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Recent content by willem

  1. W

    Well, why are you a liberal?

    Huh? Care to elaborate?
  2. W

    Well, why are you a liberal?

    I'm a liberal because JC was beyond liberal. His life was (is) about challenging and destabilizing institutions and and pompous religious machinery while elevating the value of the individual. Liberalism is something akin to optimistic dissent. When I look around the Church, I'm infuriated by...
  3. W

    WWMC roll call

    I never realized there was such a list--I suppose this is the downside to ignoring all those stickies. Please add me! Thanks, willem
  4. W

    Lost Christian here . . . .

    +1 on Blue Like Jazz. Great read.
  5. W

    Christian Right Determined to Drive People Away from God

    You're right, but you're thwarting the business model. Mystery doesn't fill pews (or bank accounts). Fear does, and more importantly, selling the notion of immunity from said fear really makes people feel good, in control. So they give to support what makes them feel good and the feel-good...
  6. W

    Incongruence in Christian Beliefs

    I think Paul was a work-in-progress for most of his ministry & writings. He starts to get it right late in the epistles, but I honestly think his writings do more harm than good. They're too easily bent to meet the warped social agendas of people with un-Christlike world views. 100% agree...
  7. W

    The biggest obstacle...

    I'll take that as permission to further the derailment. You can take comfort in knowing that your hometown will benefit from hosting the olympics for decades. Salt Lake City and Atlanta have reaped many benefits from the exposure and capital investments. That said, I think I'd be sick of the...
  8. W

    The biggest obstacle...

    Amen, Dalai. If you're secure in what you believe, you won't feel threatened by other beliefs--or feel compelled to force-feed your religion to others. Moreover, I think he's speaking to the inherent misguidedness of any religion. The second you forget about the search for the Good, for the...
  9. W

    Christian Right Determined to Drive People Away from God

    New Covenant, anyone? So you believe, first, that nothing happens naturally, and second, in Intelligent Design. Interesting . . . . But what if God intelligently designed the physics of the Universe, and what if those designs were accomplished by laws which govern how nature behaves, and...
  10. W

    Incongruence in Christian Beliefs

    My point exactly. If God's will is distinctly his own -- and I believe it is -- what's the point of praying? He will do whatever He will do anyway. We can choose to accept it or not. It seems to me that regardless of how many people are praying for something, God allows/tolerates/chooses not...
  11. W

    Incongruence in Christian Beliefs

    There's a certain intellectual dishonesty in one of the core axioms of Christianity, and I've never fully been able to get my head around it. Maybe the incongruence is a misperception on my part. You tell me. We're supposed to pray unceasingly, like Paul said, and lift our concerns up to God...
  12. W

    Leaving fundamentalism: Your advice?

    If your experience is anything like mine: First, know that they're hurt. Your courageous decision to ask the hard questions without forcing the canned answers has shaken them, and they may take it out on you. They still love you, and you them, but everyone just needs time to get re-adjusted...
  13. W

    Why did early Christians re-arrange the Hebrew scriptures?

    Interesting. Have you any idea what the thematic reasons the revisions would've been? Just out of curiousity, before the Septuagint, were the Hebrew texts sets of scrolls or were they bound into a codex? Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
  14. W

    Why did early Christians re-arrange the Hebrew scriptures?

    I recently heard a Biblical scholar explain that the ordering of the Hebrew scriptures as found in the Bible varies from their ordering in the ancient Hebrew manuscripts. I asked him why, and he said that most theologians believe that it was done intentionally to "enhance the sense of...
  15. W

    Christ, War, and US Foreign Policy

    Hello, I've been prayerfully considering the US's role in foreign policy for some time now, and I would greatly appreciate it if some of my fellow Christian brothers and sisters would share their views. Here is my dilemma: Like many of us, I've struggled to reconcile our involvement in the...