Read what Gen. Patton thought of the accuracy of the Bible. He studied it thoroughly, as a book of history and geological importance. If the book gave reference to a water source, make note of it, you'd find water there.

Yeah don't get me wrong I'm not trying to disproove the bible, not even the most dogmatic researcher would try to do that. What I'm trying to get at is the traditional upheld authorship of the scriptures are not neccessalary written by what orthodox christians beleive.
I myself do not belive that Moses wrote the Torah. I do not belive that the synoptic gospels were written by jesus's actual real life apostles. The fist (Mark) one to be writtern appeared 1/4 of a century after his death. The preceding one Luke then Matthew took much of thier material from Mark. Not to say they are not important documents pertaining to Jesus teachings.

I can only suggest that you get a copy of Spong's book and read it. Much of the arguments I've seen (including Jag's Post) is actually in agreement with his theology.

From Estragon's post, I do not have any prior knowledge of this man, so any bais I could have from having previously known of him was nill. I saw the book on the shelf of my local libary and read it. Surprised I was when he actually anserwered many of the questions that lingured in the back of my mind.

A major function of fundamentalist religion is to bolster deeply insecure and fearful people. This is done by justifying a way of life with all of its defining prejudices. It thereby provides an appropriate and legitimate outlet for one's anger. The authority of an inerrant Bible that can be readily quoted to buttress this point of view becomes an essential ingredient to such a life. When that bible is challenged, or relativized, the resulting anger proves the point catagorically.

As we have all seen by the induction of this thread and its subject. I hope that Nans has enjoyed herself.

You are not right : Example :

Monseigneur GAILLOT is a french monk (Affilied by VATICAN) who defend homosexuals and AIDS victims.

Think about it :

With the over-population and the release of children mortality, we (mankind) may have to re-think our sexuals habits.
For Centuries, men had to reproduce themselves, to let the humanity continue and not disappear. But know, we are beginning to be too much. So we need to decrease borns. And our sexuals habits are important in that, no ?

There is no over population of the entire planet!!!
In 1983 , Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institution calculated that the entire world's population, then about 4.4 billion , could be housed in typical one- story single -family homes, four persons to a house with a front and back yard-all in the state of Texas.
The authors of Eco-Sanity claim that all people alive today ''could all stand inside the city limits of Jacksonville , Florida- an area less then 0.03 percent of the size of the U.S.''.......................
"For You have formed my inward parts; You have covered me in my mother's womb" (Jeremiah 1:5).




St. Paul writes, "Do you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body..." (I Corinthians 6:19, 20).

So, why are 150,000 humans destroyed daily by abortion.Why is this generation being murdered ???


Caring for the aids victims is just that.........caring for the sick......

Homosexuality is considered a recocnized sin........like a lie is considered a sin.......only difference is .......one that recocnizes their sin.......is helped to overcome it.......whether it be a lie,murderer, or a homosexual......

In the New testament,
St. Paul condemns male prostitutes and homosexuals (I Corinthians 6:9-11).
In the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans (Romans 1:24-32), he also judges it as unnatural . Homosexuals are included elsewhere among the immoral persons who, St. Paul says, deserve judgement by God (I Timothy 1:10)............



It is the recognition of one's sin ........that will all matter in the end......not the judgement we place on people, but the judgement that God will give to all............



[Edited on 5/23/2003 by helen670]

whatever is said: let us not forget that - in a Christian NT sense -we, as mortals, are plainly conjoined to judge not lest ye be judged, and there are pretty robust guidelines as far as throwing the first stone is concerned.
One might' and one perhaps would, be tempted to argue that while the rules are clear and we break them at our peril: judging others who break them may not be our prerogative.

I agree.........
Well said!
I hope one does not think that i judge.....i merely pointed out what is said of the Scriptures........
Knowing my own faults, I am in no position to place judgement on any one.........

And the appalling Mgr Jacques Gaillot -another self-seeking controversialist is just like Spong in many ways (worse, actually).
The former Bishop of Evreux (the Vatican did smack him back in 1995) was exposed as a bare-faced liar over the case of a French-Canadian jailed for paedophilia whom Gaillot appointed as a curé. This was in 21988 -Gaillot denied he knew and then admitted he did.
Since then, he has been a regular feature at any gathering of rentamob.

Unfortunately, one needs pretty fair French to find out about -or to verify my claims concerning -this whited sepulchre; but any questions, and Estragon's votre homme!

Can you repeat that in English now..........as in modern English!!!

'whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness' (Matthew, 23: 27).

Christ denouncing the Pharisees: "sanctimonious hypocrite", in short.

This French sensationalist is just such a one: he plainly realised that while humility generally makes for a good priest, it seldom makes for a famous one.

Thank you........I think .........

Estragon......you are not by any chance referring to me???
Or am I being , as some might say......paranoid???

Can we really trusts Paul words, or at least take them literally, certianly the Book of Revelation is written in a metophorical language. Many people today still debate what they think Paul ment with this book. It almost did'nt make it into the Bible, and at times in the early church was ommitted. Paul like most of the Preachers being dissed in this Thread used the teachigs of Jesus to push his own borrow. Paul and the many books of the Bible that he wrote we can attribute the general opinions once held about slavery, inequality of women, and certian dated hygine matters. It was Paul in one of his letters, said men should keep their hair short to please God. Yet what about all the artwork picturing Jesus with long hair. Can all of the writtings of this Homophobic narrow-minded saint be trustworthy.

[Edited on 24-5-2003 by Maddas]

There is a good deal of evidence that homosexuality is derived from a biological/genetic source. Indeed there has been some studies to attempt to create a test for the possible genetic predisposition of children to homosexuality. (This of course gets into designer children, which is a particularly loathsome subject).

I just have to ask: God made us in His image, correct? The human race (as evidenced by research) has some genetic codes that predispose a certain percentage of the population to homosexuality. Logically, that genetic code was inserted into our genome as part of our entire racial makeup (as the overall percentage of homosexuals to the general population remains stable throughout all cultural lines planetwide).

Therefore, God, for whatever reason, included in us, in making us in His image, a genetic string guaranteeing that a certain percentage of all humans would be homosexual.

Therefore, God must have wanted some humans to be homosexual.

NEW YORK - Scientists have found new evidence that a gene inherited from mothers helps influence whether a man is homosexual, bolstering a study that made headlines in 1993.

"Our result says that genes are involved in male sexual orientation, although they certainly do not determine a person's sexual orientation,'' said Dean Hamer, an author of the study.

"There probably are other biological factors like hormones, for example, and other variables we simply don't know anything about yet.''

The study follows others that have suggested a biological influence in sexual orientation, but scientists still can't explain what makes a person homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual.

The latest study does not identify a specific gene. But like Hamer's 1993 study, it suggests such a gene resides in a particular region of the X chromosome, one of the microscopic thread-like structures that carry genes. Men inherit the X chromosome from their mothers.

www.ticino.com...

Homosexuality is a behaviour, not a physiological characteristic.....It is a choice one makes........it is a lifestyle .................one chooses .......

Unlike animals.............. Man cannot rely exclusively on his instincts and emotions, his instincts and emotions must be controlled by his reason.

Jesus himself promises that the saintly heroes who "persevere to the end" along this "hard way which leads to life" will surely "be saved." (Matt. 7:13; 24:13)

sin is not always something for which the sinner himself or herself is necessarily culpable in a complete and conscious way. There are sins of ignorance and passion, sins which "work in our members," as St. Paul says, even against our rational and conscious wills. (See Romans 6-8)
These are called Passions..........

There are sins which are involuntary,
unwilled, unchosen; sins which overcome people and force them by irrational impulses and compulsions, by weaknesses of the flesh, emotional drives and misguided desires into actions which they themselves do not want, and often despise and abhor - even when they are engaging in them.
These are known traditionally as the sins of passion. The fact that these sins are not freely chosen do not make them any less sinful...............

Through out all of Pauls words and Epistles one can see a man with a profound sence of guilt bordering, or manifesting itself as schizophrenia.

Rom 7:18. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not..................

Again and again Paul drives home his painful revelatory cry. He is under the control of that which he could not master. It had invaded his body, flesh and mind.


Pauls references to the' flesh' clearly describe sexual passion out of control. Flesh produced "fornication, impurity, licentiousness" (Gal. 5:19). The Flesh for Paul was the dwelling place of the evil that possessed him, overwhich he had no control and which produced in him a self-rejection that descended to the intensity of self-loathing. ref Rom. 7:15, 7:21-24, 7:25.

Once you free Paul the 'Man' from the scriptures. And let him speak for himself. You will find a tortured man, his passion for perfection is in direct proportion to his torture. His pursuit of holiness through the Law was necessary to control a power and reality that resided in his body and flesh and over which his mind had no control. For Paul it was some loathsome desire, very probably connected in some way with sexuality, filled with evil and impurity

Paul's passions seems to be incapable of being relieved. Why was that? for it was Paul himself that wrote that if one "could not exercise self control" that person should marry. "For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion" (1 Cor. 7:9). Yet we have no evidence that Paul ever married. He did exhort widows and the unmmarried to "remain single as I do"(1 Cor. 7:8).
Why could Paul not take his own advice and alleviate his passion in marrage. According to Paul sex in marrage, was to keep Satan from tempting "through lack of self-control" (1 Cor. 7:5). Further, he described marriage as 'ideal'- "If you marry you do not sin" (1 Cor. 7:25).

Paul did write "it is well for a man not to touch a woman" (1 Cor. 7:1). Seems that the passion that burned so deeply in Paul could not be dissapated by marriage to a women. Marriage, married love, and married sexual desire were not thought to be evil or loathesome. But Pauls sexual passion did not fit comfortably into this explanatory pattern.

Pauls strictly Homophobic stance could probably be a scared man trying desperately to hide his actual homosexuality.

Paul, being a zealous Jew, understood very well the view the torah has concerning Homosexuals. ref (Lev 18:22, 18:24, 18:29, 20:13). Adding to the turmoil within him, could this be the 'thorn' in the flesh that he wrote of in 2 Cor. 12:7-9. Or the bodily ailment that he believes to be incurable in Gal. 4:13.

Was it deep within these reasons that a Zealous Jew Paul could convert to Christianity, safe within the knowledge that through Jesus Christ salvation from sin and everlasting life where attainable.

My View at least.

Peace

[Edited on 24-5-2003 by Maddas]

Gee we really read for ourselves around here I can tell.

The word is Revelation, singular, not Revelations. This book to which is referred was written by Paul.

The reason why such threads are as useless as airbrakes on a Moped; most of those who debate these Christian topics, and probably the rest of the religious topics, have no clue about what they speak.

The answer, no, don't trust any of Paul's teachings. He was only a man that was knocked off his horse by God in order to get his attention. He was one of the humblest men of God and was a fervent walker with God. Totally disregard him. Believe those who try and discredit him with garbage.

Sorry I popped in here. I'm popping out - for good.

SORRY Thomas I've edited the S from Revelation.
Must have been a Fruiedian slip of the Sexual Straight kind. Or a mere typo. Hardly worth the tantrum though, you still knew the book I was refering too.

And it is but my opinion.

However it does make me feel better that all you can find wrong with my hypothesis is a mere spelling mistake. I did not however say that we should do away with Pauls scripture.

Maybe just the understanding that some churches and groups place apon it in general.

A major function of fundamentalist religion is to bolster deeply insecure and fearful people. This is done by justifying a way of life with all of its defining prejudices. It thereby provides an appropriate and legitimate outlet for one's anger. The authority of an inerrant Bible that can be readily quoted to buttress this point of view becomes an essential ingredient to such a life. When that bible is challenged, or relativized, the resulting anger proves the point catagorically.

Even though there is no direct evidence of Paul's being married, there may be circumstantal evidence that he was. Before converting Paul was a Pharisee ("circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;"). Since the Pharisee's followed Mosaic law to the letter and followed Hebrew customs, he was probably married. (Maybe his wife dumped him after he decided to turn his life over to evanglism.)

Or may be that the New Testament was about Jesus Christ and His teachings.............and not the lives of the Apostles ...........

There is oral tradition that is passed down ........and it is written down in other books..

Again, people will always make them appear to what they want them, and not what is fact.......

So , in the end it is about Faith and being aware of all things around you.....You are sheep amongst wolves.....