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Is there the possibility of moving this topic to the debate forum? Because should there be children around ( I'm not sure if Gaia even has members under the age of 12 anymore. O.o ) I don't want them to sift through this, and ask their parents and get grounded off of gaia, or either of us reported. I would however love to continue this discussion.

That's exactly what I say when I tell people I don't believe in the Bible. Of course then they mostly get all huffy like I've offended their life or something. I then point out that I never said I didn't believe in GOD, I said I didn't believe in the BIBLE. Big difference.

And it's simply because, not only is translating an ancient dead language like Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek are incredibly hard; but several words we have in the English language aren't even in other languages; so when it comes to translation, people have to pick the original closest word to it. For example, The Coat of Many Colors, isn't actually a coat. Translators don't even know what it is, because the word in the Dead Sea Scrolls doesn't translate to any other existing word. The closest they guessed to was "coat" but for all we know it could have been a cloak, a tunic, a g-string, or a fairy.

Another reason I don't believe in the Bible, is because, when you were in elementary school, you're teacher sat you and everybody else down in a circle, and starting with the person closest to her on the left, she whispered a sentence in your ear. You had to keep whsipering the sentence as you heard it in the person's ear to your left, and by the time it got back to the teacher it was an incredibly different sentence from what she said. She would have said "I had tomatoe soup for dinner last night." But when it got back to her the sentence would be "I dog coughed up a turtle at the funeral" It was to teach you not to gossip, but the same thing applies to this situation. Several hundred years worth of text is written in the Bible, and at some point along the way, something had to have been changed when being told and written.

It's like people back in Green and Roman made up stories to explain certain events happening because they weren't as scientifically advanced and therefore didn't know that the Earth spun which made the sun "rise" and "Set" everyday; but instead they thought some great Sun God was the reason for it all. In any culture you go to, you'll find any diety that someone somewhere completely is convinced exists.

That's why I've resigned myself to believe there is *a* God out there; but its probably not the God depicted in the Bible, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or mythology, or anything.

Because they are delicious.

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Me 3

Does it still count as sin if you have sexy time out of wedlock, but get married to said person, later?

What Hinote says is correct.

The fact of the matter remains however that having sexy time with others or yourself is generally frowned on in all forms outside of marriage. The problem is that most people want to know what counts as "sin" and what doesn't... so they can feel that they are justified if they just do what "doesn't count as sin".

This unfortunate way of thinking leads to people trying to justify one type of sexy time as "ok" and another type as "sin"... when in fact, it's all sin outside of wedlock.

Now, that doesn't mean that those who have sexy time are totally screwed and are going straight to hell... but it does help us to ACKNOWLEDGE our sin. This in turn helps us to Repent (turn away from) our previous actions/lifestyle to live in a way that is more aligned with how God would like us to act.

As discussed earlier however, this doesn't give Christians the right to simply SIN all they want and then REPENT the next day and consider themselves good with God. Anyone who thinks this way is not truly repenting from their former ways of life and is not actively seeking to please God with their actions.