Whether or not God exists is inconsequential to the human experience

[Rhyfelwyr]

Where my skepticism/moderation rears its ugly head is when I hear/read/see other human being claiming to know the mind and intentions of God. They are claiming a mantle that will not and could not ever fit them. Going back to analogies, it's like a mouse claiming to know the destination, structure and details of a supertanker. Even that analogy is too kind; more like an intestinal bacteria declaring that it knows the outline and structure of a cluster galaxy. Hubris doesn't begin to cover it.

Equally, how could you be so certain that God would be so distant from mankind if he did exist? If you do believe in a creator being, you would have to ask why he would choose not to take anything to do with what he created.

People obsessed with dogma are boring and sometimes dangerous. They're a lot like the crazy dude you know who thinks that the country that controls magnesium will control the universe.

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Or some combination thereof. To get bogged down in dogma is a sign that you need a hobby.

I think that's unfair. If nobody explored these things we would never make progress. Those boring theologians had a big impact on how the world came to be the way it is today. Although I agree theology for the sake of theology is a bit pointless, I much prefer when it is something practical, like with Paul's theological ideas in his Epistles. Almost every time he brings up theology it's in relation to a specific issue, usually in a specific church.

Christianity has to evolve and change itself for the time and place. If it was truly the universal truth, wouldn't it always be the same?

There's probably already a name for that, but I'm too lazy to Google it, so I'm going to dub it the Fundamentalist's Paradox.

Well that's what Protestantism was all about, returning to the purity of worship seen in the New Testament, and losing all the baggage gained over the centuries. I don't see any areas where New Testament beliefs come into conflict with mainstream Protestant beliefs.

Like with the slavery issue (thinking of Philemon here), Paul was more concerned with the spiritual rather than the temporal issue. Contrary to popular conceptions nowadays, Christianity does deal primarily with the spiritual side of things, the main function of the church is not to combat social/political issues like slavery. In the face of such hardships, it simply says to accept the powers that be (Romans 13 etc). The Bible neither promotes nor condemns slavery outright (although the sort of slavery most people think of with the Atlantic slave trade would be condemned, because of the cruelty of it).