The problem is there is so much BS rhetoric that trying to follow it is impossible. Because now it's about the rhetoric and not the issues!

That would be great (the app) if it could be simplified.

Just in the world of education alone I can't believe the politics. So I can't IMAGINE how rediculous it is to be in actualy politics.

I wrote Amy Klobuchar an angry letter because she passed legislation that said pizza counts as a vegetable and she sent me a very nice email back saying that in order to pass legislation on much larger issues, she had to pass the pizza one because it was tacked on and it had to be a yea for the entire bill. She is also under fire because she moved her family to DC with her (she has a little girl with special needs) so her primary residence isn't in MN anymore.

This sort of thing really bothers me...the many obsticles set up to keep her from doing her job and passing the bills that really matter.

Oh yeah, we use lots of traits to categorize each other into a hierarchy, like race, religion, gender, sexuality, etc.

And the other books of the Bible that you're talking about in another post are the Apocrypha. As you said, history is written by the victors. Another problem with taking the Bible literally is that this text has been translated and edited many times over. We're basically playing a game of telephone with the people who wrote it thousands of years ago. And we keep changing it in modern times, as well. Evangelicals didn't like what Exodus 21:22-25 had to say about fetal death, so they changed it to sound more "pro-life":

Mischief follows in partisan Bible translations

The fact that there are clear examples in modern times of the Bible being altered to align with current political stances is pretty strong evidence that it is the word of man, and not the word of an omnipotent deity.

Superb blog post and indeed it addresses so much of the issues I have with the 'bastardization' of Christianity by successive revisionists who, ironically, have positioned themselves quite comfortably in the political classes so as to further revise and conquer with their ideaology.

Something Michael Khalili and Myq Kaplan discussed on Chenda's last WMN was the notion of our moral compass. The question was asked - where does aetheism draw its moral fabric from and I think they answered along the lines of aetheists in the main being able to recognize what is essentially good because they aren't encumbered by a specific dogma. I think that's how it went anyway. That's an appealing ideal.

I have always struggled with the view that the Bible is written by God through man...I just keep thinking about if man is flawed, then even writing down God's words would have flaws to them...but I think the church is nervous to give even an inch on this simply because the world comes tumbling down if you start to question too much.

I am such a fan of any sort of religious leader having to learn the original texts and the history behind the texts to teach it. So many evangelical denominations today have pastors that just feel called and start preaching. I'm Lutheran because our pastors have to learn Greek and Hebrew and really dive into the original writings to understand the context and original meanings. A good example is the "women should be quiet and submissive" quotes in the Bible which mean something totally different than most people think.

wait.... are you guys saying the Bible isn't REAL!?!?!

I don't agree with the argument that we would find other ways for us to separate ourselves. I think we are social beings who have the ability to recognize that getting along is better for the greater good, have empathy and are highly intelligent. That is why we ended up being the most successful species, because we started working together.

Religion erases empathy and stunts intelligence.

I don't know about that...yes, a lot of evil has been done because of religion, but a lot of horrible things happened because we're human and that seems to be what we do best.

It is because we're social beings that we flock to beings like us to find a place to belong. Whether it is religion, or politics, or race, or financial status, we group together.

But we do already use other ways to separate ourselves from each other. Nationality is a big one, for instance. And race. Even gender and sexual preference.

That's just the bad side of our survival instinct. The good side is cooperation and empathy, like you said. Humans are social animals and we do literally need one another to survive.

I agree with both of ya'll.