Yes, it's another one of these threads.

So, on to the topic. I just want to discuss, do you think the Bible teaches realistic things? Or are Christians in denial of reality.

My personal opinion is that Christians are in denial of reality. Why?
For that, let's take a look at some of the things that happen in the Bible.

-An omnipotent being creates a world for humans to live on, in a lush garden that is somewhat of a paradise, and creates a woman from a man's rib for company. Many Christians beleive this was only 6,000 years ago. We have direct scientific evidence that the world is over 4 billion years old.
-An evil fallen angel tempts one of the humans to eat an apple on a forbidden tree. God then kicks the humans out of the garden and makes life much harder for them and all of their ancestors. So, why was the tree forbidden? Why did he even get the idea to place it within their reach, only to tell them they could not eat from it, yet he still allowed this evil fallen angel to convince eve to eat an apple. We know that people can be convinced to do almost anything by a smooth talker, and Eve was like a child then. She did not know what doing wrong and being punished was.
-The 2 people, Adam and Eve, have 3 sons: Cain, Abel, and Seth. Then it skips ahead to when the world has more of a population. How does their family continue to reproduce? The only possibility is either a mother and son, or sister and brother having a child (sister making no sense, but even if there somehow was a sister). Both which are forbidden by Christianity.
-Later on, when the earth is full of evil people, God chooses one man named Noah to build a 450x75x45 foot ark. That's one man, building a boat half the size of the Titanic, all on his own. This is completely impossible, no matter how much time he has. Even simply moving the wood would be impossible. It would've likely been around 10 to 15,000 tons without passengers, and all this was made with no modern technology or anything near it?

These are just a few stories, there are hundreds of these all throughout the Bible. There aren't many places in the Bible where an impossibility is not taking place. So, what does everyone else think?

I agree completely. Which may be one of the reasons I dont believe in god or the bible or any of that. It never made much sense to me. Going to church was like a chore, and I always used to question everything. Maybe Christians are trying to make it seem so perfect. Maybe hiding is an easier thing to do?

I share your opinion, KBA.
Let's not forget though, that some Christians believe that what we call reality, is just a false reality designed to tempt us, compared to the heaven they believe is waiting for them at life's end.

Maybe Noah moved the wood wth the animals he had - they pulled it and he had pullys and such- he could have been a very bright man. who knows.

Remember also that Noah had his quite extensive family to help. Three sons, three daughters in law, and an unknown quantity of brothers/sisters/children to work with.

More importantly though, The story of Noah falls within the poetic chapters of Genesis 1-11. I know this answer isn't likely to appease many, but these first 11 chapters of Genesis are completely poetic in nature. I'm not saying there's no historircal fact to them, but there certainly is poetry and imagery to them. it is likely (IMO at least) that these are not literal stories where the entire world was literally flooded (remember that the "whole world" back then referred not to the earth, but the "known word" - an important distinction).

Likewise Adam/Eve, Abel/Seth - who was it exactly that Cain was afraid of when he was banished by the way, lol?

Poetic stories aside, the Bible documents a time when the Lord of Israel, the Lord of Isaac and Jacob physically interacted with the world. This was a time when prophets walked the earth, where God spoke and interacted directly with the human race (and more specifically with the Israelites). Of course, if you don't believe the Bible to be truthful, then that's another issue entirely, but most Christians, and most Jews (for the Old Testament, at least) see it as the word of God. Whether it is or not is another matter entirely, and I'm not sure that applying modern science and asking "is this possible" is the way to go about it, since God no longer interacts with humanity in the way in which he did in the Old Testament.

Just my opinion on the matter.

Regards, PA

Do you know how rediculous that is though? It took 5 years with thousands of workers and loads of modern machinery to build the titanic. Now I'm not sure of the process of building a large ark, but we're talking about one man, who doesn't already create boats, so he has no expertise.. Building a gigantic ark in a couple hundred years. It's an impossibility.



Well I have a few questions on that topic. 1: If he did it then, why not now? 2: If it happened and was so well known, why is there no other historical documentation of the impossibilities and miracles in the Bible? How can something so common back then completely dodge outside recording and factual evidence to support that it happened? 3: Where was God in China, the Americas, etc? We know that civilization existed in those places in these times. Why did God only talk to people in Israel? Did he not want the Chinese to get to heaven?

Nah, you don't like to get things fired up do you!?

With respect to the OT, in my view it's all rather simple. From the xtian perspective it is said the bible is the inspired word of god. It even says as much in the book!

Then in just a blink of an eye, according to what is said to be god time, mortals, predisposed by nature to be sinful beings, organize and edit. Copy and paste, as it were, all those inspirations so they might become canonized and as such "official" inspired words of god. And in that process those new words authorize a dictatorship called clergy, to reign supreme as the emissaries between that invisible inspiration and the mortals at their disposal. And that new word permits violation of their very own 6th commandment. But it's all good because god told them to. It's all good to go forth into indigenous cultures and tell them that after all these many centuries of living and thriving as they do,by their own myths and fables, they're damned! And it's all proffered as the new gods words, because he's a god of love, forgiveness and peace. Just follow the river of blood to the foot of man made thrones in Rome, for an example. And after, when this life is over, and if one was very very good, they'll ascend to the heavenly abode of this being their promised resides there. Where they can stroll streets paved with gold. Built on the bones of those called heretics , down below.

I have a friend that's also an atheist. One day , while walking on the sidewalk in Scranton PA, a woman approached and asked: have you heard about the glory of jesus christ our lord? My buddy , without missing a step, turned and said; I have and I choose to ignore him because I am not a sadist. Have a better day. I almost choked on my cappuccino that I'd just purchased from Starbucks. But I'll remember that remark for all my days. Because the look on her face as she was the one to stop mid stride and gawk as we continued on, was priceless. I figured her shock was that payment of bold tax, for daring to ask such a question. Some would say she did so because their jesus admonishes them to go forth and preach the word. It's funny though how they can not accept that the word says exactly that, about what they worship and pray to and live all their days to enter into the presence of, when this life is over.

In their faith I'll burn in hell for my failing to accept jesus. In my faith I see no difference between that and their heaven, after reading about their god, who's history speaks for itself. Not of streets of gold, but rivers of blood. Not of love and forgiveness but of judgment and intolerance, murder and oppression. It may satisfy the frustrated believer, unable to convert the masses of humanity, that those persons shall burn in hell, but I figure since their god made the place it should tell them how much confidence his omniscience holds for the destiny of his creation.

Well many people often don't understand allegory.

al·le·go·ry (l-gôr, -gr)
n. pl. al·le·go·ries
1.
a. The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.
b. A story, picture, or play employing such representation. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Herman Melville's Moby Dick are allegories.
2. A symbolic representation: The blindfolded figure with scales is an allegory of justice.

That is how I see the Bible. They are not true stories they are morality tails.
Many people say my religion is false and its stories are untrue, but the tails of the lives of Celtic Gods like the Bible are allegories I don't take see them as actual history like Christians see the Bible. They are tools to understand the religion.

That's not the way the Bible was written though. It was written as a doctrine for Christian life, and was written to be followed. If someone writes a book of morality tales, they will say they have written a book of morality tales. They will not, however, say that they have written a book that is the inspired word of the creator of everything in existance and is to be followed by everyone.

The shear colossal undertaking to create such a structure does seem more outside the realm of possibility and closer to that of fiction. Lets pretend for a second that it did take place and the Ark with all its deisenfranchised wayfarers reached their terminus atop Mount Ararat. Now comes the question of how were the animals dispersed back to their antecendent habitats.

The Three Toed Sloth for example is only found in South America. This laggard of a creature only travels at .068mph, thats about a mile a day. Their speed is nothing short of glacial. Its about 6500 miles from Mount Ararat to the sloths home in South America. At the sloth's rate of speed it would take them about 3000 years to get home. Taking into consideration that they sleep during the day this allows for night travel only which prolongs their journey. To attenuate the travels of the sloth even more, they only live about 12 years.

Not to mention that if the Sloths wanted to arrive at the Ark to meet the departure time, they would have had to have left their habitat before the Earth was created. Not only that but the Sloths would have had to of known about the Flood before Noah. God must have had a special place in his heart for the Three Toed sloth to create it before anything else on the planet.

Sure, a creationist could say that God moved the sloth back home. Which would collaborate the obvious special place the Sloth held in God's heart, but if God intervened in such a matter, then why didn't he intervene in such a way to eliminate the need for the Ark to begin with.

Exactly KBa the bible was written with the intent to be followed to the letter and any christian is doing just that , or else and the or else is clearly defined, many abused people say they are happy, they say this is their choice they say its me if only i was better then the ' big guy ' would be happy......an abused person dosen't chalenge the abuser or insinuate they are wrong least of all publically where this 'big guy' may hear you...they will lie, deny to stay in the" big guys" good graces because the alternative and there is always a alternative is very painful and very horrilble, even if you secretly agree with what your friends are telling you the FEAR looms and you find yourself saying things like its not that bad, I'm happy its not as bad as you think.or worse you actually defend the abuser say you deserve this this is the way it is........HMMMMM....Fear is a tyrant don't kid yourself......would you agree kBA????

I have known many, many different types of Christians over many years and almost virtually all of them do not fear God. That does not mean there have not been some that did. There are always exceptions. There is less retribution in their belief system than I have seen in many others. They believe consequences for actions can be avoided by simply feeling regret and appologizing, while many other systems believe there are unavoidable consequences to actions that must be paid for in some manner, either through karma or rebound curses.

I am fully aware that the current legitimized hate fashion in the USA now is to hate Christians. I was left in little doubt of this with the CNN interviewer last night who stated that for many people the word Christian stands for hate and violence. The Christian Threat is a myth made for those who have a need to hate, just as blood libels against Jews and blacks were created to fill that need for some to hate in the past. Most violent criminals in prisons were not practicing Christians so it is rather easy to blow the myth out of the water when confronted, but hate is fun and exciting for many and it gives them a solid sense of belonging to be in a hate group. Sort of like belonging to a hunting club that gets to hunt people.

I find it ironic that there are some islamic terrorists who seem to demonstrate more tolerance towards Christians in their speech and behavior than some non-Christians citizens here in the USA towards their fellow Christian citizens.

I definitely agree. This is how religion works, it bullies people. It gives a reason to join, and a threat if you should not. (This is at least what the most popular religions do. That's why they're popular.) When you have millions of people running around saying you're going to suffer for eternity if you don't join up, you know they're going to gain some recruits. This is funny, because it's the exact opposite of the image most Christians paint onto their God. They say he's loving, they say he's forgiving, but in truth, Christianity is just another religion that pressures people into joining with "serious consequences" otherwise. (The pressure only adds to the natural human fear of death, nobody really knows what happens once we die.)

Bella the Cnn guy was saying that christainity emulates hatred and violence, it aspires to this standard of behavior...i donot hate anyone not even christainity i see it as what may of been hope for some at one time fell into the wrong hands and has become a twisted version of what may of been a ideal that had good intent...The jesus stuff is sound some of it, yet its not followed much IMO......We are growing , people ar fed up with ways that don't work, violence isn't working many want peace, many want others to be left alone especially gays and women let them be or other races , my son said "mom what is the problem becsause one is different, looks different, loves different, we should hate each other and kill each other waht kind of system is that?? He's 9 he feels the effects of a hateful construct.... ...hating would defeat the purpose wouldn't you agree Bella..christianity has gotten back what it has put out all things eventually become themselves, so ask yourself is there another way , is there maybe something about 'gOd' life you don't know that could change everything ...what do you want if you want peace then christianity would not be a path one would walk.....Its not personal its growth....

Don't act like Christians are a persecuted people. Over 80% of America still believes that Jesus died on the Cross and God exists. It's the largest religion in the world. What's happening is that people are starting to realize that it's the 21st century. We need to find what belongs in our society and what does not. The war in Iraq and the Muslim extremists are bringing to light the power religion has. This is the survival of the fittest, and Christianity is not fit to survive in my opinion. I don't hate religous people, I hate religion. Why do I hate religion? Because it still stands that religion is an extremely negative force in our world. For all the Christian charities, for all the help in other countries, there is still the murder, the bigotry, the wars, and injustice.

So what if many clerics do? Insurance salesmen do the same as well as many other types of salesmen and even you are parading out consequences if people do not follow your beliefs. That does not exactly make them dark forces for be feared, reviled, and exterminated. Attemps at psychological manipulation are not confined to religious groups. They just mostly have the oldest lobbiest groups.

I'm simply saying that techniques like this are crafted by the creators of religion to collect as many followers as possible. When I say I hate religion, this is what I'm talking about. I hate those people who created these religions for personal gain, tricking millions, even billions into living a lie under a God that does not exist. Scientology is a very new religion, 30 years old, and already has 500 million members. How do they do it? They show up at peoples' houses. Offer a beacon of light, then once the person is part of their church, they rob them blind and brainwash them. And that is not a joke or an exaggeration. Religion is dangerous because it scares masses of people into believing these lies. It causes so much trouble, so many problems, all for the personal gain of a few filthy false prophets.

Because Christianity (along with Islam) has and does combine extreme warnings with extreme actions. Insurance Car Salesman parade out consequences if you don't follow their line and buy their stuff, but they don't arrest you and torment you to get you to believe (all 'for your own good, of course.'). That's what makes it dangerous; since people can use the "I'm saving them from eternal damnation" line to commit some seriously evil acts.

Now that is one hell of an analogy. Christian tenets and Insurance salesmen. The only hell an insurance agent can affect in my reality is when I sign the contract and pay the premium to agree to the tenets set forth by an HMO. Translated in the book of Indemnity, as "HMO" Have money or die!

Bella how can we get you to care??/thats what I'd like to ask???? why not care you live in this world you contribute to it by the beleifs you support....
good grief KBA this sweet kid is trying to help others, i imagine its alot easier to deny and live in ignorance to be responsible and then share, that takes great courage KBA is a kid, looking to us the older ones for guidance so we should tell him who cares your no more worthy than a car salesman same difference.....HMMMM I'm perplexed on this one Bella......


KBA we hear you and heart your courage and thankyou for caring enough to be the diffenerce to raise awareness, and I for one see you as a wise soul..... .....

How true that is. The texts in the Bible aren't empirical treatises. I think most of us had that figured out.

I've always been taken aback by people who view the Bible as some sort of instruction manual on how to live. Sure, there are some excellent maxims in it, here and there. But other than that, what a crazy instruction manual. I suppose much of it would make sense to a Neolithic nomad shepherd person. But I have enough trouble understanding my own parents. How am I supposed to take any kind of certain, literal meaning out of religious stories from thousands of years ago? It's impossible.

Depending on how you read it, you can get something out of it, but it's hardly an instruction manual. Or a textbook on history or biology or any of that.

Maybe not to you, but there ARE people who live by it. There are many people. The instructions given to the people of the church come directly from the Bible. Just because you choose to think for yourself, doesn't mean that everyone else does and doesn't make the Bible harmless. And it IS written to serve as a doctrine and guide for life for Christians. Many receive it that way.

Boorite i agree, yet it is taken literal and followed to the t ...many religons even have biblical based how to parent guides, such as letting babies cry for fear of spoilning them , a child can only be nursed 10 minutes each side, held at scheduled times, boorite many follow this as a how to manual and science well they say its a lie, discount anything that isn't in the bible........some say 'god" didn't know alot about the universe at the time of the bible inspiration...hmmm...

People who claim to behave according to some literal meaning of the Bible are mistaken. What they do is pick some parts and ignore others. I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of people don't know what's in the Bible, and they have a sketchy understanding of the parts they do know, at best. Then there's the fact that there are major contradictions, so that you can't possibly believe the whole thing at once.

So when people say they believe the Bible, it can't be taken at face value. I think what they're doing is signaling their affinity with certain meanings they identify as Christian. For example, I'm sure most people who say they believe the Bible disapprove of slavery. The Bible sure doesn't have a problem with it. Similarly, most Christians don't believe in a God that would command us to commit genocide, even though it's right there in Joshua. I think most Christians think God is a nice guy who wants us to be nice to each other, despite much Biblical evidence to the contrary.

In short: Just because people say they believe the whole Bible cannot possibly mean that they really do. They say it, but they mean something else. So there's no point in getting too riled up about antiquated stuff in the Bible that nobody believes anymore.

Point of order...For the record, the greatest story ever told has been told many times before. The Bible's scripture is nothing new, more-so emphasizing the most ancient...Problem is, many that read the Bible easily take it as face value instead of decoding the symbolism behind the stories. In truth, digging deeper will yield a profound revelation that's simple, easy to understand & completely different.

But in order to see it, one must know the Occult.

So why do only 1-in-10 Americans attend church if they believe God exists and Jesus died on the cross. Maybe they just don't care enough about God to put in any effort into their faith. Oh, and how many people that go to church are just "Sunday Christians", they put on their best face for an hour a day and then go and swear, lie, be abusive, get drunk, or any other number of things. And how many of those that don't go to any church still read the Bible and live their lives by God's teaching. I'm sure there are some. And for those that do take their Faith seriously, that makes them *gasp* a persecuted people.

I don't think you understand why I was using that fact. I was not saying that 80% of America are heavily-faithful Christians.. I was saying 80% of America call themselves Christian (Whether they are or not, it at least means they don't have a problem with people being Christian), which means that Christianity is not such a persecuted religion as Bella-Angelique would like to portray it as.

Perhaps because many christians are witnessing what happens when one defers to others to define god. Perhaps they've come upon the passage in Acts 17:24 and trusted that inspired word, seeking instead to believe jesus when he also said the kingdom of heaven is within.

boorite the problem isn't that there are those picking and choosing if that was the case we wouldn't be on UM discussing the horrors of relgion, the issue is that the bible is taken verbatum , literal and this is reflected in humanity very clearly.....racism is alive and well, conflict is still solved with violence, women are still subservient, women are still beaten and murdered maimed and their sexual parts cut off..many are terrorized by relgion belelfs as we speak...., we are seeking to change that shed light on why and what isn't working and changinfg it...Gays are still being shunned and kept from having the same rights as many others because 'god' int he bible says so..... we have a majority that beleive god is a real diety, boorite we have some serious issues as a humanity......

Like PA said, the "whole world" at that time was merely the "known world." They had no idea that Australia, North and South America, Europe, Antarctica, and most of Asia and Africa even existed. This was pretty much "the whole world" to Noah:


That area was very fertile with large rivers running through it. A flooding of the "whole world" would be pretty easy if heavier-than-normal annual flooding of the rivers were to occur.

And since the "world" is so small and other continents weren't known, why would they even be thinking of animals in South America and Australia? They'd be collecting animals that are only native to their world. And it would even be reasonable to think that they didn't necessarily care about wild animals and would only take their family's livestock. They might have taken some wild animals if they could catch and cage them, but they probably weren't thinking of things like insects, snails, amphibians, etc. Just mammals, maybe some domesticated birds, and maybe a reptile or two. It wouldn't take that big a boat for a hold full of livestock and grain and some living areas for people.

We're not talking about the Titanic sailing Waterworld here. There probably weren't any lions peaceably sleeping next to an antelope. I'm sure there are some people that believe the flood story is literal (Flood geologists...eesh), but the flood story is probably one of the easier biblical stories to scientifically explain.

Edit: I know I might be incorrect on the location, that it wasn't Mesopotamia specifically, but the area would have been around the same size and location and was fertile at that time.

And if you are a Muslim living in a small village in say Afghanistan then America would be considered 99% Christian. Its all from ones perspective.

Polling data from the 2001 ARIS study, described below, indicate that:
bullet 81% of American adults identify themselves with a specific religion:
bullet 76.5% (159 million) of Americans identify themselves as Christian. This is a major slide from 86.2% in 1990. Identification with Christianity has suffered a loss of 9.7 percentage points in 11 years -- about 0.9 percentage points per year. This decline is identical to that observed in Canada between 1981 and 2001. If this trend continues, then by about the year 2042, non-Christians will outnumber the Christians in the U.S.
> 52% of Americans identified themselves as Protestant.
> 24.5% are Roman Catholic.
> 1.3% are Jewish.
> 0.5% are Muslim, followers of Islam.
> The fastest growing religion (in terms of percentage) is Wicca -- a Neopagan religion that is sometimes referred to as Witchcraft. Numbers of adherents went from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001. Their numbers of adherents are doubling about every 30 months. 4,5 Wiccans in Australia have a very similar growth pattern, from fewer than 2,000 in 1996 to 9,000 in 2001. 10 In Canada, Wiccans and other Neopagans showed the greatest percentage growth of any faith group. They totaled 21,080 members in 1991, an increase of 281% when compared with 1990.
bullet 14.1% do not follow any organized religion. This is an unusually rapid increase -- almost a doubling -- from only 8% in 1990. There are more Americans who say they are not affiliated with any organized religion than there are Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans taken together. 6
bullet The unaffiliated vary from a low of 3% in North Dakota to 25% in Washington State. "The six states with the highest percentage of people saying they have no religion are all Western states, with the exception of Vermont at 22%."

A USA Today/Gallup Poll in 2002-JAN showed that almost half of American adults appear to be alienated from organized religion. If current trends continue, most adults will not call themselves religious within a few years. Results include:
> About 50% consider themselves religious (down from 54% in 1999-DEC)
> About 33% consider themselves "spiritual but not religious" (up from 30%)
> About 10% regard themselves as neither spiritual or religious.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm

Church attendance data in the U.S. has been checked against actual values using two different techniques. The true figures show that only about 20% of Americans and 10% of Canadians actually go to church one or more times a week. Many Americans and Canadians tell pollsters that they have gone to church even though they have not.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm



But only 1/3 of the population. So I'm sure everyone else put together would win a rope-pulling contest.


http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm

Oh, I see. So it wasn't a global flood. It was a localized flood constricted to the area you've described.

6:5The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 6And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7So the LORD said, "I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created — people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

So in this verse when God talks about "the Earth" he is only referring to the area around the Tigris and the Euphrates. So we can then assume then that when God refers to "Earth" in the Bible he is only referring to the area that you've described as say with this verse: Gen 1:1; In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

It seems that the inerrant word of God as some describe has an interesting characteristic: It can be twisted and bent to fit into what ever reality it is trying to collaborate with.

Very good Chauncy!

Faith in God, I think extends to believing especially that which seems unexplainable.

That's possible! , I suppose. Remember that individual's have been attributed to have "gone to the ends of the earth" in the Bible. And when they came back, they reported more land, so yes, the earth did largely refer to the known world.

Are you saying that the people who wrote the bible all that time ago knew that the earth was a oblate spheroid 7,926 miles in diameter at the equator?

Edit: spelling

Is that the case? Or does faith in God extend to believers a constant requisite to amend the very interpretation of the text that professes the guidlines and historical account from which they draw their beliefs. One may say that things are "unexplainable" so one must have faith, yet one may also say that it is explainable by way of terminological inexactitude, invention, and flasehood, which seems to be the case with the Bible and its account of the Flood.

If the account of the Flood is inaccurate and in all rationality improbable, what does that say about the remainder of the omnibus that contains it, indeed what does that say about the very belief system that spawned from it.



"Thats's possible!, I suppose"...........could be, ya never know, that might fit, this could work, this might mean this, that needs adjustment, one could interpretate it this way, one could interpretate it that way....depending on the moment. Is the Bible a work in progress, it has been edited before, maybe it needs editing again to fit into a todays reality. If one believes something to be bona fide and reality causes one to ameliorate that belief to better fit that reality then one may need to readdress the origin of that belief.



No......but the alleged omnipotent creater as proclaimed by believers must have known, and the inerrant word as inspired by this creater, I'm sure, would resonate this knowledge.

Unless god was created by man and then god knew everything that man knew. Which wasn't the diameter of the earth at that time. Or that the earth had a diameter.

Oh I don't think picking and choosing parts you like out of the Bible is a problem at all. I'm glad that's what people do. Otherwise everyone would be ringing bells and walking circles around lepers' houses.

the horror!



I think you're missing something. Sure, a small minority of people say they take the whole Bible verbatim and literally. But the fact is, they can't. It's impossible. People who say that probably don't even know what's in the Bible. So I wouldn't get too worked up about it.

See, that's a perfect example. The Bible passages people use for gay-bashing are almost certainly being mistranslated, misunderstood, and misused. It's not that the Bible says homosexual behavior is wrong. It's that a small minority of people want that to be true, and so they draw this dubious interpretation out of some Bible passages. They have no idea what this author from two or three thousand years ago was really saying, and to be honest, they couldn't care less. And for every homophobe, there's probably more than one open-minded Christian. The Bible's just a smokescreen. I'd ignore it and denounce the homophobia instead.



Well, I guess that's one of the billion or so issues I'm not too worried about.

Yeah, I mean isn't that a given?

This may very well be the case.......God was created by man.

A book by George A. Marsden, "Reforming Fundamentalism" quotes a survey of student belief at one of the largest Evangelical seminaries in the US. 2 The poll indicated that 85% of the students "do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture."

This book also lists the results of a poll conducted by Jeffery Hadden in 1987 of 10,000 American clergy. 3 They were asked whether they believed that the Scriptures are the inspired and inerrant Word of God in faith, history, and secular matters:
> 95% of Episcopalians,
> 87% of Methodists,
> 82% of Presbyterians,
> 77% of American Lutherans, and
> 67% of American Baptists said "No."

However, Christians generally are far more supportive of the inerrancy position. The Barna Research Group reported in 1996 that among American adults generally:
> 58% believe that the Bible is "totally accurate in all its teachings"
> 45% believe that the Bible is "absolutely accurate and everything in it can be taken literally." 4

Support dropped between that poll and another taken in 2001. Barna reported in 2001 that:
> 41% of adults strongly agrees that the Bible is totally accurate in all that it teaches 5

They also published beliefs by denomination:
Above average:
> Pentecostal / Foursquare: 81%
> Assembly of God: 77%
> Christian, non-denominational (mostly Fundamentalist) 70%
> Baptist: 66%
> Seventh-day Adventist: 64%
> Church of Christ: 57%
Below average:
> Presbyterian: 40%
> Methodist: 38%
> Lutheran: 34%
> Latter-day Saints (Mormon): 29%
> Catholics: 26%
> Episcopal: 22%

http://www.religioustolerance.org/inerran4.htm

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How Americans view their own spirituality and religious faith:

One of the most important pieces of religious information is that about 76% of American adults consider themselves to be Christians. This value appears to be dropping at almost one percentage point per year. If this rate holds, then most Americans will not consider themselves Christian by late in the 2020's.

However, this datum does not tell us anything about the seriousness with which adults consider their faith. One source described the results of a 1993 in-depth survey of about 4,000 American adults. They concluded that:
> 30% are totally secular in outlook.
> 29% are barely or nominally religions.
> 22% are modestly religious.
> 19% regularly practice their religion. 1

A USA Today-CNN-Gallup poll sampled 1,037 American adults in late 1999. 2 They found that:
> 30% described themselves as "spiritual" but not interested in attending church.
> About 54% of respondents said they are religious, but 45% of those said they are more likely to follow their own instincts than denominational teachings.


How religiously inclusive are Americans?

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, released on 2002-MAR-28, described one rather curious question on religious inclusiveness. They combined two concepts within a single question. They asked 2,202 adults:
> Whether they considered their own faith group to be the "one true faith," or
> Whether they believed that followers of many different religions can attain eternal life.

There are two problems with this question:
> A person might regard their own religion to be the one true faith, and yet believe that followers of other religions will still attain eternal life.
> Most Christians believe that everyone will attain eternal life. However, many believe that the majority of people will spend eternity in being tortured in Hell.

For what it is worth, their results were:
> 18% believe that their religion is the "one-true faith"
> 75% believe that many religions can lead to eternal life
> Almost half (48%) of "highly committed white evangelical Protestants" say that many religions can lead to eternal life. This shows that many conservative Christians oppose the foundational teaching of their denominations that the unsaved will go to Hell.


http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_poll7.htm

And we don't knock on doors looking for converts they come to us. I think the numbers are actually bigger than shown here. Many keep their practice secret out of fear of losing their job or problems with revealing to family.

And just a bit more information on the term "earth" from the Bible. The Hebrew word is " ארץ " and is defined thus:

From an unused root probably meaning to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land): - X common, country, earth, field, ground, land, X nations, way, + wilderness, world. (Strong's Dictionary)

So this word in Hebrew need not necessarily refer to the entire world. It may, but it may not, if I read this definition correctly.

Is that also how you feel about the Jews and the Holocaust?

If someone blames Jews for the evils of the earth it is called Anti-semitism and they are called haters.
If someone blames Christianity for the evils of the earth is that supposed to be accepted as a logical deeply compassionate belief?

No good person wants to believe that they have gotten caught up in part of a hate movement, but it happens. When any group of people is considered irredeamable, unreformable, and has to be wiped out of existence by another group, you are looking at a hate group.

Christianity has already demonstrated its ability to change and reform. It is in the process of doing more of that in our time. There is absolutely no evidence of any kind whatsoever that the belief itself is a present day threat to others in any way shape or form. The few groups like the Neo-nazis and the wacko independent church or two who make the headlines for thier outrageous words are shunned by virtually all other Christians and it is often Christian law enforcement plants who watch them and help take them out when they start to become actual physical threats, like in the case of David Koresh.

The claim that all evil originated with the creations of the dominant religions on the planet is an absolutley insane stand to take. Primitive people did just fine in killing an abusing each other before those religions were created. It is why they were created, to create order and security from chaos and to build social capitol needed to build the early civilizations. Believing that they were orginally created as scams for making money for individuals makes as much sense as stating that all forms of government were orginally created for the same purposes. While there is always a scammer on hand to stick their finger int he pie, religions were created because the majority of good people needed them and demanded their existence just as they do the existence of governments today.

Religions are not crutches, they are foundations of common ethics and values that create the trust and cooperation needed to hold a civilization together.
Most religions can be reformed and updated to serve the needs of the civlizations. China is now experiencing a rapid increase in its own version of Catholism, where all things are held in common, as an addtion the people feel they need in their rapid changes within as an anchor and source of strength in holding them all together as a team, as one people. Relgions have always served this purpose and have always done it well. Some feel no need for it but many do, and to denigrate them for feeling this need is wrong. Justice is judging people on what their actions are and not judging them on what is in their heart.

What you have to bear in mind is that these "oldest" of Biblical stories saw their origins in Sumeria over a 1000 years earlier, before the Hebrews finally wrote down their verisons, much different after years of retelling as an oral tradition.

In the original story, Adam was not the "first man". He was just one of many men, living in an ancient, archaeologically identifiable city, who was offered eternal life on behalf of God, from a talking "dragon" that guarded a sacred grove of trees, and who was recruiting men to become what are known as angels, men granted eternal life. But Adam reused the dragon's offer, so didn't become an angel. That's it. There was no "plan" for everyone to have eternal life, just a few hand picked individuals. Eve was not even added to the story until the Hebrews left Sumeria as Nomadic Shepherds. As nomads, women needed to serve in a subservient slave like role, so a woman was added to the story, and was seduced by a now "evil" dragon, who as punishment for his involvement, has his legs and wings taken away to become the first legless snake, kind of a kiplingesque folk tail, like how the elephant got his long trunk of a nose. And as for Eve, her being seduced justified the treatment of women as virtual slaves in the nomadic society.

The original flood story was far different than the hebrew embellished one in the bible as well. It was the same Dragon ( heavenly servant creature known in Hebrew as a Seraph), that God sent to warn a particularly righteous familty of an impending flood, and told the man to simply make a raft out of his reed house, so he and his domestic animals would survive a brief, 7 day, localized flood. The animals were important too, for without them, them man could not survive.

The odd thing about most Christians is their refusal to examine the archaeological evidence and realize that these fanciful tales cannot be taken verbatim becasue they are clearly based on older tales. This is not to say the older tales were not true, but they are certainly more believable, save for the talking dragon, perhaps, but then, such creatures were a universal belief of virtually every human culture, so may have some truth behind them we still do not understand. Extraterrestrials, perhaps? Or if both God AND evolution are true, (and there can be no doubt at least evolution, and an Earth of hundreds of millions of years is real), then perhaps these "dragons" were some kind of mesozoic pterosaur given enhanced intelligence millons of years before mankind was any more developed than a Lemur, to serve an intelligent creator force. Obviously, there would be no Humanlike "angels" either, if there were no humans around to base their form on.

As long as the talking dragon is not purple, this seems ok.

Although the Old Testament never states that Satan is the talking Serpent-Dragon of the Eden Story, if we accept New Testament addendums, then it would be a red, and not purple dragon, though I believe it was on a UM forum where someone made a convincing argument that "Barney" is in reality the Beast of Revelation, citing 666 numerology in his name and other such things.

The Biblical Satan, however, is probably the Enki of the Sumerians, a trickster God with the titles of "Great Serpent Dragon, Lord of the Earth, and "Venom of God", and interestingly, these titles have also been given to the Biblical Satan. But Enki, nor the Old Testament Satan are evil, or an opponent to the high God. This seems to be an invention, when Christianity incorporated Enochian and Zoroastrian dualism into their theology. Satan may be unique as a red dragon. Most of the descriptions suggest the Biblical dragons are "golden", which is why angels are sometimes described as golden and with wings, when in fact, no biblical angel has wings, and they look exactly like normal young men. Winged "cartoon" angels were created by the mixture of two distinctly different heavenly creatures, human like angels, and the winged and glittering "fiery flying serpents, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Destroyers.

have you read the bible, you sound as if you haven't..why your at it read the quaran and the Bhadavad Gita too...those who think its isn't that bad haven't read it......the bible is the word of God humanity is built on it, most constructs reflect the ideas, tit s taken literal, especially the gay, I guess you have missed some of the threads on here about being gay, or the role of a woman...i

Great point Supra. Have you read the Bible? The whole thing and not just those passages that prove to you that God is a hateful being espounding a belief based on hate?