OLD TESTAMENT

I was born & bred in a moderate Muslim country, baptised in a catholic church only at the age of two, raised by an atheist father, catholic mother and Taoist grandmother. My grandmother prayed to the gods of the earth, sky, the Guan Yin (whom i wholly believe is one & the same as Mother Mary), and if i'm not mistaken there was also a Kitchen Deity. So what does that make me? Answer: A very accepting person.

It doesn't matter what religion u choose to follow - my family of mixed blessings taught me all religions teach you to do good. All faiths provide you much needed guiding principles on how to be a decent, civilised human being on this earth. I don't think there is any one religion that is superior to any other - although many spend a lot of time & energy (and sometimes shed blood & lose lives?) trying to disprove that.

Every religion has its own 'manual' or holy book. Sometimes people take it too literally & live by every word. My argument is the same for all holy books - how do you know for sure how true it is? Is it really the word of god, handed down by word of mouth and then transcribed into what we now think is the truth & nothing but the truth?

Back to our journey. Let's flip open the bible.

I see the words 'Old Testament'. I'm a little surprised -- i presume this is a Christian (meaning Protestant, i.e. not Catholic) bible, and i'd always been told that Protestants don't believe in the old testament.. That their bible & beliefs only begin with the birth of jesus christ! So Protestants do learn the old testament after all. And rightly so, u can't possibly believe in animals if you didn't learn about the dinosaurs.

By the way, i get the feeling Protestants hate being called Protestants. Did the name come from a group 'protesting' against the catholic church? I was also told the first Protestants came to be because some King of England wanted to marry a second wife and the catholic church at the time wouldn't allow it. So he formed his own church, one that might condone his polygamy perhaps, and thus the first non-catholic Christians i.e. Protestants were born. Is this true?

While I await your discussion on how Protestants came about, I shall begin reading Genesis.