Jesus was a Jewish rabbi......PERIOD

[walrus]

Miles, although I have not practiced my faith all my life I was raised Catholic. You have rallied against me a number of times saying I preach and twist the bible. I actually only bring it up in threads like this. I'm not big on preaching, maybe I should be but I realise it is not a strong point for me.

I have no issue with you not beleiving. What baffles me sometimes is your contempt and hostility towards faith. You speak against the closed mindedness of the religious but it appears you do the same with your beliefs. I find faith fascinating. I love reading theology. I would have to say faith wise I am still lacking but I always think it does bring a bit more sense to a place that doesn't make sense. So to reiterate, my issue is not with you not believing just your hostility towards those who do

[Gandalf]

Miles, although I have not practiced my faith all my life I was raised Catholic. You have rallied against me a number of times saying I preach and twist the bible. I actually only bring it up in threads like this. I'm not big on preaching, maybe I should be but I realise it is not a strong point for me.

I have no issue with you not beleiving. What baffles me sometimes is your contempt and hostility towards faith. You speak against the closed mindedness of the religious but it appears you do the same with your beliefs. I find faith fascinating. I love reading theology. I would have to say faith wise I am still lacking but I always think it does bring a bit more sense to a place that doesn't make sense. So to reiterate, my issue is not with you not believing just your hostility towards those who do

No, you don't preach really and in truth, I don't really see any issues with moderate religious people, and by moderate, I mean those who accept evolution, accept the long haul view of the universe and the creation of earth, accept pragmatic abortion etc. I think some, if not many Christians and Muslims are of this type. Having reread Dawkins recently, he is very cynical of all religion, but I can tolerate it if it doesn't try to interfere with me. Having never been somewhere like the Bible belt, I have always been in relatively moderate circles and in truth have rarely ever known religious people. Perhaps I would be much more like Dawkins if I had actually ever come face to face with a creationist. I am sure my head would explode at the situation.

I am hostile towards organised religion, as I believe it to be mostly made up of unsubstantiated hocus pocus, and along the way has gained enormous wealth. I am always cynical of such things. I find the Catholic churches historical attitude towards all kinds of things quite sick. Pope Pius 12th for instance refused to condemn the actions of Hitler, the churches historical loathing of the Jews, the opulence and yet encouragement of poor people to breed, the unhealthy interest in private sex lives, peodophilia scandals etc etc. It has often deviated far from any recognised moral line. And at its core, the story of Jesus, is one that I just don't believe to be true. I believe someone like him existed, but Son of God and all that magic stuff? Are we watching Peter Pan here?

For me personally the main reason I object to faith, is precisely because of that word: faith. It means to suspend logic and just believe, despite there really being nothing to back it up. There is no evidence of a God, certainly in the Biblical sense. Why do the matyrs get all the virgins, and what do they really feel about this? Is this consensual? So many dodgy weird things in religion and just a bunch of stuff in a few books. None of it can be backed up in any way. Science is constantly revising, but the Bible stays as it is always. Seemingly it is too perfect to alter, but surely the Old Testament could go for a start as God seems like a petulant teenager. It's no different to kids worshipping Justin Bieber. Juvenile and silly.