when the student fails, who has failed...the student or the teacher?

(assume the teacher is infallible and the student is a hairless ape)

why would an all powerful deity possibly desire our belief? what benefit could hairless ape's belief be be to the omnipotent?

this is why the bible doesnt quite express our reliationship to God as a hairless ape to an infinitely unreachable deity.... it describes it more as a father/son relationship. which i am only starting to appreciate a little more after having a kid. i can understand (just a little) how God would delight in his 'children' believing in him.

you had the catholic upbringing, so i wont give the recap of the parable of the prodigal son. same deal.

and just to be safe, im not trying to quote the bible to prove the bible... dont want to come off as a shallow prude like that.

just wanted to help clear up what Christians generally believe, and what they will quote when it comes to some of these tough questions.

in the end, the strongest proselytizer of all, saint paul, admitted that his whole life was pointless if the gospel werent true. so he didnt come off too cocky, like THIS IS TRUE OR YOU ARE STUPID, but he came off more realistic, like, well, this is what i believe is true, and if it turns out to all be a hoax... well.. jokes on me i guess :P

of course st paul never met jesus and didn't even believe in jesus until years after his death.

and st paul the guy that wrote "timothy" that degrades women and "romans" that bashes gays.

then when you find out the bible was canonized at the council of nicea by a bunch of random priests that got together, really makes you wonder how some of that stuff (like pretty much everything paul wrote) got in there.

and since you do have a kid, lets play hypothetical.

if your child didn't believe you existed would you be more all loving that our deity and simply prove your existance?

say you were a dead beat dad your entire life and your kid never saw you once. how long would you punish that kid if he didn't worship you?

If a religion preaches respecting other individuals and being tollerant (the good) aren't we all inteligent enough as individuals to see the failings the human manifestations of the religion (the imperfect) such as intollerance and ignorance and at the very least recognize the hate adn obvious machinations of religious authority corrupting holy word for gain and control (the bad)

We all can see and accept (the good) and while (the imperfect) is often up for debate we all can see it is worthy of discussion, the only real problem is (the bad).

heh, ok.

paul did meet jesus in a metaphysical sense in acts 9. and hes almost as good an example as the thief on the cross when it comes to redemption... i mean, he was one of the big guns when it came to bringing down the new christian cult. and then did a 180 after jesus pwnd him on the road to damascus.

as far as demeaning women, i have heard (ill wait for chloe to do the research, lol) that the entire society was demeaning to women at that time, whereas the christian cult was actually giving them more power than anywhere else... several of pauls favo people that he listed were in fact women. so its not like he abhors them or anything. i bet chloe has more knowledge than i do, me being an ignorant male.

as far as being against gays, yes, the bible is definitely against homosexuality. it will be interesting to see how the church splits over the issue in the next generation or two. every year, it is more and more accepted in the presbyterian and baptist annual national meetings.

the last two major society-induced changes in the presbyterian/baptist denominations were slavery and women leadership. well, women leadership isnt quite universally accepted yet, but the churches have finally said no to slavery.

meh, im losing my ability to think. ill pick it up tomorrow. gnite happy

*that came off very coherent for how much I have had to drink, so BAM.

Bah double post foiled grr. Thats a sin though right?

Either I'm really tired, which is entirely plausible, or Sam's post was hard to follow.