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LOL, I'm glad I left religion. I don't think I'd want to have to be trying to work all these rules out. I never liked being told what to do anyway.
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That's the difference between you and me.

You see, to me it's not a matter of what I like or don't like. To me, that would seem extremely self-centered and arrogant—to view the world in such a way that would enable me to say that.


I don't think you understood my statement above, Russ, which was a little tongue-in-cheek. If I were speaking 100% seriously, I would say that I believe that a) a person can be morally upright without being religious, and b) that I don't think rules should be absolute because most of the time there are circumstances that can be found for which they are not appropriate and do not apply. The rules which are closest to absolute, for me, are the very ones I said I was agreeing with: Love God (or more specifically, for me, be in touch with the spiritual), and Love your neighbour as you love yourself. Actually, I would re-phrase the first one and say: Seek the truth.

I realise you disagree with this. I also realise that you have a need to pin me down to some kind of concrete faith (socialism, apparently) and that you think you know better than I do what rules I live by, and seem to think you can call me a hypocrite. Would you like to discuss morality and philosophy some more in another thread, where you give evidence for your claims? I'm game, but I'd like to leave the ad hominem absurdities out if you don't mind.

In the meantime, we were talking about interpreting the Bible. Would you like to explain your system for working out which commands in the Bible are about social customs which can change, and which ones are about God's laws which are sinful to violate? I've come across some interesting interpretations recently of the words in Leviticus that you say outlaw homosexuality, for example. It seems that when you look at the original Hebrew words, as well as the cultural background, not everyone thinks these things are so black-and-white.