I'd say the flip side of the literalist creationist crowd is the atheist scientist crowd eschewing G!d and spirituality altogether.
I was talking about the religious coin, pointless introducing something that rejects the currency altogether.
No, he is a don't throw the baby out with the bath water believer.
No Immaculate Conception. No Virgin Birth, no Incarnation ... seems that's precisely what he has done. Thrown out the baby, kept the water.
I've question you on all these point, Wil, and all you respond with is ad hominems on Americans.
... while acknowledging the inconsistency, hypocrisy and various issues.
And yet fails to acknowledge that those inconsistencies are only superficially apparent, as the ample argument demonstrates.
Without him, and people like him, millions of believers would not find a safe harbor in Christianity...
A safe harbour in their comfortability, more like.
He and others provide a lifeline to people who reject the ancient dogma
Why, though? I've never heard a satisfactory reason for that argument. Your assumption that ancient means out-worn is far from the case.
... for people who are willing to question and explore...
Ah, c'mon. His methodology is demonstrably self-serving. As you say, 'it's all about me' and what a wonderful chap I am. Let's dispense with all the tiresome stuff that says we might not be quite so wonderful as we like to think we are.
Tossing out stuff that seems incredulous or demanding, because it's incredulous and demanding, is hardly 'questioning and exploring'. It's eisegesis.
... for centuries we've been told to sit down and shutup, and don't look behind the curtain... we won't any longer, and it simply pisses people off.
Here we go. You're talking about America again, I suppose.
LOL. I was
told to question! And naive or platitudinous answers, from both sides of the coin, had to be backed up with solid argument. It was not enough just to invent circumstances that allow me to dismiss stuff that I don't like as 'made up' or 'agendas', etc.
The fact is, one can neither prove nor disprove the immaculate Conception, the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, the Miracles, the Mysteries. To say that can't have happened, because you find it incredulous, is not enough. That's 'blind faith'.
You choose not to believe. OK. But then such a version of Christianity is, you must admit, rationalised until it's so insipid there's nothing left to find objectionable.
We've made a choice to eschew conventional religion that has gone on for centuries...don't like it do like us....attend the one you do like, believe what you do like.
Exactly. What is 'true' is what I like. If I don't like it, it's not true.
Christ says 'pick up thy cross'. Spong says 'If it's uncomfortable, put it down.'
It's not the real Christian Way.
When you actually respond to the points I make, rather than defend your opinions by ad hominems, then I think we might get somewhere.
When you address the Way as I see it, which is not a grey-bearded old man sitting in the clouds, you might actually start to see me, rather than your prejudice about what you think I see.
Now you could argue that I'm doing the same thing, but I'm not. The picture of Christ you paint,
sans Divinity,
sans Mystery,
sans Incarnation ... Christ is just another bloke ... very thin gruel indeed.
