okay; a pro christian discussion may be a little risky, but i'm curious as to the extreme differences i've discovered between these two aspects that create a christian in the world today.

most of my understanding concerning what's expected was done by myself, reading a jewish translation of the bible, directly from the greek and hebrew original documents. I was rather, shocked by what i read versus what i've been told for so many years in church, by those knocking on my door and society's general perception of what a christian is, rather than what the bible says they should be.

that may sound judgemental, but i'm not judging good christians versus bad christians, but more interested in why it's become about what people tell you it is, rather than christians reading for themselves and deciding how to follow Christ, based on their own judgement, listening to Gd and not men.

my point isn't to debate christianity, but rather discuss the variety of approaches to this religion; it's supposed to be united around one book, One Gd and His Son, rather than priests, churches, money and all the other, stuff that makes christianity suck for everyone and is really nothing like what Christ spoke of; rather than what it can do for a person who genuinely wants to live as Christ suggested.

is it all the fault of those organizations like the roman catholic church and westboro baptist church sickos who make hate and judgement a necessary ingredient or just biblical ignorance that creates the image it has, today?

i think it's because of biblical ignorance.
& the fact that people take the bible
and make it say what they WANT it to say
rather than what God meant for it to say.

The problem is that the Bible isn't necessarily a straightforward book. Some things it comes right out and says, but other things it leaves open to interpretation. In theory this is a good thing for a religion to do, it allows a person to take what they will from a given text, and apply it best to their life. But unfortunately people are weak, and often uneducated. They aren't able to understand the language of the bible, or to fully take it all in. So they rely on trusted teachers to interpret it for them. The problem with this is that often times, rather than getting their own unique interpretation of how the religion can affect their life, they get a rehearsed and manufactured version of their Pastor or Priest's interpretation instead.

Another problem is that in today's world, religion is more like an heirloom than something somebody researches and decides is best for him or her. If it was good enough for the parents, its good enough for the child, and silly religious beliefs are passed down through the generations like eye colors and genetic diseases.

and if it's not an heirloom, it's trendy coolness; why has being religious become so difficult to keep original?

silly religion!

i guess i agree.

The easiest answer to this, is the one spouted the most often. People want power, and religion is a good way of gathering power over people. Much of what the bible is now, is what is left of people peddling their own agendas, be it pope, or King. And it is also social pressures, to keep people coming in the church must fight secular thoughts and change to keep the people coming in through their doors.
Lets look at it this way, originally priests weren't allowed to have sex, now depending on the Sect they can, being gay is a sin, but there are now gay priests and homosexuals are encouraged to church. Fornication is acceptable. Adultery frowned on, but nothing else.
Hell priests raped little boys a big no no, and all they did was hide the priests.
Churches are people and people are corruptable.

It is ancient moral standards which attempt to survive in a modern environment. You could easily interpret the bible in a modern sense yet when you do are you really following the same ethic they were eons ago?

No, that is why there are site called Evil bible. In the bible there is a story in which a father asks a band of men to rape his daughter rather than sodomize or kill his son, their are sections where babies are killed.
The morals in the bible are by no means ours, what we have is a modern interpretation of what the bible says with modern morals to go with it. Some morals though I think are ones that are eternal, like "thou shalt not kill" in the context of other humans, murder is wrong, even in nature they avoid killing their own kind I am told.

king snakes will eat other snakes, they're the only snake considered to be cannibalistic. i love my Luci.

yeah, back then women weren't so high on the totem pole, were they?