Diodorus: Have you ever seen someone get angry over a joke even after you explained that is was a throw away joke?

I seent it.

Ever seen the sky grow dark,

wind whip,

and throw away everything?

;)

indylaw: smeegle: indylaw: I'd be upset too. What do you expect, that the congregation says "Oh, that's OK, peddle bullshiat to us because we love you SO much"?

More like "Peddle BS to us because it's so easy for us not to think."

Putting aside whether you think the gospel is bullshiat, I don't think there's anything wrong with a congregation not wanting to keep as a pastor someone who doesn't sincerely believe the things that she is sworn to teach to others.

I never said there was.


Why should I feel sorry for her? The entire story is bullshiat.

You are not obligated to feel one way or the other about her.
I wasn't defending her just making a crack about sheeple, actually.

Lenny_da_Hog: indylaw: What do you expect, that the congregation says "Oh, that's OK, peddle bullshiat to us because we love you SO much"?

Isn't that the reason for a church?

Don't forget the potlucks.

Salt Lick Steady: tonguedepressor: Heh Heh...when the Devil has to go down to Georgia what does that tell you

I should have named my vagina Puerto Rico.

My penis I named Sri Lanka, I'm not wearing any panties, I keep the twisty milk gallon tabs and use them as a gourd for Sri Lanka

indylaw: I don't think there's anything wrong with a congregation not wanting to keep as a pastor someone who doesn't sincerely believe the things that she is sworn to teach to others.

There's the theological rub. Anyone could teach what Jesus taught, he didn't exactly worry much about theological issues himself. Thing is with evangelicals in particulars they aren't very interested in what Jesus actually taught. There's not much talk of taking care of the needy going on in their congregations. Now this wasn't always the case, fifty years ago you could find some very very liberal, we're talking more liberal than Episcopalians, evangelical congregations. And these congregations were not like the congregation is TFA in any way shape or form beyond sharing the label evangelical. Indeed it was only through the 60s that evangelical went from a fairly loose idea that some congregationalist churches subscribed to, to what we think of it was being as. The best known American theologian of the twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr, was an evangelical. I can't think of any major evangelical congregation that today would welcome him. Not even the Baptists would welcome him these days. Then again they're another group that had a big shift in the 60s. Used to be there were tons of liberal Baptists, these days, not so much.

Indubitably: Diodorus: Have you ever seen someone get angry over a joke even after you explained that is was a throw away joke?

I seent it.

Ever seen the sky grow dark,

wind whip,

and throw away everything?

;)

On a dark night a man with no face stands without expression.

Monday Evening Gibberish.

gimmegimme: Funny, you don't hear the menstrual rag bit often, wonder why...

Anyway, yeah, that's a tough question. My assertion is that Christians don't need to prove anything. I believe that the Bible is truth, but that humans are really good at mis-interpreting it. Just because it's perfect sure as hell doesn't mean we are.

Because of that, I don't need to try and prove anything about the Bible, or whether Jesus was divine. That's something I can accept on faith.

The only thing I'm trying to prove is how hypocritical today's Christians are. Shoot, I can get along with pagans and all, but Christians who use the Bible as a means to persecute others incense me.

CSB time: I have a brother who is gay. He grew up Christian same as me. Even though I'm not gay, I know that I'm no better off than he is. I still love him, and I hope that he can find his faith again someday.

Anyone who is foolish enough to condemn others based on what their religion teaches takes God's power into their own hands. Farking westboro.

xebeche_tzu: It's obviously an innate drive to seek and create God

There are a few known tribes in the world that have no religion nor any concept of the divine. And even among established religions, the divine as the Western mind thinks of it, doesn't exists. None of the kami in Shinto is anything like how Westerners think of a god being. No omniscience, no omnipotence etc. Nor a lot of other stuff thought of as divine. And forget worshiping them, that is right out the window. They are venerated, but definitely not worshiped.

Salt Lick Steady: Don't forget the potlucks.

Only for Episcopalians.

To my way of understanding, one can have a religion without professing to have ever had a genuine experience of spiritual transformation by way of God: it seems that all she did is trade one brand of religion for another.

WhyteRaven74: Used to be there were tons of liberal Baptists, these days, not so much.

What do you think caused the shift to what we see in the Evangelical movement today?

Coelacanth: "One reason I fear Christianity is that I believe it pressures one to accept an immoral god. Take Jesus as your savior, I was told, and you can smile as He hurls countless others into a lake of fire, including the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, Anne Frank and all those friends and neighbors of yours who don't "believe" in him. I found this idea pagan and ugly. Don't try to be superior to God, I was told. His ways are mysterious. Well, I wanted my ways to be moral, merciful, kind and just. I may fail every day at this but I want to try. This is a magnificent world we live in; surely it wasn't made solely for a fiery apocalypse. To love, to serve, to witness, to try to do something meaningful - that is what makes sense to me"
- Anne Rice [via Facebook Post]

As I said before, I fear Christianity. I have found it to be an immoral religion. And I have found it to be a very very aggressive religion which does a great deal of harm in the world. Christians in America spend millions trying to influence legislation and elections to limit the rights of women and the rights of gays. They do not leave the rest of us alone. They do not respect the rest of us. I fear this. I wish those who call themselves Christians, and claim to be loving and good, would take some real moral responsibility for their religion and the things it has done historically and the things it is doing now. ~ Anne Rice

thisbearsrepeating.jpeg

WhyteRaven74: indylaw: I don't think there's anything wrong with a congregation not wanting to keep as a pastor someone who doesn't sincerely believe the things that she is sworn to teach to others.

There's the theological rub. Anyone could teach what Jesus taught, he didn't exactly worry much about theological issues himself. Thing is with evangelicals in particulars they aren't very interested in what Jesus actually taught. There's not much talk of taking care of the needy going on in their congregations. Now this wasn't always the case, fifty years ago you could find some very very liberal, we're talking more liberal than Episcopalians, evangelical congregations. And these congregations were not like the congregation is TFA in any way shape or form beyond sharing the label evangelical. Indeed it was only through the 60s that evangelical went from a fairly loose idea that some congregationalist churches subscribed to, to what we think of it was being as. The best known American theologian of the twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr, was an evangelical. I can't think of any major evangelical congregation that today would welcome him. Not even the Baptists would welcome him these days. Then again they're another group that had a big shift in the 60s. Used to be there were tons of liberal Baptists, these days, not so much.

Liberal's one thing. I go to a liberal Episcopalian congregation. They're pretty open-minded. But if the rector one day announced in public that he thinks the gospel is a load of shiat, if the congregation didn't fire him, the liberal diocesan bishop would.

And you can believe (and I do) some pretty liberal things about Jesus, but I don't think he'd say that you're in a position to lead a community of believers if you do not believe in God. Abortion, gay marriage, sacraments, theology? Sure, reasonable minds may differ. But belief in God is not really negotiable for a preacher of the gospel.

Diodorus: Indubitably: Diodorus: Have you ever seen someone get angry over a joke even after you explained that is was a throw away joke?

I seent it.

Ever seen the sky grow dark,

wind whip,

and throw away everything?

;)

On a dark night a man with no face stands without expression.

Monday Evening Gibberish.

Christian dismissal: wouldn't be the first, historically...

Heh.

WhyteRaven74: xebeche_tzu: It's obviously an innate drive to seek and create God

There are a few known tribes in the world that have no religion nor any concept of the divine. And even among established religions, the divine as the Western mind thinks of it, doesn't exists. None of the kami in Shinto is anything like how Westerners think of a god being. No omniscience, no omnipotence etc. Nor a lot of other stuff thought of as divine. And forget worshiping them, that is right out the window. They are venerated, but definitely not worshiped.

Salt Lick Steady: Don't forget the potlucks.

Only for Episcopalians.

The Lutherans, I hear, love them some potluck. Everything's covered in cheese.

As I said before, I fear Christianity. I have found it to be an immoral religion. And I have found it to be a very very aggressive religion which does a great deal of harm in the world. Christians in America spend millions trying to influence legislation and elections to limit the rights of women and the rights of gays. They do not leave the rest of us alone. They do not respect the rest of us. I fear this. I wish those who call themselves Christians, and claim to be loving and good, would take some real moral responsibility for their religion and the things it has done historically and the things it is doing now. ~ Anne Rice

Try being ignostic.

I'm not a theist, because theological definitions assume far too much when they ask the question. I'm not an atheist, because that's just giving a different answer to the same question. To me, it's simply not a relevant discussion for me yet, as even the definitions framing those alleged opposites aren't sufficient.

spectrek: To my way of understanding, one can have a religion without professing to have ever had a genuine experience of spiritual transformation by way of God: it seems that all she did is trade one brand of religion for another.

Not sure I agree with that. The impression I get is that she felt like Religion was unbelievable and she could no longer lie about it. Wouldn't have gone about it the way she did but who am I to judge whatever mental turmoil she was going through.

To me, Religion is like a man made structure enclosing what is actually meant to be a form of spiritual awakening. So in a sense it cheapens what ever meaningful epiphanies one should have.
It's like the whole Jesus thing went corporate and the core meaning of his teachings got lost in the re-org.

Like a small business going public and selling shares to get into Heaven.

WhyteRaven74: Now this wasn't always the case, fifty years ago you could find some very very liberal, we're talking more liberal than Episcopalians, evangelical congregations. And these congregations were not like the congregation is TFA in any way shape or form beyond sharing the label evangelical.

Keep in mind, too, that this isn't the West Uptown Pentecostal Day of Judgment Hallelujah Salvation Church Reformed. This is the United Methodist Church. They're moderate as evangelicals go.

The Grasshopper: BigChad: [3.bp.blogspot.com image 400x338]

[www.majhost.com image 450x450]


Science Channel is on now, you can watch and maybe fill out some of those holes in your understanding of what science knows. - And that is a sad display on your part of willful ignorance. Other than that - funny as can be.

smeegle: What do you think caused the shift to what we see in the Evangelical movement today?

Well part of it was that evangelicals went from being just a very loose umbrella term to something somewhat organized and those doing the organizing tended towards not having very good views of the world. They were the people who were opposed to the civil rights movement and things like that. It was evangelical churches in Virginia that were among the loudest voices supporting the laws that made interracial marriage illegal. There were also socio-economic factors at play. Or rather those who came to get things turning as they did took advantage of those factors to promote their particular views. Not that all the evangelicals went conservative, some ended up joining up with the United Church of Christ, which despite having a name that implies it's a uniform denomination like the Lutherans or Presbyterians is really more of an affiliation of churches who agree on certain points of view and theology, and respect each other to disagree on some others. And while the whole thing manifest itself in the 60s, it's something that started getting going in the 40s and then more so in the 50s. I've seen clips of various ministers from the 50s that at the time seemed rather radical but today come across as garden variety evangelicals. Now as for what happened with the Baptists, the Southern Baptist Convention happened. Or rather it started demanding things that were rather dubious and a lot of the churches went right with it.

I've decided to be Eist.

I seem to know enough for my own existence.

When I need inspiration, I look up.

Word.

;)

Indubitably: I've decided to be Eist.

I seem to know enough for my own existence.

When I need inspiration, I look up.

Word.

;)

P.S. Tears roll from my eyes...

spectrek: To my way of understanding, one can have a religion without professing to have ever had a genuine experience of spiritual transformation by way of God: it seems that all she did is trade one brand of religion for another.

Ahhh ... another person who thinks a lack of religion is a religion.

I find it ironic that the religious feel the need to re-frame atheism as a religion so that they can attack it. It is almost as if they recognize that religion is inherently flawed.

She arrived at atheism in the same way most of us did: by examining religion an seeing it for what it is ... a scam designed by men to separate weak minded people from their money.

What blows my mind is that someone in a western nation has to "come out" as an atheist.

And to all those people criticizing her for lying: you do realize you live in a country where not believing in an invisible superbeing is considered to be a character flaw?

WhyteRaven74: There are a few known tribes in the world that have no religion nor any concept of the divine.

Not all seekers indulge in the silliness and hyperbole of the supernatural, but I have not heard of a culture on Earth that lacks a path to a higher self, or enlightened consciousness of some kind. Some cultures just do a miserably poor job of it by adopting counterproductive morals.

Mr. Holmes: gimmegimme: Funny, you don't hear the menstrual rag bit often, wonder why...

Anyway, yeah, that's a tough question. My assertion is that Christians don't need to prove anything. I believe that the Bible is truth, but that humans are really good at mis-interpreting it. Just because it's perfect sure as hell doesn't mean we are.

Because of that, I don't need to try and prove anything about the Bible, or whether Jesus was divine. That's something I can accept on faith.

The only thing I'm trying to prove is how hypocritical today's Christians are. Shoot, I can get along with pagans and all, but Christians who use the Bible as a means to persecute others incense me.

CSB time: I have a brother who is gay. He grew up Christian same as me. Even though I'm not gay, I know that I'm no better off than he is. I still love him, and I hope that he can find his faith again someday.

Anyone who is foolish enough to condemn others based on what their religion teaches takes God's power into their own hands. Farking westboro.

Well, if you believe in your religion on faith, there's really no argument we can have the validity of religion.

I am curious; knowing what you know the Bible says about homosexuality, do you think your brother is set for Hell if he continues on his current track?

What I really don't understand is how you pick and choose what "Christianity" says about such topics. The Bible does indeed condemn a number of groups of people and a number of behaviors. I honestly don't understand how people can ONLY focus on the admittedly Jean Valjean-esque facets of the Jesus story while completely ignoring all of the nasty bits. I'm not a very big fan of the Thenardiers and their philosophy of life, but I can't extricate them from Hugo's narrative.

Mr. Holmes: It sounds like she was raised to be good at religion, but not good at being a Christian. Most of the Christians that are being reviled here, and everywhere, it seems, are only good at being religious.

Being religious means you're looking to earn God's favor by being a good person. One of the only things "good people" are good at is telling other people how not good they are. Which is stupid, really.

The truth is that we're all farked up. If getting into heaven is based on whether you're a good person or not, we're all due for some warm temperatures.

Nothing we can do can make us right with God. The great thing is, Jesus already took care of that part. All we have to do is have faith.

Having faith means that you rely on God, not your own power to save yourself. And God abandons no one: not gay people, not atheists, not Muslims, not even Methodists.

That is nothing to live in fear of, but rather, the best cause for hope.

That is nice and all but I don't see that in the bible. I see lots of "if you aren't a christian you're going to hell". In the 10 commandments (although they were really saying "if you're not a jew you're going to hell"), in the gospels, in the epistles etc. Jesus said the only way to heaven was through him, that doesn't seem to allow for musims, atheists, or buddhists (jews might get a break as the original "chosen people") to get much of a break in the after life. If there is some scriptural support for your assertions I'd love to hear them, I'm tired of self-righteous christians telling me who is going to hell and I'd love to be able to shut them up.

WhyteRaven74: And while the whole thing manifest itself in the 60s, it's something that started getting going in the 40s and then more so in the 50s. I've seen clips of various ministers from the 50s that at the time seemed rather radical but today come across as garden variety evangelicals. Now as for what happened with the Baptists, the Southern Baptist Convention happened. Or rather it started demanding things that were rather dubious and a lot of the churches went right with it.

Do you see a parallel between what you describe and Paul's letters to the seven churches telling them to change their ways and get back to the business of the teachings of Christ instead?

I do, it's like watching things repeat themselves over and over. Cycles of the morphing of religion and philosophy. Buddhism went through a similar thing when Nichiren Shoshu became popular in the West. Eventually one of the high ranking Buddhist dudes came over from Japan and said for them to knock it off because the recruiting they were doing was looking suspiciously Christian like. But that's a whole noter interesting can of worms.

I see lot's of parallels of what goes on in the worlds religions past and present but I'm weird like that.

LovingTeacher: Mr. Holmes: It sounds like she was raised to be good at religion, but not good at being a Christian. Most of the Christians that are being reviled here, and everywhere, it seems, are only good at being religious.

Being religious means you're looking to earn God's favor by being a good person. One of the only things "good people" are good at is telling other people how not good they are. Which is stupid, really.

The truth is that we're all farked up. If getting into heaven is based on whether you're a good person or not, we're all due for some warm temperatures.

Nothing we can do can make us right with God. The great thing is, Jesus already took care of that part. All we have to do is have faith.

Having faith means that you rely on God, not your own power to save yourself. And God abandons no one: not gay people, not atheists, not Muslims, not even Methodists.

That is nothing to live in fear of, but rather, the best cause for hope.

That is nice and all but I don't see that in the bible. I see lots of "if you aren't a christian you're going to hell". In the 10 commandments (although they were really saying "if you're not a jew you're going to hell"), in the gospels, in the epistles etc. Jesus said the only way to heaven was through him, that doesn't seem to allow for musims, atheists, or buddhists (jews might get a break as the original "chosen people") to get much of a break in the after life. If there is some scriptural support for your assertions I'd love to hear them, I'm tired of self-righteous christians telling me who is going to hell and I'd love to be able to shut them up.

Bible is text within a sociohistorical context.

Bibly-scribbly, yo.

;)

indylaw: But if the rector one day announced in public that he thinks the gospel is a load of shiat,

This gets into a rather complicated web of issues, some Biblical, some to do with what's been made of that over the years. The validity of the teachings of Jesus, which is what the Gospel is, is independent of whether or not one thinks of Jesus as divine or even whether or not one believes in God. Thanks to things like the Council of Nicea there's been a big conflation of what Jesus taught, things like the importance of compassion, being kind and so on, and faith. It wasn't until the Council of Nicea declared it settled that the issue of Jesus' divinity was settled. At least half of all Christians didn't think of Jesus as divine at the time. Plenty of bishops back then were quite aware that the support for the idea as found in the Gospels was rather flimsy, and keep in mind a lot of these bishops were native Greek speakers so they were reading the texts of the Gospels as they had them at the time. These days the one denomination that resembles early Christians is the Quakers, they have no creeds, no declarations of faith, they don't demand faith, they don't inquire about anyone's faith and they have nothing in the way of formal dogma and not much in the way of theology.

Mr. Holmes: gimmegimme: Funny, you don't hear the menstrual rag bit often, wonder why...

Anyway, yeah, that's a tough question. My assertion is that Christians don't need to prove anything. I believe that the Bible is truth, but that humans are really good at mis-interpreting it. Just because it's perfect sure as hell doesn't mean we are.

Because of that, I don't need to try and prove anything about the Bible, or whether Jesus was divine. That's something I can accept on faith.

The only thing I'm trying to prove is how hypocritical today's Christians are. Shoot, I can get along with pagans and all, but Christians who use the Bible as a means to persecute others incense me.

CSB time: I have a brother who is gay. He grew up Christian same as me. Even though I'm not gay, I know that I'm no better off than he is. I still love him, and I hope that he can find his faith again someday.

Anyone who is foolish enough to condemn others based on what their religion teaches takes God's power into their own hands. Farking westboro.

Who is to say your brother has lost his faith? Perhaps he has found it balls deep in some other dude's ass? Is that really such a bad thing?

I was raised in an uber conservative xtian home, parents were missionaries and the whole nine yards, eventually I realized the reason I did things inspite of the biblical rules was that I simply did not believe them or the consequences to hold true. It's not backsliding, it's not hate or contempt for god, Jesus, etc, its a realization that some really crafty guys figured out that they could control the masses indirectly through religion. The god of the old testament is clearly a completely different entity than the god of the new testament. The new Christianity is to Judaism as Mormonism is to Christianity - just another cult offshoot - 2.0 versions of an old god/dogma that has been 'upgraded'.

xebeche_tzu: It's obviously an innate drive to seek and create God. The thousands of religions will attest to that. We are dualistic creatures, capable of metacognition, which allows us to adopt a "higher" view of our behavior and life. We can be aware of our own impending death, as well as our personality. With this awareness, many are able to discern that humility, tolerance, compassion, and gratitude are among the very best things we can feel and act upon, and so accredit these feelings to God in their bibles.

Whoever came up with Hell was clearly going for broke. It was a huge gamble. They had to hope that folks would not recognize such an idea as hateful and therefor patently human. They surely hoped that the wrath, jealousy, and spite of the condemning God they had invented would never be recognized by people for what it really was: human ego seeking to control.

Unfortunately, the gambit worked, and now the world is Derp. It's full of hateful, jealous, petty, spiteful, wrathful, self-righteous, indignant people who honestly believe that God wants them to be so unpleasantly egotistical because they also believe that's how God himself is. They have been robbed of spirituality by religion.


/Favorited

tonguedepressor: Salt Lick Steady: tonguedepressor: Heh Heh...when the Devil has to go down to Georgia what does that tell you

I should have named my vagina Puerto Rico.

My penis I named Sri Lanka, I'm not wearing any panties, I keep the twisty milk gallon tabs and use them as a gourd for Sri Lanka

I don't even know why I'm laughing at this, but I know what to name my tits now

Dimensio: SirEattonHogg: I heard this on NPR in the car and I was sort of annoyed with this woman. I could care less about her being an atheist but how long was she lying to her congregation?

And she wouldn't come clean right away because she was worried about what her job options were and how she would sound in a job interview? Nice.

Her fears were obviously unfounded, as is evident by the abundant offers for employment that she now enjoys.

I am agnostic, but her "fears" of coming out? She was so worried about it that she came out at a huge atheist convention, then went on to do TV interviews and that wasn't enough, she needed a national stage such as NPR to finish the deal? I wouldn't hire her either just based on this story and her lack of judgement. Holy crap (no pun intended). What an AW.

Religion lost it's way as soon as man created God in his own image.

What is her TF handle?

Salt Lick Steady: tonguedepressor: Salt Lick Steady: tonguedepressor: Heh Heh...when the Devil has to go down to Georgia what does that tell you

I should have named my vagina Puerto Rico.

My penis I named Sri Lanka, I'm not wearing any panties, I keep the twisty milk gallon tabs and use them as a gourd for Sri Lanka

I don't even know why I'm laughing at this, but I know what to name my tits now

I'm praying to Sir Winnie Churchill that you've named them dagobas and palaces

tonguedepressor: Salt Lick Steady: tonguedepressor: Salt Lick Steady: tonguedepressor: Heh Heh...when the Devil has to go down to Georgia what does that tell you

I should have named my vagina Puerto Rico.

My penis I named Sri Lanka, I'm not wearing any panties, I keep the twisty milk gallon tabs and use them as a gourd for Sri Lanka

I don't even know why I'm laughing at this, but I know what to name my tits now

I'm praying to Sir Winnie Churchill that you've named them dagobas and palaces

And there can be but one name for your ass...are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I feel this lady's pain. I too was born into a Christian environment and had my brains beaten in with The Mind Virus from day one without input or choice. It took a good 8 or 10 years to gradually, then fully admit to myself that I didn't share the same religious views as everyone in my family and most of my friends.

I would make many important decisions differently from the get-go, let me tell you.

tonguedepressor: Salt Lick Steady: tonguedepressor: Salt Lick Steady: tonguedepressor: Heh Heh...when the Devil has to go down to Georgia what does that tell you

I should have named my vagina Puerto Rico.

My penis I named Sri Lanka, I'm not wearing any panties, I keep the twisty milk gallon tabs and use them as a gourd for Sri Lanka

I don't even know why I'm laughing at this, but I know what to name my tits now

I'm praying to Sir Winnie Churchill that you've named them dagobas and palaces

Dagobas Palaces of the Twisty Winnie, but I call them Milk Gallon Tabs for short.

/I'm entering them in the next American Carnal Tit championship

tonguedepressor: And there can be but one name for your ass...are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I think so, Brain, but me and Pippi Longstocking... I mean, what would the children look like?

xebeche_tzu: but I have not heard of a culture on Earth that lacks a path to a higher self, or enlightened consciousness of some ki

There was a thread on Fark a few weeks back about a tribe that has a rather unique language, they have no composite clauses. But really that's only part of what makes the tribe so interesting. The tribe has no concept of anything that could be described as divine or even spiritual, and their own thinking is almost purely in the present. And they have nothing like enlightenment or higher self, to them such concepts just don't exist.

smeegle: Do you see a parallel between what you describe and Paul's letters to the seven churches telling them to change their ways and get back to the business of the teachings of Christ instead?

In a way, though Paul is a rather complicated issue and while a lot of what the Evangelicals go for has some roots in Paul they ignore plenty of what he said wholesale, including to the whole getting back to the teachings of Jesus. Which gets into issues of anti-intellectualism. They take Paul as is in a few translations and and everything assumes those translations as accurate, even when Biblical scholars can easily point out the flaws in those translations. And they are very selective about what part's of Paul they listen to. Paul was very big on the various churches not bickering about tiny details and putting people off because of that, he wanted everyone to work together, which can't really be said of the evangelicals. Also Paul was very much into the equal standing of women. At the end of the letter to the Romans he names several women and explicitly states a few of them as doing God's work, and even mentions one as a deaconess. To Paul the equal standing of women was not even issue, they were equal and that's that. The evangelicals don't exactly agree with that. So they may see what they did as being paralleled in what Paul did, but it's really nothing like it.

It was a total disaster when I came out to my parents last year as an atheist. Aw man, the offensive calls I was getting from my aunts, the fact that apparently my grandmother didn't even want to talk to me. My father, who went to seminary school and came out the other end as one of the biggest fat hypocritical sinners I know threw a fit. Yup. I was a pariah.

Then it was found out that my little sister was dating a black guy and everyone just kind of forgot about my indiscretions.

Salt Lick Steady: cmunic8r99: Salt Lick Steady: cmunic8r99: [CTRL + F]

Bevets

**0 results**

Really?

Well yeah, until you ruined it.

yeah, I didn't think my cunning plan through, huh?

:) I helped, hey, there are now two Bevets references to be found in the thread. No THREE! ah ah ah.

Bevets used to be entertaining before he posted nothing but copy & paste quotes.
Sad, I miss those days.

ph0rk: Who here in the Slowness can comprehend what happens in the Beyond?

Nice.

Lenny_da_Hog: Salt Lick Steady: /I'm entering them in the next American Carnal Tit championship

I'm a judge for that. Send me pics and I'll look for them at the judging and give you a higher mark.

If they were any higher, I'd be totally blind.

/left one's bigger

WhyteRaven74: Also Paul was very much into the equal standing of women. At the end of the letter to the Romans he names several women and explicitly states a few of them as doing God's work, and even mentions one as a deaconess.

That was the woman he travelled with who was into celibacy. As I understand it his relationship with her caused a bit of controversy. Husbands were not amused.
Here'a a question. Who wrote, "Women shall be silent in the church?" (Paraphrased)

The books of today's Bible and the ones left out have been translated many times over as you are well aware. And written several hundred years after. Stories handed down, interpretations, maybe some grains of truth left.
Who lives hundreds of years? I mean really, life was tough and cheap back then. Just ask the Romans.