In defense of the religious...

Many criminals "find Jesus" while they are in jail. And why shouldn't they?
• they are at a low point in their lives and need some hope
• they want to seem reformed and less dangerous
• the best way to get society off your back is to conform

They may not, in fact, have had religious lives when they committed their crime.

Having said that, in defense of your statements, it seems to me there are many, MANY, priests and preachers who are molesting children/promoting violence to their congregation/stealing from their congregations etc. They have god in their lives... yet...

I think it would be interesting to see how many of those who do find jesus immediately return to crime when they are released.

It is really all very simple:

Either the bible is inspired and of God or it is not.

If it is then we must assume that all of the changes that have happened to the book(s) are result of "God's Will". There are more than 30,000 of these changes documented be they intentional or accidental.

If all of the changes are the will of God then it is safe to assume that all things NOT changed are also persistent by the will of God. That means Leviticus and it's many violent rules are NOT to be ignored by Christianity.

If all of those changes are NOT of God then we can assume that 1) the book is NOT inspired or 2) It just isn't that important to God that the book be unchanged or taken seriously.

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You need to understand that "literacy" when these text were being copied is not the same as it is now. Many of the people copying the texts could not IN FACT read. They simply copied one scroll, character for character, to another. This is true for HUNDREDS of years until educated scribes began making copies. However, at that time, they were already making copies from errant copies.

Errors were unavoidable when you consider that people copying may not have been able to read and the two "original" languages, Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT), had interesting syntax systems. Hebrew writings do not use vowels and Greek writings of the time did not use spaces between words!

What am I saying:

Fr h s lk rfnrs fr --- no vowels
godisnowhere --- no spaces


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People who say that Hitler was without religion have no idea what he was really about. FURTHER, the most powerful single religion, the Catholics, were in bed with Nazism in many places. The Vatican not excluded.

Christianity has been used to defend some of the most atrocious acts of man. Slavery worldwide, the annihilation of the natives in the Americas, the kidnapping of the native children in Australia, right down to forced marriages at the age of 13 to men 30+ years older.

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Lastly, Rick

You have no idea of the impact religion has had on civilizations. The fact is most civilizations that have risen to the level of empire set the ground work for their golden ages as Polytheists. It is only after they become monotheistic that they begin to suffer from corruption and true power lusts that force them to collapse from within. This is largely do to the fact that a singular god figure eliminates defendable individuality to a large extent thus consolidating power into a few hands.

or... rather...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5ieDj9hMg4

Good stuff man.
The last song I wrote along this vain is. . .
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