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So, you just don't believe in God at all. Or do you believe in a God who just sits and does nothing. Who creates everything and yet has no wisdom or nothing to contribute? Doesn't make any sense. A god like that is no God at all. Are you putting God into a box that makes you comfortable? Any God willing to go into that box is no God at all.

Megan, I like your way of thinking <img src="/images/graemlins/music.gif" alt="" /> It's exactly my thoughts also and it's what I teach my kids.

I think Christians are the ones who put God in a box. They give Him childish and ignorant attributes.

I think Bill Hicks said it best:

Get this, I actually asked one of these guys, OK, dinosaur fossils - how does that fit into you scheme of life? Let me sit down and strap in. He said, "Dinosaur fossils? God put those there to test our faith." I think God put you here to test my faith, Dude. You believe that? "uh huh." Does that trouble anyone here? The idea that God.. might be.. messin' with our heads? I have trouble sleeping with that knowledge. Some prankster God running around: "Hu hu ho. We will see who believes in me now, ha ha." [mimes God burying fossils] "I am God, I am a prankster."

And another:

Christianity has a built-in defense system: anything that questions a belief, no matter how logical the argument is, is the work of Satan by the very fact that it makes you question a belief.

Seriously, though, I refuse to see God as a petulant child, going around and "testing" us all the time. Seems to me that He's got better things to do, and seriously, if God doesn't have better things to do than bury fake dinosaur bones to test me, I'd rather go hang out with the other guy.

(holding my hand up for a gimme 5) !!!!!!

Eva

Try reading the Bible if you want to understand Christians. Until then you are just pontificating and speculating.

I've read the Bible, and not just in English; I read Hebrew and, with a lot of help from dictionaries, ancient Greek, so I've read parts of it in Hebrew and Ancient Greek as well. Have you?

I've also read the Koran (in English only, unfortunately), The Torah, Talmud and other Jewish Scriptures, The Book of Mormon, huge amounts of Buddhist, Taoist and Hindu texts, and plenty of writings by modern atheists, agnostics, neo-pagans and New Age practitioners.

It seems to me that the Bible (Jesus's sayings, in any case) and Modern Christianity have very little in common. And believe me, I have the same complaint about other religions as well... ANY SORT OF FUNDAMENTALISM sits poorly with me. Fundamentalism is the enemy of peace, and, ultimately, tends to self-destruct.

I like faiths where you MUST question; where God (or the plural/feminine/nonexistence thereof) is peaceful and forgiving and mostly pretty much hands-off.

I'm not so sure, you seem to be proving our point somewhat.

But you didn't read the Bible with a heart after God. The Bible is the only book in the world that as you read it, it reads you. Your heart, that is. The Bible is a parable, designed to be only understood one piece at a time by those whose hearts truly seek after God. If you had truly "read" the Bible instead of surface reading it, you would be a Christian instead of a mishmash of false religions.

I'm still waiting for you to prove Christianity. There's nothing academic that you know about Christianity that I don't. I guarantee you that. So where's the proof?

And by the way, "The Bible is a Parable"? Can I quote you on that? Because, golly gee whiz, it seems to me that fundamentalist Christians are always spouting off about how the Bible is the LITERAL WORD OF GOD. A parable, by definition, is quite the opposite. So which is it? Y'all would have a lot more success converting people like me if you could get your stories straight.