Morality

[Moral Orel]

Missing the point of the scriptures! By representing them as God's universal and timeless standard instead of what he allowed at a particular time and place 1000s of years ago with a developing culture, who was evil, and surrounded by cultures that were more evil, you create a strawman!

Of you have children you recognize that you train them over time, not in a minute. You work based n their cognitive and developmental limitations. Do you assume the chosen people were good, ever in their 1800+ year history?

As to what is or isn't part of anachronism, I. Already made the point that a hugely important part of Old and New Testaments were written by murderers or their accomplices! That should have disabused you of thinking, "this is a book that is just like every other religious book."

Your premise 1

The Bible represents perfect morality divinely handed down to man and represented in how Hebrews treated others in the OT, and Christians lived and treated others in the NT.

THAT IS A FALSE PREMISE!

That is what I'm saying. Ad God, through his prophets says it innumerable times. At least 35 of 39 kings of Israel in the Old Testament are evil.

The issues you are bringing up would have to be commanded by God and universally, such as the Ten Commandments. And not abrogated by same.

Now if you want to inveigh against the immorality of the Ten Commandments, go ahead, but explain to me how arguing against Israel or Paul's complicity in slavery in a world surrounded by slave cultures, is not anachronistic!

And of coarse the bigger issues is, how do you justify objective morality at all, to even call murder wrong on atheism. So people claiming universal moral codes sans theism are in the unenviable position of having no ground whatsoever for their base claim.

I'm sorry, but this post is a mess. You misrepresent my position wildly. I don't think that premise is true, obviously, so it isn't a premise of mine. You also seem to think I have a problem with Paul and Moses, which I don't. I'm talking about what The Bible says. Is what Moses and Paul say in the Bible divinely inspired? If it is not, then we are not in disagreement. If it is, then I'm clearly not talking about what Moses and Paul think on the matter.

And the argument from objective morality is irrelevant. You're conflating "I don't think anyone should ever own slaves" with "owning slaves is wrong no matter what anyone thinks". Those are not the same thing.

I believe slavery is wrong because of the harm it causes, and that harm exists in any culture, in any time period. Did the harm somehow not exist in their culture or in that time period? And no, I don't blame Moses and Paul for not realizing that harm exists all on their own.

 

[Uber Genius]

That's not what I said. I didn't say it would be right if all Christians agreed. I said that if there was a good answer to the argument, and if the argument is bad, then it wouldn't have a bunch of different Christians coming up with their own unrelated theories to explain it away. You've got my reasoning backwards. If a bunch of Christians agreed on something, it wouldn't make it true. But if there were an obvious answer, there would be a bunch of Christians who know it. If this was such an absurd argument, there would be an obvious answer. Are you the one and only brilliant Christian here that has it all figured out?

They have figured it out and I posted!

You have fundamentally misrepresented the nature of the scriptures creating a strawman representation.

Building off of that strawman with the illicit premises of the Bible is a moral code book, and the moral codes in ancient Palestine have to comport with your view of morality.

These are the fundamental mistakes your are making.

Your appeal is to Christians, but if you studied the nature of the scriptures you might find out that you are representing them in a way that few Biblical scholars would.

Because Christians are ignorant of the God's progressive revelation through scripture doesn't mean anything. I could appeal to masses of college freshmen who have taken a physics 101 class and ask them to describe what aspect of the early universe leads to a potential multiverse and why and I would fill a large database with unintelligible answers.

Biblical scholars will help.

Your anachronism is common to Dawkins, Harris, Krauss, Hitchens.

Slavery, death penalty offenses in Levitical laws, views of women, are all transported out of their place and time 3500 years and put on stage for everyone to marvel at. A showman announces, "This is God's idea of perfect?"

Those Christians that are ignorant of why this line of reasoning is fallacious, weigh in. Defending something that is nothing more than a stage prop.

The answer to a fallacy is "that is a fallacy, and therefore incoherent, in other words invalid."

This is why philosophers, sympathetic to atheism, pan the books by Dawkins because his arguments are so bad.

Take the view I mentioned early and your complaints disappear.

 

[Moral Orel]

Take the view I mentioned early and your complaints disappear.

This one?

Clearly the Bible is written, not as a moral code but as a variety of experiences having to do with God or his people written by over 40 authors, from Kings to outlaws, criminals to heroes, the poorest to the richest, spanning 1500+ years.

While I could agree with this, it doesn't sound much like divine inspiration. Do you not buy into divine inspiration? That's the vibe I'm getting, though you haven't come right out and said it. So here are two direct questions:

Did God write the specifics of OT Law, or did Moses?
When Paul tells people how to act, are those God's thoughts, or Paul's opinions?

 

[Hawkins]

"I can improve upon the morality of the Bible if I copy it word for word and then reverse its position on slavery." -Matt Dillahunty

I believe that when it comes to morality, atheism defeats theism simply by remaining silent. Abrahamic religions contain commandments, concessions and/or encouragements for all of the following:

Abortion Numbers 5:11-31
Rape Deuteronomy 22:28-29
Slavery Leviticus 25:44-46
Genocide 1 Samuel 15:2-3
Mass murder Genesis 7


Compounding the problem is 1 John 3:4, which says,

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

The law is the law of Moses. Therefore, I have my doubts when a Christian claims that certain laws of the Old Testament are a covenant between Jehovah and Israel while other laws in the Old Testament are absolute and/or eternal. If this is your position, please list for us the laws which have expired and I will assume that all other laws are still in effect. If your position on morality is more complicated than that, please elucidate it and we will engage from there.

The identifiable argument of this thread:

1.) If Biblical morality (the law) can be improved, then it is from man and not from God.
2.) The law can be improved.
3.) The law is from man and not from God.
4.) We are not accountable to the law.
5.) Christ's death and resurrection, if they occurred, were pointless.
6.) Christianity is pointless.

They are rather a recording of what happened to the Jews. You need to understand the background first before you choose to fight with your rebellious spirit. Your assumptions are out of your own rebellious mind.

I believed that I have explained most of what you have listed in the OP. If you insist on applying a twisted view of what is said, none can help.

 

[Uber Genius]

This one?

While I could agree with this, it doesn't sound much like divine inspiration. Do you not buy into divine inspiration? That's the vibe I'm getting, though you haven't come right out and said it. So here are two direct questions:

Did God write the specifics of OT Law, or did Moses?
When Paul tells people how to act, are those God's thoughts, or Paul's opinions?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

They are rather a recording of what happened to the Jews. You need to understand the background first before you choose to fight with your rebellious spirit. Your assumptions are out of your own rebellious mind.

I believed that I have explained most of what you have listed in the OP. If you insist on applying a twisted view of what is said, none can help.

I've read the whole Bible. I know what it says. The Jews were not always the victims. Your statement is utterly false.

 

[Moral Orel]

@Uber Genius You quoted me, but you didn't write anything...

 

[Uber Genius]

So let's assume that the textual transmission of OT and NT is accurate, and it is not.

Inerrancy is an interesting concept. It affirms that God can communicate through special revelation rather than just personally to each one of us or not at all. That he uses words. That he gives these words to men who have the freedom to represent them in ways they see fit. That these words represent the whole panoply of genres. It suggests that the original text had a meaning that God intended and that the original audience would have understood. Further that with hard work we can get to what the original audience understood and the words can be useful across the generations.

There will be copying errors leading to 400,000+ variants in NT texts alone, but with over 98 % consistency (and growing). Also no textual variants change or impact significantly, any Christian doctrines. There will be questions of genre (there are 7+ conservative Bible-believing interpretations of Genesis 1 currently).
There will be additions by copiest who were also editing to help their readers.

But we generally can get to most of what they were conveying.

So now what. When the Bible says in the Levitical laws "you must kill," we need to recognize this is a 3500-yr old culture who thinks completely differently about the world they live in than we do. They are coming out of a brutal slavery, after living in a foreign culture as long as we have had settlers in America.

We must examine the context of the writing: sacred space laws (if you don't know what these are meant to accomplish you will misunderstand the entire section), there are laws that apply to the camp community specifically. Again, if you mis that point you will be applying camp laws after the Jews have settled in Canaan.

There is a method to exegeting a passage (getting at what the original audience would have understood) and another method for hermeneutics (what application is there to modern culture or individuals today). There is a specific method for Biblical theology (progressive revelation) and another for systematic theology.

If one simply reads the scriptures with knowledge of these rules they will get it wrong most of the time.

Inspiration has to do with the things the original audience would have took to be revelatory.

If God wasn't successful at getting the Israelites to stop idolatry, especially given the large amount of miraculous occurrences, how was he going to get them to freely reject slavery or treat women as equals?

We see the ancient Israelites communicating in a style that is similar to all their neighbors. That has the same medical views, and scientific views as their neighbors. They worship the same Gods as their neighbors and adopt a lot of their neighbors cultures, especially from Egypt, Assyria and Babylon.

So most Christians don't do the hard work. They know some basic doctrines and they hunt and peck for the rest, often giving woefully out of context proof-texts in support of dubious arguments.

I have such a high view of scripture that I willing to work hard to represent it properly. In a fashion close to how the original audiences would have understood it.

Imagine a person who knows how the pieces move in chess, now imagine a professional chess player. My view based on Barna and other pollsters, is that the average Christian can't answer the following questions:

What is genre and why is it important when understanding scripture?
What is the second temple period and how did the apocryphal writings influence 1century Judaism?
What is the Kingdom of God and what role did it play in Jesus/Apostles thinking?
What types of text would Moses have interacted with growing up in a royal house in Egypt and how did these text influence the Pentateuch if at all?
What are the key hermeneutical take aways of wisdom literature as a class?

The more one knows the more one sees God's hand and man's hand in scripture. When Peter rebukes Jesus who has just revealed that he must go to Jerusalem and die. Is that inspired? Should we brag about rebuking Jesus?

Obviously not, what is important if anything? Well, Jesus prophecies his own demise, and went anyways. The disciples were also clueless, which is hardly a fact authors bragged about 2000 years ago (they still don't). Is the fact that the event took place in Caesaria Phillipi important? Or near there, or on Mount Hermon just North of the city? Hmm well not if you don't know the context of the region. But then you just missed the biggest cosmic clash in the history of the universe.

Inspired? YES!

For the lazy and uninformed? NO!

If disciples and Apostles had to labor to study these things, how do we think that 2000 years removed, culturally agnostic, language challenged, text challenged, figure of speech challenged, we can just pop this open read it and say,

"I CAN IMPROVE ON THIS MORAL CODE, SO THIS BOOK ISNT TRUE."

As the OP has done.

And think again about the anachronistic fallacy as it appears in our hermeneutical rules as a very dangerous fallacy. Why would that be the case?

 

[Uber Genius]

@Uber Genius You quoted me, but you didn't write anything...

Lol

It split into two separate posts. Not sure how that happens as I didn't start typing until the first time stamp. I did lose wifi an hour ago and it may have just fired off whatever it has stored at that ime.

 

[Moral Orel]

So let's assume that the textual transmission of OT and NT is accurate, and it is not.

Inerrancy is an interesting concept. It affirms that God can communicate through special revelation rather than just personally to each one of us or not at all. That he uses words. That he gives these words to men who have the freedom to represent them in ways they see fit. That these words represent the whole panoply of genres. It suggests that the original text had a meaning that God intended and that the original audience would have understood. Further that with hard work we can get to what the original audience understood and the words can be useful across the generations.

There will be copying errors leading to 400,000+ variants in NT texts alone, but with over 98 % consistency (and growing). Also no textual variants change or impact significantly, any Christian doctrines. There will be questions of genre (there are 7+ conservative Bible-believing interpretations of Genesis 1 currently).
There will be additions by copiest who were also editing to help their readers.

But we generally can get to most of what they were conveying.

So now what. When the Bible says in the Levitical laws "you must kill," we need to recognize this is a 3500-yr old culture who thinks completely differently about the world they live in than we do. They are coming out of a brutal slavery, after living in a foreign culture as long as we have had settlers in America.

We must examine the context of the writing: sacred space laws (if you don't know what these are meant to accomplish you will misunderstand the entire section), there are laws that apply to the camp community specifically. Again, if you mis that point you will be applying camp laws after the Jews have settled in Canaan.

There is a method to exegeting a passage (getting at what the original audience would have understood) and another method for hermeneutics (what application is there to modern culture or individuals today). There is a specific method for Biblical theology (progressive revelation) and another for systematic theology.

If one simply reads the scriptures with knowledge of these rules they will get it wrong most of the time.

Inspiration has to do with the things the original audience would have took to be revelatory.

If God wasn't successful at getting the Israelites to stop idolatry, especially given the large amount of miraculous occurrences, how was he going to get them to freely reject slavery or treat women as equals?

We see the ancient Israelites communicating in a style that is similar to all their neighbors. That has the same medical views, and scientific views as their neighbors. They worship the same Gods as their neighbors and adopt a lot of their neighbors cultures, especially from Egypt, Assyria and Babylon.

So most Christians don't do the hard work. They know some basic doctrines and they hunt and peck for the rest, often giving woefully out of context proof-texts in support of dubious arguments.

I have such a high view of scripture that I willing to work hard to represent it properly. In a fashion close to how the original audiences would have understood it.

Imagine a person who knows how the pieces move in chess, now imagine a professional chess player. My view based on Barna and other pollsters, is that the average Christian can't answer the following questions:

What is genre and why is it important when understanding scripture?
What is the second temple period and how did the apocryphal writings influence 1century Judaism?
What is the Kingdom of God and what role did it play in Jesus/Apostles thinking?
What types of text would Moses have interacted with growing up in a royal house in Egypt and how did these text influence the Pentateuch if at all?
What are the key hermeneutical take aways of wisdom literature as a class?

The more one knows the more one sees God's hand and man's hand in scripture. When Peter rebukes Jesus who has just revealed that he must go to Jerusalem and die. Is that inspired? Should we brag about rebuking Jesus?

Obviously not, what is important if anything? Well, Jesus prophecies his own demise, and went anyways. The disciples were also clueless, which is hardly a fact authors bragged about 2000 years ago (they still don't). Is the fact that the event took place in Caesaria Phillipi important? Or near there, or on Mount Hermon just North of the city? Hmm well not if you don't know the context of the region. But then you just missed the biggest cosmic clash in the history of the universe.

Inspired? YES!
For the lazy and uninformed? NO!

If disciples and Apostles had to labor to study these things, how do we think that 2000 years removed, culturally agnostic, language challenged, text challenged, figure of speech challenged, we can just pop this open read it and say,

"I CAN IMPROVE ON THIS MORAL CODE, SO THIS BOOK ISNT TRUE."

As the OP has done.

And think again about the anachronistic fallacy as it appears in our hermeneutical rules as a very dangerous fallacy. Why would that be the case?

This is a long way to go to not answer two very simple and direct questions. You still talk as though it was the Israelite's who wrote those laws, but you don't come right out and say who the real author is. You also don't mention Paul that I asked about.

Now look at this bit here I'm pulling out for emphasis:

When Peter rebukes Jesus who has just revealed that he must go to Jerusalem and die. Is that inspired? Should we brag about rebuking Jesus?

I'm going to point out what inspiration I think is important to the conversation. The books about Jesus would be inspired only in as much as God helped the authors know the details of the events that transpired. Peter wasn't inspired to say anything to Jesus. Those are Peter's thoughts all on his own. There is a difference, to me at least, between actions and commands in the Bible. When it records an action, such as Peter's action of rebuking Jesus, we don't consider those to be the instructions of God. However, when Paul instructs people on how to live their lives, those are commands. If Paul made those commands under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then those aren't Paul's instructions (at least not originally). Same goes for Moses and the OT Law.

So my two questions still stand. Who gave those specific instructions originally?

 

[Uber Genius]

This is a long way to go to not answer two very simple and direct questions. You still talk as though it was the Israelite's who wrote those laws, but you don't come right out and say who the real author is. You also don't mention Paul that I asked about.

Now look at this bit here I'm pulling out for emphasis:



I'm going to point out what inspiration I think is important to the conversation. The books about Jesus would be inspired only in as much as God helped the authors know the details of the events that transpired. Peter wasn't inspired to say anything to Jesus. Those are Peter's thoughts all on his own. There is a difference, to me at least, between actions and commands in the Bible. When it records an action, such as Peter's action of rebuking Jesus, we don't consider those to be the instructions of God. However, when Paul instructs people on how to live their lives, those are commands. If Paul made those commands under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then those aren't Paul's instructions (at least not originally). Same goes for Moses and the OT Law.

So my two questions still stand. Who gave those specific instructions originally?

Your complaining because I gave you deeper understanding rather than a yes or no answer!

Strange for someone describing themself as a "Seeker."

Your still not even understanding the basics.

Let's assume Moses wrote it, or Paul, so what. When Paul writes about women covering their heads in 1 Cor 11, is that inspired? Why do less than 1% of all Christians follow that inspiration?

What about when Acts 15, the first church council, says Gentiles can't eat food sacrificed to idols, but Paul says in 1 Cor. 8 and 10 that eating food sacrificed to idols is not prohibited which one of those is inspired.

Your are creating straw man after straw man here. You are starting with scripture rather than recognizing that scripture is just a historical recording of events that actually took place. You are engaging these accounts as if "dictated by God!"

Here is the inspired moral code guidance summed up by none other than Jesus, "Love God with all you heart, soul, strength and love your neighbor as yourself, on these two laws hang all the laws and the prophets."

If you "seek" understanding you will do some research on understanding the Bible. There are a number of approaches to understanding scripture which include answering:

Do we have the right text?

How do we understand what the first audience would have understood, since there are all kinds of figures of speech of which we are unaware?

How do we apply these meaning to our own culture if they are applicable?

You are not engaging any of the three core methods above. Net result--->Straw men!

 

[Moral Orel]

Your complaining because I gave you deeper understanding rather than a yes or no answer!

Strange for someone describing themself as a "Seeker."

Your still not even understanding the basics.

Let's assume Moses wrote it, or Paul, so what. When Paul writes about women covering their heads in 1 Cor 11, is that inspired? Why do less than 1% of all Christians follow that inspiration?

What about when Acts 15, the first church council, says Gentiles can't eat food sacrificed to idols, but Paul says in 1 Cor. 8 and 10 that eating food sacrificed to idols is not prohibited which one of those is inspired.

Your are creating straw man after straw man here. You are starting with scripture rather than recognizing that scripture is just a historical recording of events that actually took place. You are engaging these accounts as if "dictated by God!"

Here is the inspired moral code guidance summed up by none other than Jesus, "Love God with all you heart, soul, strength and love your neighbor as yourself, on these two laws hang all the laws and the prophets."

If you "seek" understanding you will do some research on understanding the Bible. There are a number of approaches to understanding scripture which include answering:

Do we have the right text?

How do we understand what the first audience would have understood, since there are all kinds of figures of speech of which we are unaware?

How do we apply these meaning to our own culture if they are applicable?

You are not engaging any of the three core methods above. Net result--->Straw men!

If I don't make an argument, then I can't make "straw man after straw man" now can I? But you've been calling everything I've been saying a straw man since the beginning of our exchanges all the while telling me what my argument is and who I have a problem with. Now, if you can't follow along with our brief exchanges, I see no reason to read your posts like they're Gospel, or at all. I think we're done here.

 

[Uber Genius]

If I don't make an argument, then I can't make "straw man after straw man" now can I? But you've been calling everything I've been saying a straw man since the beginning of our exchanges all the while telling me what my argument is and who I have a problem with. Now, if you can't follow along with our brief exchanges, I see no reason to read your posts like they're Gospel, or at all. I think we're done here.

They are just representing current scholarship. You aren't engaging them. You are trying to manipulate the readers to an unreasonable view that misrepresents what has traditionally been held. Is is call "creating a straw man" or logical extension fallacy.

Instead of engaging in conversation and responding to my points you ignore them, rinse and repeat. When you mature you will be more successful at separating false beliefs from true beliefs. We all have them. But until we accurately represent the various explanations of the data we have, we will have no chance of eliminating false beliefs.

Propaganda doesn't help.

Logical fallacy doesn't help.

Refusing to do the research doesn't help.

It is clear you are insulated to the point of being unable to engage in meaningful conversation about what is or is not inspired.

Best of luck on your journey. I would give you links but am confident that you would not spend 30 seconds researching any of these claims.

 

[Moral Orel]

You are trying to manipulate the readers to an unreasonable view that misrepresents what has traditionally been held. Is is call "creating a straw man" or logical extension fallacy.

No, without me stating a word other than questions, you are trying to anticipate what my argument is going to be, and then claiming I made that argument. The irony of your claims about me making straw men is laughable.

 

[Uber Genius]

If I don't make an argument, then I can't make "straw man after straw man" now can I? But you've been calling everything I've been saying a straw man since the beginning of our exchanges all the while telling me what my argument is and who I have a problem with. Now, if you can't follow along with our brief exchanges, I see no reason to read your posts like they're Gospel, or at all. I think we're done here.

All you have to do to make a straw man is extend someone's argument to the ridiculous and then attack that "ridiculous" version. Again, ironically, you do this by suggesting that my arguments need to be taken as "gospel" (arguments to authority) when they are simply pointing out some fundamental mistakes you are making about the very nature of scripture and inspiration, authority, and moral code.

Had you spent time investigating my claims you would not repeat the mistakes. But clearly your here as a propagandist. And not a good one.

 

[Moral Orel]

All you have to do to make a straw man is extend someone's argument to the ridiculous and then attack that "ridiculous" version. Again, ironically, you do this by suggesting that my arguments need to be taken as "gospel" (arguments to authority) when they are simply pointing out some fundamental mistakes you are making about the very nature of scripture and inspiration, authority, and moral code.

Had you spent time investigating my claims you would not repeat the mistakes. But clearly your here as a propagandist. And not a good one.

See? Strawmanning, right there. I didn't "extend someone's argument to the ridiculous" did I? I didn't misrepresent your argument as anything because I didn't talk about it. All I did was point out that you were evading questions.

And you aren't even using the "argument from authority" fallacy correctly either. I didn't state you were an authority (though I think you are stating as much) so I can't "appeal" to you as an authority now can I?

For Pete's sake man. You need to brush up on your fallacies, because you don't know how to use them. And don't dodge questions, it makes it look like you have a weak position.

 

[rjs330]

I've been thinking about this. I dont think the Bible is a book on morality in the common understanding. Why? Because we can't be moral people. At least not moral enough. The law was written to reveal sin and show how difficult it is to be right with God. The idea of slavery as a moral measuring stick falls short Because it declairs "I don't believe in slavery and The bible does not prohibit slavery therefore I,am more moral." But The bible says "all have sinnned and fallen short of The glory of God." Slavery is not a measuring stick perfection is. If we as a human do anything that God says falls short of his glory we are lost. To say I am more moral than God because I believe Slavery is wrong and the bible doesn't say that slavery is bad is pride in self which is sinful because it puts us above God. It says I am better than God because he doesn't forbid such acts. That kind of pride is making one righteous in one's own eyes.

In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, "There is no God."
Psalms 10:4 ESV
http://bible.com/59/psa.10.4.ESV

 

[Peter1000]

Why didn't Abe Lincoln let the confederacy keep the slaves after the civil war? After all, if they were so hard of heart then they should just get what they want, right?



ND is talking about rape. See Deuteronomy 22:28-29. I didn't even have to look that up because I've referenced it so many times. There are no shotgun weddings from rape. More like shotgun murders, presuming it is proper to refer to the ridding of a rapist as murder.

We love our women today.

Back then, women had a small amount of personhood and it was basically a "you break it, you buy it" policy when it came to rape.

We love our women today.

Who do you mean by 'we'?

Are there cultures in the world today that still think their women are pretty much chattel?

Is your non-God world so enlightened that you believe there is no 'slavery' or that there is no 'rape'.

Has your enlightened (non-God) world finally gotten over the inferior OT Israelites and the NT Christians and their awkward traits?

Have you ever studied the woman's rights in the Babylonian world, or the cutlure of the Hitites, or the Egyptians or any other culture at the time of the Israelites? Your prospective might change.

I believe a 'bondservant' is different than a 'slave'.

 

[Peter1000]

See? Strawmanning, right there. I didn't "extend someone's argument to the ridiculous" did I? I didn't misrepresent your argument as anything because I didn't talk about it. All I did was point out that you were evading questions.

And you aren't even using the "argument from authority" fallacy correctly either. I didn't state you were an authority (though I think you are stating as much) so I can't "appeal" to you as an authority now can I?

For Pete's sake man. You need to brush up on your fallacies, because you don't know how to use them. And don't dodge questions, it makes it look like you have a weak position.

A little off thread, but would you tell me where Moralton is?

 

[Moral Orel]

A little off thread, but would you tell me where Moralton is?

Moralton, Statesota is a fictional city from the television series "Moral Orel". On the surface most Christians will tell you it is filthy blasphemy, but anyone who makes it through the entire three season series actually knows that it's quite pro-Christian.

My avatar is a picture of the main character, Orel Puffington, and I chose that and the tag line because there are a few Christians on these forums who make me feel like I live in that city.