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Mainline* Christian Religious Beliefs:

1) Homosexuals are loved by God and full-partners in the kingdom of heaven (not sinners).
2) Women are loved equally by God and are also full-partners in the kingdom of heaven (no need to be silent in church).
3) Science is the correct way to study God's creation, and evidence must guide our interpretation of scripture (evolution should be taught in school).
4) Jesus died for *everybody*, no one is reprobate, and the kingdom of heaven is open to anyone and everyone who wants to participate.
5) "Faith," in the "gift of the spirit" or "what actually saves you" sense of the word, is NOT the taking of an intellectual position about a historical event or person, but an inner surrender to God. Christians express that through their following of Jesus, but faith itself is something more fundamental than that.
6) "Divinely Inspired" does not mean "inerrant;" the Bible is a human work that is used for divine purposes, and as such may contain errors or anachronisms, and hence must always be read with a healthy dose of critical thinking.
7) Christians have a moral obligation to make the world a more just place, and to help those in need.
8) The degree to which statements about the afterlife should be interpreted literally is highly debatable, and a lot can be said about the value of interpreting them as metaphors for the states of mind that people of faith (or lacking in faith) can achieve in this life.

Tell me, what is it about these beliefs that would qualify as "malicious?"

*not to be confused with "mainstream" Christianity, also known as "fundamentalism," which was born around 1910 and is indeed every bit as malicious as it is popular.

For more information, see:

The fundamentalist-modernist controversy
Making sense of scripture
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

73% of Christians polled by the Harris Group in a large, well-designed study (95% CI) favored it. (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/inde x.asp?PID=488)

I'm sorry if a small minority of fundamentalists you see on the local news make us look bad, but why don't you try reading the viewpoint of the mainline, majority body of Christians, like the ELCA? http://www.elca.org/faithandscience/discussion/

Most Christians are not what you think, and the facts and data support this. It's simply that extremists always make the best news stories.

certain personality types that will with equal ease make good Catholics, Protestants, communists or fascists - they just need to be part of an authoritarian culture

I must congratulate you on hiding the cheap shot so well. You are truly an adept in the art of flaming. Anyways, I really don't see how Protestant groups, many whom operate under democratic rule by the people belonging to them, can be considered "totalitarian" (example). This is unless you consider Christian teachings inherently authoritarian, which is lunacy. Also, commuinism is not necessarily an authoritarian culture. Your statement is pure bullshit.

AmeriCares:americares.org

Baton Rouge Area Foundation(BRAF): 877.387.6126 or braf.org

Episcopal Relief & Development: 1-800-334-7626 or www.er-d.org

United Methodist Committee on Relief: 1-800-554-8583 or gbgm-umc.org/umcor/emergency/hurricanes/2005

Salvation Army: 1-800-SAL-ARMY or www.salvationarmyusa.org

Catholic Charities: 1-800-919-9338 or www.catholiccharitiesusa.org

FEMA Charity tips: www.fema.gov/rrr/help2.shtm

National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster: www.nvoad.org

Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: www.la-spca.org

Operation Blessing: 1-800-436-6348 or www.ob.org

America's Second Harvest: 1-800-344-8070 or www.secondharvest.org

Adventist Community Services: 1-800-381-7171 or www.adventist.communityservices.org

Christian Disaster Response: 1-941-956-5183 or 1-941-551-9554 or www.cdresponse.org/cdrhome.html

Christian Reformed World Relief Committee: 1-800-848-5818 or www.crwrc.org

Church World Service: 1-800-297-1516 or www.churchworldservice.org

Convoy of Hope: 1-417-823-8998 or www.convoyofhope.org

Lutheran Disaster Response: 1-800-638-3522 or www.elca.org/disaster

Mennonite Disaster Service: 1-717-859-2210 or www.mds.mennonite.net

Nazarene Disaster Response: 1-888-256-5886 or www.nazarenedisasterresponse.org

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance: 1-800-872-3283 or www.pcusa.org/pda

Southern Baptist Convention - Disaster Relief: 1-800-462-8657, ext. 6440 or www.namb.net

And this from other belief systems differs... how?

Gimme a break folks and do your science.

By now we should have had multiple nuclear wars

The worst case scenario was "nuclear winter" which implied one game only.

would have extreme shortages of food

Developing Countries ...

# 815 million people are undernourished
# 1.2 billion people live on less than $1/day
# 153 million children under age 5 are underweight
* 11 million children under age 5 die every year, over half of hunger-related causes
# 1 in 6 people is hungry
# 1 in 4 people lacks safe drinking water

would be all dying from pollution

Europe's children dying from pollution

would no thave enough oxygen to breathe

Decreased oxygen content in the atmosphere--an ecological disaster imperceptibly sneaking up?

Gimme a break folks and do your science.

Well.

CC.

Ubuntu was the theme of the 2003 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's national youth gathering.

-offtopic? check
-non-negative comment about christians? check

mod shield, activate!

Points well taken.

There are a great many number of interpretations of Biblical writings depending on if you are Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, etc. Some believe in completely literal translation of the Bible. This, I believe, is something in which you find great fault (correct me if I am wrong). I'm not out to change your views, but for what it's worth, there are plenty that don't think that way.

For example, I'm a member of a church in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). Our particular interpretations are far more lenient, and do not at all suppose that concepts of evolution and science are mutually exclusive from Biblical teachings or faith. On the contrary, we believe God does indeed want us to use our intellect to understand these things.

Of course, the ELCA is considered far more "liberal" than just about any other Christian faith you may find in the US. We have no problems ordaining homosexuals for leadership positions in the church (given a vow of celibacy*), as well as women for the same. Can't say that for the Catholics or Baptists, to be sure.

This isn't meant to be a pro- or anti- religious post regarding any "Christian faith" in the US. I'm not out to change anybody's beliefs. Keep up the critical thinking! This was just meant to be somewhat informative. Hopefully you know something more than before you read my post.

Cheers,
--Kozz

* My politics are more liberal than this, also. I'm not homophobic by any stretch. This is a statement about the ELCA policies, not my own personal beliefs.

Bush: Research on embryonic stem cells also raises profound ethical questions because extracting the stem cell destroys the embryo, and thus destroys the potential for life.

But then, fertility clinics, by law, are required to dispose of thousands of these same embryos.

By the National Center for Health's own statistics, one in tenwomen is incapable of bearing children. Plus, I have heard on the radio yesterday that something like only 50-75% of eggs, unfertilized or not, are reabsorbed before reaching the uterus.

I get two big points out of this:
1. Nature isn't so concerned that every egg must become a fetus.
2. Nature deems some women unfit to bear offspring.
3. Since Bush is a man of God, why support methods that alter Nature's/God's way (in vitro fertilization)? At least the partial ban on stem cell research is consistent with the "natural" way of things.

Do fertility clinics get federal funds? It's an honest question, not a setup.

Why would it be a setup? Of course they get federal funds:

"The federal government through DHHS may fund IVF programs and provide Medicaid reimbursement for IVF"

Bush's logical disconnect with regards to fertilization and stem-cell research is fucking insane. The man is stubborn to a fault; He'd rather let people like Reagan and Michael J Fox die than cede the issue.

Oh, you open minded science types who give no credit at all to those who happen to belief in a structure to the universe you do not share. I don't see how alien life precludes my belief in the divine creation of the universe in the slightest.

That was a TROLL... I know it was a troll, but I'm going to respond anyways....

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Genesis 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

According to several Pastors I have known (From Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) churches), these statements alone precludes life on other planets, much less aliens.

Yet another reason why I attend an Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) church, and not WELS.

And as a side note, Christ's death here paid for their (alien's) sins too.