Have you not been paying attention this entire time? From both the interview and from what I have written, if you bothered to read most of it, you would see that I am not going to go for the bait on what is, essentially, a literalist interpretation argument on your part. As a poor victim of fundamentalist oppression you should know that scripture can be made to say anything you want it to say. Statistics, facts, quotations, all of them can be made to do what you want them to do. You won't enjoy any scriptural "gotcha!" moments with me, because as I said I hang my hat on my relationship with God and people, not on a piece of ancient literature that is helpful, but not a god in itself.

But in any case, yes, Jesus confirmed the Commandments but not the laws. And the commandments pretty much stand for what they are. When God says no idols, he means not to worship things like, say... the bible, your own vanity, your own preconceptions of God. That is a commandment against spiritual arrogance, something many self-described people of faith are guilty of. They create an idea of what God must be like and then they worship it. That is idolatry of a very insidious nature, for people know a golden calf when they see it but are much slower to recognize when they have turned their own prejudices into their god.

You can contend that grace and mercy are human traits, and I might even agree, but just as perfect goodness is only realized in God, I would say that so perfect mercy and grace are only realized in God. Besides, if I hurt myself, I don't need your grace or mercy for it. Indeed your grace or mercy would probably be most unwelcome. Human grace and mercy is a great thing but it hardly covers all the things we do.

Specific parts of our psyche are harmful. That much is obvious. How else can you explain the Holocaust, murder, rape, torture, child abuse, hatred, bigotry, sexism, indifference, greed? It is a constant in human history that we are always at war over petty disputes, we are always killing people or being killed. Peace is an unnatural disturbance in our history: War is the constant. And even when nations are at peace, people are not... people in peaceful nations are murdered and wounded and otherwise treated like garbage all the time. What other conclusion can any rational person draw other than the fact that there is something deeply flawed and harmful about human nature? There are good things about human nature, as well, but our weaknesses, that is to say, our tendency to worship ourselves, to demonize others, to decide that we are more worthy of life and happiness than the people around us, are not traits that I can ever imagine being strengths, in any circumstances.

I'm sorry that I don't conform to your notion of what a good Christian should be. Which seems to be, one you can pin down and make squirm by misquoting the bits of scripture you've googled. Moving targets are harder to hit, it's true, but I should think that someone with any respect for science would understand that you ought to change with the best information you've got instead of riding the same horse into the Apocalypse.

Pardon me for not citing the entire Cliff Notes of Job with annotated bibliography of my scholarly references! Here I am being accused of cherry-picking I suppose. I guess if you expected me to do a complete synopsis of everything I decided to quote or reference, we would be here for the next few years at least. I wonder if you would not be better served by reading the substance of my posts rather than merely cherry-picking the fact that I neglected to write about Job's prologue in my very first mention of it but only waited about fifteen minutes later to do so! If you cannot detect how silly you sound, I can do nothing for you. A thousand apologies.

My best information is this: The Bible is a piece of literature written mostly by Jews over 2000 years ago. It's actually quite interesting and informational if you read it with historical-critical perspective and an open mind to the differences in cultural context between our world and theirs.

Evolution is pretty much indisputable fact. Ergo it must be a part of God's creation.

God is. No one told me this, because I wouldn't have believed them, and no one proved it to be in a lab, because it can't be proved. But I know it and I'm sure it annoys you a great deal to know that nothing you can say, no fact you can cite, can possibly dissuade me from this absolute and unwavering knowledge. I love God (most of the time) and I have experienced God in my life and I don't need the Bible or science to tell me about that.

That is the information I am working with. I am obliged to change my beliefs when any part of that information changes. I conform to the best info I've got. If that makes me intellectually weak or wishy-washy, then George W. Bush ought to be your favorite guy ever. You can insult me and my beliefs 'til the cows come home and then some, and I will continue to happily discuss the issue with anyone who will give me the opportunity to talk to them, and I will happily listen to them.

You don't seem to understand the basic concepts that people don't like to listen to you when you insult them and ignore what they've been saying. I prefer to treat people as people and give them enough respect to hear them out.