All due respect to our new friend but I'm a little confused by this thread. The problem with the bible? That suggests there is only one. Unless that problem is the fact that the damn thing exists, I fear there's a can of worms of titanic proportions just waiting for a tin opener.
Plus while I echo pad's sentiments, especially regarding the intellectual snobbery thing, I do find myself agreeing in part with new friend that the bible, just as with any book deemed to be holy, tends to exert an emotional influence over anyone fool enough to accept it as a) history and/or b) instructions for how to live and what to think. I fear this is what you can expect to get with the carrot-and-stick approach.
Incidentally, it's encouraging to see the RCC finally catching up with the realities of the Universe that science has learned independently of revelation. I don't know how this squares with the Word of God supposedly being unchanging, though.
Plus while I echo pad's sentiments, especially regarding the intellectual snobbery thing, I do find myself agreeing in part with new friend that the bible, just as with any book deemed to be holy, tends to exert an emotional influence over anyone fool enough to accept it as a) history and/or b) instructions for how to live and what to think. I fear this is what you can expect to get with the carrot-and-stick approach.
Incidentally, it's encouraging to see the RCC finally catching up with the realities of the Universe that science has learned independently of revelation. I don't know how this squares with the Word of God supposedly being unchanging, though.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
