Makes me wonder if research is being undertaken to build platforms in the Arctic

onto which polar bears could climb up and rest, and survive - as the ice melts underneath them.

Ahhh... that Oldie but Goodie - the "Sermon on the Mount."

One of the best-loved extended Quotations of Jesus Christ - that is ironically one of the LEAST-referenced or quoted by the so-called "religious" "right." As you'll notice by listening to them, they never heard of such a thing. They prefer the "Old Testament Jesus" - the "Leviticus Jesus" who only talked of punishing. They like the hard-ass Paul the Apostle, who came up with that little gem about how if you don't work you don't get to eat. Jesus Himself NEVER said that, at least from what my studies and all those years in Catholic school have shown me. If you forced them to recall The Beatitudes, you can probably expect them to come up with a litany of "blessed are the rich" and "blessed are the greedy" and "blessed are the selfish" and "blessed are the warmakers." And, after all, wasn't it the poor and sick and needy whom He drove out of the Temple that day, while exalting the money-changers?

Well, just remember, he's got the best ophthalmology certification he can buy!

Welcome to DU, ybbor!

Glad you're here! I went all through Catholic school too. I heard that explanation at one point - "well, one 'Day' might actually be a factor of many years, or many millennia, or some such. But basically we have years of verbal tradition originated and passed down through generations of nomads and sheep herders, many of whom never saw a book or the inside of any sort of classroom, and eventually written down by somebody in a language eventually translated by somebody else, and maybe they did it as literally as possible and maybe they had an agenda to promote or an objective that motivated them. Therefore, seems to me the Bible CANNOT be taken literally, but as inspiration and food for thought and discussion.

And by their selfish thoughtless un-Christ-like behavior, they take His name in vain.

I suppose the greatest revenge for all of us to enjoy would be

knowing what those cranks see when they look in the mirror every morning. UGH!!!! UGH-ly!

Welcome to DU, Chrom!

Glad you're here! NO KIDDING!!!! Yes, I'm SHOUTING!!! Those "pious" trolls on TV and at public prayer breakfasts and services and stuff, strutting around doing their holier-than-thou thing (and be sure to send money, folks! I'm doing GAWD'S work!).

Jesus said we were supposed to go hide in a closet to pray, not to blab it around, not to strut down the center aisle at church being a big loud splashy show-off so everybody knows how much you have and how much you just donated. That lesson certainly was lost in a hurry, wasn't it?

And keep in mind, too, where did the other women come from in that creation story?

As in - we have Adam and Eve. Their son Cain killed their other son Abel. And suddenly we had humanity multiplying and begetting all over the place. Who was it Cain married? Who was she? Where'd she come from? And did EVERYBODY route back from Cain's lineage then? Who was Seth, a later son of Adam and Eve - and where'd he find HIS wife?

We could go on questioning this stuff for longer than the alleged Methuselah allegedly lived...

I had a Jesuit-educated teacher of Scriptural Studies in high school. He had two words for this whole conundrum that really summed it up for me. "As if." He wrote it on the board one day early in the school year during an introductory lecture, and drew little arrows pointing to it. His point was - these were allegories. Metaphors. Efforts to explain stuff to the mindset WAAAAAAAAAAAAY back when. Before science. Before research. Before advanced studies. Heck, before too many could even read or write.

It helped illuminate that whole issue for all of us in his class. Never forgot that lesson. Clarified pretty much everything.

What's MNAT?

This is MOST interesting, laserhaas!

Wouldn't it be amazing if this really did have legs, and the bad guys actually DID get convicted and put in prison? Knowing what kinds of strings they can pull and what princely options are available to them, I'm not holding out much hope, but hey, you never know. That sure would be Christmas for all the rest of us! You know - Martha Stewart actually did have to do time. Her thing was a tiny bit ridiculous if you ask me, in the scheme of things, that is. But hey, thereya go. Still - she, ultra-rich, coddled, and well-connected, had to do actual time. So maybe there's hope. I'm sure mittie would get house arrest or some such plush arrangement. But Good Heavens, I would LOVE to see a vulture like him finally have to get his "clean" soft pretty manicured hands dirty.

And what annoys me too are the other Richie Riches and the Wall Streeters

and the banksters who whine about "uncertainty!" Oh WAAAAAHHHH....

All the time with the boo hoooooooing and "oh, we can't possibly stop hoarding (y)our money, oh we can't possibly invest in more jobs... because of the economic UNCERTAINTY!!!!!!" Yeah, well BULLSHIT.

Anybody with that much money and the security it brings - CANNOT whine and complain and moan and groan about some bullshit "uncertainty." Not when they've got a security blanket like that.