Angelina Takes Shiloh for a Ride in Her Range Rover

gitane, I agree the Bible and other writings should not be dismissed, they *are* important, but what can happen is that people get too caught up in worshipping the Bible itself as an icon, and therein lies the danger. I think it’s ok to question it and want to know more about the origin of the writers and writings themselves. I read a wonderful book called "Misquoting Jesus: Who Changed the Bible and Why" and it was very enlightening about how the present day Bible came together. For myself, I have found it more helpful to view the Bible as an important book, but just a book nonetheless. It is not the cornerstone of my faith in God, because to me, God is too big to be contained within the pages of a book, IMO. I completely agree that every spiritual experience is valid, and there is much to be learned from reading the experiences of others.Speaking of….is Brad still Buddhist?

Ditto AG, I like MG as well and I am disappointed in him, but I am not going to get involve in all the hoopla that is going around especially about religion# 677 | Alexanderina +++++++++++++++++++++ITA with you and AG. I’m trying to stay out of it because although it was surprising, it wasn’t shocking to me. Anybody who’s followed his career knows what MG’s demons are and what they’ve driven him to do. I’m a big Mel fan, so I’m definitely disappointed in him, but not shocked.I can still remember the first time I ever saw Mel Gibson - it was 1982 and HBO was showing "The Road Warrior" and I was with 2 of my sisters. We were channel surfing and paused on HBO to see what was on. It was a scene early in the movie where Mel is standing in the middle of a dirt road in the desert wearing that HOT leather outfit. His back was to the camera and he turned around and THAT FACE filled the screen and those baby blues just popped of the screen. I distinctly remember saying, "WHO THE **** IS THAT?!" My sister concurred. We watched the movie and fell in lust with Mel. He was 26 years old and the most beautiful man I had ever seen. HOWEVER, even then you could see that he had a kid of insane gleam to his eyes. And the higher his star ascended the further off the beam he’s fallen! # 704 | Passing Through *************************For me, it was Mel in Year of Living Dangerously. He is a true example how you can totally divorce yourself from someone’s offscreen persona and lose yourself in the whole cinematic experience. Seriously, you can watch that film and hopefully your imagination will be such that you won’t even think about what a messed up a-hole he is, and you can lose yourself in the charm and the beauty. Because he was indeed beautiful, agreed PT. I was talking w/ my Mom last night - and she’s no big moviegoer - so she doesn’t really recall Mel when he was young and pretty, much to my surprise. She sees the homeless man pic they run with the skunk beard today, or the crazed director looking guy. Oddly enough - the man did indeed crack all too quickly…usually men hang on to their looks - but Mel not only has gotten old looking fast, he’s quite unattractive to me now…a lot of men get old, and you can still see the handsomeness - like Redford, Newman, Pacino or even Brando at 50 - was still fine to me….they were still gorgeous…you could still SEE what made them so attactive and mesmerizing to begin with…I have no doubt Brad will be like that in 8-10 years as well. But Mel…sometimes all those demons, hate and bigotry inside can reflect on your face as well….perhaps that’s what happened to him.

i’m one of those rare breed liberal-minded christians. and i’ve made it point not to dive into the religion fray, but i just wanted to say that the Bible, Torah & Koran, while written by men, are ultimately stories about those men’s experiences with God and, i believe, should not be dismissed as fabrication. # 703 | gitane +++++++++++++++Okay…maybe this is just me, but I’ve always thought…someone had to write those stories down and then they were re-written or told orally and written down ad nauseum. So…what if someone along the line changed a few words thereby altering the real story? Anybody esle ever think about that? Just because someone wrote it down and printed it, doesn’t mean that’s what was really said or done!Honestly…that thought strikes me every Christmas when A&E and the Discovery Channel show all those documentaries on Jesus, the apostles and the bible. Might just be me though….

For myself, I have found it more helpful to view the Bible as an important book, but just a book nonetheless. It is not the cornerstone of my faith in God, because to me, God is too big to be contained within the pages of a book, IMO.# 705 | dragonfly |————————————————–ITA and I feel the same way

# 705 | dragonflyoh, sorry. as far as i know, brad may have studied buddhism, but it’s doubtful that he actually practices. he grew up southern baptist, but he doesn’t really adhere to any one religion–i’ve read in an article/interview that he’s really turned off by islam, though. i can’t remember which article it was.angie doesn’t have a specific religion, either although i’ve read that she was raised catholic. she’s raising maddox as a buddhist, though because that’s part of his culture. i’ve also heard that she wants to raise a christian child and a muslim child. i don’t know how true that is. but it seems like both brad & angie are big advocates of religious tolerance. that’s why they’re doing the marianne pearl film.

# 714 | African Girlit’s good that your parents exposed you to both. i grew up baptist. and that was that. but now, i’m pretty much non-denominational. should’ve seen the stink i raised when i refused to go to my parent’s church anymore. it was like i sprouted horns and a tail. i learned religious tolerance in college. i studied religions of the african diaspora, buddhist thought, and spent a semester in a muslim/christian understanding seminar. all very enlightening. after college i spent two years working for a jewish aid/mission society. i’m not an expert on anything, but i’ve made it a point to try to understand where other people are coming from when it comes to religion. so i don’t dismiss anyone’s experiences or beliefs.

cliniqueare you based in Seattle…I noticed you using a seattle newspaper clipping

# 714 | African Girl AG - I’m with you on religion. I usually don’t go there either. For one thing if you get into with a real zealot you’re never going to win the debate. They refuse to admit there’s a possiblity that these books are merely STORIES that can be used as guidelines. Mention that and they go off the deep end. It doesn’t matter what religion that person practices. It’s a guaranteed fireball.

Re - the BAMZS household — I personally think giving each kid their own religion could be potentially disasterous. They’d essentially be a microcosm of the world and thus all the friction of the world might eventually exist in their home. Seriously. Because truth be told, just as Mel Gibson has said his wife is going to hell because she’s an Episcopalian, if you’re a ‘GOOD ____(fill in the blank), that ultimately means you are conveying to your bro or sis - that their’s is not the way. Better to let them make those decisions themselves when they’re older, rather than indoctrinating them at such a young age. Then perhaps it will be Z who’s the Southern Baptist, Maddox who’s the Muslim and Shiloh who’s the Buddhist. By the way, I read along time ago, that the first Jews were Ethiopians. Don’t know if that’s accurate, but perhaps Z is descended from them…ya never know.

# 721 | CLINIQUAi’m with you there, CLINIQUA. giving each kid their own religion sounds like trouble to me. my thought, or at least my hope, is that they’re going to expose the kids to all the religions in conjunction with teaching them about the different cultures they come from. i can’t see sticking zee in the corner with the Koran, madd at the altar with buddha and shi in sunday school and saying "there shall be no intermingling!" i think they’ll give all the kids a good understanding of each faith and let them decide for themselves.

Hey Guys, toniggt on the Insider they have a story on Brad and Angelina regarding they Safari trip while they were in Namibia, if anymore is interested, I believe that they have the same pictures that Jared posted

CLINIQUAI see where you are coming from but the problem will be if they seperated the children. Say for instance, they say sunday school is only for Shi, Buddha is for Mad…and so on. If they make it inclusive for all the children, I don’t foresee a problem. My mum was Christian and my Dad Muslim…both devoutly so. When we children came around, it was like this is daddy’s religion and this is mom’s. We celebrated Sallah the same way we did easter. We fasted the christan fast just like we did Ramadan. We attended islamic lessons, just like we did bible study…..as we did that, we realized the similarities in these two religions out weighed the differences. Now that we’re all adults, it’s up to you what you want to do. My older brother is more into the islamic part but he comes to church if there’s a celebratory service or something. Besides, who is to say Mad won’t be interested in Christianity instead of Buddhism? I believe if he is exposed to all, he’ll have a greater understand of God.By the way guys….are we on this thread or the Flying Thread? I almost posted this on the flying thread…..