RevBogovac

Hmkay... As I already said:

Right. And: But you forgot: And than he can repent our free choices... right.

You exactly emphasise my point. Do you think we don't have culture and social pressure in the Netherlands? Believe me, we have. But we (at least a lot more of us) take the trouble of thinking a couple of steps further; remember what is important and focus on our friends and family... instead of "just" following the leader... That blackface discussion further shows the point; nobody takes that serious over here... (except for a few exceptions on both ends of the extreme). For the fast majority we like the "Aristotelian golden mean" over here... as a Dutch saying says: "act normally, and that's already strange enough". I don't know if you saw the video of our Prime Minister bumping over his cup of coffee...?

Nope, for a (hu-)man that makes perfectly sense. For a so called omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient God however... Major contradictions...

You think its that small a percent? Christmas is a massive economic driver here. No company can really avoid thinking about how it effects their bottom line. And the yearly media blitz extolling the virtues of "Finding The Perfect Gift" highlights the replacement of Christ with Consumerism as the centerpiece of the holiday in the collective consciousness... My emphasis was on "thinking", the rest are just consumers following the crowd... hence: lazy...

It totally isn't that. I mean, it does contain some philosophy and some metaphors, but they don't even comprise the majority of the book. Its full of everything from folk history and legal records to geneologies and dream diary entries... Its a very complicated collection of disparate texts... True, those too...

Not to bother you all with the (Very long) list of contradictions the bible is full of (and that is "normal" as people wrote the bible, and people are fallible.) You can find one of those lists at: Bible Inconsistencies - Bible Contradictions? as compiled by Donald Morgan. As people who find themselves defending these contradictions bending over backwards, will also say that: Adam lived 930 years (GE 5:5); and, Terah was 205 years old when he died, making Abram 135 at the time (GE 11:32); As far as the God "not repenting [...] himself, [...] creation, [...] anything He had done" but he "repented of what man had done, the wickedness of man", well: God decides who will be dumb, deaf, blind, etc (EX 4:11 ). One of my - personal - favourite (recurring) contradictions in the bible is the dichotomy: 2SA 24:1 The Lord inspired David to take the census. 1CH 21:1 Satan inspired the census. Ah well. c'mon people; the bible is a nice philosophical book full of metaphors one can choose to learn from (or not). But taking the bible literally in this day and age, IMHO, does Christianity a huge disfavour.

Contradiction. <- period

It has more to do with Americans trying to more efficiently exploit profit opportunities. Economies of scale, and all that. Piggy-backing the Santa myth on the Christmas holiday created more opportunities for "kid-friendly" merchandising while simultaneously cementing in the popular consciousness the notion that Christmas is primarily about gift-giving (and, therefore, gift-buying).[...] True... for the 0,1% thinking and acting like that. For the 99,9 other %... well... maybe...

Sorry, but you do not get to "philosophise" this away... God does not get to "repent", remember: NU 23:19-20, 1SA 15:29, JA 1:17. Major contradictions going on by now...

That's "just" Americans being lazy... Santa Claus is actually a derivation from Saint Nicholas; a clergyman who was made into a saint because of various good deeds involving children (especially giving them sweets to children so they got some reserves to survive winter). "We" (Dutch) commemorate him around his death anniversary (6. december), and continued to do so as "we" colonised the Americas. Unfortunately Coca Cola decided at the beginning of the 20th century that two holidays in one month was too much and adapted Santa Claus into this "modern" holidaymaker. The popularisation of American culture did the rest... The "celebration" of spring/rebirth of nature with fertility symbols has nothing to do with Easter. It was a coincidence that the pagan celebration of the spring equinox and Judean Pascha coincided more or less so the early Christians adopted the pagan rituals as to convert pagans easier. At the time it was a good idea, nut now it ridicules the most important Christian holiday. I personally like to commemorate the death sentence the philosopher Jesus fro Nazareth got because he did not want to denounce his teachings of equality before the gathered masses (who were there to celebrate the Jewish Pascha) thereby "immortalising" this philosophy and laying the foundation for our current culture. PS@Jonathan; and I thought Jack Frost only entered our culture somewhere in the 19th century personifying (unifying?) the "old God" Old Man Winter (Western Europe) / Grandpa Frost (Eastern Europe)...

I - as an "outsider" to USA laws* - think you can probably find something in the direction of copyright-law: was it the designer's (I believe that was Eiffel, from the French tower) or commissioner's (was it NY city, state or Federal?) intention to depict these gods, or were they only used for inspiration as to depict some abstract notion (like - for instance - freedom). As it is at least a mixture of two known gods I would say the case is strong for the latter. * but I must agree with Jonathan (again...) that this seems like a fun discussion.

100% contradictory, you can not have your cake and eat it too... Creation is either good or not good. An omniscient creator does not get to change his mind. As jonathan said too: In fact, the bible states God does not change his mind: NU 23:19-20, 1SA 15:29, JA 1:17. Major contradictions going on here now...

I believe the whole bible should be taken - more or les - as a metaphor. Just like every single other philosophical text. I - persoanlly - would add though that I actually do believe there was some philospher named Jesus. Probably from around Nazareth, spreading his word around Jerusalem about 2000 years ago). Plenty of plausible evidence on that (more than on Plato, who "only" had the writings of Socrat, for instance). The problem starts over a centruty after Jesus was sentenced to death for spreading his equalitarian philosophies when some emperor in Constantinopel decided he should grant Jesus some "miracles" so he can persuade more people to his own sphere of influence. And that is exactly what is "wrong" with the bible too; if you start taking that book too literal. There has been too many changes, drops and additions to do that. It's just a good philosophical read. Nothing more, nothing less. Oh yeah; and yes: I am extremely grateful to Jesus spreading that equalitarian philosphy that is a big part of the basis of our current day way of life. And for standing so strongly for them that he actually accepted the death penalty over recanting his words. But no, he did not "rise from the dead" (that was actually one of those miracle that were added to the book over 100 years after hies death).

Of course... Obviously... Speaking of God: GE 1:31 God was pleased with his creation. GE 6:5-6 God was not pleased with his creation.