The problem isn't "his" religion. The problem is your interpretation on his religion.

So what you should be saying is that your understanding of his religion "reeks of sickness and mental illness".

You claim that you don't know which religion is true, yet you debate as if you do... go figure...

Dude...

What is the greatest concentration of ANY individual component within blood...

Water.

Next is needed breath... So the blood may carry o2... Water of life, breath of life...

without both blood is useless.

sorry double post

I don't debate as though I know which religion is true. On the contrary I confess to being agnostic. In fact, I hold that all mortal humans are necessarily agnostic whether they confess it or not.

Besides, it's not my interpretation of Cowboy's religion that reeks of sickness and mental illness. It's just the nature of the religion. You can't even get to this biblical God without condoning having someone nailed to a pole to pay for your sins.

IMHO, that's sick. I don't care how you paint it.

There's also the confession in these stories that only FEW will make it into this God's kingdom of heaven. That can only mean that the vast majority are doomed.

So once again, where's the "Good News"?

IMHO, any creator who loses the vast majority of souls that he creates is already an extremely inept creator who has far more failures than successes. Especially if it's this God's goal to create obedient dedicated pets. He clearly fails most of the time. His success rate as a creator is far from perfect, and therefore as a creator he cannot be anywhere near perfect himself.

But that flies in the face of what this God is supposed to be.

So as far as I can see these old stories not only have no decency, but they have no rational merit. The creator in these stories would necessarily be an extremely inept buffoon.

That's the only conclusion I can see that's worthy of drawing.

And most importantly I'm not even telling Cowboy not to believe in it. I'm simply offering reasons why I personally reject it.

He doesn't need to continually converse with me and argue about it. He can accept that I see things differently anytime he so chooses.

The only reason I continually tell him why I feel the religion reeks of sickness and disgust is for the very reason that he keeps trying to push it in my face. If he would stop doing that, then I wouldn't need to explain why I feel that it's so disgusting.

I don't follow him around trying to sell him on my ideas. On the contrary, I started this thread to show how Fundamental Protestantism violates its own values. He's not even discussing the topic, he's just following me around randomly trying to sell me his religion.

So I keep telling him why I'm not buying it.

If he'd quit shoving it in my face trying to make excuses for it, I'd quit telling him why I think it stinks.

Peter, you do bring up a very good point.

Let's assume for a moment that I truly do have it all wrong. Let's say that my view of the biblical stories is all wrong. If that's the case then I'm not rejecting the Bible, or the biblical God. If what you say is true, then what I'm actually rejecting is a gross misunderstanding of the biblical stories. A misunderstanding that makes God appear to be foolish.

Well if that's true, then the God associated with the Bible would be intelligent enough to realize this and actually be quite pleased with me for rejecting such a gross and horrible misunderstanding of these stories.

In fact, some Christians have argued that God is actually causing me to be blinded to the truth of the Bible. Personally I think that would be a seriously dastardly deed by a deity who practically begs everyone to SEEK him out, and PROMISES that if they do they will find him. For such a deity to actually BLIND people from his truth would be extremely contradictory to those values.

Yet I'm told that this idea can actually be found in the biblical stories themselves. Which would just be yet one more contradiction associated with what this God is supposed to be like.

I have a problem right at square one with this whole fable.

Adam and Eve were supposedly given a directive not to eat a forbidden fruit. Yet they disobeyed this directive and ate it anyway.

Ok fine. The penalty for disobedience of God is death. God had even told them that they would surely die if they ate the fruit of this tree.

Well, he should have followed through on his word and killed them right then and there. That would have been the end of it.

Now if he wanted to give them a second chance to redeem themselves by having his son make a sacrifice on their behalf, he could have also offered that to Adam and Eve right then and there as well.

If they accepted it would all be over. If they refused, then he could go ahead and kill them like he previously threatened to do.

The bottom line is that he could have kept re-creating a new pair of Adam and Eve until he finally got a pair that would obey. Then he could have started out all of humanity with GOOD SEED from which no evil can spring.

The mere fact that this God went ahead and allowed billions upon billions of souls to be created from BAD SEED doesn't say much for the God, IMHO.

The fact that he waited for countless thousands of years to offer them salvation through his only begotten son also doesn't make any sense to me. Why wait? If that's the plan then it should have been offered at the very beginning. This God is supposed to be consistent and unchanging.

So I just don't see where the stories are even remotely consistent much less sensible.

That's just my honest view of them.

And like I say, if I'm all wrong about how these stories actually go, then please excuse me. Clearly if that's the case, then I've been shut out by the biblical God and he has decided not to allow me to see the "Truth". It's no wonder that the stories appear so sick and demented to me then. That's the way God wants it to be if he's purposefully causing me to see that.

I won't argue with the "Devious God Syndrome". If the Biblical God is that devious that he would blind people from the truth and cause them to see stupidity in his stories, then there isn't much I can do about that. Kind of like when this God hardened the heart of the Pharaoh I suppose. Poor guy had no choice but to be a hard azz, God was controlling him like a marionette doll.

Oh wait! I forgot!

Things probably didn't actually go like that. That's probably just another false impression that I got from having been blinded to the truth.

Come to think of it there probably were no people called Adam and Eve, there probably was no "fall from grace", there probably is no such thing as "sin", and there probably never was a guy named Jesus, and there was never any crucifixion. I probably have ALL OF THAT totally wrong since I'm being BLINDED to the truth.

The real Bible is probably a scientific paper explaining precisely how the Big Bang got started and how we evolved from primates and I just can't see it. All I see are stories that are totally obsessed with sin and salvation.

I might actually like the real Bible if God ever allows me to see the truth.

Water is H2o, o2 isn't water.

Only your interpretation makes God appear even remotely foolish. And in your interpretations you take things out of context and don't take the bible for what it is, you take a verse here and a verse there. You don't take the whole bible into consideration for understanding. Once you read a verse weather you misinterpret it or not you automatically put up a wall and consider the rest of the bible foolish. You're put up a wall before you and is why you don't see the beauty in the word of god.

Correct... Mankind is not a fish... We can not breath two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen...

We need 2 parts oxygen... Ergo... We need water and air to survive...

which is what I said.

Blood is mostly water... but AIR is needed to 'oxygenate' that blood for us to survive.

Water for life, breath of life.

Both must be present for BLOOD to be of use.

That's what I was saying, our blood is mostly o2. That is NOT water. So therefore our blood is not mostly water.

The oxygen we need is for the muscles of our body. The blood merely transports that oxygen. The air we breath in doesn't make our blood water because of the combination of oxygen and o2.

96% water...

what you say dosen't fit the science...

Why am I not suprised.

90% of plasma which composes of 55% of blood is water. So roughly half of blood is water.

What you say doesn't fit the science...

Why am I not surprised.

Sorry I was wrong about my original statement, but you could at least correct me with correct information.

And this has absolutely nothing to do with what we were talking about anyways. You can not "give up" air. Yes you can hold your breath, but then you wouldn't be "giving it up", you would be refusing to take it in. That is why blood is the most valuable thing you posses. Air isn't your to give or not give. You can not give a greater something other besides blood.

And nor can you give up water. Again you can refuse to take it in, but that's not giving it up for you never possessed it in the first place. And also you can live without "drinking" water. You can get your liquids from fruits and vegetables.

These are the kinds of absurdly silly arguments that fanatical fundamentalists waste everyone's time with.

The bottom line is that the biblical story has a supposedly loving God creating a religion scheme where the only way it is possible to receive his love and blessings is by condoning a violent disgusting act and accepting that it was done on your behalf to pay for you so-called "sins".

Blood, water, air. Is of absolutely no importance here.

The bottom line is that this God would have set things up to where LOVE can only be reached via the acceptance and condoning of a truly disgusting action on your behalf.

In other words, to accept and condone the crucifixion for YOUR SAKE would be to condone it and ultimately offer to take part in nailing Jesus to the Pole.

It's no different from having been there live.

What this story is asking you to do is to nail Jesus to the pole to save your own butt. If you refuse to nail him to the pole, you are sent to hell and eternal damnation of suffering and torture (whether Cowboy believes it or not), on the other hand, the only way to salvation is to pick up the hammer and spikes and nail Jesus to the pole YOURSELF.

If you aren't willing to do that to save your own butt, then you cannot accept Jesus as your savior because you REFUSE the crucifixion on your behalf. You refuse to nail an innocent man to a pole to save your own butt. You go to hell!

That's the bottom line right there.

This God is demanding that you either condone this crucifixion on your behalf, or go to hell. Period.

There's no other way to obtain his so-called LOVE.

So whether it's blood, water, or air is totally irrelevant, it's an extremely sick and disturbing religion in any case.

There's no way to get to this God short of condoning having an innocent man nailed to a pole to pay for your sins.

It's the ONLY WAY. Nothing else is acceptable.

Now...

"These are the kinds of absurdly silly arguments that fanatical fundamentalists waste everyone's time with."

So you're suggesting, or trying to imply, that it's somehow not necessary to accept and condone that Jesus died to pay for your sins?

Hmmmmm?

I guess you're right then. I have Christianity and the whole biblical picture all wrong. It's just my gross misunderstanding of the whole religion.

Evidently there's a way to be "saved" without having to accept that Jesus died to pay for your sins?

I'm afraid that I'm totally unaware of that, and never heard it taught from any Christian, fundamentalist or not.

So you're suggesting that it would be perfectly legitimate for a Christian to say, "I accept Jesus as my savior, but I reject the idea that he was crucified to pay for my sins".

Actually you're on to something Abra. Sacrificing something was in the old covenant which Jesus fulfilled. There is no need for sacrifice anymore in the new covenant God has given to the world. We now accept Jesus as lord and savior, he is the path to God. There is no need for sacrificing anymore, sacrificing is no where in the new covenant to receive forgiveness. We are judged by the word, the word has now been made flesh eg., Jesus.

When one punishes their child, they no longer love the child? This is where you've got this whole thing twisted. First off, no one will ever go to hell. You either receive the GIFT of heaven and eternal life or you simply parish, die. It's not a punishment Abra. You are born, you live, you die. Our father merely offers a gift if one wishes to accept it, eternal life in his kingdom.

Well, the only reason for that is supposedly that you accept Jesus as "YOUR" sacrificial lamb.

Besides, if you recall I've already rejected the entire Zeus-like Old Testament and the notion of Gods who are appeased by blood sacrifices in the first place.

So the very notion of blood sacrifices as atonement for sin is nothing more than man-made superstitions to begin with.

Why should the real creator of the universe just happen to be like Zeus only with a jealously streak and a male-chauvinist attitude.

It's far too Zeus-like. You probably reject the Greek mythologies as being "silly", well, they really aren't all that different from the biblical mythologies. So if one is "silly" then so is the other.

You keep forgetting. I don't believe in "punishing" children. I personally believe that the very concept of "punishment" is an ignorant concept that should be abandoned altogether by any truly wise and intelligent parent or teacher.

So I don't condone "punishing" children, especially or the purpose of supposedly "teaching" them a "lesson".

The only lesson that can possibly teach the child is that it's ok to punish people, which I disagree with.

Secondly, you keep whining and denying the concept of a hell in this religion, but as far as I can see this is just yet another one of your very own personal interpretations, in fact, as far as I'm concerned most religious authorities and clergy would disagree with you. I'm certain that the Catholic Church and the real Pope would disagree with you because they are very adamant about the existence of hell for humans.

You're trying to strip this ancient picture of God of some of it's "ugliness" by using your "Salad Bar" approach.

In essence you're really not much different from me. You're just trying to create your own version of the religion.

There's absolutely no reason for me to accept your version when I have my own. This is why Protestantism and the Paper Pope concept can't fly. All it ends up doing is creating a myriad of Paper Popes who all claim to speak for God and none of whom agree with each other.

As far as hell is concerned the Catholic Church offers the following"



I'm in agreement with the Catholic Church as far as the biblical mythology is concerned. These fables clearly have Jesus stating to humans that they are in danger of being thrown into hell, where the worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

And the other verses they offer also support these things.

So apparently you're are in disagreement with Jesus himself when you say that humans will not be thrown into hell, because there you have it in Mark's own words, that Jesus clearly stated to humans that they can be thrown into hell.

Sorry Cowboy, but if you're going to claim to speak for Jesus at least try to get it RIGHT.

You are renouncing the teachings of Jesus himself! That's grounds for blaspheme right there!

How do you justify your rejection of the words of Jesus?

If I were going to believe in the mythology, I'd have to accept these things. Clearly I reject a lot of this stuff as being nothing more than hearsay rumors or even more likely, purposeful manipulation and propaganda in an attempt to use Jesus to support previous ideas of the religion.

After all Christianity isn't truly about Jesus at all. It's about using Jesus as an excuse to support the idea that the God of the Old Testament with his need for blood sacrifices to atone sins is REAL.

I reject that whole notion.

At least I reject the validity of the myths.

You claim to support them, yet you reject the very words of Jesus himself. So you're being inconsistent yourself.

You're trying to clean up the picture a bit and reject the things that even your recognize are totally unacceptable. So you remove the threat of hell, and pretend that it's either be "saved" or simply perish without a hitch.

That's your own "Band-aid Christianity", trying to make the God appear to be a bit more sane than the mythology actually allows for.

So evidently you don't like the actual mythology as it truly stands either then.