Christians are chosen.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Man, over time, has been pretty bad, and mostly to each other. (By the way, your "you bad humans, you need to stop your party ways and start worshiping me again" is exactly what God said to the Hebrews and why He brought them to and through the Babylonian Exile, but that is another story. (They have had a long history of 'not listening'. ) )

I agree th ...[text shortened]... ping" involved, just people not really "getting it", and on both sides of the "belief" equation.

It's too bad the tales in the bible are not taken today as allegory. The WW flood tale is so full of holes a modern 10 year old can spot them. And it seems clear to me the 'man=50 shekels, woman=30 shekels' bit was not done by a god either. Just a way to put it in stone that THIS religion puts men on top. It wasn't always that way, the ancient Minoins had women on top politically and it was the advent of the warriers who conquered those older cultures that men were on top in later religions and Judaism and Christianity and Islam followed that one right down the line. Islam took that to a whole other level, where a woman reporting rape is arrested and raped again in jail and so forth.

Originally posted by sonhouse
It's too bad the tales in the bible are not taken today as allegory. The WW flood tale is so full of holes a modern 10 year old can spot them. And it seems clear to me the 'man=50 shekels, woman=30 shekels' bit was not done by a god either. Just a way to put it in stone that THIS religion puts men on top. It wasn't always that way, the ancient Minoins had w ...[text shortened]... hole other level, where a woman reporting rape is arrested and raped again in jail and so forth.

It basically IS 'taken as allegory'. Even though some still believe it, just as some still believe that the earth and universe were created in six 24-hour days. Most think today that the 'Great Flood' was a local event (huge in effect, yet still local, not affecting the entire world). Personally, I do not think a world view which accepts the Flood as a world-wide event is going to interfere with one's salvation, but I do think that the 'young-earth-creationists' (YEC) have some sort of block in their thinking and intelligence which prevents them from seeing alternatives and this same block doesn't allow them to see the message of Jesus as a message of love, instead of the exclusionary world-view they have created from it. Jesus did not teach an "us vs. them" mentality, and yet many in the Christian community hold such a view, which IS unfortunate.

And again, giving women their due is strictly a new movement, not coming to America until the beginning of last century (at least in our culture). Ancient man of course had the view that women are inferior and should be 'protected' like a second-class citizen. If the scriptures of 3500 years ago had touted the idea that women were equal to men, no one would have given this 'heretical' document a second look. This is what I mean with the Bible making do with certain cultural aspects as a reality instead of presenting a new view. That wasn't its job. The OT (and the Torah) are basically a history document, explaining the development of a people, and with that, their relationship with God the Creator. It wasn't until the NT that we got a look at a 'new' view of man's interaction with God, but it was still somewhat "behind the times" from a cultural standpoint, because man himself was basically still "behind the times".