>>>... And by that, omitting the female side thereof? "Male1 begat Male2, Male2 begat Male3...". Boy, were these guys weird. Or blind. Or willfully blind.
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>>There are some things God did not choose to let us know about. As I said before, the Bible is not intended to be a full and complete record of the entire history of man.
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>>The Old Testament is the story of the line of Chirst. It's purpose is to point the readers to Christ. The genealogies are important as they record the line of Christ for us.
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>So the story of the first few generations of humans is not that important? It merits just an en passant mention? I wouldn't call a whole book (was it "Genesis", I presume) so.
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>So in the zero generation we get them both listed. In the first, we get three males listed. When it comes to second generation, all of a sudden they have unmentioned women to marry, whose ancestry is a complete unknown? I would expect the first hundred people on Earth to be much more important than that. Or it raises very serious doubts on what was omitted and why.
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>>The Bible has received unfair criticism for its treatment of women.
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>I agree. The criticism should have been directed against the mistreatment.
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>>As I mentioned in another thread, read Eph 5:22-33. There you see that the husband is to be the head of the home - but - that he is to love his wife as Christ loved the church (He gave up His life for the church.) I no of no greater way to show love for a woman than to be willing to die for her.
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>Now dying for her is not his choice, is it? It's the boss's will. But having her assume a role of an equal, now that would be contrary...
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>>As far as the genealogies go, since the husband is the head, he is properly listed as being in the line. It would just make things much more complicated to include wives and children in the mix.
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>...to The Role of The Head. And if women are included as equals, it all becomes too complicated.
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>I once said this, and I'll repeat: any religion claiming to be fair to women will get a clean bill from me the moment their pontifice maxima can divorce one unbeliever and mary another without causing a word of protest within the ranks.
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>>>Despite the respect I may have for such a system of thought, for its sheer audacity and level of sophistry, I can't trust it to be a source of any truth. Historical value, yes. It's a human accomplishment and will be a part of history forever. But truth... I prefer the things which work even if you don't believe in them.
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>>That's fine - but - what if you're wrong?
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>I've been wrong before. I can take that risk.
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>> If I'm wrong, I live a good life and die - the end.
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>Still good here as well.
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>>If you're wrong, you live a good life and die - and then spend eternity in Hell.
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>Cool. As a mathematician, I had to have a clear idea of what infiniteness means. So, let's hope it's interesting.
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>>If I were you, I'd sure want to be really, really sure of this before I dismissed it as folly. How can you dismiss it without even reading the Bible (as you said earlier you do not wish to read it?)
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>I've read parts of it. Sorry, but I prefer talking to people rather than reading books when it comes to this. Specially after so many years online: the problem with the books I disagree with is that they have no "Reply" button.
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>When I die, I'll vanish, because that's what I believe will happen. You'll go to paradise or hell because taht you believe.
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>BTW, can you Christians ever rise above the dichotomy? Can't you have more places up/down (another dichotomy) there? A bit of diversity? Of all the logic, did you really have to adopt only XOR?

Well, as I understand it, the Catholics used to have purgatory (where unbaptised babies went for preprocessing), but I think they dumped purgatory (don't know what happened to the denizens) at the same time as they purged the saints, and dropped eternal damnation as a fine for eating meat on Friday a number of years ago. A friend of mine always wore a St. Christopher's medal (patron saint of travellers). Boy was she upset when I started referring to him as Mr. Christopher.