Quite a culture we live in where encouraging people to learn about another's faith will get you fired.

Further anxiety could well result from concern about the pilots state of mind and hence ability to fly an airplane.

but insulting non-Christians by calling them "crazy" is as un-Christlike an attitude as I can come up with

I don't want to start something here, but I can't agree with that statement.

Because I see a lot of Christian-like behavior all the time. That pilot displayed some. But not a lot of Christ-like behavior to be found.

helping Drakino get to Amersfoort. That's about the coolest damn thing I've seen in a while.

As long as they can keep their faith ouf of their policy, I see no problem with it. Who cares if someone is Christian, Muslim, Jew or atheist?

- At a time of much anxiety about flight safety the pilots intentions could easily have been misinterpreted.

But if good Christians don't want to be associated with these people, I think they need to denounce them.

Now, televangelists are Christian.

Nor do I believe that all Christians think that everyone but them is going to hell...

I would define "Christian behavior" as the behavior exhibited by Christians.

It remains to be seen if the pop singer's "experience" amounts to a conversion or if it is another crass publicity stunt or the workings of a deeply confused mind. A similar incident with actress Jane Fonda which took place a few years ago has not resulted in the actress altering her strident pro-abortion stand.

Now, televangelists are Christian.

However, you have to admit that there are Christians who act in these ways, and that does influence how others see Christians as a whole. Just as the behavior of a very small fraction of the world's Muslim population has influenced how people look at Muslims as a whole.

shows two related articles

pro-abortion

This quote probably sums it up:

It remains to be seen if the pop singer's "experience" amounts to a conversion or if it is another crass publicity stunt or the workings of a deeply confused mind. A similar incident with actress Jane Fonda which took place a few years ago has not resulted in the actress altering her strident pro-abortion stand.

You judge what a belief system truly, in their foundation, stands for by the actions of the fundamentalists.

Yes, that summed up the fundamentalist Christian view quite well for me too. Notice how they manage to get contempt for Britney Spears, contempt for Jane Fonda, and contempt for pro-abortion Christians all into just two sentences.

Why isn't this news?

pro-abortion

I love that term.

The by-line is LifeSiteNews.com and their mission statement includes the snippet `` LifeSite emphasizes the social worth of traditional Judeo-Christian principles''

Well, Richard Gere is a Buddhist, which he seems pretty genuine about, and no one talks about that, either, despite it being more off-center.

Of course this all depends on how you define "fundamentalism"

Christian literally means Christ-like...

Can someone get us a 3.00 beta so we have something else to talk about ?

Yep; for anybody reading this, the whole "virgin birth" ship has sailed (to mix a metaphor).

the teachers refuse to explain the meaning or origin of B.C. and A.D. when referring to dates

Is that a threat to the empeg guys?

Actualy I'd say this is one of the best talks about religon that we have had in a while.

... don't make flippant comments like that and expect others to shrug it off.

Yeah, I guess that would be pretty much unprecedented on this board.

How do you feel about Monty Python's "Life of Brian"?

I own it on DVD.

... none of it is to be taken seriously.

How do you feel about Monty Python's "Life of Brian"?

I don't see the scientists coming up with anything better...

"Before the big bang, there was nothing. And then that nothingness exploded."

I don't think either side has a lock on the award for "Least Believeable Explanation".

Stars that are more than 4,000 light-years away.

Both state a point of origin but don't offer any concrete details about what came before that.

Stars that are more than 4,000 light-years away.

the current scientific view of creation?

exercise in ridiculous logic

Jesus made fish appear (apparently) out of thin air

Why are you wasting your time?

not what I'm speaking of

I think it's probably a good idea to do that all that time. At least, it seems to me that it's a good idea.

Science has been able, with collected data and repeatable experements, to trace back the history of the universe to one 10^-43 th of a second after "The Big Bang"

Time is something He created. Therefore any statments such as "before God..." are, well.....invalid.

Which doesn't explain how God was created.

Since Tony pointed out the my comment was both oversimplified and mistaken, I kinda wanted to hear his in-depth explanation.

"Before the big bang, there was nothing. And then that nothingness exploded."

Which doesn't explain how God was created.

The point is, when you peel back all the layers, when you get to the heart of it, when you have found the "unmoved mover" that is God.

even though a lot of stuff involving string theory and M theory goes WAY over my head.

Both explanations leave even more fundamental questions dangling.

In fact I actually like ["Life Of Brian"] better than the "Holy Grail". I know, I know, that's heretical...

A final answer to anything important generally does sound like a cop-out

It's a much funnier version of Scorsese's point in The Last Temptation Of Christ about the gulf that can exist between what actually happened, and how history is written

Oh, and I'd always thought the loaves and fishes thing was a sociological story about Christ persuading people to share what they had with one another, not a stage-magic story about Christ pulling 5,000 fishes out of a top hat.

Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things.

As far as the loaves and fishes miracle goes, It is my understanding that there was a problem with a croud that had followed Jesus into the wilderness. Out of this crowd, only a young boy had had the forethought to bring lunch. By the time the disciples had finished passing around the food, there was enough levt over to fill twelve baskets, as is to show that it was, indeed, a miracle. How this could come from people just sharing with each other is beyond me. It wasn't a pot-luck dinner, these people were walking in the wilderness.

As objects move closer to the speed of light, time slows down. If time can be manipulated in this way, then time is no longer a direct ray into infinity. It becomes a palpable thing which can be manipulated. (albeit not by us, as we can't even come close to the speed of light.) Now, if God is omnipresent, then what does that do to his speed? Or does he even have one? If God is no longer bound by speed,or distance, then what of any boundaries of time?

you could never have gotten to now since you could always go back further and further

...sorry it's in KJV, but it's still pretty clear and it's all I have handy in electronic form

which was FITNR when Allah dictated the Koran Himself

Thank heavens someone had the forethought to bring twelve baskets!

And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

Time flows in a constant direction.