John A. Broussard

Maybe it's because the press for all those miracle sites do such an effective job. Miracle cures of incurable cancer seem to happen every day, according to faith healers. Turn on your radio to any fundy station for endless testimonials.

John A. Broussard

Again we've reached common ground. Your god can't grow back a missing limb, and so there's certainly no point at all in praying for same.

Thanks for your quick response.

John A. Broussard

Why do you keep bugging poor rhutchin about this.

He has made it crystal clear.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN EX-CHRISTIAN.

So you are either:

Someone who thought they were a Christian and actually weren't.

or

Someone who now thinks he's an ex-Christian but is really a Christian without knowing he's a Christian.

Does that help?

John A. Broussard

In other words, Christ was saying, "Do as I say and not as I do."

Am I reading you correctly?

Wayne Delia

Which, itself, is ironic, since his list of criteria determining a True Christian disqualified him on two of the four points, so he himself is what we perceive as an "ex-Christian".

WMD

John A. Broussard

Hey!

The bible is reinterpreted over and over again, at least according to rhutchin. You read it one generation and it says the world (universe?) was created in 4004 BC. Another generation later pegs it at maybe 9000 BC. We'll get to 14 billion yet.

The sun used to go around the earth, now we know that that was just an old interpretation of the bible. New one says the earth can stop rotating and so make it look like the sun is standing still.

The earth was flat, well...

I dunno, maybe it was flat back then.

John A. Broussard

So far, but he won't be sure until he dies. Which seems to mean that the only True Christian is a dead True Christian.

Wayne Delia

That's a cool idea, and subject to mathematical extrapolation.

The "generation" that asserted the 4004 BCE date was, say, mid-16th century to mid-17th century. Let's put it as late as 1650, six years before James Ussher's death. Also, let's say the modern date of around 9000 BCE was established in the mid-18th century, about 1850. (Sure, I could be very wrong about that, but it errs in favor of the fundamentalist.) So, in a little under two hundred years, we've increased the age of the universe from around 4000 BCE to 9000 BCE, or five thousand years in estimated age of the universe per two hundred years of Biblical investigation of the universe's age. (That's 25 additional estimated years of the age of the universe per year of actual Biblical investigation.)

13.5 billion years, less the "current" Biblical estimated universe age of 11 thousand years first established in 1850, results in 13.49989 billion years to "make up." At the rate of 25 estimated age years per calendar year, yes, we'll get to a more accurate estimate of 13.5 billion years as the age of the universe... wait for it...

...in the year 539999560.

Or maybe it'll take longer for that estimate to catch up. Dogma is pretty darn inflexible.

Moral of the story: "Billions" are much bigger numbers than the average fundamentalist realizes.

WMD

Wayne Delia

Actually, that criteria wasn't one of the two that disqualified rhutchin. The two had something to do with a willingness to commit to follow the teachings of Jesus (which failed when he broke the Ninth Commandment) and a tendency to continue in a sinful lifestyle (which failed through his constant refusal to acknowledge, apologize, repent, and stop breaking the Ninth Commandment.)

WMD

John A. Broussard

He's a regular sly devil, isn't he. I can't remember number 9, but I'm sure that breaking it must have been enjoyable.

Myself, I prefer breaking the one about graven images, which I think was an earlier one. Unfortunately, I'm not too sure what a graven image is, so I may not be breaking that commandment, after all.

It's just not easy being an Untrue Christian.