Note- it takes approximately 100 gallons of gasoline to create 1 ton of CO2, so at $475 per ton you double the cost of gas to capture it all in a best case scenario with the cheapest carbon capture systems if you could build millions of them for free. Mechanical carbon capture is not a solution.

Not mentioned here is the fact that if acidification destroys the base of the ocean food web, the resulting masses of rotting dead sea life is expected to creat massive clouds of hydrogen sulfide that will poison oceans further and spread over most land masses again.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031104063957.htm

Diatoms, and other phytoplankton, are incredibly sensitive to ocean PH and CO2 levels. This can be another feedback loop already in action.
As fewer diatoms photosynthesize, more CO2 goes unused, raising the concentration, lowering the numbers and health of phytoplankton, allowing more CO2 to go unused, raising the concentration, .....
Every molecule of CO2 added to ocean systems removes one molecule of carbonate, which is necessary for the uptake of iron among other processes. By 2100, surface carbonate is expected to decrease by up to 50%. That may well be below the levels diatoms can tolerate.

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/key-biological-mechanism-disrupted-ocean-acidification

If phytoplankton goes, so does the food web. They are the base. If the ocean food web collapses, eventually the bacteria that eat dead sea life will create huge clouds of hydrogen sulfide that cover the land, poisoning any still living organisms there. This has happened before, but on a much longer timescale, with near life ending results for earth.

Hydrogen Sulfide, Not Carbon Dioxide, May Have Caused Largest Mass Extinction. ... "During the end-Permian extinction 95 percent of all species (and >98% of all biomass) on Earth became extinct, compared to only 75 percent during the KT when the dinosaurs disappeared,"

A better title might be "diatoms, the tiny glass shards that support all life on earth, are struggling".

Granted, the earth will be fine....but people and other higher life forms probably won't.
Population thinning will come too late, because these effects of overpopulation will last far longer than one generation....unless you mean it will thin out to zero and self correct, which is likely.

What you don't seem to get is that when the ocean acidifies enough, the dead sea life sinks and bacteria causes massive levels of hydrogen sulfide which can then come out of solution and cover land in toxic gas clouds, leading to another "slime world" of slimes and bacteria like happened after the end-Permian extinction.
I wouldn't characterize that as "all is well" myself.

New, just released ocean temperature data has shown a dramatic increase in temperatures in the Northern Pacific, and a dramatic decrease in surface temperatures in the Northern Atlantic. As I understand it, those readings are not consistent with normal 'El Nino' patterns. Could this be the beginning of the end of thermohaline circulation? If that happens we'll be facing unavoidable, unpredictable, worldwide, disastrous climate change in short order.
Without the current created by the thermohaline circulations, the oceans die. Equatorial waters become much hotter...fast...and arctic and Antarctic waters become much colder...fast. Ocean organisms can't live through that kind of change, not in any sizeable way anyway. Without the oceans, the entire food web dissolves and we die.
On top of that, without the currents bringing oxygen to the lower oceans, they become anoxic. The bacteria that live in those deep waters will feed on the dead sea life and create toxic gases (hydrogen sulfide) which have, in the past, completed the extinction events by wiping out nearly all life. Once that starts, it's unstoppable and is the end. Let's hope these readings are just an over active El Nino.

What we do today has little to no effect for 50-100 years. That makes us at least 50 years too late to solve this problem, and we are still exacerbating it rather than solving it to this day.
We're hosed.
If you plan on having children in this climate, you are a child abuser IMO, and are adding to the problem with that one action more than almost any other action normal people perform. Your children will most likely not survive to old age, and absolutely won't experience the same quality of life you have.

I got to go to Jordan on business a couple years ago, and it was probably my favorite trip anywhere, ever. Petra is astonishing and absolutely worth a visit. Gerash and the Dead Sea were just as captivating, and the Jordanian people were lovely.

@shinyblurry: I for one would love to see a scientific approach to the evidence of God and Jesus Christ. I went through a significant amount of religious indoctrination in my youth, having been involved in countless bible studies, missions, and other very emotionally driven events; but, not once was any scientific evidence presented.

Plenty of claims to there being evidence, but mostly things like "look at the mountains and the clouds -- there's your evidence right there" and endless references to the dead sea scrolls and the lack of deviation from those writings to today's printed word of god. Lots of bragging about the number of languages the bible is printed in, and then conclusions lacking in evidence, focusing on scripture and/or how to trick people into accepting that there is a possibility of God, which somehow validates all claims of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Anyway, I'm rambling right now. But point being, after years of disappointment and annoyance at Christianity, I simply stopped reading and attending bible studies. There is NO evidence. Just a bunch of he said, she said, half truths about old documents and their comparison to the documents of today -- which is flat out wrong. There are plenty of deviations. So even what I was taught is incorrect. So, if you have a solid link that outlines scientifically sound evidence for Christianity, please share with us.

Your video, Perfect Salt Cubes In The Dead Sea, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Not entirely true, there is evidence of localised flooding around the arabian peninsula, however it pre-dates the chronology of the 'noah' period by thousands of years.

I cant recall the exact region, but it occured when the ice sheets that used to cover that area receded, it might have something to do with how the dead sea was formed? My memory is shaky on the specifics to be honest, but a giant flood did happen, albeit localised . Nothing to do with spooky sky ghosts or anything like that, just the end of the last ice age around the time that man and mammoth both walked the lands.

The bible is very highly contested, even among Christians. Heck, the major denominations can't even agree with which books belong as part of the Bible. Compare the Old Testament (of any bible) to the Torah and tell me they're the same... They were 99% the same 2000 years ago, but while the Torah hasn't changed, the OT definitely has.

The bible isn't contested between any of the major denominations and I can't think of any denominations where it is contested. This simply isn't true. The only bone of contention is that the catholic bible contains a few more books, which were taken from the Septuagint.

Compare the books of the Old Testament to the books in the Hebrew bibles found in the dead sea scrolls. The manuscripts are pretty much exactly the same and they date to before Christ.

Here is just one hotly debated topic: The Q Source... or, how did the order of the writing of the Gospels affect each other?... and as it's obvious that some other writing inspired two of the gospels, and hence is the Word of God, how could it have gotten lost? (and keep in mind, again, these are Christians arguing over it)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source

Watch this series to get a better understanding of what has really happened over the years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70SYwkoH_yc

I am familiar with higher criticism, and there is no proof there was a Q source. How can you use it to try to discredit the bible when there is no evidence it existed? If you want to present evidence for it, I'll be happy to address it.

I am such a huge fan of your blatant intellectual dishonesty. I've seen you here enough to know that you aren't naive, so you're either dishonest or delusional. Seldom do I find someone that can switch back and forth as much as you do... Claiming that Empiricism is only ineffective in finding the truth when God isn't involved... but when he is involved, Empiricism is the only way TO the truth. Nice.

I'd accept your charge of intellectual dishonesty if it were true but that isn't what I said. I said that you couldn't actually be sure of anything you found out through empiricism without God confirming it. Meaning, God is the only one who can tell you what is true, empirically or otherwise.

And it really is a secret what God can do. I certainly haven't heard anyone predict lightning at a specific time and had it happen, and for every person that is "cured" through prayer, millions die despite their piety.

You haven't heard it because you're not looking for Him. If you were you would hear it. Everone dies; the important thing is where you go afterward.

Anyways, I'm yet again reminded of how futile it is to have any sort of discussion with you, so I'll end it here.

God bless.

remember i am a gnostic so i read the gospels...differently.
i also include ALL the gospels not just those conveniently canonized by the council of nicea.
which is the direction my comment was pointing at.

Ahh, yes, I remember. Before I became a Christian I had gnostic beliefs. I believed in the demiurge for instance, and considered the gospels found in the dead sea scrolls authoratative. However, after much research and some spiritual experience, I have changed my mind. I could bring up objections as to their dates, as many were written far after the fact in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, but my main objection is that I do not believe they were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

What gnosticism does is turn Christianity into a dualistic system, with matter being called evil and spirit being good. It recasts the Father as the "demiurge", a petty and evil tyrant who totally bungled the creation. It subtly shifts the blame for the fall from mankind to God. So now man is no longer to blame for sin, but is just a victim to the brute fact of being born in the material world that an evil demigod created. So naturally, rebellion against all his authority is justified.

Futher, the saving work of Christ is turned on its head. Rather than defeating death and sin on the cross, he came to defeat ignorance of the spiritual realities as teacher of secret knowledge (gnosis). Rather than being saved through substitutionary atonement and spiritual rebirth, we must save ourselves by climbing the ladder of spiritual truths and illuminating our "divine spark". All systems of morality and ethics are perceived as relative truths governing the material reality and irrelevent to the true salvation of gnosis.

So, if I could sum up: God is the devil, rebellion is good, man saves himself (enlightenment), death is a release, and do whatever you want. I think I've heard that somewhere, before..

This is in contrast to what Jesus said:

John 19:30

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Meaning, the work is done. There is nothing more any human can do, or ever could do. He got us the victory, and God put everything under His feet:

Matthew 28:18

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

It is only through Him, and His finished work, that we are liberated

simply put:
the powerful institution known as the church (be it catholic or baptist) have co-opted and twisted the message to fit a narrative which empowers the institution and keeps them relevant.this translates into wealth and political power and influence.
this is the absolute antithesis of christs teachings.
christ held the key.he offered it openly and freely.
THIS disempowered those who desired control and was exactly the point.
those who held seats of power saw this threat clearly and if you cant beat em....co-opt them

While I agree the catholic church perverted the message for their own gain, I think your idea of what the message actually says is a far cry from what the disciples or the early church fathers knew it to say. The baptist church is very much in line with that message. John, for instance, wrote against gnostic teaching when he said:

1 John 4:3

And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

He wrote this because of gnostic claims that Jesus was not united to a body but only appeared that way.

for centuries the catholic church has been the greatest offender but in the past 50 years other institutions have wrestled their way to prominent control and espouse a contradictory and perverted message in order to manipulate their own people in order to gain more influence and power.all in the name of god.

i counsel many,MANY a people who were former fundamentalist,catholics,methodists,lutheran who found themselves in a crisis of faith due to this very perversion.
lets remember that for centuries the bible was an incomplete text (still is imo)and was written in languages the common man could not read (hell,most people were illiterate at that time).it was the printing press and the translation into english (and many many other languages) that freed the common man to read the very thing his entire belief system was based on.
this is a good thing.

Yes, I agree, it is a very good thing that everyone is able to read the word of God; the catholic church definitely engineered that situation of massive ignorance when they banned all translations except the latin vulgate. I also agree that the massive apostacy in the church is leading many people to reject the church altogether. This is very sad and unfortunate, and many of us have much to answer for. It is written that in the last days, many would fall away and believe false doctrines, and because of the increase of sin, the love of many would grow cold.

I must ask you though, what are you teaching these people? Are you telling them there is no such thing as sin and they need to save themselves?

you have a unique starting point in understanding the bible.simply by the fact you were not indoctrinated as a child and can study,research and formulate your own understanding of biblical teachings based solely on your own studies.

This has been an advantage, in that I can better relate to the secular world than most Christians. Even more of an advantage was my spiritual journey of about 8 years before becoming a Christian, where I explored all of the various religions and belief systems.

i have witnessed over a fairly short amount of time an evolution in your comments and responses pertaining to faith and belief.
this is such a good thing to see for it tells me your ravenous curiosity has driven you to attempt to understand.
the path is long and never truly ends but at least you ask the questions and do not blindly follow.
i am interested in seeing where you are in a year...or two..or twenty.
because nothing saddens me more than to discuss religion with someone who is incurious and seeks to be told what to think or how to feel in regards to faith and belief.

I am not incurious, no. I have followed God without any doctrine at all, so it isn't a frightening prospect to consider things from many different angles. One of the reason I do so much witnessing to atheists is because their questions bring me to many different areas of inquiry, and serve to illuminate and enhance my understanding.

I understand the objections people have, because I've had them too. My experience, especially my spiritual experience, has confirmed to me the truth of the word of God, which is universally applicable and experiential in nature. The Holy Spirit guides into all truth, and through Christ, I lack nothing. So, God has answered my objections. This is the truth I recognize:

Proverbs 3:5

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

When you shift the basis of your reason from God to man, you have made yourself Lord over Him. If it only by trusting God to provide the answers that you can understand anything.

if christianity had more people like you and less people like pat robertson or ted haggard,the discussion would be so much more..interesting.
you seek to KNOW.you seek wisdom.that is a very very arduous path and can be a solitary one.
i encounter so many people who seem to conflate the ability to recite biblical chapter and verse as somehow translating to wisdom.
this is a falsehood and the epitome of lazy and is also the reason why they become enraged and will many times resort to the most intellectually dishonest trap of deeming the person who revealed their laziness as coming from the devil.

Christianity has many people like me, but too many who are half-hearted in their faith. What I am interested in is the truth, and not something that merely comforts me. I would rather die than live out a comfortable lie. All wisdom comes from God, it is something He gives freely. Whatever understanding I have is from Him, and not something I accomplished by myself. A lot of Christians are content with a superficial understanding of their faith, but this is mostly due to sin. They take what they want from the message and ignore the parts that command that they change their ways. This leads to much error and ignorance.

What I believe about the devil is that he is the father of all lies. I do not think that someone who believes a lie worships the devil, but I do believe that all those who sin are a slave to sin. There is a difference between worshipping the devil and being fooled by him. Some people do worship him knowingly, but most are simply following doctrines that he created to lead people away from the truth.

so i applaud the path you have chosen.
does this mean you will come to the same conclusions as i?
hehe..probably not.we will most likely still disagree but that does not mean i will not appreciate you as a human being nor dismiss your insights simply due to our disagreeing.

as always,
your brother.

Thanks bro. Neither would I throw out your observations based on our disagreement. I believe Jesus is the only way to know God, and I hope you will come to this conclusion as well, but in the meantime I am sure there is a lot of fruitful dialogue to be had. I have learned a few things from investigating various point you have brought up, and appreciate your insight. I respect your right to believe as you want, and I extend my hand to you as a fellow human being in the image of our Creator.

>> ^enoch

They seem to miss the point that it doesn't matter if god blessed Job more in his latter life, what matters is that a kind and loving god felt the need to prove something to the devil by letting the devil destroy that man's life. Who cares if god was right, it is a jerk thing to do, and not the actions of a god who loves his children.

God wasn't proving anything to Satan, He was acting as a Judge. Satan is like a prosecuting attorney in the court of God. Satan brought Job to trial by laying a false accusation against him, and Job was tested and tried and found innocent.

If that was a human dad who let some people in to destroy his children's lives they would condemn him, it is their dual standards. They let god get away with stuff they would find reprehensible in humans simply because some blokes thousands of years ago picked Jehovah out of a local pantheon and promoted him to the top spot. If they are young Earth creationists, they somehow ignore the part that says the Earth doesn't move and that the heavens move around it.

The problem with this analogy is that you're comparing God to a human being. God isn't like a human dad, he is God. He deals in matters of life and death, matters which extend to every human life. He is the sovereign King and Judge over this world. It is His job to bring judgement, and to decide the course of life. He is the only one who could.

I also see that you're misinterpreting I Chronicles 16:30. It's fairly clear it is saying that nothing is going to move the Earth off its course, not that it doesn't move.

Despite cultures being over 6,000 years old, trees being over 6,000 years old, not to mention stars billions of years away, somehow all that was put in place by God to full the wise and make the believers rely on faith... again a jerk move. It is like the dirty cop who plants evidence against an innocent man, but here it is god so it is okay.

This idea that God plants evidence is a myth, and the people who perpetrate it are the same kind of people who think that Satan rules in hell. No one has a handle on distant starlight; it is a problem with big bang cosmology, check out the "horizon problem". Tree ring dating, much like radiocarbon dating, is predicated on unprovable assumptions, such as a constant rate of growth. The specific trees you are talking about have been proven to grow multiple rings per year in drought conditions and in other circumstances. You say that there are cultures that go beyond 6000 years but its funny that written history only begins around 4000 years ago.

It is also funny that written history begins with advanced civilizations that suddenly spring into existence out of nowhere. You would think if we had been around for 100k years after evolving, there would be 100k years of history, cities, civilizations, etc..but it isn't there. It is much like the cambrian explosion where every major animal body type suddenly sprang into existence into the fossil record. All the major families, orders, classes, and phyla can all be found there, which turns darwinian theory on its head. Which is why they came up with "punctuated equilibrium", which is theory that explains that the reason there is no evidence for transitional forms in the fossil record is because reptiles laid eggs that would sometimes hatch birds. This is also known as the hopeful monster theory.

They ignore the documented evidence of copy errors made in the Bible while it was a written piece, let alone the errors that would have cropped up while it was a verbal tradition. Who cares if the story of the woman at the well doesn't appear in any copies of John, or the commentaries on it, for hundreds of years after the earliest copies of the book, it is there now, which means god wanted it there.

There is greater manuscript witness for the New Testament than any other historical document. The accuracy and integrity of the copies is proven, with over 24000 manuscripts for the NT alone. We can see from the earliest to the latest there is very little discrepency. The same is proven for the OT, when the dead sea scrolls were found. There was virtually no difference in copies with over thousand years between them. In regards to the woman at the well, I have failed to find any controversy about it.

And the hundreds of other biblical texts that were existed when the books of the bible were picked were not discarded for the social/political reasons they appear to have been ignored, but because the books that are there now are the only ones god wanted, and those guys were divinely led to pick just those ones... of course the Catholics or the Protestants have it wrong since their versions don't match. Still, it many cases, save for the King James only crowd, it is okay to use newly found, more reliable texts in modern translations, but still ignore other texts found at the same time.

There isn't any conspiracy. The texts you are referring to were either written by pagans, the gnostics, or were always known to be heretical. Feel free to bring up any examples and I will show you works that have been thoroughly discredited from the outset.

I look at shame during my blind faith period. I would point out all the typical talking points, and get angry at those who challenged what I perceived as the truth. I was never a young earth creationist, but would still point out the stupid things even old earth creationists like pointing out, not caring that those points have been disproved over and over again. I went from Republican to Libertarian and would get mad at the lazy out of work people on welfare and the poor for believing the lies of the liberals and the Democrats, thinking if only they would educate themselves on the truth, they would see the Republicans and Libertarians were their best hope.

It sounds like you were raised in the faith and only believed because of what other people told you. Then, when your faith was challenged by the unbelieving secular world, you fell away because you had no foundation.

Then I did something, I opened my mind. I started watching the sources of information. They said in church and on right wing media that the Constitution doesn't say "separation of church and state" and that comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson, true enough, but then they said that if you actually read that letter, you'll see that he was talking about keeping the government out of church affairs not the other way around. And I repeated that for years. Then, during my awakening, I actually read the letter in full context, I read the original drafts, and I realized they lied. He clearly was talking about keeping the church out of government. I also read the bible critically for the first time, not just accepting the traditional meaning. I saw Jesus as a man who hung out with the sinners, and cared about the poor and sick, and keeping what belonged to god just to god and what belonged to the government with the government.

Even the most unkind and biased analysis of the founders intentions will be forced to conclude that they intended to found this nation on biblical principles. Do you think our freedoms being based on unalienable rights granted by our Creator are just mere words? Or are they the foundation?

this nation was founded not by religionists, but by christians, not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ

Patrick Henry

You are correct about one thing. The church is completely apostate, and has strayed far from the teachings of our Lord. You cannot frame Jesus as a mere man, however. He claimed to be God, the judge of the living and the dead, and the Savior of this world.

All things 100% opposite of what the church, the Republicans and Libertarians seemed to be promoting. I noticed how the bible in Genesis call god...well, god, and then in Psalms, the exact same word is suddenly translated as Angels, because it talks about how god lifted us up to be level with him, and that won't do, we are below god and with the angels... and more and more I noticed that while we are not Jesus, we are equal heirs, and equal children, which doesn't take away any of the majesty, but again pointed to deception on the part of the church leadership. I then noticed other biblical contradictions, and started studying the origins of Christianity and how similar it was to much older religions.

Perhaps you missed these passages?:

Romans 8:17

And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Galatians 4:7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.

No, we are not Jesus, but we are co-heirs and sons. Again, there isn't any conspiracy. As far as the translation of Elohim, this has led to many errors. Check out http://www.gci.org/God/Elohim2

How the Israelites, while in captivity in Babylon, would have known about the Babylonian god of the harvest who sacrificed himself and resurrected... and boy this seems to be a reoccurring theme among ancient pre-Christian religions, a god, sometimes mono-theistic, sacrificing himself for mankind...

Sounds like you've seen Zeitgeist, which is filled with actual bald faced, blatant lies. For example, it makes a connection between Jesus and the various sun gods by drawing a parallel between the word "son" and "sun". The problem with this connection is that they are only similiar words in the English langauge, and not in the langauges of the time. The connection between Jesus and the so-called dying and rising gods in paganism has been thoroughly debunked. Watch:



I went to a pagan service with an open mind and had the same deep, spiritual, emotional connection that I had at the most charismatic of Christian churches... and things started clicking, this whole thing... is fake.

It's no wonder that you had the same spiritual experience in charismatic churches as you did at pagan rituals. That's because they're fueled by the same spirit, which is *not* from God:



I read more, became more educated, and realized the deep and purposeful misleading of the faithful, and my switch became complete. Now I get angry at the Republicans and Libertarians and the religious leaders who keep their flocks in ignorance, while making them think they are free thinking people by controlling the information and encouraging a wrong view of the information that is there..

Even if by some miracle I came to have faith in god again, I could never go back to church again. The lies and nonacceptance of potent truth is just too much. They don't even believe what Jesus himself taught, which was love and compassion, the modern day church is the Pharisees that he campaigned against

Friend, what you never realized is how true this verse is:

Revelation 12:9

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Just as 2+2 has an innumerable number of wrong answers, there are uncountable lies and deceptions, half-truths and myths about Jesus Christ. They are in the church and they are outside the church. All you've done is just go to the other extreme but you still have no idea who Jesus really is.

What you've missed is that to know Jesus is God is to know Him personally. It isn't merely believe what the bible says, it is to invite Him into your heart, to mold you, to change you, and to accept His Lordship over your entire life.

You're right about one thing. To be restored to faith in God would be a miracle, because faith is a gift from God. If you want to know the truth, then ask Him. Pray to Jesus, invite Him into your life, and ask Him to show what the truth really is. Once you know He is everything that He claimed to be, the rest will sort itself out.

>> ^RFlagg:believe what Jesus himself taught, which was love and compassion, the modern day church is the Pharisees that he campaigned against.
</preaching to the choir time

>> ^deathcow:

If you're like me, I know what you are thinking... FINALLY a quality Sea Lamprey repellant, thank goodness.


Three week old dead sea lamprey? You're soaking in it!

Correct.

Lilith mentions

c.40-10BC Dead Sea Scrolls - Songs for a Sage (4Q510-511)
c.500 Gemara of the Talmud
c.800 The Alphabet of Ben-Sira
c.900 Midrash Abkir
c.1260 Treatise on the Left Emanation, Spain
c.1280 Zohar, Spain.

Genesis was written around 1400 years before any of these.

>> ^enoch:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Lilith was never in scripture and was written about over 1000 years after genesis. It was written as Jewish folklore, and developed mostly in the middle ages. Today it is particularly embraced by pagans, gnostics and radical femenists. It's yet another lie, out of millions, that tries to derail the Creation story and that people buy into without doing any research. There is no lilith conspiracy..she never existed.
>> ^xxovercastxx:
@0:34 "Ever since the earth's first woman..."
bzzt! Eve was the earth's second woman.


incorrect.

r10k, I studied the Bible with a respected religious man; one of the few Americans allowed to view and help decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls. We used an annotated version of the Bible that explained the puns, double meanings and other linguistic aspects that would be lost on someone who just picked up a King James at Barnes & Noble. My Prof. provided context, historical and cultural. He showed us more ancient Mesopotamian mythology that contained stories remarkably similar to those in the Bible. He, a religious man (Jewish), presented the book for what it was, with no apologies or attempts to shield us from the books' many contradictions and logical inconsistencies. Warts and all.

I seem to meet all your criteria for being able to have an opinion on the Bible. I've got context, depth and the instruction of a very wise religious scholar. No offense, but I probably understand this book better than you ever will, and yet....

My critical mind tells me this is mythology, like Zeus, or Beowulf, or Gilgamesh, or Frodo, Bilbo and Dumbledore. These are campfire stories from pre-scientific times that attempt to explain the -then many- mysteries of existence. Those days are gone, and we now know that we are not at the center of the universe, that space isn't made of water, that stars are not lights, that the world is not flat, that humans are part of an evolutionary chain and that the earth is billions of years old. Perhaps it's time to embrace the future, r10k, and leave the cave drawings behind you.

Just one person's opinion.... I could be wrong.

Hmmm uncannily pwning attackers on the edge of the dead sea? Think I got the basis for my next L4D monniker.