JCanon,
Unfortunately my newness to the board, i have no idea how to do quotes from your post and able to post my comment under neither, so please bear with me.
Like i said i am not out to 'knock' anyone faith of belief, I to was a JW until i was nearly 30 years old, and would willingly hunt out the atheist and vicar on the ministry to debate them, so i guess i have sat on both sides of the fence.
OK first things first, you said
"But some things are to be believed in by faith. "
Not so, things that require faith ( look up the definition of faith, are things that run contrary to evidence and logic an reasoning, now as God apparently gave us these tools doesn't it seem strange to them ask us to suspend them. Faith is a trump card that can be played any any religion to justify its dogma,,,,, i.e it requires faith to believe that Mohammad went up to heaven on a white horse. even though some claims a hoof print on a certain temple roof is evidence of this.
OK next point,
"But it's a moot question now because I've actually had an experience where I spoke with God personally, so I'm sort of out of that loop."
My question is how do you know that wasn't Satan just pretending to be God to fool you into leaving the 'real' religion? and also your claim is echoed by thousands of others in a variety of different religions throughout the world,. a great many claims it to be Allah, so just because someone tells you they are God, doesn't mean that they are. I will concede that the bible does contain some historical evidence, however a Book from a god that created the universe would need to be far different, and certainly the bible when read from a critical standpoint, shows it human failing, in matters of science, geography etc etc, something i would expect the god of the universe being the inventor of those things would be Right on the mark.
OK next issue.
"Eve was made from Adam's rib, so I would say she was a bit closer than a sister. "
Complete statement of faith..period, considering this 'Eve' and bear in mind their is no evidence for a Eden eve, came from Adam which of come again a statement of faith. Yes their is a evidence for a ultimate what is called mtEve eve, but this is not to be confused with the eve of the bible, i would go into detail here but go to http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mitoeve.html
OK rich dark sailor has nothing to do with adman skin colour, pigmentation and soil colour are apart as far apart as saying fire is hot water ( oilthigh i would say they are probably closer) Are we originally from dust,,well kind of, we are made up of basic compound , hence we are sometimes reference to as carbon life forms.
Your comment about Eve is purely speculative, and actually the blue eye reference is incorrect as all human are start with brown eyes and a error in causes the blue eye effect. So suggesting that would be claiming that God created EVE with errors from day one. http://www.earthlife.net/insects/evolve.html about half way down the page, their are better information resources but from this it gives you an overview of how eye color is determined and why the idea of an Eve with blue eyes is false.
Your comment about incest, sates in effect that morality is relative and if God allows incest one day and out laws it the other, then you have this scenario, Murder is wrong today, but tomorrow if god says its OK , then its no longer wrong.
This unfortunalty leads you into a paradox about morality and god and it is this
Does God say something is wrong because it is wrong or does he say its wrong just because God deems it to be wrong?
Now,
if you say things are wrong because God says so , then morality has no value, because right or wrong can be anything, God changes his mind and all of sudden Murder is OK...or incest. whihc makes morality shallow.
Now , if you say something is wrong because it wrong, and the issue here is that if Gods commands something is wrong because it is wrong, then things being wrong doesn't depend on God. i.e something is wrong and that's WHY God commands them. so at best God in the OT has relative morals!
NOW the claims about perfection again is pure faith statement, no examples in nature exist or any evidence does, so the claims that nearer perfection this wouldn't cause harm is a groundless claim due to the fact that nature doesn't allow it. NOW if you gonna claim that perfection is real, then you need to concede you are believing this against all the evidence and more important because its validates your faith, whihc means your view if no more valid that that of a buddhist or pagan.
One final point on this matter, your statement as the laws were not in place, i would understand from that that this is reference to the exodus commandants not being given at this time, if so my comment would be, did that mean before the 10 commandments murder, rape and incest were something that were permitted by God?
So my final points about DNA, sorry i was a little vague, but here is the issue about the records in our DNA, from the gnome project and extended project since a DNA map of our origin has been laid out
National geographic march 2006 DNA linking to every human in the earth can be traced back to central Africa as you know, now are their some tribes there that although have been isolated from civilisation until now, are shown o be are ancestors and their are the same, (their is a video of a documentary on your tube, although cant find the reference which i will post which explains this in great detail from the leads scientist in this project)
Now if Noah had restarted the human race ( and his sons) what would we expect to find in our DNA well, a areas close to where the ark rested of people sharing DNA that is present is all living humans, but this is not the case, you need to travel much further into Africa and more importantly much further back in time. i will try and find the NG march 2006 on line for you to read, i only have it in written form , although i would be happy to photocopy it for you and send them to you.
Also again you statement about in never rained before the flood again is a statement that is faith based, the evidence opposes this completely, that as well as the suggested water canopy http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH310.html
As so far as your statement about being anointed and have spoken to god, doesn't it concern you that so many other claims exactly the same but with different Gods, and let they all believe to the point of death some of them that their experience is true and their god is the only true God.
MY final comment about your post, and firstly let me thank you for spending the time is this:
Many claim to see Elvis on a daily basis, we tend to lock them up, why?
The light is something many in all different beliefs see, and to statement that yours is the correct ones is groundless as all the other claims the same, now, think of it this way, God in the OT ordered the death of over 2.5 million people, for his people and his nation, a nation that he no longer cares about, so all those people died in vain. God in the OT had no problems killing children ( a quick read of Lev,deut & number ). SO if you want to service a god that i Happy to create you then visit the mistake of your forefather's on you time and again (i.,e Adam) i would hope you don't punish your children's children for the father mistakes, and if you don't, does that make you more moral that the God you serve?
I did believe, I was a regular pioneer for many years, and did as i was told and stay away from anything that could damage my faith. Then I saw a gaping whole in the entire biblical story and the more i looked into it the bigger it came. .
Again thanks for taking the time to post, and sorry i can't do that clever thing with including your posts in my post...i will learn!..lol
regards
Steve