The examples you give are typical of how the church is going.

Actually, these are examples of where the church has been. The last 2000 years are littered with examples of the Christian church re-defining whole branches of theology to suit the current society.

Even the translations of the bible dont agree on what is said, so a claim that religion is unchanging is blatantly wrong – as is the idea that this is a “modern” trend.

Many people think changing your mind in the face of the evidence is a good idea. For example, if you taking someone to Manchester and accidentally miss your turning on the motorway, it’s not considered a virtue to mutter “I don’t have to apologise for my beliefs,” and carry straight on till you hit the sea.

But certainly some beliefs do change without any evidence. It used to be believed that the soul didn’t occupy an embryo until 40 days if you were male, or 80 if you were female rather than conception. I’m not familiar with any evidence for that. Christian food isn’t kosher, despite the Old Testament, yet no-one has come back from heaven to say shrimp is ok and the law still stands (Luke 16:17). They’ve even changed the holy day commanded by God from the Sabbath to Sunday. I don’t know if specially trained theologians were able to detect that Sunday was actually holier than the Sabbath, or if it was politically correct accomodation of pagans, but either way it’s blasphemy (Luke 16:17 again). Another change is a belief in hell, which certainly wasn’t part of early Christian belief. Paul is quite clear on this Romans: 6:23 “The wages of sin are death…” Of course Paul could just have been a ‘so-called’ expert on Christianity. He was against heterosexual marriage (Corinthians 7:27 though platonic marriage is tolerable), yet that’s a big thing for some neo-Christians these days.

Those are merely silly changes but it used to be that the Bible was ok with slavery and the CofE profited mightily from it. Do they need to apologise for that? It depends how you view morality. Some people with a beef against the Bible might say that slavery is a Bad Thing. Others might say that so long God is happy it’s fine to treat fellow humans as tools and no-one should mock a sincere religious belief. The CofE is on the respect for humans side. That’s why “I only have to answer to the obvious!!!!!” isn’t a defence against criminal activity under English law.

From a Christian perspective it all depends on whether or not you think it’s just God who’s infallible, or if some humans are infallible too. There is a tendency for some more extreme ‘Christians’ to assume their own personal distortion of the religion is the Right Way and that they can judge others without accounting for their own actions, You can decide if these people really are following the religion that Jesus taught.

If you pick ‘n’ mix which bits of the Bible you follow and which bits you don’t, then surely you should be taking responsibility for your choices?

Antipodes? What’s that all about? ‘Scientists’ eh? They don’t even say how the water stops on. It’s political correctness gone mad!!!!!! Check your bible!!!

‘cept he said it in Latin. Not everyone agrees that Augustine believed the earth was flat, on the grounds that Augustine is a big person in Christianity and saying he did believe in a flat earth makes him look a bit stupid. Opinions are changing but Keith’s argument that Augustine is merely a ‘so-called’ expert would put him on the extreme liberal wing of the church.

Just a quick question – when did anyone (expert or otherwise) think the Earth was flat?