Wow is this tag team stupidity? ... You guys are quite proficient...lol

Sancho... I am not dazzled by my own intellect, I am amazed at the lack of it throughout society and that members of religions judge others not even knowing their own.

I am not against Christians or their faith ... I am against ignorance. I am against telling people falsehoods and then re-badging it as truth. I never for a second thought that I was the only one to know these things about the Bible... I just know that when I read them I stopped to question - others didn't.

Pericles and csteele.... Wow

I have been honest here... I don't have a hidden agenda. Are you both conspiracy theorists...lol

I totally disagree with churches having a mandate to change what Jesus (their Saviour & often God) gave to his followers and limit it to just confirmed members. Where does it say that in the Bible? Mine is not a fundamentalist position what rot! That is why I asked "Isn't Jesus' word good enough for them"?

However, I do believe that once people really understand their religion, that change, in a more accepting and moderate way is a good thing. If these religions could stop picking on homosexuals I might have more time for them... No I am not gay...lol

I doubt if the Churches application of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" has ever been properly applied to our homosexual community. They seem to need someone to vilify!

I admire many of the things that good Christians do in society... I sit in judgement of them.

Since the rise of the Muslim extremist I have noted a surge in commentary about the Qu'ran and yet no-one even mentions that the Bible too is riddled with atrocities and crazy rules.

I enjoy the fact that you guys are trying to rattle my chain... It is healthy to play the devil's advocate sometimes. Don't overplay it though as you may actually get entangled in supposing things that aren't actually there. Ha!

OOPs - I typoed (sorry) -"I admire many of the things that good Christians do in society... I sit in judgement of them." Should read "I do not sit in judgement of them"... because I don't!

Pericles stated :

<<If I understand you, you are hoping to persuade Christians that they are dumb to believe what they believe.>> Nope I never said that anyone was dumb... which proves you don't understand the simple things I am discussing.

So therefore I don't think it is a "neat" idea. Pericles stop reading between the lines it is full of open spaces. Read the lines and imagine that the words say what they mean...lol

I am not sitting in judgement I am giving them the opportunity for them to read and know their Bible and religion better. I think it is called education!

I don't feel superior to anyone Pericles... Why do you make such assertions.. You are not good at them?

<<which was the reason you resorted to name-calling.>> This from the great Pericles ... who at least twice called me a "troll". Hypocrisy? Remove the log in your own eye first Pericles before you try to remove the speck in mine...lol

Just as an update I have been told lately a few times by our beloved Christian friends that the Qu'ran says to kill non-believers... Wow... but the news that astounded them was that so does the Bible...

Exodus 22:19, 2 Chronicles 15:12-13, Deuteronomy 13:13-19 and 17:2-5 for starters... OOps sorry I told the truth again! I apologise!

Christians - please let go of the Old Testament - It is a one sided view of history and it undermines your Jesus Christ's teachings!

Opinionated2 wrote:

Christians - please let go of the Old Testament - It is a one sided view of history and it undermines your Jesus Christ's teachings!

Dear Opinionated2,

Jesus’ message of love was from his Jewishness.

Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Note the command not to be vengeful. That statement could be interpreted as an injunction to love only the children of thy people. However, sixteen verses later, the Jewish God makes the explicit command to love the stranger.

LEVITICUS 19:34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Jesus’ message of love came from the Old Testament. If one got rid of what Jesus said that wasn’t new you would be left with a lot that wasn’t good.

Bishop Spong has made these comments on what he calls the terrible texts in the New Testament:

“RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY: "No one comes to the Father but by me" (John 14:6) This text has helped to create a world where adherents of one religion feel compelled to kill adherents of another. A veritable renaissance of religious terror now confronts us and is making against us the claims we have long made against religious traditions different from our own.”
“ANTI-SEMITISM: And the people answered, 'His blood be on us and on our children'" (Matt. 27:25) No other verse of Holy Scripture has been responsible for so much violence and so much bloodshed. People convinced that these words conferred legitimacy and even holiness on their hostility have killed millions of Jewish people over history. Far more than Christians today seem to understand, to call the Bible "Word of God" in any sense is to legitimize this hatred reflected in its pages.”
(continued)

(continued)

“SEXISM: For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man." (1Cor. 8-9) The message of the Christian church was once that women are evil to their core and it was built on the story of Eve. She was taken out of man and was not his equal, but his helpmeet. Evil entered human history through the weakness of the woman. She was made to bear the blame and the guilt. She was the source of death.”

There is no denying of salvation in the Old Testament of people who are not Jews.

My grandmother was possibly the kindest, most loving person I have ever known. I have a fundamentalist Christian cousin - great grandson of my grandmother - who never knew her but has told me she is suffering the torments of hell because she didn't accept Jesus.

He gets that vicious idea from John 14:6

Both the Old Testament God and the New Testament God are capable of love and vengeance, but the political situations differ in the two Testaments. In much of the Old Testament the Jews were an independent nation. Independent nations have the power to slaughter and dominate their fellow humans as the Christian British Empire did in occupying one quarter of the planetary land area. In the New Testament Rome occupied Palestine. The difference in Testaments was political more than religious. The nation in antiquity or the present justifies inhumanity by patriotism often in conjunction with the will of the Lord.

Is Opinionated2 for real?

Doesn't look like it, from the rather feeble protestations of clean hands.

>>Nope I never said that anyone was dumb... which proves you don't understand the simple things I am discussing.<<

How about this, from your opening post?

>>Why does doctrinal teachings suppress intellect and the use of God's gift - intelligence?<<

That is a direct accusation that Christians do not utilize their God-given intelligence. Or, in other words, they're dumb to believe what they believe.

Or this?

>>How can anyone believe that their loving compassionate God could come up with such horrid laws?<<

What are you suggesting here, if not that such believers are stupid? What alternative spin would you like to apply?

>>How can they ignore the scripture they claim is infallible? Does this make them fibbers?<<

Or just dumb? You don't leave an awful lot of room for manoeuvre, do you?

According to you, I don't understand the "simple things" you are discussing.

What's to understand?

You simply trot out some feigned shock that Christians can hold their faith without necessarily believing every word and phrase in their chosen scriptures.

Wow. Hold the presses.

Further, you have not yet provided a cogent reason for doing so.

Do you expect to guide Christians to a new religion? If so, what is it? Perhaps you would like them to share your own personal confusion, so that you don't feel quite so alone?

>>I am not against Christians or their faith ... I am against ignorance<<

This might, then, be a really good point at which to stop demonstrating your own quite so fearlessly.

The statement attributed to Jesus in John 14: 6 - "No one comes to the father except by me" refers not to his flesh but to the personal acceptance that his revelation was the very revealed character of God. Acceptance and adoption of his way of life, that his attitudes, actions and teachings as being the true revelation of the mind of God is the way to the Father. The Father refers to the holiest and purist of all character. Bishop Spong is a fraud and not true of spirit and the nature of the NT.

As far as (Matt. 27:25) is concerned it is not the teachings of Christ but the statement of those who accepted responsibility for him to be put to death according to their law; any other authority placed upon this verse indicates its use out of context; contrary to the consistent teachings of Jesus. He said of his murderers "Father forgive them for they know not what they do!". Check out who is promoting violence in the text and who understands really living like Jesus - forgiving.

The picture of hell has been misrepresented of God. The fact is the wrath of God is his abandonment of persons who choose to live their own values (their god), behaviours that bring a natural downward moral spiral to self destruction Romans 1: 18 - 32. It is the life that has abandoned God and his purity and blessing to a life of total selfish pleasure.