RE-creation....now stop arguing already!

Here....can we put the incredibly futile evolution vs creation debate to bed finally? Pleeeeeeeeeeease? Read this.......
http://www3.sympatico.ca/bibleprophecy/creation.htm

Also Tiassa, I believe that we wanted to know more about Satan's origin? This is a start at least....
http://www3.sympatico.ca/bibleprophecy/satan.htm

Let's hear what everyone thinks about this!

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You may think I'm a nut, but I'm fastened to the strongest bolt in the universe.

 

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Lori,

I'm going to re-post a reply I made to Vanden on the Evolution vs. Creation thead:

I believe that should cover it.

PS:

On second thought, no it doesn't cover it. The first web site you mention makes a whole bunch of claims concerning evolution that I blew to smitherenes in the <A HREF="http://www.exosci.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000006.html">Evolution vs. Creation</A> thread. So go and tell them to read it.

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I am; therefore I think.

[This message has been edited by Boris (edited March 07, 2000).]

 

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So, uh ... Re-Creationism?

Does that meant that God got it wrong the first time?

Really, I'll put together a better response to the Devil bit when I stop laughing. And then I've a short bit of citation-collecting to do. But I've got to stop this insane giggling.

So, for a start, to get me into a more serious frame of mind ... does the idea of recreation mean God screwed up the first time?

thanx,
Tiassa

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PS--So much for the Immutable Will, eh?

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The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur eggs was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. (Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)

 

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Wait, wait.

I pulled this from the Evolution or Creation section:

"The magnet field of the earth has been measured since the mid 1800's.
The magnetic field or the pull of magnetism is slowly decreasing. At the known rate of decrease, if it is back calculated, in other words, the magnetic field will increase
as we go back in time, if calculated back just 20,000 years, the gravity pull would be so great life on earth would be totally impossible.
In addition, the rate the rotates on its axis is slowing at a known rate. Again if we back calculate the rotation or spin, befor we reach 1,000,000 years (one
million years) the increase speed of the spin would throw everything into space."


Let's see, If I were to back calculate the rate of illiteracy in the US, written languages must come from God because 1000 years ago no one could read.

 

Boris,

The depth of your paradigm is astounding. Why in the blankity-blank can't you EVER seek to answer the question WHY? You're answer, if I'm not mistaken is something to the effect of "Just because it grew that way". And I'm sorry honey, but that's pretty lame. You cannot seem to grasp the concept that science and evolution exist for sure, in this physical realm, and are the manifestations of things that happen in another dimension that is "scientifically" undetected, though we all know that's not entirely true either. I myself, am a walking talking experiment that proves the existance of a spiritual realm, you just don't KNOW that. Boris, I'm sure that there is "science" even with regard to how things "work" in the spiritual dimension as well, but that STILL doesn't answer the question WHY????????

And speaking of that question....

Tiassa, Tiassa, *shaking head* Would ya give Him a break already? No, the answer is NO that He didn't make a mistake the first time. All of this is part of a "master plan" if you will, that it states in the Bible is "hidden" from this "generation" of mankind. If we look around, at what we know, at what we can see historical evidence of, we can "unhide" it. This He knows as well. I think that somehow this is all "worth it". There is a light at the end of this tunnel that will drown out all of the pain and suffering that has occurred. This is not to say that this is the way God WANTED it to be, but given free will, He must have known that in the end, we would be worth it all. And why exactly are you giggling?????????????

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You may think I'm a nut, but I'm fastened to the strongest bolt in the universe.

 

Lori -
I have constructed a short fill-in-the-blank questionaire for you, if you don't mind.

Question to scientists: Why Big Bang?
Answer: We don't know.

Question to Lori: Why God?
Answer: _______________
(you may use the back of the sheet if you run out of space)

FyreStar

 

Fyrestar,

Cause it's the only thing that reconciles my reality. It's the only answer that makes sense. The only right answer. Like math has right answers, God does too. But instead of answering the questions of how, He answers the questions of why.

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You may think I'm a nut, but I'm fastened to the strongest bolt in the universe.

 

Lori--

I'm giggling at the couple of web pages you pointed to. One is dependent on the other, and the other is so pointed as to blow any hope of an objective thesis and resolution out of the water. There's not much organization to it, it's horribly arranged and proofread; to that note I should mention that I don't have any issue with typos on a posted e-mail thread, but on a prepared web page it just looks backwater and unprofessional.

But the opening sentence is right: Lucifer, Satan, Devil ... it's all the same. That's true. Lucifer is an old name for Jesus, which fits perfectly with the notion that all of the divisions between good and evil, God and the Devil ... that the divisions are fictional and spawned of human minds. Unfortunately, that's the only assertion of the Satan page that has any value.

What's even sillier to me than the two pages you posted is the idea that suddenly I find myself sympathetic to the old philosophers whose work eventually motivated the political crimes of church institutions. After all, if I'd read this for the first time, it might make sense. But I happen to agree with the reasons that certain parts of this apocrypha weren't made part of the canon. Where some books and gospels were omitted for political concerns--Jesus' wife, &c.--others were omitted simply because they asserted things about God which were disharmonious to the logical perception of God's universe. The claims of the Satan page fall under the latter condition. I guess those two-thousand years of learning were for waste.

So you're asserting, then, that God's Divine Plan required such a creation, interceding drama, and re-creation? I'll put that with the idea that the Great Flood aged all of the trilobyte fossils with some sense of uniform order, and placed them accordingly, at random, in the strata.

And the Second Coming will be from my ass. All I seek is a God who isn't so afraid of creation that He has to hide behind that many riddles.

Seriously, once I find something on those pages worth responding to directly, I'll put it together. But in the meantime, I'm grinning like I'm high, yet strangely I'm sober. Must be the subject-matter.

Or it could be a divine diffusion of Holy Spirt down the chain of matter, time, and energy, to manifest itself as a rewarding sense of satisfaction achieved by defending God against the vomitous perversions of logic and wasting of knowledge that spills out from his adherents and soils all parts of the social machine, thereby preventing the progress of humanity as a whole.

Oh ... I wanted to mention that it's hard for me to take the recreation webpage seriously, because the very same places I've encountered this kind of theory before happens to be the same quarter that espouses the falseness of the various archaeological and scientific tools needed to demonstrate firmly the validity of such stupid theories as recreation. Hey, that's the unbreakable riddle of faith: Prove it, but using the tools I've already said cannot be used for proof.

Oh, that's right. There's that silly book. I keep forgetting about the book. Perhaps the only book ever written by human hands and minds to ever encompass the whole truth? Okay, now I've done it. I've gone and made myself split a seam.

But it's just so darn goofy.

thanx,
Tiassa

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The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur eggs was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. (Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)

 

God does not hide behind riddles, you do. That's for damn sure. I'm sorry but I'd call that last one "close to ranting". God is not hiding you are. He is there, RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU. Look at Him, talk to Him. YOU WON'T DO IT. You are afraid he's gonna bust all your paradigms and tell you how wrong you are about a lot of things. And you know what? You are missing out on THE MEANING OF YOUR OWN LIFE by doing that. The Bible is SOMEWHAT of a riddle, after all, there are a lot of stupid people in this world huh?

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BUT, the Holy Spirit is the "great decoder". Jesus is your "personal divine interpreter". Not many people really have the balls to take on the faith like it's supposed to be taken on. Why? Because of the amount of self-analysis and introspect that occurs. Because you really find out just how lost much of this world is, and just how much it hurts Him, who loves you unconditionally. It's just not pretty in a lot of ways. But you need to take it one step further, and realize the value of that love and mercy and grace, and the sheer wonder and marvel of who we are and who He is. It's incredible. It is the truth that we all seek. It's the right answer, and gee, even if things aren't perfect, there's a hell of a lot of peace of mind in knowing that you're at least AWARE of why things are the way they are and where to even start.

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You may think I'm a nut, but I'm fastened to the strongest bolt in the universe.

 

Lori -

So in other words, 'just cause'. Do you have any idea how hypocritical you are being?

Ya know, saying over and over that you've considered these things for yourself does not make it true.

FyreStar

 

Lori--

You're still missing a vital point. You seem to dislike images of God which you don't recognize, creating the appearance of the assumption of the correctness of that which you espouse. This appearance is further fostered by your apparent confidence that your correctness is absolute.

In that sense, you're helping me recall notions of "church" politics that squashed religious interpretation through military conquest and politicized faith. These people chose a set of constraints, the logic of which I cannot object to; but from there, those constraints were made political, so that religious dissidents were political dissidents. Philosophies and their philosophers died for the simple fact that the powers-that-were simply didn't see in the philosophical image a God that they expected.

For instance, you wrote: "God is not hiding you are. He is there, RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU. Look at Him, talk to Him. YOU WON'T DO IT."

Once again, you are overlooking the fact that over 50% of my life was spent searching for God among idiots. It's kind of like those people of myth whom rain follows everywhere; if everywhere I go produces an all-too familiar idiocy among the faithful, I look to the structure of the faith. As I'm quite familiar with Lutheran Christianity, and the Catholic version of the same (confirmed of the former, attended high school with the latter), and also have participated in Baptist, Epsicopal, Missouri Synod (Lutheran), Society of Friends, and the all-encompassing "Community Church" services and discussions ... I might say that I'm waiting for the flood of idiocy to stop. Fine, so it's somehow not a Christian's fault when that person chooses to believe in a version of God that is characteristically marked as pseudo-charitable, self-serving, and generally dimwitted ... well, let's look at the faith that leads these people to their conclusions. I expect capitalists to rewrite the rules of capitalism to accommodate their profitable visions, but among Christians I expect at least some shred of the integrity and dignity so forceably associated with the philosophy's name. Is it the people? Is it the faith structure? Is it the God?

Now, the fault of your faith structure is that God was right in front of me the whole time, but because I'm decribing something you apparently don't expect to be called "God", you're up in arms. That's not my problem. But stop trying to declare a copyright on what God is. If God wanted to be better known, then It would be better known. I love the notion of an all-powerful God who can't find a way to make the truth of the matter apparent. And then the bastard punsihes those who answer the riddle wrong. (Ain't that a kick?) We might still be his creation, but have you ever played SimCity and unleashed earthquake after riot after fire after alien invasion on a city of a half-million? We might still be God's creation, but the way you paint it leaves us as sims, there for Divine amusement, simple pawns to be swept away when we no longer amuse the Eternal Smile. Oh, and then there's Satan, whom God created to cause evil. I mean, why, except as a dispassionate experiment or practical joke, does anyone create those kind of conditions?

Now, of several rounds I had with the Barrister in the Sky during that 50+ per cent of my life I spent listening to the hypocrites whine, a few things became clear to me. First and foremost is this: Ritual worship in such a submissive manner is for the weak-minded; God would much rather have us living independently of ritual expressions of our relationship with Him, and simply reflecting His Will in our life actions. Secondly, all of that kneeling, hand-waving, foot-washing, and genuflecting embarrasses such a humble guy as your pal Jesus. Frankly, I wonder why you put Him through it ... perhaps a little insecurity about your immortal soul? But you're on your knees to the most humble man in the universe; think about His needs, for a second. That relationship works both ways. When you squander your emotions on ritual, do you somehow think He doesn't feel that? When you just plow through a ritual, does He not notice the lack of emotion? But that warmth you feel when you manage to smile while giving a dollar to a homeless man ... He feels that, too.

But since it doesn't reflect your version of proper relations with God, I can just throw the whole, whorish lot out with the bathwater.

Get it through your skull: the more you insist on the correctness of your vision, or the faults of others ... the more hostility you release without refinement ... the narrower your picture of God becomes ... it's all just an insult to that which you would praise.

I'll sum it up thus: You wrote, "But you need to take it one step further, and realize the value of that love and mercy and grace, and the sheer wonder and marvel of who we are and who He is."

And I can do that with my head down, reminding myself and the Lord what an undeserving PoS I am, and invent offenses to apologize for; jeeminy crispers, Lori ... how can you stop and smell the roses when you're too busy taking a weed-whacker to them because you think the Lord wants daisies? Keep ignoring the sweet scent of needless death and destruction. It's all the same to the end product because, as you say, it's all written beforehand.

thanx,
Tiassa

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The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur eggs was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. (Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)

 

Lori,

I'm going to take your reply to Fyrestar as a reply to me, since that's really what I was looking for from you:

The only answer that makes sense? The only answer that reconciles your reality? And that's your justification for accepting the answer???? You know, not too long ago various peoples all over the world used to wonder why the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. And they had answers, the only answers, the ones that "reconciled" their respective realities. They just weren't the right answers.

I have an alternative: no answer. That's right. At this point, with respect to the Big Bang I say "it just happened" not because that is my explanation -- but because <u>there currently is no good explanation</u>. I do not deny the possibilities of any number of realities beyond the veil of current knowledge, in fact I rather favor such scenarios purely on probabilistic grounds. However, I do not presume to know anything about what is actually there -- because no human ever did or presently does.

You have to learn the difference between good answers and bad answers. It is the art that enables one to separate science from pseudoscience, faith from fact, fact from conjecture. And it all comes down to empirical foundations -- since they underlie induction, the fundamental methodology at the root of all computation (which includes evolution, cognition, and products thereof.) Your "explanation" for the existence of the universe (that God made it) is merely an example of a gross inductive overgeneralization, the kind at which humans excel, that upon deeper examination fails to hold. The generalization goes like this: artifacts exist because we made them, therefore the universe exists because someone made it (that someone being God, or Gods, depending on religion.) The generalization obviously does not hold up under scrutiny, since it is observed that 1) not only do unconscious organisms create things, but 2) even non-biological processes create things, and 3) furthermore, biological processes themselves (including life and humans) are a product of non-biological precursors. With its inductive foundation thus dispatched, the theory of "Creator" is promptly discredited, and henceforth looses all inductive foundation. Once that happens, it is no longer a valid answer, it is now a clearly bad answer.

It is fine and rightful to ask the question "why". However, you must realize that not all questions have known definite answers, or even known good candidates for answers. That particular riddle is but one of many that remain enigmatic. Other currently unanswered questions, for example, include: what is "dark matter", is complexity class P equivalent to complexity class NP, what is the geometry of spacetime, how do humans separate mixed sound sources within a single audio stream, do dolphins have a language, is there life on Europa, etc. None of these question currently have <u>any kind</u> of a satisfactory answer -- the answers to these questions simply are of the variety: "I have no idea, but I'll keep poking and see if I can't find out." The same goes for your question of "why" -- only in that particular case, we don't even know if it's at all possible to find out the answer in the first place.

Now, I don't mean to be condescending, but there is a bit of folk wisdom with which I wholeheartedly agree. It basically holds that one manifestation of wisdom lies in the ability to admit ignorance, no matter the urgency of knowing. Doesn't bode well for religious faith, now does it?

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I am; therefore I think.

 

Tiassa,

YOU DON'T GET WHAT I'M SAYING. All you have done is go on and on about how you've spent all of this time looking for God in other people!!!!! God ISN'T other people, HE IS GOD. I'm talking about listening to answers for prayer. Listening Tiassa. What I'm saying is that why in the hell are you looking at other humans if you want to know God? Why? YOU CAN HAVE A PERSONAL, ONE ON ONE RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE A CHURCH, DOESN'T INVOLVE A PERSON OR A PREACHER OR EVEN A BIBLE. HE'S THERE!!!! Instead of running around trying to find Him in church or in people or in books, WHY DON'T YOU JUST OPEN UP YOUR DAMN MOUTH AND SAY "HEY GOD, IT'S ME TIASSA, AND I WANT YOU TO TELL ME AND SHOW ME WHO YOU ARE." Badda-bing, badda-bong. There ya go! Is that REALLY so hard? All it takes is some humility, some open-mindedness, and some sincerety, and YOU TOO can know God. Just like I do. HE TALKS TO ME!!!!! Don't you GET that?

AND NONE OF THIS HAS A DAMN THING TO DO WITH "MY OPINION". THIS IS REAL! HE REALLY TALKS TO ME! I REALLY KNOW HIM! And no, usually MY OPINION sucks, that's why I got to know HIM! AND THE FACT THAT I HAVE A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS IS NOT MY OPINION, IT'S A FACT! And until you "check into it", I don't want to hear a damn word about it. Cause until you get over yourself enough to know for yourself, YOU NEVER WILL.

And quit being such a snot would you? Who pissed in your Cheerios anyway? Could it be......................SATAN???????!!!!!!!!

LMAO!

And Boris,

The same thing goes for you. You don't have an answer because you don't know God. And BELIEVE ME, you will NEVER have an answer UNTIL you find God. And seeing as how I have a PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST AND YOU DON'T AND NEVER HAVE, I don't see how it is you feel you're qualified to give an opinion regarding anything. Your knowledge is so trivial and self-serving. And you love it! It cracks me up to hear you go on and on about how much "text book crapola" you know. AND YOU DON'T KNOW GOD! LOL! Honestly Boris, you are fooling yourself. If you want to know the answer, then do exactly what I suggested that Tiassa do. "HELL NO LORI, I won't do that cause I don't believe in it!" Well, paradoxically if you were do that, then you would believe. YOU WANT EVIDENCE MR. SCIENTIST? THEN PRAY, AND YOU'LL GET ALL THE EVIDENCE YOU'VE EVER WANTED. And if you don't, then you're a pussy, and I don't want to hear about it.

OH AND I JUST LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE THIS about admitting ignorance!!!! ROFLMAO!!!!! TAKE A LOOK IN THE MIRROR HONEY-BUN, THAT'S THE WHOLE REASON THAT YOU DON'T KNOW GOD!!!!!!

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You may think I'm a nut, but I'm fastened to the strongest bolt in the universe.

[This message has been edited by Lori (edited March 09, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Lori (edited March 09, 2000).]

 

Aaaaaaaaaaand,

If you don't believe me, then ask Flash. Yea, Flash. Cause SHE is talking to Him RIGHT NOW. Yea, Flash the "I hate Jesus" Flash. Now if SHE can hear Him, then SO CAN YOU. All you have to do is WANT TO, ASK HIM, AND LISTEN, SINCERELY. THAT'S IT. There IS NO big mystery here, except the one in your mind.

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You may think I'm a nut, but I'm fastened to the strongest bolt in the universe.

 

Lori--

Does the following sound familiar? I posted it for you in another thread (Evolution v. Creation):

Sound familiar? Let's see ... your response was that I am "totally bent", and you resented my subjectivity.

So ... you apparently have the only objective view of God? Though I don't particularly believe in your petty versions of salvation, Heaven, and Hell, I must comment that that your desperate clinging to your limited notion of God is one arrogance that will land you in Hell. At least, insofar as that whole God/Satan, Heaven/Hell thing continues to muck up clear thinking.

But ... since you don't seem to either remember or care, and though I actually don't think you're illiterate, I will try this part again, so that you get it clearly:

* I know Jesus. I've met him. To throw that out, you'll have to throw out every testimonial of revelation ever documented.

* We--that is, Jesus and myself--have a pretty good understanding, based on the following point:

* All of that kowtowing, incense, praising, hollering, dancing with snakes, confessing, ad nauseum embarrasses the Kid. Had you forgotten that this is the most humble man in the Universe you're inflating?

I mean, really ... of all the possible forms of interrelationship Jesus can ask for, demand, or otherwise seek ... do you really think codependency is his first choice?

So why don't you--please--stop yelling and take a deep breath?

So, if you don't want to hear about it ... well, that's fine. But two things you should bear in mind: First, you have demonstrated one of my longstanding points; incidentally, it is one which you've never liked seeing written on this board. Simply, you have once again demonstrated that when God doesn't look the way a Christian expects It to, said individual person claps their hands over their ears, shuts their eyes, and screams, "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb" as loudly as possible. After all:

(Boldface added by Tiassa)

Secondly, what you have utterly failed to consider is that the terms to which Jesus and I arrived are mutually agreed upon. If you don't like the terms, take 'em up with Jesus. Honestly, if you've got the right take on it, he would prefer that you step outside the codependent circle of worship, confession, contrition, ritual, and sin.

And I should mention that it was a little, coal-black imp named Liari that screamed hosannas to Jesus, whizzed in my corn flakes, and took a crap on my toast. I said, "Ain't that cute? Gravity makes your poo-poo go splat on the toast." Liari screamed, leapt onto the refrigerator, and shouted: "Gravity is an offense to Jesus!" and disappeared in a puff of frankincense smoke.

And, BTW ... for someone who constantly demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge concerning Satan, you still have much to say. Try accepting dimensions of evil that aren't so convenient to your existing perspective; you'll find the world much more fascinating, and your faith much more rewarding.

thanx,
Tiassa

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The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur eggs was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. (Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)

 

Fyrestar,

How IN THE WORLD did you get "just cause" out of what I said? Is that something like "the square root of 9 is 3, just cause?" Please explain. I don't think you understand what I mean. Think about it. It has to do with taking the sin out of situations to come up with "right" answers, and understanding why they are "right". Does that help?

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You may think I'm a nut, but I'm fastened to the strongest bolt in the universe.

 

Tiassa,

WHAT are you telling me???? Help me, I'm meeeeeeelllllllttttttiiiiiinnnnnnggg! Let me get this straight....

You know Jesus.
You know that He loves you, is your Creator, and your Saviour, and God.
You know that He is graceful, merciful, and loving, and forgiving.
You know that you are a terminally flawed "sinner", and that belief unto Him is your only salvation.
And you said, "No thanks, I'd rather go to hell."
?????????????????????????????????????????

When I responded last time, I thought that you were yankin' my chain. I didn't believe that you actually talked to Him. Based upon your "conclusion".


????????????????????????????????????????????

And you wonder why I said you're bent. And BTW, I meant that in the most loving way possible. I didn't mean to crap on your toast (which you really had me rolling with that one). Well, Tiassa, I can say this much....you're good for a laugh.

What exactly do you disagree with Jesus about? Why the defiance? Why the rejection? I should say how the rejection? Excuse the grammar, but HOW IN THE HELL MAN???????

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You may think I'm a nut, but I'm fastened to the strongest bolt in the universe.

[This message has been edited by Lori (edited March 09, 2000).]

 

Aaaaaaaaaaand,

Our relationship is NOT a codependent one. He makes me do all the work. He gives instruction, explanation, forgiveness, and love. I do the work. I have to do the right thing. I have to have faith too. Wassamatta? Couldn't cut it?

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You may think I'm a nut, but I'm fastened to the strongest bolt in the universe.

 

Lori -

HOW!?!?

Quote from Lori, posted March 08, 2000 11:59 AM:
"Cause it's the only thing that reconciles my reality."

Any old port in the storm eh? Well gee, what if you found another way? I could probably remove a screw from a board with a chainsaw, but a screwdriver would work much better. But, if you stop looking after the first thing that seems to work, you remove yourself from many other possibly better answers. YOU think about it. Put down the chainsaw. Oh, and stop trying to use math to compare; thats possibly the worst analogy in the history of the universe. You only know what is 'right' because you were brought up in a culture that has those same ideas. No matter where you are brought up however, you'd have a difficult time proving that 3x3=8.

I've noticed that you seem to be in the habit of telling your opponents (i.e. Boris, tiassa, me) that they aren't understanding you. If you're planning on telling me that again, you needn't waste your time. On the other hand, if you ever decide to listen to me, or them, feel free to continue.

Skeptically,
FyreStar

 

Lori--

I'm starting to lose faith in my earlier assessment that you're not illiterate. Your summary, once again, describes the limitations of your perception.

So, let's play Checklist for Lori, and hope that we strike a chord:

* Knowing Jesus: check, you're there.
* Loves you: sure, check. Creator: He's part of the plan, but not directly the creator. Saviour: natch. No salvation needed; that's a logical equation realized after notions of ransom and tribute fell through due to philosophical limitations of God.
* Graceful, merciful, loving, and forgiving: check. He's also humble enough to ask what need he has for mercy and forgiving, as these singular terms describe association of the natural state against the false "need" to be merciful and forgiving. What that means, so we don't have to explain it thrice, is simply: What we identify as merciful or forgiving is only unique when compared against something; that comparison, that need for something greater and something lesser, is the problem.
* Terminally flawed sinner: Nope. Not that I'm not terminally flawed. But "sinner" describes a state of existence used by undereducated faith to justify the comparisons which make "mercy" and "forgiveness" unique.
* "I'd rather go to hell." Are you stubborn, or just stupid? See, here's where you trip up. This doesn't sound like what you've chosen to limit your image of Jesus to, so you're just not getting the nature of the exchange between the person and Jesus. We--that being Jesus and myself--made these terms. That you feel cheated by your perception of that relationship isn't my problem. But your need to dictate the manner in which Jesus can relate to people is obscene, both academically and spiritually. And that, by common interest of human advancement, is my problem.

And, as you're very happy to point out: Jesus does not equal church. When Jesus and I came to the conclusion that it wasn't him personally offending me, we got along just chummy. Presently, any sense of defiance is your own limited perception of the situation. So stop doubting Jesus and just accept that the relationship you share with him is not the only possibility.

thanx,
Tiassa

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The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur eggs was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. (Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)