I just got through watching my two favorite biblical movies, "Bend-Her" and "Sodomy and Gomorrah". :D

Holy posting - 1846 posts in this thread? Who knew this thread would get so enormous? Clearly not me! ;-p

Since this thread is STILL going I got a question for the religious.

Why does a god need praise and worship?

Surely such an all powerful being would be above that. Only petty human beings need that. (cult leaders, "celebrities" etc. Have you ever seen the Oscars? What a circle jerk!) Why would a grand creator/overseer even need acknowledgement?

He doesn't. I worship God because He deserves to be worshiped.

In other words, "the concepts of reality make experience possible, our experiences do not make their underlying concepts possible."

Don't get me wrong, there are some awesome morals and humbling reminders of our limits and mortality within the Bible, for example, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when it is they who threadeth out the corn" (Deuteronomy, 25:4) and "Shall the clay say to the one that fashioneth it, What Makest Thou?" (Isaiah, 45:9) I'd just rather consult Proverbs for philosophical guidance, rather than take the entire Testament scriptures as history.

Why does he deserve it? And if he doesn't need it then isn't it pointless?

Sorry, I mean to reply to this sooner. Just as it's difficult to believe that someone rose from the dead, it's difficult to believe miraculous claims, but they are too numerous and well attested to dismiss out of hand, especially the instances where they are medically documented. While it was a patriarchal society, Jews treated women much better than surrounding societies and they had many laws in the Torah that gave protection to them. There were also many women who held important leadership roles in the early Church.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/grok558/2014/02/22/deeper-waters-women-in-the-nt The focus on Christianity isn't on the death of Jesus, but on his resurrection, so it's not on death, but life. Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed because God was murderous, cruel, and power hungry, but because they were being judged for their wickedness. If there had been any righteous, then they would have been sparred. Genocide is targeting a group of people because of there ethnicity, so I'm not sure why you think God committed genocide. In fact, he targeted people because they were doing human sacrifices, among other reasons. When you talk about a God of love and justice, it only makes sense that He would have wrath towards those who obstructed it. There are Gnostic teachings that the body is evil, but that is not the case with Christianity.

Do you prefer snails or oysters?

This thread is still going? That's a record I think, theses usually die after about 500 posts :P. Too bad I've got some important deadlines approaching so unfortunately I won't be able to participate "properly". Still going to read through it once I'm in the safe zone (I don't think the thread is going to last another 2 months).
So just a very short reaction to what caught my eye.

And yet, the greatest saint of them all is a woman :P.
I would really like to see a source for that. That's not the impression I got from Church Fathers. And Mary is not a goddess (despite what Jack Chick may think that the Church teaches ;)).

Apologies in advance for potential (very) late replies.

I personally would like to see everyone read Neale Donald Walsch's first trilogy.

It is possible to believe in God without subscribing to all the do's and don'ts of organized religion.

I wish more people actually realized that.

I'm going to get shit for this but there are too many people out there (NOT EVRYONE) who like being told what to do. I don't mean in a slavery way, it's just a lot easier any time a dilemma comes up to have 'god' telling you which way to go with it. I love human beings but since we first crawled out of the primordial ooze we've shown a distinct inability to want to think for ourselves. Point being without those 'do's and don'ts' a lot of folks wouldn't be able to get out of bed every morning; they'd be too scared and confused.

No problem :-)

I don't believe in miracles in the sense of some external supernatural power taking an influence of the world. Things I've witnessed and done could be considered miracles by some (or "magick"). But I think they're entirely natural, just in a plane of reality that science does not look into. The science world (like religious folk) has their own restrictions on free thought. Scientists are too afraid to embarass themselves in front of their colleagues to try to look into the "metaphysical" realm. Or maybe, like on the quantum level the result of the experiment is influenced by the intention of the observer, there are things that kind of "refuse" to be measured and picked apart.

I'd like to have some sources for that. I've not ever read anywhere that the jew treated women better than, say, the Greek or Romans. On the contrary, with a pantheon that included goddesses like Athene, those women had a good chance to high-ranking positions in society.
Also it's pretty well documented how christianity treated women and how their situation turned a lot for the worse when the Christans took over. Don't be blind.

No the focus is enduring this life, and if bad happens it's obviously God's will and wait for the reward after death. And death means the individual death and the end of the world. If life was the message, why is the Christian symbol one of suffering and death (the crucifix) and not the ascending Jesus?

And there were no children, pregnant women, mentally challenged people in those cities? Only evil, evil grown-ups that of their own free will and with waterproof evidence of their doing wrong?
And since the old cities were effectivly city states, wiping one out counts as genocide.

Well, wrath should be below an omnipotent being and is incompatible to "justice". I won't go into justice now, because I have no time right now, but you should know the difference between a lynching (the Old Testment's god) and a fair trial.

Then why all the problems with sex and birth control? Why the focus on physical punishment for "sin"? Self-chastising? Those are mostly christan phenomena.