Oy vey! A talking snake!!

[Scotishfury09]

Whoa, please resize your text?

 

[Mallon]

Posting quotes in big, colourful fonts is no substitute for reasoned discussion. What other non-insect "flying creeping things" can you think of from Egypt, HypoTypoSis?

 

[HypoTypoSis]

What other non-insect "flying creeping things" can you think of from Egypt,

1. Irrelevent, the topic is what God, in Leviticus, said the Hebrews could eat and could not eat.
2. I have color coded those divisions and, also,
3. separated out what could be eaten at the bottom.
4. Additionally, it will be noted a major problem with the discussion is due to taking a verse from what could not be eaten and adding it to what could be eaten.
5. This I divided in the major chapter quote with lines separating the what coulds from the what could nots.

 

[HypoTypoSis]

Whoa, please resize your text?

Done! Sorry 'bout that, the bible program I use has the bad habit of enlarging and putting what is copied in bold.

 

[Scotishfury09]

It is my prerogative to be "always correct". Is that much worse than being "always correcting" (rarely hearing)?

Learn. Be humbled:
http://www.tektonics.org/af/buglegs.html

If you recall, I was a YEC less than a year ago. I think I can testify to being able to hear others and their arguments.

Telling me to learn something from the very site that I've debunked isn't helping very much. Maybe you should debate my arguments against that site's claims instead.

And yes, I agree, I could be more humble, but demanding humility in order to retain your pride is just that; prideful. Every person in this forum struggles with pride and humility. They wouldn't be here arguing if they weren't.

 

[Scotishfury09]

You would reference a work of Middle Ages FICTION as fact placing it above the Word of God?????

Please, by all means, look up, intensely study, deeply contemplate and fervently pray about all the cognate references for foolish in the book of Proverbs.

Also, &btw, you need to have a l-o-n-g talk with your pastor ASAP. Tell'im HypoTypoSis sent ya!

Let's burn all commentaries while we're at it.

 

[HypoTypoSis]

Milton is definitely worth reading, both his fiction and his non-fiction. And he can rightly be called a defender of the biblical faith as well.

Fiction is still fiction, not truth. Also, many of his beliefs which he magnified in his fictional works led and still do lead many down a wrong path and still others are frightened into accepting pagan beliefs.

There is no substitute for the Word of God regardless of who wrote it.

Anything other than the word of God is mere opinion, the result of just another man in his own personal search for the truth of God and the salvation of Jesus Christ. Any who would put their faith and trust in anything else walk on very dangerous and shaky ground.

 

[Scotishfury09]

1. Irrelevent, the topic is what God, in Leviticus, said the Hebrews could eat and could not eat.
2. I have color coded those divisions and, also,
3. separated out what could be eaten at the bottom.
4. Additionally, it will be noted a major problem with the discussion is due to taking a verse from what could not be eaten and adding it to what could be eaten.
5. This I divided in the major chapter quote with lines separating the what coulds from the what could nots.

And if God told the ancient Hebrews they could eat one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple people-eaters would you claim it irrelevant if I had a problem with the existence of such beings?

 

[HypoTypoSis]

Let's burn all commentaries while we're at it.

Excellent idea! Without distracting and misleading opinions a lot of trees will be saved and Charmin's stock may even fall! Let's hear it for Green Earth Bibles!

 

[HypoTypoSis]

1. a major problem with the discussion is due to taking a verse from what could not be eaten and adding it to what could be eaten.
2. This I divided in the major chapter quote with lines separating the what coulds from the what could nots.

 

[Mallon]

1. Irrelevent, the topic is what God, in Leviticus, said the Hebrews could eat and could not eat.

Super. So Leviticus 11 says the Hebrews could not eat any flying, creeping things except locusts, katydids, grasshoppers, and crickets. So, again, I ask what flying, creeping things did God prevent the Hebrews from eating if not insects? Please don't avoid the question.

 

[shernren]

I have acknowledged a number of weaknesses in my own position. But this is not one of them. Punishment is a response to an individual's culpability. Cursing is more general, if not generational. Eg, fetal alcohol syndrome.

Except, you know, the curses in Genesis 3 are punishments. You can't pull them apart, at least not without performing considerable gymnastics with the text.

Future tense. When is unclear to me.

There is indeed a conflation of techniques and images. There is a metaphorical correspondence between snake and cherub. Eze 28:14

It is as if we are indeed dealing with fragments of parchment. I am not claiming to have the a completion of the puzzle. Thus, it becomes difficult to make a claim about fragment A and avoid the impression that there is clarity about fragment B or whatever missing content is interposed.

The fact that we are also mortal gives some basis to "read in" regarding the text. Similarly, we "read in", as a working hypothesis, that the uncanny correspondence between snakes now and the curse of Gen. 3 is the result of the curse. But, being limited in my demonology, angeology and not speaking much with the unseen principalities, I am a a bit of a loss.

"Reading in" is of course different than using surface text.

I am more curious about what sense we are to take literally out of the passage and where we need to be deliberate and explicit about the limit of what we know about this passage.

1. There is metaphorical content in the unexalted position of the serpent-like adversary.

2. There is literal truth in the beginning of the difficult life of the farmer.

3. Physical death has now entered. Why death is not immediate and final is not clear.

4. Why modern reptiles must now resemble the cursed adversary is not clear, but they do.

Not necessarily redundant at all. I won't apologize for not being terribly familiar with devils and their origin. If the best I can do is say that none of knows much about such things, that all of us are aware butfamiliar with an unseen world that is perhaps bigger than what we do see and that therefore the "literal" truth may have to wait for another day, I am ok with that, even if it sounds weak.

I think this demonstrates quite amply what depths the literalist falls to when the crutches of literalism are made unavailable. Your exegetical strategy has always been to squeeze science (science acceptable to you, that is) into the Bible (or the Bible into science) as far as possible, and then laud the result as something sophisticated and worthy of today's scientific men. And you have depended on it to the extent that when it falls away you are left with few, if any, other ideas on how to read the Bible. I find that most dangerous.

But what is the story of the garden about? Genesis 3 is essentially the story of how a world createad by a good God, which must consequently be good, can become the bad world full of bad humans which we observe in every age and time. There are many answers, of course. One can postulate that there simply is no good God. Or one can postulate that there is a bad God fighting the good God, in Manichaean or Zoroastrian fashion. One can even postulate a pantheon of gods who are little more than humans writ large and are fighting with each other - it is clear then that the created realm reflects the realm of the gods so accurately.

But if one is committed both to Judeo-Christian monotheism and its one good God, and to the realistic observation that today's world sucks, then the only moral agents left to take the blame, as it were, are humans - and this is reinforced by the observation that humans themselves are patently evil in many ways and senses. And since sin springs from temptation, the first sin must also have sprung from a first temptation. And what better picture for the tempter than a snake, the age-old symbol of cunning? (Incidentally, the LXX Greek for Genesis 3:1 uses the same word for "cunning" as Matthew uses for Jesus when He tells the disciples: "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." Disturbing, innit? )

And even though the serpent strikes a crucial blow at the first couple, God in cursing the serpent reminds both it and us that its victory is limited and will ultimately be overturned. Just as the snake is forced to crawl on its belly, the serpent will be humiliated to all: it will no longer openly and corporeally tempt, as it did the first couple, but it will have to strike unseen and unnoticed, crawling on the ground undetected as it were. It is shown for the enemy that it is, and thus humanity will engage it in open warfare - and what is all of human civilization, law, politics, medicine, etc. but an attempt to quell the evil that dwells in human hearts?

Do you see now? Your mode of thinking is continually causal and historical - this story seems to tell of the modern condition of snakes, so it must purport to explain that condition, and thus any interpretation that doesn't lead to that explanation must be defective and flawed. And of course, it becomes particularly appealing if you can somehow stuff your modern understanding of snakes into the passage, so that you can pawn it off as yet another flashy "look how smart those Jews were!" anecdote. But perhaps the author doesn't actually want to explain how modern snakes got their physiognomy. I'm not sure the ancient Jews (or readers today) really care at all. To you, a passage talking about snakes must point at most to snakes: and if it points to Satan you want to start some kind of demonological biopsy, as if Genesis 3 would somehow be more true if Satan has scales and less if Satan has fur or hair. But maybe it points to far more.

Who knows what you would see if you would stop looking through science?

Coming your way, by the way:

http://www.switchfoot.com/

Actually, the NZ show was last night.

Don't remind me. No money to buy ticket. XD

 

[gluadys]

Fiction is still fiction, not truth.

Typical modernistic prejudice against any truth which is not also fact.

So the Good Samaritan is not truth. The Sower is not truth. The Good Shepherd is not truth. The Prodigal Son is not truth. Because, after all, fiction is not truth.

Also, many of his beliefs which he magnified in his fictional works led and still do lead many down a wrong path and still others are frightened into accepting pagan beliefs.

So you are a Milton scholar? Rather strange when you condemn others for reading him.

There is no substitute for the Word of God regardless of who wrote it.

I haven't seen anyone claim that there is. You are making baseless accusations.

Anything other than the word of God is mere opinion, the result of just another man in his own personal search for the truth of God and the salvation of Jesus Christ.

And some of those opinions are well worth hearing and very helpful in one's own search for truth. That is why most worship services feature a sermon. Are we to be so arrogant we think we can do without the wise counsel of other Christians?

Any who would put their faith and trust in anything else walk on very dangerous and shaky ground.

Anyone who thinks they can closet themselves with a bible and come to understand it without the teaching of the Church is going the way of sectarians. Jesus established a community, the communion of saints. We should not disrespect it.

 

[HypoTypoSis]

Typical modernistic prejudice

This spurious slander from someone that has devoted a lifetime of study and interest to every far left liberal prejudice imaginable resulting in a mixed up mishmash of beliefs that can only leave one so mixed up they can only claim knowing what they believe without the slightest idea why they believe what they believe.

It is most peculiar that you, of all people, would so thoughtlessly sling epithets of such modernistic prejudice!

You either stand for something or you fall for everything:

• Divorced: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Prefers fantasy: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Environmental Justice: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Islamic interests: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Buddhist interests: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Baha'i interests in particular: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Mormon intrerests: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Jehovah's Witnesses: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]pseudo-Christian = Catholic: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]pseudo-Christian = Pentecostal: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]appreciate deeply liberationist theologians: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]appreciate deeply feminist theologians: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]appreciate deeply ecological theologians: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Theistic Evolutionist: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Amillennialist: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Anglican Church: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]United Church of Canada: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]Presbyterian Church in Canada: Modernistic prejudice?
  [*]"because one is a Darwinian one is opening a way for someone to be a Christian"

Now, this is just my own unabashed nsho but there is absolutely no way I could ever have any interest in discussing, much less debating (under the circumstances read: arguing), anything with anyone who has

• so obviously rewritten God's Word in and on their heart to conform to their own worldy interests and personal desires
• that is so obviously uncertain of their beliefs to the point of trying to cover all their "just in case" bases,
• who undeniably has such an emotionally volatile personality laden arsenal,
• that is so full of conflicting beliefs oppositional to the Word of God they've become entirely appositional and
• who is entirely subject to sudden irrational change at each and every moment's whim.

Have a great life spewing your mishmash rhetoric on the young, spiritually immature, ignorant, emotionally and psychologically impaired cultic nominees.

And, in closing, you will, undoubtedly, under the circumstances, be incapable of resisting the urge to 'have the last word' so, by all means, do. Just don't expect a response for it will not be forthcoming as I have absolutely no inclination to be sucked into such a spiritual void.

Again, have a great life seeking life's greatest truths others long since have found is possible only in submitting entirely their own personal will, wishes and wants to those of God, Himself, and of His Son, Jesus Christ as, since, the twain can never and shall never meet.

 

[Scotishfury09]

Bye bye, Pharisee

 

[Mallon]

You never actually responsed to the meat of gluadys' argument, HypoTypoSis, which was this:

So the Good Samaritan is not truth. The Sower is not truth. The Good Shepherd is not truth. The Prodigal Son is not truth. Because, after all, fiction is not truth.

If fiction cannot convey truth, then what about Jesus' parables? Why did Jesus see fit to deliver his message through fictional accounts?

 

[busterdog]

Except, you know, the curses in Genesis 3 are punishments. You can't pull them apart, at least not without performing considerable gymnastics with the text.

The question was, why punish snakes generally?
My response, why punish dirt? I think the point is that everything has been "punished", so we needn't worry especially that the snakes suffer.
Curse is very much the same idea, but eliminates some necessity for personal responsibility/culpability. That's all.

exegetical strategy has always been to squeeze science (science acceptable to you, that is) into the Bible (or the Bible into science)

Again, this is the some metaphor/error here means metaphor/error everywhere, I think. I have no probably compartmentalizing this analysis and looking at the verse in isolation. I realive that I have to in some ways to be consistent, but let's also recognize that this verse is just plain strange and oddly worded.

Again, where did "four legs" come from, if I adopt your position? Copyist error? Translation problem? Enormous stupidity? Some one too squeamish to examine the locust before biting its head off? Saying locusts have four legs (only) is like people who know me well saying I have a prehensile tail and my own set of wings. But, no, I do not command an army of winged monkeys.

But if one is committed both to Judeo-Christian monotheism and its one good God, and to the realistic observation that today's world sucks, then the only moral agents left to take the blame, as it were, are humans - and this is reinforced by the observation that humans themselves are patently evil in many ways and senses. And since sin springs from temptation, the first sin must also have sprung from a first temptation. And what better picture for the tempter than a snake, the age-old symbol of cunning? (Incidentally, the LXX Greek for Genesis 3:1 uses the same word for "cunning" as Matthew uses for Jesus when He tells the disciples: "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." Disturbing, innit? )

Yeah. Even more disturbing because the original, original sin (of Lucifer) in many ways is relegated to the field of taboo. Demonology/angelogy is largely off limits to us. We know there is a personified evil and a sentient, alien and interfering hatred of man. Yet we are forbidden from consulting familiar spirits and sorcery, which might actually enlighten us about the nature of the problem. Instead, we have a rather difficult piece of text on our hands. The metaphorical content does convey the point about this interferring, malicious alien being. Admittedly, it does fairly well. However, this aspect of fleshly entanglement of this "creature" is suggested in the figure of a talking snake.

Here is the hermeneutic: Demonology/agelogy is opaque by design. Gen. 3 is opaque in its fleshly/literal aspects.

If one chooses to believe that angels and demons are metaphors only, and not real entities, then again, we are at a point of cleavage.

As a gardener myself, I can attest that there is nothing metaphorical at all about the bloody weather, infernal insects and uncooperative mother earth. Yes, earth is a mother as they say. My Pastor's wife gave me a garden placque about being "near God's heart" in the garden. Nonsense. God's curse is more like it.

And even though the serpent strikes a crucial blow at the first couple, God in cursing the serpent reminds both it and us that its victory is limited and will ultimately be overturned. Just as the snake is forced to crawl on its belly, the serpent will be humiliated to all: it will no longer openly and corporeally tempt, as it did the first couple, but it will have to strike unseen and unnoticed, crawling on the ground undetected as it were. It is shown for the enemy that it is, and thus humanity will engage it in open warfare - and what is all of human civilization, law, politics, medicine, etc. but an attempt to quell the evil that dwells in human hearts?

Lets look at the parallel curse upon Adam and the ground. Again, that is more than metaphor. Much of creation is lessened. Why snakes in such a peculiar way? Again, there is something of the authority of Lucifer in this world. In many ways, he is the crack-head father, fathering crack-bablies, born screaming. That is the entaglement of the flesh and a hint of the literal truth.

Oddly enough, Jude enjoins us against "railing accusations" against this very "dignitary", Lucifer.

Jud 1:8
Likewise also these [filthy] dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
Dominion. What of dominion? And if dominion, why not literal, narrative truth?

Those under the sway of Lucifer suffer, licking dust. Sowing among thorns. Lucifer's "time is short", but not yet come.

Isa 14:10
All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Isa 14:12¶How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! [how] art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
Dominion yes, but bondage also.

Luk 10:18
And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.

The power of the enemy is now as "serpents and scorpions" (see verse 19), upon which men tread (but only by the power of God, incarnate). There is your metaphor. But, is Satan now "bound" in some way to his domain? Must he feed on us, on dust, but not on heavenly things? That would be metaphor. But, is not the literal condition of our flesh, the metaphor, or illustration of, our spiritual problem? And the same goes for the Prince of this world, maybe?

Do you see now? Your mode of thinking is continually causal and historical - this story seems to tell of the modern condition of snakes, so it must purport to explain that condition, and thus any interpretation that doesn't lead to that explanation must be defective and flawed.

An a priori must bring its particular definition or boundary. Some see that as weakness, I understand.

Causal and historical indeed. Death. National redemption. Indeed it is causal and historical. That's where the rubber meets the road.

 

[shernren]

The question was, why punish snakes generally?
My response, why punish dirt? I think the point is that everything has been "punished", so we needn't worry especially that the snakes suffer.
Curse is very much the same idea, but eliminates some necessity for personal responsibility/culpability. That's all.

...

Lets look at the parallel curse upon Adam and the ground. Again, that is more than metaphor. Much of creation is lessened. Why snakes in such a peculiar way? Again, there is something of the authority of Lucifer in this world. In many ways, he is the crack-head father, fathering crack-bablies, born screaming. That is the entaglement of the flesh and a hint of the literal truth.

I do not like to be harsh, but you speak about "parallel curses" as if you have not actually read Genesis 3.

So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
(Genesis 3:14 NIV)

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
(Genesis 3:17 NIV)

(emphases added)

The curse on the serpent is a curse on the serpent (singular, particular) because of what the serpent (singular, particular) has done. If you want to try to extend this to all snakes you are the one trying to read this passage metaphorically, by believing that the author speaks of "the serpent" when in reality he speaks of all snakes. Culpability is written all over the whole of Genesis 3.

Again, this is the some metaphor/error here means metaphor/error everywhere, I think. I have no probably compartmentalizing this analysis and looking at the verse in isolation. I realive that I have to in some ways to be consistent, but let's also recognize that this verse is just plain strange and oddly worded.

Again, where did "four legs" come from, if I adopt your position? Copyist error? Translation problem? Enormous stupidity? Some one too squeamish to examine the locust before biting its head off? Saying locusts have four legs (only) is like people who know me well saying I have a prehensile tail and my own set of wings. But, no, I do not command an army of winged monkeys.

You don't? I'm disappointed.

Firstly, I want to take offence with your automatically putting together "metaphor/error". In fact, most TEs believe that the Bible doesn't contain error, and precisely because of that that the Bible doesn't do science (because to do science it would have to be erroneous at some point. It's a pretty subtle sliming tactic, but I won't have anything to do with it.

Secondly, the logical negation of "you always try to read science into the Bible" is not "I never try to read science into the Bible", but "I sometimes try not to read science into the Bible." I'm not telling you to throw your scientific cudgels away. Take me to Luke and I'm as much a historical literalist as any YEC here. But I'm just telling you that sometimes those cudgels are useless. In particular, they're useless around Genesis 1-11.

And if you tell us that we have to prove that the entire Bible is metaphorical, before we can ever get you to think that six days and talking snakes are metaphorical ... then you have committed the exact error you accuse us of.

Yeah. Even more disturbing because the original, original sin (of Lucifer) in many ways is relegated to the field of taboo. Demonology/angelogy is largely off limits to us. We know there is a personified evil and a sentient, alien and interfering hatred of man. Yet we are forbidden from consulting familiar spirits and sorcery, which might actually enlighten us about the nature of the problem. Instead, we have a rather difficult piece of text on our hands. The metaphorical content does convey the point about this interferring, malicious alien being. Admittedly, it does fairly well. However, this aspect of fleshly entanglement of this "creature" is suggested in the figure of a talking snake.

Here is the hermeneutic: Demonology/agelogy is opaque by design. Gen. 3 is opaque in its fleshly/literal aspects.

If one chooses to believe that angels and demons are metaphors only, and not real entities, then again, we are at a point of cleavage.

So why maintain that Genesis 3 is meant as what you call a "fleshly/literal" communication? Maybe this opacity is a result of your misreading. Maybe you can't do any demonology from this passage because ... the author wasn't writing about demonology. Or are you going to say now that God is tricky when He gives us the Bible, too?

As a gardener myself, I can attest that there is nothing metaphorical at all about the bloody weather, infernal insects and uncooperative mother earth. Yes, earth is a mother as they say. My Pastor's wife gave me a garden placque about being "near God's heart" in the garden. Nonsense. God's curse is more like it.

Ironically, you are reading the text non-literally.

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."
(Genesis 3:17-19 NIV)

You aren't eating of the ground and the ground hasn't produced thorns and thistles for you. For you to extrapolate that this text is talking about an ersatz gardener talking about insects (instead of a farmer fighting weeds for his livelihood) is again ... a metaphor.

(Gosh, for a guy who hates metaphor so much, you use it really often! ^^)

Oddly enough, Jude enjoins us against "railing accusations" against this very "dignitary", Lucifer.

Jud 1:8
Likewise also these [filthy] dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
Dominion. What of dominion? And if dominion, why not literal, narrative truth?

Those under the sway of Lucifer suffer, licking dust. Sowing among thorns. Lucifer's "time is short", but not yet come.

Isa 14:10
All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Isa 14:12¶How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! [how] art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
Dominion yes, but bondage also.

Luk 10:18
And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.

The power of the enemy is now as "serpents and scorpions" (see verse 19), upon which men tread (but only by the power of God, incarnate). There is your metaphor. But, is Satan now "bound" in some way to his domain? Must he feed on us, on dust, but not on heavenly things? That would be metaphor. But, is not the literal condition of our flesh, the metaphor, or illustration of, our spiritual problem? And the same goes for the Prince of this world, maybe?

An a priori must bring its particular definition or boundary. Some see that as weakness, I understand.

Your penchant for esotericism is self-evident. I don't need to comment.

Causal and historical indeed. Death. National redemption. Indeed it is causal and historical. That's where the rubber meets the road.

No, the rubber meets the road today, and the impact on Genesis 3 on today is never literal, only metaphorical. We are not in the garden today. We have to project ourselves back into it instead. Even YECism needs this metaphor; no matter how strenuously YECs talk about reading the plain text, the fact is that the plain text never anywhere states that Adam or Eve's descendants will be parties to the curse.

So I can project myself back into the garden as some vague child of a child of a child of a child of some sperm lying dormant in Adam's loins, absolutely powerless, doing nothing, saying nothing, and reaping only curses for something that happened in the distant past. Or I can project myself back into the garden as Adam, always deciding but never right, always given the choice but never taking the right turn, and turning to God where I am never enough. Which makes more soteriological and hamartiological sense?

 

[busterdog]

I

Firstly, I want to take offence with your automatically putting together "metaphor/error". In fact, most TEs believe that the Bible doesn't contain error, and precisely because of that that the Bible doesn't do science (because to do science it would have to be erroneous at some point. It's a pretty subtle sliming tactic, but I won't have anything to do with it.

OK then. What does the four foot insect mean to you?

Ironically, you are reading the text non-literally.

I can multi-task.

Your penchant for esotericism is self-evident. I don't need to comment.

You have no idea.

 

[TheOutsider]

I mean no insult, but do you guys realize how strange this thread looks to a non-Christian? I am completely gobsmacked here.