If the book is flawed, as you say, and this is, I take it, in regards to science and reality, then why preach the Gospel at all, seeing as those teachings come from this flawed book? If it gets so much wrong, then anything proceeding from it should be taken with a grain of salt, methinks. Just because someone is prepared to receive it doesn't mean that you should give it to them. That's leading them down a path from which they most likely will not return.

(July 23, 2013 at 9:52 am)Chuck Wrote: If Christianity can be made both internally consistent as well adaptable to any knowledges and discoveries outside the understanding of those yokels who originally propounded it, then it wouldn't have included in the first place any special claim to having special received truth, nor nailed itself to the ridiculous plank of shady god man who fucked his own mother to give himself birth, nor insulted all mankind by insinuating mankind needed "saving" by such as that.

You do seem stuck on reading the bible literally. If one reads the bible as wisdom stories with no historical basis, then everything can be seen in a different light. No one is stuck with anything. What theists make of what remains from reading the bible in such a light may be as various as the ways atheist find meaning in a life devoid of gods.

(July 24, 2013 at 11:21 am)BadWriterSparty Wrote: If the book is flawed, as you say, and this is, I take it, in regards to science and reality, then why preach the Gospel at all, seeing as those teachings come from this flawed book?

You misunderstood. I did not say nor do I consider the book flawed. It serves the purpose for which it was intended. What I did say was that I consider it a flawed approach to base your understanding of cosmology etc on the Bible.

Since you asked why I spread the Gospel, it is because it promises victory over the obsessions and compulsions that enslave us. The Good News is not a "get out of hell free card", but rather deliverance as part of our everyday lives.

Note to Moderators: I am responding to a question about the Gospel and not preaching.

Kudos to not preaching, but I would just ignore that even if you were. What's more fascinating about your response is that you seem to think that we have certain obsessions and compulsions that only the Bible can help us overcome. De fuk? Can you name a few that aren't based in spirituality?

(July 24, 2013 at 3:49 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Can you name a few that aren't based in spirituality?

Will and intellect are part of your spiritual being. As such any desire to do evil and holding on to the falsities that justify such desires is a spiritual problem.

Quote:Since you asked why I spread the Gospel, it is because it promises victory over the obsessions and compulsions that enslave us.

Seems to me that you merely substitute another obsession. That is no "victory."

(July 24, 2013 at 8:01 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(July 24, 2013 at 3:49 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: ...you seem to think that we have certain obsessions and compulsions that only the Bible can help us overcome. De fuk? Can you name a few that aren't based in spirituality?

Will and intellect are part of your spiritual being. As such any desire to do evil and holding on to the falsities that justify such desires is a spiritual problem.

I don't care if you think these things are connected. That's all existential bullshit, and you haven't even proven that anything spiritual exists in observable reality. Let's separate will, intellect, love, hate, measels, chickenpox....everything from what you think spirituality may or may not entail, and please answer the question that I posed to you earlier: Can you name a few [obsessions and compulsions that only the Bible can help us overcome] that aren't based in spirituality/voodoo/bloodymary?

(July 24, 2013 at 10:57 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Can you name a few [obsessions and compulsions that only the Bible can help us overcome] that aren't based in spirituality/voodoo/bloodymary?

No. In the end they are all spiritual problems, since obsessions and compulsions affect the will and/or intellect. While a person can make progress, it cannot be sustained without the spiritual foundation.

(July 26, 2013 at 1:05 am)ChadWooters Wrote:

(July 24, 2013 at 10:57 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Can you name a few [obsessions and compulsions that only the Bible can help us overcome] that aren't based in spirituality/voodoo/bloodymary?

No. In the end they are all spiritual problems, since obsessions and compulsions affect the will and/or intellect. While a person can make progress, it cannot be sustained without the spiritual foundation.

Then you are demonstrably wrong, since I don't subscribe to spirituality, yet my will and intellect are intact. Now stop bullshitting and stalling and please answer my fucking question, or I am done here. If you can't even meet me on my level when I pose a hypothetical or a philosophical question that doesn't quite line up with your world view, you will never learn to communicate with others...EVER.

Your move, boss.

(July 26, 2013 at 1:44 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Then you are demonstrably wrong, since I don't subscribe to spirituality, yet my will and intellect are intact.

Are they? But this is a thread about evolution and the biblical text to continue with this tangent would be disrespectful to the OP and those who wish to weight in on the subject.