Quote Originally Posted by tibilicus View Post

Another problem I have is with all the wings of religion as a whole. Due to the fact this threads about Catholics I will use Christianity as an example, any other religion could be used just as easily though. Basically you've got your fundamentals who believe the bible word by word. In my opinion these people are nut jobs and I find it extremely hard to see how a book can hold the answer to everything in life.

You then have your more liberal and less fundamental Christians but they then just go and pick what they want from the bible and say it's right. So the garden of Eden isn't literal but Moses was a real person. You can't just pick and choose from some book to prove a point. You could get any combination of answers by doing that. The bible then mentions one minute that God is vengeful but the next he's all loving? If a God really is all powerful and loving then why the whole human suffering argument? If it is just a test like many Christians say then why surely let so much pain exist? Does that mean God is cruel?
The Old Testament is suppose to be the history of the code of law needed before Jesus. So most of the whole God will smite you part is recognized as outdated and not needed, being able to give way to the New Testament's message of forgiveness and Grace. Your right picking and choosing, can give you any combination of answers needed, but is that truly the opposite of the literal fundamental Christians? I would argue that such picking and choosing is still a fairly fundamental reading. Instead the overall spirt, instead of the text, should be read out of the bible. Perhaps part of what I'm saying is the Bible is not the only source of religious truth and must be combined with Human reasoning and ones sense of morals.


As for the whole human suffering thing, I'm not going to try to answer it. Except for maybe a mention of Life without Free Will is meaningless.