[joydriven]

Just a few responses. If you want me to segue over to Philosophy after this, I will. The "take it elsewhere" mentality seems inherently inconsistent, but I will let that go.

seriously, these fuckers don't believe in your version of God, so they're inherantly evil and will burn in hell forever.

> Please don't get the impression that I place stock in "my version" of God. If the God of the Bible is real, it does not matter what my perception of Him is. It does not matter what I think or say, nor what you think or say. God is very absolute in the Bible--very specific about how Creation took place, very specific about the only Way to heaven. If He really did create us, His prerogatives (such as to dish out judgment, offer forgiveness, and to explain the whole deal in written form) are not to be questioned and really have nothing at all to do with how we perceive them or how we perceive ourselves. If Someone was sovereign enough to create the Whole Shabang, our "take" is basically irrelevant. Responding or rejecting the truth is our privilege, but we will be held accountable for our choices.

Is Joy saying they're offended by the picture or the statements about it being the "hand of God" or about the resulting commentary? Which part was offensive?

> The picture itself is not an offense to me--it's merely a record of reality. The resulting commentary was predictable but problematic in the points where it mocked the righteousness of God and brought Him down to the level of human spitefulness. When God gets angry, He bombs cities and massacres children and floods the globe. The very idea of Him flipping off people He died for is not merely ludicrous. It is blatant mockery of Him. Now, as to who else might have been offended....obviously, MY resulting commentary was problematic for many readers. No, I don't want to preach or turn anyone off to truth just because I'm a fallible and offensive expresser of that truth, so I don't wish to offend people unnecessarily. On the other hand, the truth of the Bible is by its own nature offensive to people because of their own nature.

Quoting scripture to a non-believer is like asking the non-English speaking person "When. Does. The. Bus. Arrive?" You're still not speaking their language and irritating them further.

> You're correct. The Bible says itself that it's impossible for a regular Joe who says there is no God to be able to understand the things of God. The only reason I have any inkling what I'm talking about is because I've submitted to the Bible's authority as absolute truth and am trying to learn about God from it. I do recognize that it's way crossing cultures to be bringing these points up. I know it's not "my" community, but as a part of it I make concessions to the others here--I listen to their language and get over it. I guess I felt like this blog ventured onto familiar turf, sanctioning at least some extent of protest from me that could be swallowed maturely by you. We differ, we differ. But if I can read your plain English words, sifting them for kernels and blowing away the chaff as a good friend would, you can at least take a stab at reading and trying to understand mine. There's not much that's cryptic about a quote like "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."

they think rule their lives through poorly-translated and re-translated, centuries-old fairy tales of suspicious origin. I have concluded that there is just no satisfying some beings, supreme or no, and that all humor is fair game.

> You think it's ok to lightly mock my God. I think it's ok to lightly mock your favorite soda. What slays me is how it is fine for you to indicate I'm impossible to please and foolish for placing my faith in a source which, in your limited perception, based upon your limited knowledge and experience, is an inadequate/unworthy object of anyone's faith. If you'll note, I wasn't mocking atheism/agnosticism. I wasn't knocking free speech. I wasn't seeking to convert anyone. I wasn't even trying to rain on anyone's parade. So I fail to see why you see a need to launch an attack like the above. The inconsistency of expected tolerance levels blows my mind.

AH.

Too long, too heavy, too little, too late. I'll shut up now. Really, my apologies for the shortcomings in these words. Especially to those of you who are wishing you had a cosmic gas cloud (perhaps even toxic) to send my way right now.