<You may very well be right, Bill. In fact, you probably are. But as I hope to avoid armed rebellion which would merely make matters worse for a long time to come, I can do no other than hope you are wrong and that our fears will not determine our future. Hope is always fragile and often doomed, but it costs nothing to hold onto it until it is betrayed as it has so often been before. So I will continue to hope that the situation is not so dire as that. Let us hope that the worst the Democrats can do will not be nearly as bad as what Bush has done to us already. Sometime, somewhere, someone has to realize that you cannot hope to cheat the voters forever without giving the game away. >

Stop and think, Bob. Democrats come from the same social class as Republicans. They go to the same schools, join the same clubs, and practice the same professions. The Chrisitianoids are not simply there to support the Repugs, but to give the Dems the excuse to vote for Bush's idiocy. It's not just Bush. Who signed NAFTA into existence that began the outsourcing that contributed to homelessness and the depression we are in? It was Clinton, not Bush. Who balanced the budget by cutting all the social programs while hundreds of thousands of Americans were losing their jobs? Clinton, a Democrat. Who was it that helped set the stage for the Iraq invasion by pretending Saddam was a threat and bombing Iraq? Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

As far as Democrats and war, remember this one?

"Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

The Dem's record speaks for itself.

<Do you think that Jesus should silence all who slander his name by killing them. Perhaps you meant their rongues should be cut out. But, isn't that "the spirit that led to the Crusades"?>

Peter, that is so ridiculous that I could not possibly remain quiet on this. If Jesus is really alive and well and floating on a cloud right now, he has other options than killing anyone who slanders him. I mean really, how can you be sure that you won't get a lightning bolt up the spleen? I mean if the Pope is truly Christ's Vicar, Jesus could send us a postcard through the Vatican or (unthinkable) Salt Lake City. Maybe Jesus could bring somebody's grandma back to life and proclaim the truth. (That is one of HIS trademarks.) When you have relatives in high places like Jesus does, you have options.

<The Scriptures teach that God's grace and truth were made manifest by Jesus Christ. I think it's pretty easy to tell who is following what Jesus taught and who isn't. If you prefer to believe liars when they clearly contradict what the Scriptures they claim to be following clearly present that Jesus taught, then that reflects negatively on who you are, not on who Jesus is.>

Now I can agree with you on this to a point. First of all there is nothing of what Jesus (if he existed) taught in the Bible. The earliest Gospel was written 30-75 years after Jesus's supposed death, and the Gospels were written in Greek. Greek, as you yourself pointed out, is a language which is not compatible with Hebrew or Aramaic, and why would the earliest Gospels be written in Greek rather than Aramaic or Hebrew? Now to bring things further, a careful examination of The First Book of Maccabees shows that there was tremendous hostility in Judea towards Hellenic Jews. So, why has there been 2,000 years of Christian persecution of Jews, which reached the peak under Martin Luther, when Judaism is supposed to be the ancestor of Christianity? Why did Luther take the books of Maccabees out of the Protestant Canon? Simply because the Books of Maccabees shows how incompatible the Torah is with the teachings of the Greek Christians. Luther stepped up the Jewish persecutions because living Judaism showed the lie of Jesus being a Jewish rabbi.

So unless you are like Adastra and using the Bible as a divination tool to see what is in your own head, all you are doing is repeating the teachings of the Churches created by human beings rather than finding out what the Bible actually says.

Nimbrethil
The Voice of Fozzie the Bear is Frank Oz,not Jim Henson and Frank Oz is still with us among the Living.

Adastra,

I would think Yhwh/Jesus cares about what humans say about him to the extent that what humans say and do in that regard (such as "God's commands say...") hinder in some way other's relationship with the divine by weakening in some way that relationship or preventing others from fomenting one. So the harm is not to Yhwh/Jesus but to humans.

Logically, I wouldn't think an omni-everything god would or should care what his tiny, powerless creations say or do . . . BUT the old testament seems to indicate that s/he/it/they cared a lot, to the point of not wanting it's name used inappropriately. (Yes, I know, that dates back to power in the name ideas, but the point is still the same) And modern day evangelicals, fundies of many stripes would have us believe that same god cares intently about foul language on broadcast tv, homosexuality, alcoholic beverages, and a host of other hot button issues. I know your read on the bible differs significantly from the mainstream xtain, and even further from what comes out of the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of the world, but they justify their positions on these hot button issues with scripture - implying that the judeo-xtian god feels very strongly about all this and more . . . most fundies I know share that ideology, to an extent.

Seems like when bad things happen to people they disagree with, that's god's wrath. When the same things happen in their community, it's god's test, like Job. When the 'sinners' are blessed by good fortune, that typically gets attributed to satan . . . or more of that testing . . . It doesn't seem like their god could possibly care as much as they think s/he/it does when you look at it from the outside. Not about the use of his/er/it's holy book, or much else. Too much arrogance on the part of the believer, if you ask me.