It sounds like you shouldn't be taking exception to religion, but the hard-liners that do try to cram it down as fact and say anything else is wrong. I don't like those people either, but they're not the majority fortunately. You say you respect what people follow, but you sure have not given off that impression.
Well thats not exactly what I mean, I dont agree with the things that people beileve but I respect that they have this viewpoint, I dont make myself clear, English is my 3rd language.
I am not cool with slandering rhester and MadMax. Both easily in the top 5 most respected posters in the D 'n' D. They can stand up for themselves of course - but Yugo i'm telling you son, you need to check yo self before you wriggidy wreck yo self. First comes the red rep - next the ban if you don't cool your jets.
I'm not speaking for all Christians and neither should you. Yes people interpret things differently from the bible. I think the more study into the context of when it was written, and the whole story involved the more valid the interpretation. That's why I find it odd that you take the most literal shallow interpretation, and ascribe it to Christians as a whole. I understand that Westboro Baptist Church is plain nuts. Look, if I thought the bible meant what you think it means I would be against it too. I'm happy that I've been able to look a little deeper. If you believe the bible means what you've said, you are right not to believe in it. Just don't impose the way you read it to all other Christians and then lambast them for beliefs they don't actually hold.
You obviously don't know many pastors. Many have 9-5 day jobs to pay the bills. Most who live off the salary of their church, don't make very much at all. Much of the offerings and tithes pay for the day-to-day operations of the church, or go to missions and charitable services. I've met many people who've given up well-paying careers to go into the ministry and make little money. From what I've seen of Rhester from his posts, he is a stand-up Christian and human being. And he's ALWAYS cordial to the people who disagree with him, unfortunately, many, aren't so cordial back..please don't be one of those people. As for references evilbible.com, those are all completely out of context or just completely inaccurately quoted. Westboro Baptist Church is a bunch of nutcases. Equating all Christians to that church is like saying that all Muslims are terrorists. I know I said this earlier, but it seemed to have fell on deaf ears..MOST Christians do not discount evolution. As a matter of fact, most do believe in Evolution. Do some research, The ELCA (Lutheran Church) has said that the Bible is the Inspired word of God, written by man - and we have to take into account mans limited view of the world and science at that time. It uses the "Rabbit chewing its cud" as a reference point (as today we KNOW that a rabbit does NOT chew a cud).
Yes I did. Don't be wiggidy wiggidy wiggidy wack! And i'm just giving you a polite reminder not to slander. I don't WANT to see you banned.
Frankly I think you've been a hypocrite here. As you have noted you have the right to believe or not believe what you want and that is fine but if anything you have put yourself in a place of judgement to mock others beliefs. Further you've done so with the stated intention of getting a rise out of people. That sounds rather hypocritical to me as you ask that people respect and not judge your views yet you feel you are free to do so to others. If you truly believe in the ideal of First Ammendment then so what if others hold beliefs that you don't? Why bother judging and needling them? Also for the record I too will vouch for Rhester. He is a very good man and even though he is a self-admitted Jesus freak and I am a guy who wonders if my karma is to come back as a cow in the next life I am glad to call him a friend.
Why not? Its very interesting. Just to kick in another two cents. Materially speaking yes there is as much evidence for God as there are invisible pink unicorns but God isn't a scientific concept but a social and cultural concept. Whether God really exist in a sense that science can prove doesn't matter to the people who have faith. Whether pink unicorns exist or not isn't a matter that will have the same social impact as God.
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Incidently, while rabbits don't chew their own cud, they do practice refection which is very similar. From the standpoint of a person who spends a lot of time outdoors and sees rabbits doing what looks like chewing their cud and has to make a call about whether they can be eaten or not, it makes sense that the Bible would mention it and clarify that point. It's too bad, really, since rabbit tastes good...
I gotcha..I actually have a pet house-rabbit (litter-boxed trained). Yes, they do look like they chew their cud. The point was that the bible was scientifically wrong in that point, not because God is wrong, but because the men that wrote the bible had a limited knowledge of science and a smaller scope of the world in general. To me that could explain how Noah's flood could've actually been an extremely large regional flood but not flooded the entire earth. By the way, scientists can explain how the red sea could've parted for Moses. I happen to think that God uses what we call "Science" to do his bidding. The lord works in mysterious ways.
A large consensus of scientists support evidence that suggests the earth did have a massive flood at the end of the Ice Age (from 10,000-13,000 y.a.) causing sea levels to rise as much as 150 feet. There is quite a bit of geographical and scientifical evidence that this did, in fact, occur.
Many of the religions from the Middle-East have flood stories such as in the Tale of Gilgamesh there is a very similar story to Noah's flood. One theory I've heard is that they relate to a catastrophic flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates while another is a catastrophic flood that created the Black Sea when the Mediterranean broke through the Bosporus and flooded what was then a large freshwater lake.
I'm reading the Myths of Babylonia and Assyria by Donald A. Mackenzie. Spoilers next time, please! (I printed out a couple of his books from project gutenberg. So far the Babylonian book has been a fun read.)
