In need of a more humbleness. Why condemning the Theistic position makes no sense.

[Celestine]

You said it was apocrypha as if it somehow discounted the message of that quote, note I'm not saying the entire book is of the same value but that quote I found to be golden.

But, again, religion didn't agree. They waffled, and ultimately decided not to include it. You'll find many examples of this in the apocrypha which, to my mind, contains some of the best thought on the periphery - but it just isn't about whether or not any given quote is golden or whether or not you or I like it, is it?

You said to come back when I had gathered something useful and I did.

Yes, very useful, again, at arguing -my- position. We haven't even begun to unpack this beyond the fact that it got shitcanned. Mostly because that's enough to establish that religion can't even be counted upon to know when a good thing may have landed in it's lap - if this is the only example you have to present. It all comes down to whether or not the narrative toes the party line, obviously. By all means, bring me more of these, make a thread devoted to them. I doubt that I'll be as generous with the next example - but you never know.

My research into religion has just begun, shall I present to you a seed or the tree after its cultivation?

If you read the Shepherd of Hermas you would know that it doesn't deal (from what I've read) with Jesus Christ at all, if you knew about the New Testament you would know that the New Testament deals almost entirely with the life, teachings, and death of Jesus Christ. So it makes sense that they wouldn't put books that didn't relate with the life of Jesus at all in the Bible, not that they didn't have worth.