Jazzact13, 

So you really think that I feel I'm "above God".  Really? Is that honest or the theatrics of divisive debate. I hope we can all seek the heart of God together and stay above those kinds of statements.  I know you guys are seeking God so I don't make statements like that even when we disagree.

Maybe I don't write well enough to make that clear, but I hope you don't read that statement assume I think God is actually wrong. If you read the comment again (a comment I STILL stand by) you should be able to see that what I'm suggesting is that when people place bad things into the mouth of God then IN THAT CONTEXT God is wrong (meaning that the person who put those words there is actually the one that is wrong).   Everytime someone says "God says xyz" that doesn't mean God is saying it. Actually it is usually NOT God. 

 I hope that is clear, but who knows what you will hear when you read it. At this point I suspect your objective is to hear the worst possible thing that could somehow be misinterpreted from what I say.   I've lost in your eyes before I start because you (and often Andrew) want to lump the baggage of all perversions of modern secularism onto my back.  I don't get to express my views, I have to have you guys lump the views of hundreds of other on top of me. 

The point of my comments in that other thread is that when people do horrible things like wipe out entire tribes of people including women and children or fly airplanes into the world trade center and then claim that "God told me to do it so it is justified".  Guess what? THAT ISN'T GOD and it doesn't matter if later on someone decides to cannonize their writings. It is still NOT God.  It does however tell us that they thought it was God and that is very important and illuminating when understading the rest of their writtings.  It gives us additional information to set the context for what they say.

I made a simple suggestion that we should understand the worldview of people writing scripture in order to derive their original meaning and then accept the meaning without enforcing the worldview onto modern people.  How can anyone see that as a bad thing?  I don't know of a single scholar that does anything different including the holy Tom Wright.

I think you guys really want me to be saying something that I'm not saying.  Maybe life would be easier if everyone that disagreed with you was evil so that it makes your viewpoint look better. I think many of these conversations devlolve to the point of stupidity and divisiveness.   That is exactly what C.S. Lewis often did. He created a false dichotomy so that he could shoot down the opposing view as absurd in order to make his view look like a winner (either Jesus is God as he said or a lunatic).  The problem is that there are more than 2 options and he ignores those other options in an attempt to skew the debate.