After reading NWR, Buz, and Peg's statements, I couldn't help but think something: a weekly sermon is about all the bible "learning" a run-of-the-mill every day christian has. This weekly sermon is what they know about the bible. It is what they know about jesus.
Now you say that it is rude to ask questions? maybe so. But I don't think it should be. Saying that it is rude is putting the pastor on pedastal, saying he should not be questioned. Just shut up and listen to what he says: no matter the "truthiness" level.
How many sermons go into the nitty gritty of the bible? The parts that we discuss here that seem (to most) to be abhorrant? (You know, where god kills babies.) Any sermon I've been to skips over those parts, only to go into where "jesus loves" "god forgives", that sort of shit.
Now you may say "well, they aren't REAL chrisians, then, if they don't dedicate their life to learning the way of the master." Tut tut to that.
Or maybe, just maybe, people should think again about their religious beliefs and what/if they really matter to them.
"Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Othersfor example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einsteinconsidered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws."
-Carl Sagan