"If one examines the Bible as one would any other historical source document, it is damn near impossible to be anything other than heathenish and dangerously free-thinking. :)"

At the risk of sounding hypocritical....amen to that.

:-D

That last bit is where organized religions run into trouble, because if their congregations begin thinking for themselves, then the priests end up out of work. In order to justify their collective existence, they need to hoard the power and the glory for their own position, therefore they need to elevate the words of humans into the Words of God and claim special translation powers.

Anyhow.