Replying to gdargan, 22 March, 4:41pm :

The first thing I want to comment on is when you said that God’s word doesn’t need to be interpreted literally, and that you think it is silly for someone to think that scripture has to be "scientifically verifiable."

You can’t truely claim that statement as it is, that scripture doesn’t need to be interpreted literally.  That is too specific, and you cannot escape that ALOT of scripture IS LITERAL.  That is just the way it is.  Even if you’re right, and I’m wrong, and the passages we are discussing are metaphoric in their proper interpretations, you still cannot interpret every passage of the Bible in that way, there are many passages that WERE MEANT to be taken LITERALLY.  The story of David and Goliath, was a LITERAL story.  If you think that Goliath was not a 12 ft tall Philistine, but that the "giant" was some metaphore, then you are probably going to end up in Hell anyway, because you probably misinterpreted the passages that were trying to keep you out in the first place!  Whether you agree with the Virgin Birth issues or not, you’ve got to see that literal interpretation is a reality for properly interpreting scripture.  No, not ALL scripture, but alot more than you seem to admit to.

Another comment you made, was that next sentence, that "whether or not the geneologies in scripture are 100% accurate or not really does not have any bearing on whether Jesus is God."  However, you do not believe "JUST BECAUSE", there are REASONS for your beliefs.  Those reasons did not just POP into your brain at some point as you said, "oh my, that’s it!"  No, you do base your faith upon something.  and you may be right, it may not be those geneologies that cause you to believe.  But, whether you realized it or not, those geneologies took a part in your belief that Jesus is God, because they show that Jesus was descended from David, and you knew that the future messiah, according to many a messianic prophecy, had to be from the line of David.  But of course now we’ve discussed all that, and the line is a cursed line because of Jeconiah, AND there’s the problem that this line is actually from Joseph, and therefore could only be Jesus’ by adoption.  And now everyone is suddenly saying that I’m taking it literally, it has to be in some other way than physically that Jesus is descended now, because he is descended from David one way or the other!!  But, that geneology does have bearing on whether or not Jesus is God.  If prophecy says something about the messiah, then that is it, prophecy is literal, most of the time.  And if Jesus is the messiah, he HAS to conform to those prophecies, and if Jesus is God, then because prophecy is a system designed BY GOD, then Jesus WOULD conform.

Now about your next paragraph, I’ll just say, that if I’m laying in a grass field staring at the sky, trying to comprehend God, then it is OBVIOUSLY a total waste of my efforts, because I will FAIL.  But that is not even comparable to reading, and comprehending, written scripture, with only one distinction- there may very well be SOME passages that God has chosen to BLIND us to, until his appointed time for us to understand.  BUT- the passages in question are specifically prophecies, there is no way you will convince me that God has blinded us to learning about Jesus and the reasons why he is God or is not God.  If Jesus is God, then he obviously wants us all to know it, so we will follow him unto salvation, am I right or wrong about that???  IF I’m right, then there would be no reason God would hide those truths in scripture, they would be understandable, accessable, teachable, and learnable.  But, if those things were true, and if scripture was the only proof of Christ’s divinity, then there would not be a way to use scripture to disprove it unless it were false.  Don’t forget, JEROME WROTE THE VULGATE!

All the books of the "New Testament" were just letters that were sent to groups of people scattered across the holy land, to clear up this issue or that question.  With the exceptions of the 4 gospels, Acts/Romans, and Revelations.  Well, how did they become "scripture"?  For that matter, how did they become "infallible" if they were just letters written by men, who weren’t even prophets??  ROME canonized the books of the NT, ROME even CHOSE which books would be accepted, and which would be rejected!!  ROME conquered palestine in 70 ad, and ROME has had access to almost every available scroll, writing, letter, tablet, you name it.  They are the ones who chose what their populace would believe, and they used the NEW Holy Bible to do it, that is when the Roman Catholic Church was truely born.  Do you think those trustworthy, honest Romans had the immense self control to resist "doctoring" what we now call scripture?  Or is it possible that much of today’s Bible has been altered to produce a certain effect among the peoples that they were in control of back then?  The truth is, they simply ended up maintaining that control for almost 2000 years.

Now, all that stuff I just said about Rome, is my PHILOSOPHY.  I admit, that it is HERESAY, and that ther is NO proof whatsoever.  There are many things in scripture that lead me to believe that something like that has happened, but there is no way for me to prove it.  The most I could expect would be to convince you to admit that those "hypotheses" of mine were plausable.  But concerning other things in scripture, especially concerning one of the most important doctirnes in Christianity, those things are mostly, clearly provable or disprovable.  It is possible to discover truth, it just depends upon how far you’re willing to go to uncover it.