For a bloke who wears a dress......Follow

You keep laboring under the false belief that taking every word of the Bible literally is required for beliving that the Bible is divine scripture.

Jesus spoke in parables. Much of the Old Testament was prophecy meant to be taken symbolicly. The book of Revelation was written in a manner heavily laden with Judaic symbolism which would be understood by recently converted Jewish Christians but not by the Gentile Romans lacking in the same Temple education. Regardless, Jews and Christians alike have viewed the scriptures of the Old & New Testaments as divinely created (obviously not the NT for the Jews).

You can make an argument about which parts should be taken symbolicly or literally or whatever -- or even that nothing in the book should be taken as truth -- but your insistance that any legitimate Christians treat the entire book as literal from cover to cover speaks more of your ignorance regarding the book itself than it says anything about the denominations which don't do so.

Edited, Dec 23rd 2008 9:27pm by Jophiel

Huh? No.No, I'm not.Sure you can. "None of it" is still an argument. Stop selling yourself short.

So taken symbolicly, wtf does this actually mean to someone who lives in the 21st century?

Cop out.



Rubbish.

It takes exactly zero 'intellectual curiosity', on the other hand, to continue to follow a religeous dogma that has no basis in provable fact whatsoever, for the sole reason that you can't be ***** to keep up with the current availiable evidence based knowledge of the day.

Meh, whatever. Your loss.

Edited, Dec 23rd 2008 11:35pm by Annabella

Would be the easy answer.

The slightly longer answer is.

No, I dont hate the church. I dont hate anything really.

My opinion of the church is about equivelant to my opinion of astrology tho. Both are based in myth and superstition. Both are patronised by millions of people. Both use made up shit for superstitious peoples consumption. Both have no basis in fact. Both fly in the face of the current scientific knowledge concerning the universe and everything in it.

Yet whilst astrologers continue to quaintly tell people whats going to occur in their day, and people read it for entertainment and a giggle. The church on the other hand is taken seriously to the point that, for example if Barack Obama had said that he was an Atheist, theres no way on Earth he would have been elected, and that Sarah Palin who is a full-power Creationist was not even pulled up and seriously questioned as to what it was that she based that belief upon, and how that would affect her policy decisions.

I wonder what would have happened if Obama was found to be basing his foreign policy plans on the patterns made by the entrails of a freshly sacrificed goat? I fail to see any difference between Goat entrails, Nordic myths, Animism or the belief in Santa. And because I fail to see the difference i would like someone who 'believes' to explain to me the difference between goat entrails and Christianity. And when they have done that and I understand it, then I will cease to wonder why anyone takes anything the Pope says seriously.

Thats the trouble with debating religeon. You get a shitload of evasions and poetry dressed up as an answer.

I expect you'll get used to it.

Merry festival of over-consumption of mince-pies and cheap plastic crap from the exotic East that you dont need want or know what to do with except put out in the garbage for 10,0000 year storage in your local landfill Christmas

You're among Catholics (And former Catholics) yet you appear to be the only one here who is taking the Pope seriously.

You got the bad touch in CCD, didn't you?

I believe in jophiel and paulsol

No, fuck you!

Something like that, or with more relevance in the response?

Anyway, yes, the current Pope is an idiot and would have made a wonderful pope 40-50 years ago. The problem is that the Pope is invariably going to be "the voice of the past" as far as Catholicism is concerned.

...and that sometimes that "past" is a bit further back than it should be.

We're all Gods and Goddesses in our own special way.

I've known any number of happy people full of goodwill, but anyway...Which is funny since half this thread is someone telling me that it's wrong! wrong! that the Church would revise its stance regarding Creationism. Doesn't sound like anyone wanting a changed system to me.We actually do use many of the same roads. We've repaved them or widened them or added street lights but millions of people are still traveling down the same line of real estate the Romans did.