Forum name change

It wasn't me. I have not rated that message.If I had rated it, then a 1 would be in consideration. That's a message that did not need to be posted. It doesn't contribute anything useful to the discussion. And that would be one of my criteria for a 1.

I would not call it meaningless. However, it is highly polarized. It is entirely reasonable to not want to participate in such polarized debates. It is just a matter of being selective as to which threads you read, and as to which threads you decide to debate.

Personally, I would not have a problem with such a class if it was taught fairly and with no attempt to indoctrinate. But there is so much polarization in America, I don't think that is possible. A fair, non-indoctrinating treatment would be criticized by the religious right who would claim that it was indoctrinating secular values by virtue of its even-handedness. And then some of the more vocal critics of religion would sue on the basis that it violated the first amendment, unless that class spent as much time on other religions as it spent on Christianity.

No, that does not follow. You can only conclude is that parts of the Bible are metaphorical. Oops! You just made a bad bet.

No, the credibility of the rest of the book stands on the credibilility of the rest of the book. That you "destroy the credibility of the whole book" is nonsense.I'll grant that you destroy the theology of original sin. But the theology of original sin is made up bullshit theology, invented after the time of Jesus.

Not at all.Did Charles Dickens lose credibility for writing "Oliver Twist"? What loses credibility, is the ridiculous assumption that God is the author of the biblical text. That assumption is an invention of theologians. Do they? People make allusions to Sherlock Holmes in similar ways, yet nobody says that those are "as factual". I say that the allusions to the Genesis creation story are simply allusions to a well understood part of the culture. It is the theologians who create problems by asserting that those allusions are "as factual".