Re: bats are birds! -
10-28-2011, 03:47 AM
The defining traits of a mammal are hair and that they nurse their young with milk. It doesn't have anything to do with eggs. Reptiles lay eggs as well.
Bird's defining traits are feathers and wings.
I'm pretty sure that verse put bats in with birds because they both fly. I'm not sure what Leviticus would have thought of an ostrich....
Although I just googled it, and it seems like there is some disagreement on the translation of that passage. Some of them mention ostriches, though that seems to only be popular with recent translations.
Anyway, an atheist is going to go with the science definition, which is that anything with fur and milk is a mammal, and anything with wings and feathers is a bird.
That is why a platypus is a mammal, and a bat is a mammal, and an ostrich is a bird.
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