Well... I also believe that 99% of a good "lay" as you put it is mental, and since I adore my wife, I have a wonderful time, and since it is almost always getting better, then it is almost always the best for me and almost never the worst. It's amazing what just being happy can do for a man's sexual experiences.

It is for me ;-)

Amen. First, your comment about how horrible it is to tell a child that God hates them for any reason is spot on. Second, I am so glad that there is another Christian that understands that Sex is a beautiful gift from God and is something to be reveled in (of course I believe that for numerous sociological reasons, in addition to common sense and biblical teaching, it is best when between two consenting married adults who have had no others, and has negative consequences when done outside of a solid marriage relationship... With no one to compare to, your significant other is the best for you for now and for always!).
 
Christ was all about love and Paul was all about loving one another, serving one another, and marriage (though he honestly points out that marriage can be a distraction for many in the ministry, and he's right, it does distract, but for most people, that trade off is worth it).
 
Christians need to realize that teaching fear of sex to children is creating maladjusted sexual beings who will never fully be able to enjoy guilt free sex with their spouse.
 
Oh, and let's get rid of that ancient (and wrong) notion that Men should dominate women in the marriage, please? "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." Ephesians 5:22.
 
So the wife should treat her husband as the church treats Christ, with respect, awe, adoration, and love, but be careful all you guys who say "aha!" because the men are then told that in marriage the husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and give himself up for her. Men, our wives are expected to respect, love, and adore us, but in return, we are to sacrifice everything (even if it means death) to show our wives love. Now that's religion that is good for the soul, and that's the foundation of a good marriage, a solid community, and a good life.

If one has done a thorough study of the bible, it becomes clear that the old testament laws are so strict and overwhelming precisely for the express purpose of showing that it is impossible to earn eternal life by abiding by all of these laws. This is why Jesus had to pay the price for every time anyone has broken any of these laws. He chose to take the full punishment of all of humanity on himself so that anyone who would choose to follow his simple commandments, some of which are "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself" and "Go into all the world and preach the good news", would be given mercy.
 
One way to look at it is that we start life with $0 in spiritual righteousness, and doing right does not earn anything (why should it? Doing right is simply what is expected of us for being alive), but doing wrong costs us, so we fall into debt immediately and can never get out, but Jesus came along and offered to pay off all the debt for us—all we have to do is believe he exists, believe he has the authority to forgive the debt (or can afford to pay it off), and allow him to do so. He pays off the debt, and asks us to live a life that will not incur additional debt. We will fail, but his grace and mercy pays the debt again and again. This means that though we will fail, we do not willfully choose to fail, knowing that it causes further cost to Jesus for our actions.
 
Hopefully this helps you see that the law is not there to bind us to it, but to remind us of our inability to pay off our own debt of sin, thereby reminding us of how much Jesus and God love us and are willing to do in order to free us from our own increasing debt.

It's not supposed to be a "good" story. It's supposed to be lessons for living life. It includes the good, the bad, and the ugly of what it is to be a human, and the hope that we can be forgiven for those wrong acts we do, and become the best human, and the best humanity, we can be.
 
As a person who believes what the Bible teaches, I still don't find the Bible a good "curl up in an armchair and read at leisure" kind of book. But I wouldn't curl up in an armchair to read (at leisure) a complex manual for a complicated device, yet if I needed to understand the device in order to make it work correctly, I would still read the difficult manual in a hope to understand it... that is, after all, what the Bible really is—a technical manual for living.

Ok, ok... another good step, in the right direction...

If these prove to be dust particles from the asteroid, this will be a big step for mankind.

Get / make cables that have the "boots" on them. (Search for Cat5e booted ends to see what I mean).

I sincerely apologize for the poor behavior of those you know who claim to be followers of Christ. In my many experiences in many different churches, I have not seen the types of abuses you describe (my experiences match those of infinte9), though I know that they must exist in some churches, otherwise I would not run into people like you who are hurting from the wrongful acts of others who claim they follow Christ. On the whole, the majority of Christians are not out to destroy you or out to destroy education. The majority of Christians are trying to be good people, love those around them, pray to a loving God, and hope and pray that you might also find the happiness that they have in worshiping God and knowing his love.
 
There are a lot of high profile "Christians" and "Christian" leaders who do not follow the teachings of Christ, and there are many "churches" which, like the religious teachers in Christ's day, "travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, [they] make him twice as much a son of hell as [they themselves] are" (Matt. 15:23), and deserve the same chastising today that Christ gave the religious leaders back when he walked on the earth.
 
Again, I apologize for the pain given to you by those who claim the name of Christian, and hope sincerely that you will encounter true believers who exemplify the love that Christ commands us to give, and that will treat you as the treasured and priceless creation of God that you are.

Ok, I admit my penchant for larger rockets could warrant some type of licensing, but what about chemistry in my basement? Should that be cause for concern? What about building robots in my back yard, should that raise red flags?
 
These types of activities would also receive the same type of "paranoid neighbor" issue as my previous example, but really should not!

Wish I could mod you up. :-)

Well, in this particular case, I'd have to have built a very successful rocket to get outside this couple dozen acre farm.
 
People could be afraid my fireworks will burn down their house, afraid that my potato launcher could injure their kid, afraid that my faith will 'corrupt' their child... people can be afraid of many things, but should they be able to restrict me from pursuing my own happiness just because of the possibility of my pursuit hurting them? Should I not be able to use p2p software because it could possibly cause 'injury' to someone else's copyrights?
 
Once we reach a point where creating the possibility that a crime might occur is, in and of itself, wrong, and punishable as a crime, we move further in a direction that scares the crap out of me, and I don't want to live in the kind of country that mentality will produce.

Thank you for the information. I wasn't saying that it was illegal, I was simply pointing out that 50 years ago, the attitude was "play, learn, build, and play some more until you get to college and learn to build even bigger toys." This excited kids (don't you remember those home chemistry kits? Now we've got someone getting arrested for playing with dried ice and a plastic bottle!?!).
 
Today's attitude is "if it could be slightly dangerous, it shouldn't be allowed, and if a minor is doing it, punish the parent."
 
We need to foster more creativity, exploration, and (yes) dangerous activities into our children's lives, not less, otherwise our society will stagnate, and we'll fall into ruin.

What kind of damage can fireworks do? What's the range of a propane tank if the pressure valve is knocked off? What kind of damage can an RC airplane do if filled with a homemade pipe bomb (lots of firecrackers + PVC pipe, end caps, and a remote fuze)? How destructive can a dirt bike be if the user loses control just before a hill (those things can truly fly sometimes!)
 
  Anything can be made to sound dangerous. As we continue to give up our right to liberty and our right to pursue happiness (and limiting my ability to play with rockets does limit both of these), we will never get it back.
 
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." —Benjamin Franklin

Seriously, this type of slapdown on curiosity, creativity, and exploration makes me want to cry. It reminds me of the fall of the galactic empire in Asimov's Foundation series - a degredation of the desire to learn new things... People don't want children to dream and invent, they want them to memorize, regurgitate, and keep the status quo.
 
An example of the insanity: I love model rocketry. I can build small rockets with no one looking at me sideways (but when I move up to the C or D engines, and buy in large quantity, I start to get odd looks), but I don't want to build small rockets. I want to build large rockets, with radio controlled fins, a wireless video feed, and much stronger engines (either solid state or even move into simple liquid fuels). Now if I were interested in this say 50 years back, this would be odd, but not unheard of, and certainly not slapped down by local law enforcement. In today's age, if I started messing with liquid fuels, or built rockets over 6 feet tall, I would likely get harassed by local law enforcement (or more likely my neighbors would call for them), assuming I could even get the proper permits to be allowed to build the thing... permits to build something with my own two hands and then test it out on my friend's private property (a farm)? CRAZY, and wrong.
 
I hope we get out of this funk and get some new chemistry and engineering excitement back into our children. Sigh.