'You've already told us you believe in neither the virgin birth
nor the resurrection...nor that He performed genuine miracles...'

Really? Where did I say any of those things?

'You don't believe we know Jesus' genealogy as a man...'

We have agreed that Matthew takes great liberties in order to create
the 14 x 3 structure, and that Luke gives a much different set of names.

'You don't believe He spoke or lived without error...'

If His words are accurately reported, then He made some factual
errors in casual speech. I agree with you that these can easily
be written off as 'figures of speech'.

'"son of god" in an existential sense...'

I'm not an expert on existentialism; in fact, I've never read Sartre.
I have, as I have said, been reading the Bible for over half a century.

'any of us might also be the "son of god"...'

Jesus Himself quotes the psalmist in this regard.

'If God is there, if the universe has a divine origin, then nothing
in the Bible is impossible or beyond belief...'

I don't follow your logic here. I believe that the universe has
a divine origin, consistant with equally divine laws of nature,
covering everything from intergalactic cosmology to the evolution
of species. The Bible is another matter entirely.

'Redactor is the right word.'

Thank you.

'I have a Bible that was delivered a LONG TIME AGO IN A FINISHED FORM TO THE PEOPLE OF God.'

Oh? Which might that be, and are you saying that no redaction was
involved in its preparation? That is was miraculously printed and bound? I'd like to hear more.

'Translating is very different from redacting...'

I understand that, and anyone who has used the AB knows that only
a small percentage of it is the actual text, and the rest is commentary. The translation, however, is quite excellent, and the commentary is unexcelled.

'The "scholars" involved have no particular concern about what effect
they have on anyone's faith...'

If you're saying they are non-sectarian, I agree. I'm not sure
why 'scholars' is in quotes. Scholarship, in fact, has little to
do with faith, which is mainly concerned with what we cannot know or understand. Also, it's important to point out that commentary, in this context, and redaction are not the same as interpretation. The editors of the AB are giving us insights into the Bible's history and the nuances of the original languages, not telling us how to interpret its inspirational message.

'I'd want good navigational aids, I suppose. Oh, you didn't mention that option...'

I didn't? Go back and read it again.

'Would you rather have recent theories than ancient truths?'

The Pythagorean theorem goes back a ways and has held up pretty
well. Apart from that, I don't know of many 'ancient truths'.
I know of a lot of things like were accepted as factual which have
since been proven false, and we have already discussed many of these.

'...the recent theories conflict with the ancient evidence and known facts...'

Give me examples, other than from obvious crackpots, of recent theories that conflict with known facts.

'Your contentious slander of people who believe that God has spoken
is insulting...people whom you say "must be opposed"...'

Well, caf, when God starts speaking to people, I get nervous. My cousin personally knows a man who is serving two back-to-back live terms (he ain't gonna get out anytime soon) in Kansas. He knifed two people to death because 'Jesus told me to' after they had had an argument of some kind. That's an extreme example, but people who want nonsense taught as SCIENCE in PUBLIC schools, to MY GRANDCHILDREN are extreme in another direction. Of course they must be opposed - in your own words, public schools cannot teach religion well. 'Creationism' is religion, with a large dose of politics mixed in. We'll come back to this later.

'...violence and moral carnage it has fostered.'

Examples, please, of violence and moral carnage fostered by the evolution of species.

'Evolutionary science is intrinsically a religious philosophy...'

An outrageous and ridiculous statement. It has NONE of the characteristics of religion.

'My stomach literally churns...'

I recommend Maalox liquid, with a simethecone chaser.

At this point, I'd like to comment very briefly on your synopsis
of religious persecution in the middle ages, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything else in our discussion.

I am not an expert on that period in history, from either a secular or religious perspective. I presume, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the people you named were found guilty of heresy by a politcal system that had 1. the power to decide and determine what constituted 'heresy' and 2. The power to carry out the sentences. This is exactly why church and state must remain separate, especially in a multi-cultural country like the USA. The same thing is happening today in the Islamic countries. A writer publishes something that offends some lunatic 'imam' or 'moo-lah', who also claims that, to use your own words, 'God has spoken' to him, and the man calls for the writer's death.

Let me ask you this, caf: Whom would you sentence to death, if you had the power? Homosexuals? Women who have had abortions? There is a movement within Protestant fundamentalism called Christian Reconstructionism who would do just that. I'm not sure how to embed the HTML tags, but here's their website address:

http://www.chalcedon.edu

Do you share their future vision of America?

'...the Bible, the source of all truth...'

Really? ALL truth? What does the Bible say about relativity and
quantum physics? atomic structure? higher mathematics? viruses?
DNA? cybernetics? lasers? I must have missed those parts.

'Believing in (intelligent) design and purpose is the only trustworthy basis for the human rights you would surely espouse, the right to choose to believe and live as you desire. Freedom... '

Surely. And I have said that I believe in intelligant design (within
the laws of nature) and purpose. I fail to see much connection
with human rights and freedom. How much freedom are the 'Christian
Reconstructionists' offering? The various muslim terrorists?

Once more, caf, and then I'll 'hang it up': 'Creationism' is a BUSINESS. The authors of the various 'Creationist' textbooks know that it's all garbage. The publishers of this material know that it's all nonsense. The only people who don't know this are, sadly, people like yourself. I should also add that, as far as I know, it's purely an American phenomenon, completely unknown in the rest of the world, except, as I have mentioned, no doubt the terrorist Muslims teach something similar.

The evolution of species is not merely a fact, caf, it is the central fact of modern biology. Without it, nothing in modern biology makes any sense at all. If the biology textbook has 30 chapters, and you remove the one on Darwin, evolution is there in one form or another in the other 29. In order to rid the world, or at least the American classroom of this 'menace', the entire textbook will have to be thrown out, and replaced by...what, caf? Who is going to write it? Marion Robertson? Jerry Foulwell? And once it is written, who is going to teach it? I have faith in American educators - they will never tolerate teaching folklore as science. You would have to enact a law that Biology may be taught ONLY by fundamentalist Christians.

Once you have done that, why not go all the way, and have...

American history taught ONLY by Mormons?

Medicine taught ONLY by Christian Scientists?

Emergency room procedures ONLY by Jehovah's witnesses?

Marriage and family ONLY by Shakers?

Auto mechanics ONLY by Amish?

Bowling ONLY by Holy Rollers?

...and girls' career counseling ONLY by Taliban?

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I have a 'modest proposal': Let's each make a BRIEF closing statement and wrap this discussion up. Of course, other readers are welcome to contribute.