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[bighairydog]

Aah - zealousy (hey, I just made up a cool word)

Originally posted by MDLarson
I've never heard of Darwin being a Christian

    As I understand it, Darwin was dismayed at the time that some people took him to be saying that he had disproved creation. His book "The Origin of Species", portrayed Natural Selection as a way in which new forms could arise to be better suited to changing environments. He saw Evolution as a device to cope with change, ingeniously built into species by god.

The Bible does say how God created. Quite simply, God spoke the world (and the species) into existence.

    Do you think that Genesis is supposed to be taken literally? After all, Jesus told parables that were stories to illustrate points, nobody believes that he was imparting a perfect replica of events that occurred (or do they – nothing surprises me any more ;o)

BUT! (you were waiting for this) BUT, creation scientists firmly believe they have science on their side. (you probably scoffed right now) I'm willing to debate this if you are willing, but that's another thread.

    I agree – another thread, but first I want to point out that as a technicality, Creation Science is not Science. Science, from the Latin to know, is the pursuit on knowledge, starting with evidence that you wish to explain. Creation Science starts with knowledge that is considered irrefutable, and searches for evidence. Hence it is reverse science, or as I prefer to call it, simply backwards.
    Also, I believe there is without doubt a great deal of deliberate deception on behalf of Creation Scientists, justified on the grounds that there are people who wouldn’t believe without deception, and they ought to be made to believe any way possible. Some (not all I’m sure) Creation Scientists deliberately twist words and hide contrary evidence. Either that or they’re stupid, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that it’s deliberate deception.

The thing I want to really push is how, taken straight-forward, the Bible is truly incompatible with evolution.

The evolution of life from none, without intervention, yes. Change of species, no. God may have proclaimed his creation good, but he never said that it would always be good, and therefore would remain constant. The world changes, and species must change with it. Besides, you can see evolution happening, in evolution experiments, on a timescale of months. Unless God is intervening in each and every evolution experiment, then organisms do change.

To further strengthen my argument, let me move back to Genesis and take a look at the word "day", as used in the text...

    You assume a day is a human 24 hour day. That is of course a by-product showing and hiding of the sun, but the sun was supposedly not created until day 4 – after the day/night dichotomy was created right at the start. errr...

My goal is not to exasperate any readers, but to provide a Biblical viewpoint. No doubt there is still much doubt in many minds as to the reliability of the scripture over time, which certainly should not be without scrutiny. But there are a great many Bible scholars out there that know how to read Hebrew and still believe the Bible means what it says in my NIV. So, by faith, I believe in the translations.

    Yeah, the Bible scholars that thought that the Bible was evidence that the sun revolved around the earth read Hebrew too. They were so certain of themselves that they burned people alive for doubting them publicly.

Anyway, nice rant, I’m off for more tea.

Bernie )

 

[4398579-857]

There may still be war without religion, but! I do think there would be much less!

More people in the world have been slaughtered in the name of god than ANY other reason.

Christian Crusades, Northern Ireland, Middle East, Africa, Hitler, to name a few more blood has been shed over religion than anything else I can think of.

And while you may point out that there are bad people every where... those bad people never professed to being good or religious... Islamic, Priests, Christians all claimed to be peace loving, gentle people THAT is my problem with them! they are full of crap. AND AGAIN I don't say ALL just way too many! If they didn't claim to be peaceful, nonviolent people I wouldn't care as much since at least they never claimed to be ANYTHING of the sort. then it could be accepted that this is just human.

All these people have said they have chosen a special path to be non violent and peaceful, loving and forgiving... sorry I don't see it.

And honestly so far the very very worst I have seen are Cathoholics, Christians and Islamic

They seem to cause the most trouble and claim to be so much but always seem to cause the most trouble.

Yet there are those such as Gandhi who claim it and LIVE IT! and I completely respect those! but I can't and won't respect phony, false, liars that claim to be one thing and actually don't follow their own faith!


Peace and respect to all
I mean no harm or hurt through this
It is purely my sight of the world and I doubt it will ever change.
You are all free to choose and follow whatever path makes you happy, BUT if you claim it... LIVE IT! WALK THE WALK! and not some half assed version of it!
Jesus never tried to convert ANYONE you had to want to follow. So don't push people. Let them find things for themselves. If they want it they will find it.


Cheers

 

[scruffy]

So, was Ed's question about how many humans God created in Eden, or in all of Genesis?

If it's the latter, then, here's my shot at an answer. I'm not terribly familiar with the Bible; don't even own an Old Testament so I had to look it up online:

• Two or more at 1:27 (day 6), at least one man and one woman
• One man at 2:7 (since as of 2:5 the first lot weren't available for farm work), placed in the garden once it was made around 2:8
• One rib-based woman at 2:22, created as the latter man slept in the garden

Then, the part that seems to me not to make any sense at all:
Adam and Eve have sons at 3:1 (Cain), and 3:2 (Abel). Abel is killed at 3:8 by Cain, who leaves the presence of the omnipresent God to go live in the land of Nod (presumably a descendant of the first lot who were too busy for farming) and by 3:16, has found himself a wife, presumably one of Nod's brood.

 

[edX]

1st - thanks to 439 for the nice words about Pagans. it is such a nice thing considering that we are the ones who most often suffer attack at the hands of others. We lose jobs, family, friends, and even the right to be parents because of our faith - even in this day and age. But somehow in the process it felt like we were excluded from being a religion since religions are bad and we aren't. Being given validity and legal standing as a religion has been a long hard fight for us and it is important that Paganism be recognized as such. Just because we tend to organize in groups of 13 or less doesn't mean we are any less organized than Christianity because they form larger groups devoted to differences in biblical interpretation. There is as much or more infighting between Christian sects as there are among Pagan ones. Which i also find to be a disturbing point in Matt's arguements. He tends to take the view that most Christians think like he does when in fact he is presenting a very fundamentalist, literalist interpretation that is considered to be dangerous by most other Christian sects.

2nd - i do not need to defend my faith to anyone. However i will fight strongly for my right to practice my faith. If you attack my right to have my faith, then i will defend. if you attack me for believing that all Gods are One God and that I will go to your hell because of it, then that is no big deal. I have faith that the universe doesn't work that way and it is stronger than any books or intellectual arguements. I do not fear my Gods. I try to walk in harmony with them. In this process i have no need to "push" any of my beliefs upon anyone else. It really scares me when anyone feels they must "push" something upon anyone else. Pushing is a physical act of violence and even its symbolic usage brings up associations with the crusades, the inquisition, the holocaust and many other unpleasant events that reflect poorly on the human species.

3rd - It is often helpful to distinguish between religion and spirituality. Religion is an institution. It is made up of people who have banded to together under a set of beliefs. It has served both good and bad purposes throughout time. Religions would not exist without members. Or has one of my proffs once said, "There is really no such thing as Christianity, there are only Christians and without them there would be no such thing as Christianity". Substitute the name of any religion in that statement and it is equally true.

Spirituality is the relationship we each have with our God(s). It has nothing to do with books or dogmas or anything except our personal relationship with diety or the universe. Religion is nothing more than a social institution if its members have no true spirituality. However spirituality can be practiced very easily without a religion.

4 - There were only 2 people created in the Garden. That is correct. But there were 2 people created before Adam and Eve. they were the ones who were told to go forth and multiply. Try reading Genesis 1 and comparing it to Genesis 2. A careful read reveals that there are 2 different creation stories contained in Genesis. and this is not some new revelation of modern evolutionists trying to discredit creationists, this was pointed out centuries ago, probably before the oldest known source Nachmanides, wrote it down. The first 2 were the ones created in God's image and were created concurrently with no description of how they were created. The second 2, Adam and Eve, were formed one at a time with a combination of physical manipulation and divine breath. They were told to stay in the garden and tend it. They didn't do nearly so well at that as the man and woman who were told to go out and have domination over the earth.

 

[edX]

Great job Scruffy, you posted your reply while i was composing mine. I think your addition of the 'land of Nod' was a very important piece as well.

also as another line of reasoning about the correctness of the Torah's account of creation, keep in mind that there are many, many versions of how creation took place that exist in many different cultures. There is a bigger question here of 'what makes Judaic history any more correct or even important than all the others?'

and why do Christians such as Matt feel the need to so strongly defend a work that is the basis of another religion and not really their own. Or at least, why do they reinterpret that work to suit themselves rather than relying upon Judaic interpretation? Jesus never refuted the validity of traditional interpretation. he only pointed out that the Jews were not following it very well and so the rules were getting changed a little. Not that the past was now different because of him.

 

[divibisan]

Who's to say that there weren't "lesser" forms of humanity before Adam and Eve?

If you take the Bible literally there cant because it says that the earth was created 10,000 years ago and before then there was nothing in the universe except god.
Just because you don't take the Bible literally, doesn't mean that you cant practice your religion.
As other people were saying, a few hundred years ago, everyone thought that the sun revolved around the earth and that the earth was flat, but now that has been proved otherwise, except for the flat earth association, and now nobody thinks that that contradicts the Bible

 

[divibisan]

And, and, somewhere one of their pages says dinosaurs still walk the Earth and swim in the oceans.

That doesn't disprove the fact that their site is real, some people believe that.

Wouldn't the thing about dinosaurs still walking the Earth reinforce the theory of dinosaurs evolving into birds? If this isn't what they're talking about then what's their explination?

What they think (there is a link to a site about this on their creation page) is that after the flood and the tower of Babel, god hid the dinosaurs from us Link

Also, they believe in the Loch ness monster and some other "famous" examples of living dinosaurs.
It would be impossible for a single or a few dinosaur to survive so there must be many. If there are so many dinosaurs it seems strange that no one has seen them (except for rumors like the Loch Ness Monster). For them to go unnoticed (they mention brontasourises)they must have evolved to be smaller, but then that confirms evolution.

Like the rest of the site, that part makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[4398579-857]

For people like nkuvu and Ed!

Bravo and cheers! I appreciate and admire your ideology and tact!

Faith is faith no religion needed. Do what thou wilt be it harm none! That is exactly as I do in MY life each day, though not Wiccan or aligned to any faith what-so-ever...

Throughout the years I have delved into many beliefs:

Gnostic/Agnostic, Hindi, Wicca, Shamanism, Druidism, Buddhism, et all at some time or another.... Theology consumed me until I personally realized, it's nothing and everything. It's what I made it out to be.

What anyone else said or did made no difference as long as they didn't harm ME personally.

I now believe what I believe and don't really give a damn if anyone else on this entire planet believes as I do. It makes me feel good and provides me with an inner peace. I am a good person, I don't hurt anyone or wish harm on anyone. I would just like to live in peace without the world battling over who is going to heaven or hell when in the end all we wind up is a little pile of rotting dust and scattered energy. I await the day that some one returns to tell me that there IS some other place. Until then this is what I know and see and feel! so this is what IS. I do what I can HERE and NOW!

All these people are so contradicting it makes my brain hurt, we see on TV people who claim to be peaceful Islamics - carrying machine guns and killing people. All because they feel they are chosen and all else must be cleansed from the earth (heralds overtones of Nazis to me)

We have extreme Christians and Catholics that go and blow up abortion clinics because the people INSIDE are killing babies? Huh?! so they go kill a few doctors and patients? Again in the name of their religion or beliefs.

Then we have those crazies that go door to door telling us how we are all doomed to hell! but we can still save our souls...

I'm sorry to tell you if they are who are going to be there in heaven I would rather go to hell. See above though cause I will be a lump of dirt in the end and not in either place.

I feel heaven or hell is a state of mind as you are dieing. IF you sincerely believe you are going someplace your mind makes it happen... If you think you are going to heaven then that will be where you go... If you believe you are going to hell then that is where you will go. The mind is incredibly powerful and can make you feel and believe all sorts of things.

I, am at peace with myself and am happy with what I have done with my life.
If I die tomorrow I will die happy and that will be the end. Sure there is much more to see and do but I am not worrying over it.

More people should just focus on inner peace than trying to convert others, or clean the world of infidels! go have some sex or eat a nice meal! build something, write a book anything just stay out of everyone else's business.

Religion was a tool and is an old one at that, it was used to control people before we had current governing law. It was a a guideline to live by. Many of the current religions are twisted, combinations of the pagan systems that had been in place before them ( I will NOT go into all those details because I am afraid those thoughts will mainly fall on deaf ears other then Ed )

Religion also gave people with way tooooo much time on there hands something to think about and to look forward to... Lives are more complex now and we have other things to think about and worry about... Religion is a dinosaur that should fade into history... Oh wait dinosaurs didn't exist (boy they sure do spend a lot of money on those fake bones they find all over the world!) (sigh!)

Oh well... This is my last post I have said my peace and it is out of my system. Nice chatting with you all. I hope some day things even out and we all can get along without these relics in the way.


Cheers

PS Ed - I won't say who I am but we have corresponded prior to this on a completely unrelated topic. It's nice to know a little more about you.

Also any one else out there that reads this.... IF you are of an outcast faith or belief! DON'T GIVE UP in the end you actually have more love and faith in what you believe in than the idiot that goes to Church EVERY Sunday and doesn't give a crap about what the guy up front is saying! You are the ones that actually care and take the time to understand what it is that you have faith IN! bravo and kudos to you! Unfortunately most of the other religious people mostly spit facts and quote writings and seem to have a huge flame and battle inside! but it for the most part is still facts and quotes sort of like learning history in school, you could spit back the facts but did you honestly give a crap? BE HONEST! that is the first step!

I have been nothing but honest only my name has been withheld to protect the inocent!

Cheers All
No hard feelings I hope

 

[scruffy]

The university where this guy claims to teach does not exist. See my earlier post in this thread (after the one you quote) for further confirmation that this is phony

 

[edX]

well 439, i thought you were someone who has talked to me about a somewhat related subject. If it was about a totally unrelated story then i would surmize you are the one i call Z...

and just for anybody who might not have caught it elsewhere, i must admit to having a BA in Religious Studies. I love to discuss religion and spirituality. It is my favorite subject - even more so than macs. (i can hear the cries of "Blasphemy" now ) and i will never try to force my beliefs on anyone else. 1st, it against my religious/spiritual beliefs to do so and 2nd, my religion doesn't need people who blindly accept someone else's faith as their own. It is my belief that there is no other way to be with God than thru the experience of God. It should only be thru inner searching and personal validation that one comes to any type of faith, but especially to the pagan faith. unfortunately we tend to attract lots of whack jobs who just think it is 'cool'. So i am well aware that there are some pagans who help make the cases against us.

i also recognise that there are plenty of pagans who put down Christians as a generalized group and that i feel they are just as bad as the Christians who see pagans that way. But for most that is just a part of their lesson and the need to feel like that passes with maturity into their faith.

gotta go now, the TV God awaits

oh, and bernie - i like "zealousy" I keep forgetting to tell you that.

 

[MDLarson]

Originally posted by bighairydog
Aah - zealousy (hey, I just made up a cool word)    As I understand it, Darwin was dismayed at the time that some people took him to be saying that he had disproved creation. His book "The Origin of Species", portrayed Natural Selection as a way in which new forms could arise to be better suited to changing environments. He saw Evolution as a device to cope with change, ingeniously built into species by god.

That's interesting and maybe true (I don't know, can you post some sources on this?) But I'm unconvinced that Darwin was a Christian.

    Do you think that Genesis is supposed to be taken literally? After all, Jesus told parables that were stories to illustrate points, nobody believes that he was imparting a perfect replica of events that occurred (or do they – nothing surprises me any more ;o)

Yes, I believe Genesis should be taken literally. Nothing in the text suggests it is a parable or poetry. This is prose history. Yes, Jesus spoke in parables–He was the greatest story-teller. He used the parable as a tool to reach the huge crowds that gathered.

    I agree – another thread, but first I want to point out that as a technicality, Creation Science is not Science. Science, from the Latin to know, is the pursuit on knowledge, starting with evidence that you wish to explain. Creation Science starts with knowledge that is considered irrefutable, and searches for evidence. Hence it is reverse science, or as I prefer to call it, simply backwards.

Well, I dunno. A quick trip over to Merriam-Webster.com and a search for creation science clears things up for me. And why don't you check out Answers In Genesis or the Institute for Creation Research? I find their FAQs to be quite thorough and their science to be credible.

    Also, I believe there is without doubt a great deal of deliberate deception on behalf of Creation Scientists, justified on the grounds that there are people who wouldn’t believe without deception, and they ought to be made to believe any way possible. Some (not all I’m sure) Creation Scientists deliberately twist words and hide contrary evidence. Either that or they’re stupid, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that it’s deliberate deception.

I find it difficult to accept that creation scientists, who are defending the same book that says "Though Shalt Not Lie" are generally liars as you are saying. On the contrary, evolutionists, who adhere to no moral code, have "much less to lose", if you catch my meaning. I am not saying that all creation scientists are saints, but only trying to put this in perspective.

The evolution of life from none, without intervention, yes. Change of species, no. God may have proclaimed his creation good, but he never said that it would always be good, and therefore would remain constant. The world changes, and species must change with it. Besides, you can see evolution happening, in evolution experiments, on a timescale of months. Unless God is intervening in each and every evolution experiment, then organisms do change.

You might be suprised, but I aree with you–species DO change today; you are referring to adaptation / micro-evolution (change within a species) or mutation. But the distinction to note is that these processes will never give you an INCREASE in genetic information, which evolution (macro-evolution) requires.

    You assume a day is a human 24 hour day. That is of course a by-product showing and hiding of the sun, but the sun was supposedly not created until day 4 – after the day/night dichotomy was created right at the start. errr...

Go to this page on AIG and scroll down to "Light Before the Sun?" Good question–hopefully a good answer?

    Yeah, the Bible scholars that thought that the Bible was evidence that the sun revolved around the earth read Hebrew too. They were so certain of themselves that they burned people alive for doubting them publicly.

No doubt about it, great atrocities have been committed in the name of religion, but those who carry out these deeds are still wrong in murder, and the truth of the Bible does not change. The Bible is the standard for Christianity, not the crusaders, the molesting priests and pastors, the hypocritical church-goers, or Dr. Paley.

 

[MDLarson]

I have to walk a thin tight-rope between trying to answer people's questions / statements and not appearing as if I am "pushing my beliefs". Please note that I am NOT trying to preach or push Christianity on anyone. My motivation for sticking in this thread and others are simply defense and hopefully a greater understanding on all our parts.

We're all friends here, and hopefully we can at least learn from each other!

 

[RacerX]

Originally posted by MDLarson
And why don't you check out Answers In Genesis or the Institute for Creation Research? I find their FAQs to be quite thorough and their science to be credible.

lol, I loved living next to the Institute for Creation Research! Those guys were great! I never had as much fun with a group of people in my life. That is the only place in the world where a PE teacher can become a Professor of Biology.

Yes the good ol' Institute for Propaganda Propagation, just one more reason I miss home.

 

[Valrus]

For a debate about religion, this has been almost seven pages of remarkable civility. Keep it up, all! The debate is good too! I'm giving this thread 5 stars.

I'd join in, but I'm a godless heathen who doesn't really know much about religion. Actually I refer to myself as a "passionate, die-hard agnostic."

-the valrus

 

[nkuvu]

I know where you're coming from, Valrus. I'm there with you...

I read a bumper sticker not too long ago:

"I am a militant agnostic. I don't know and you don't either"

Anyway, just thought I'd share.

 

[edX]

originally said by young matt
On the contrary, evolutionists, who adhere to no moral code, have "much less to lose",

Matt - you had best watch what you are saying and how you say it or we may stop discussing and go back to not being friends. To imply that evolutionists, by lack of being literal interpretationists of the Bible, lack a moral code is just plain ignorant and borders on stupid. You might not have intended it that way, but you have just attacked me and claimed that i have no morals. or that my morals aren't as good as yours because they aren't written down where i can check them when i forget what they should be. (or maybe because i don't have somebody telling me what to believe, i can't believe anything) shame on you young man.

frankly i must admit that i stretched the truth a while back. i haven't gone to the original site and read the original article that started this thread. I read a few bits and pieces of what people said about it and their quotes of it, and then proclaimed to agree with it. It would appear that your understanding of Genesis is about the same as mine of the original article which makes it rather hard to discuss it with you. or maybe that is why you are so busy retaliating to accusations that have nothing to do with you (like the pope) and not to a discussion with scruffy and i about the 2 different accounts of creation in genesis.

said by matt and also asked less explicitly by jkazules
As a side note, how would you feel if I or somebody else attacked your pagan faith? Not you, but your faith. Would you not feel motivated to respond and correct? If not right away, what if we kept doing it? You see, it becomes personal now and you cannot rightly say "You don't have to defend your faith if it's real", because some people just do not know what they are talking about. You would feel very compelled to DEFEND. Agreed?

I will reitterate to you and jkazules that my faith and members of my faith come under much greater attacks on a daily basis simply for our beliefs than you have probably experienced in your whole lifetime. What you are experiencing here is like a child crying because it has to eat spinach instead of jello. While across town a child is crying because it has no food.

If you would like to be educated as to my beliefs then i would be glad to help with that. If you would like to believe that i worship your Satan, then go ahead. i don't need to defend the fact that i don't. mostly because i know i don't. but if you come into my world and attempt to take away my life because of my beliefs, then you can bet you are in for a fight. It's funny (ironic use) how Christians seem to gather around pagans to tell them all about what is wrong about the way they believe, but you will never find a true pagan seeking a Christian out just to condemn them. Why is that? and do not try to tell me that it is because the bible says to, because i know it doesn't. if you expect to prove me wrong about that then you had better come armed with chapter and verse and no links to fundamentalist propaganda.

see, if you can't make a good enough argument for it on your own, then you don't know it well enough to go around saying that is what you believe. and it is always better to argue what you believe than what you think you ought to believe.

 

[RacerX]

Matt, I know how much you hate it when I argue your points by contradiction, but this one really need to be looked at.

by Matt
I find it difficult to accept that creation scientists, who are defending the same book that says "Though Shalt Not Lie" are generally liars as you are saying. On the contrary, evolutionists, who adhere to no moral code, have "much less to lose", if you catch my meaning. I am not saying that all creation scientists are saints, but only trying to put this in perspective.

Lets look at this for a minute (remembering that I am one of those people you claim adhere to no moral code having written and done research on the origins of the Universe). Do you really think that all of us know that creation is correct and that we are all collectively lying about this fact?

As I pointed out earlier, I know people at the ICR. These are not the brightest people I've come across. They do not research anything. This is as much of a cult as I have ever come across. They are only interested in believing what they set out to believe and nothing else matters to them. There was not one independent thinker there (at least five years ago when I last had the pleasure of spending time with their members).

As for the question of them lying, no, the members of ICR are not conscience of the fact that they are misleading others. They truly believe what they are saying because they need to truly believe what they are saying. These people (and I am starting to think you may also be included in this) are phobic. This is okay, a world without bounds, without all the questions answered, where there is still much that is unknown is a scary place.

Please understand, the people at the Institute for Creation Research are not that different from the people of the Flat Earth Society. If the Universe as we know it (and more importantly what we don't know about it) scares you, that is okay. It is a scary subject and hiding in a book like the Bible is a common occurrence.

In light of this, we really should leave Matt to his beliefs. Granted from our point of view, this is nothing more than removing someone's security blanket, but anyone who knows about people who are phobic about things knows that you really shouldn't play with their fears. Remember that if others are not completely wrong, then he is going to be scared to death because he may not be completely right (and it does explain quite a bit about past posts). With that, I'll just say I feel sorry for him and leave it as such.

 

[scruffy]

Originally posted by RacerX
Please understand, the people at the Institute for Creation Research are not that different from the people of the Flat Earth Society.

Actually, the members of the Flat Earth Society don't take the flat earth thing seriously any more. It's really a joke society now, even to its members. Check out their website: http://www.flat-earth.org/

edit: I should mention, I'm not really sure if it was ever actually taken seriously by anyone at all. It was apparently only founded in 1993...

 

[RacerX]

I think this is a better page.

The Flat Earth Society

 

[edX]

well, i think RacerX has some points. if Matt isn't overall phobic, he should be feeling pretty claustrophobic at this point. it probably isn't fair that we are all ganging up on him I would invite jkazules to step in and help out a little more. It has come to my attention that his points are largely being ignored. i know in my case it is because i know, and have gradually come to like Matt and have a little history of debating this kind of thing with him.

i would like to address jkazules statement that there are no contradictions in the bible. Where did you hear that? It has been my expereince in reading it that many of them exist. there are plenty of contradictions between the new and old testaments to be sure. In fact, the existence of the new testament is a contradiction to the old testement. Jesus does not meet the qualifications described by prophecy for the messiah.

and to be clear, i am not attacking christians for believing any way they would like to. keep in mind i was raised Christian. i found lots of things about it that didn't make sense to me and so i found it very difficult to believe. Things i present about the bible, its interpretations and about Christians are some of the things that led me to feel this way. If they still make sense to anyone else, then more power to them.

btw - if there is anyone who is reading this who hasn't seen the 'what relgion are you?' poll, then this would be a good time to check it out.