...My point exactly. I ask for objectivity concerning the bible and Christianity - an objective and honest approach - and this is what I get.
Almost every episode of the Paracast brings up the frustrating reality of intelligent and capable researchers being ignored and ridiculed because of the morons in tin-foil hats. The media is evil for putting the "little green men" slant on UFO stories, Larry King is an idiot for not listening to the real researchers, prime time television misrepresents the facts by splashing fraudulent photos over competent Ufologists unbeknown to them at the time of taping, etc.
You are doing the same thing to the bible, and those of us who believe it.
5th Century? By all credible research, that is asinine.
Pedophiles? I assume you are referring to the Catholic church, and it is simply ignorant to lump all Christians into the "Catholic" heading. The same goes for the crusades - you bringing that up in this conversation is like me accusing the entire UFO community of being a part of the Heaven's Gate cult. Neo-Nazis? Jesus was a Jewish rabbi. That just doesn't make any sense at all. It is juvenile, and screams of ignorance.
Mothra, I love your handle, but it doesn't take too much insight to realize that I was not encouraging an objective look at Billy's material. My point was that a guy like Billy can not be deemed a fraud simply based on what we think about him, or what we have heard about him. We know he is a fraud because of the evidence he presented. That evidence, when it was first presented, was looked at objectively - it may not have taken much looking to prove its falsehood, but I am sure that David didn't just hear what some of Billy's enemies had to say about him, then declare him to be a fraud. David looked at the photos first. He has too much credibility not to do otherwise.
In the case of the bible, you will never see anything within its pages commanding Catholics to kill people for not converting. As a matter of fact, you will not find Christmas, Easter, Sunday worship, the pope, transubstantiation, the imaculate conception of Mary, penance, and the list goes on. Yet, like a Ufologist being lumped in with the likes of a Billy Meirs, I am lumped in with those people who have blatantly misrepresented the words of the bible.
Write your pages Moth, but write them based on your own research into the subject - not what the Catholic church has to say about it, or what the kooks taking things out of context are saying. Which is, again, my point.
Larry King was a moron for not going to the true researchers, yet you are willing to base your opinion of the bible's effect on history based on those who misrepresented its words? That's just not very honest and objective scientific study, my friend.