[Didymos Thomas]

boagie is a mod? Woah that's scary, lol.

And a damn fine one, too. Hehe.

DT, you recommend the whole New Testament, and I said up front the scripture that talks directly about what it means to be a child of God or a child of the Devil is from the New Testament. Since your reply to that was "Not all of us accept everything that is written in the Bible.", I can only assume that you choose to ignore that scripture.

You assume I ignore what scripture? Maybe that's the problem - assumptions.
I mentioned that Christians might reject portions of the New Testament to show that even if there are passages in the New Testament to support a given perspective, not all Christians may find that convincing as some may reject the books from which the passages come.

I honestly see "a matter of intellectual honesty and integrity" here, to recommend the philosophy contained in a book but choose to ignore a certain part of that philosophy.

What book? The Bible? The Bible is a compilation of books.

As a matter of intellectual honesty and integrity I cannot accept the whole of the New Testament because some of the texts, Revelations for example, I do not understand very well. How can I advocate a philosophy I do not wholly understand?

I also have to consider the political environment when looking at these texts, and consider the way the political atmosphere influenced the writings. I cannot honestly, with integrity, accept spiritual teaching that exists to promote a political end rather than spiritual development. In my opinion, there are parts of the New Testament which are just that - politically motivated writings.

It's not like I'm pointing out some small nuance of idealogy. I think that recognizing what the Bible says about who and what God's children are should be a huge issue with any Christian. But I guess I'm wrong about that.

Try as you might to be disparaging, I've offered to compare notes on these scriptural issues. Again, if you would like to have this particular conversation, I'm game.