific inquiry, my feelings towards frogs are rather in line with the alien-consciousness enhanced Elliot<\/a>. \u201cSave them.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, I don\u2019t think a story has to be true to be good and instructive, but let\u2019s not pass them off as established fact when they are, in fact, no more than simple thought experiments or instructive parables. And please, unless it was a parable attributed to Jesus, can we please retire some of these tired stories? Because it may be that repetition of the same story yet again may be just as wrong as the wrongness of it.<\/p>\n<\/a>\n