I have no problem with people choosing to take it upon themselves to preach their faith.  That is certainly their right, as long as they leave me alone if I request it of them.  I have a problem, however, with people choosing to get around parents by preaching directly to their children when the parents are not around and attempting to push their beliefs into schools.

So, by all means preach your faith within the bounds of proper common discourse, without taking it to the point of harassment, but do not use government agencies to do it for you.  So, when people of a religion come up with their own idea of how the earth was created but not a single shred of their evidence stands up to peer review then you need to keep that belief where it belongs, in the church, not in schools.

I very much see a point to continuing this. You asked for one example of a concrete contradiction in the Bible, I've worked to present one, and we should see it through.

You have presented two interpretations of the Ahaziah issue:

The first (from the 1599 Geneva Bible) assumes that Ahaziah was "made king" (in 2 Kings) at the age of 22 years-from-birth but not "confirmed king" (in 2 Chronicles) until the age of 42 years-from-birth.

The second (from letgodbetrue.com) assumes that Ahaziah was both made and confirmed king at the age of 22-years-from-birth, and that the age of 42 years stated in 2 Chronicles was not Ahaziah's age-from-birth.

These two interpretations cannot both be correct, because Ahaziah could not have been both 22 years-from birth when confirmed king and 42 years-from-birth when confirmed king. So which is it? Was Ahaziah 22 years-from-birth or 42-years-from-birth when he was confirmed king?

Actually, I have no problem with people of faith spreading the word in what they believe in. There's absolutely nothing wrong with believing in religion, it just doesn't suit me personally. I can understand why some people would want to spread their faith in God to others.

My problem lies in Creationism and the Christians who try to push it into classrooms and onto children. Religion has absolutely zero right to push faith-based theories about the world, its creation, animals, etc. on to people. If someone believes it, great. Good for them. But don't try to push science out of the way in favor of some half-baked theories written in a book over 2,000 years ago. That's when I get pissed off. It's arrogant, narrow-minded, and completely violates the separation of church and state.

eeeshh, Profcrab. Sounds like you have a story behind your last post. Care to tell it? I don't think that schools will allow preaching to the kids to begin with, so....

 I have a big problem with Intelligent Design being pushed into schools and Evolution being trashed by people that are trying to push faith into schools through the back door.

Well I can see it both ways. I can see the reasons for both being taught as well. But I don't know if evolution can ever be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it happened. There are too many inconsistencies within that theory for me to believe it. I don't know if it happened or not, God is not above using stranger methods to accomplish his goals.

The big problem lies in the fact that science is simply the quest for knowledge, nothing more. It's constantly changing and improving as the human race learns more and more about itself and the world.

Creationism, on the other hand, is not rooted in one bit of factual data (and don't even go down that road with me, I've taken too many science classes and don't buy into a bit of it) and is based on peoples' personal belief system. That's fine for the individual, bad for the group.

Besides, how fair is it to teach Creationism to a Muslim child? How fair is it to teach the Protestant version of Creationism to a Catholic? There are so many reasons why church should stay out of public schools that it's not even funny. 

It would all be fine in a history of relgions class. Which I think would be a welcome addition to public education.

I wasn't advocating putting it in the school. I simply said that I could see it either way. I also stated my reasons for not believing it, but never said that it shouldn't be taught in public schools. It is science, though very incomplete. I will admit that Creationism is based in faith and faith alone. Without a Creator, whom one must have faith in, there can be no creation.

Absolutely. There is nothing wrong with teaching people about religion in public schools, it's just wrong to teach them to believe in religion.