Jesus and Paul were both Jews... no wonder they took the story literally!

Spiritual knowledge has very little to do with scientific truth of the objective. There are many prophets before Jesus who never mention evolution, atomic structure, etc. If Jesus' connection with the Father was as vivid and literal as you mention then Jesus would have revealed scientific things to people. Such as that mental illness is not caused by 'demons' or that microbes cause disease.

"The bible itself claims to have the authority to speak as a rule of faith"

That's circular reasoning. In fact it's more than that, it's dogma. If it's a 'rule of faith' to use circular reasoning then I guess I'm out.

Once again, yes of course the scriptures were recognised to be spiritual and of God. No wonder, they speak of events concerning it. But that still doesn't make it infallable! If there was to be a book of authority on the Earth, Jesus (with his Father's wisdom) would have written a book BY HIMSELF. Jesus, in fact, never expected anything to be written about him. This blows away the theory that the bible was ever supposed to be 'an authority'.

The Bible teaches clearly that having children is a blessing from God (despite the current population problems and economic problems throughout the world)"

The bible also teaches that smashing little children against rocks is potentially a source of pleasure (Psalm 136.8-9).

"The reality of our struggle is NOT a lack of space or resources... it's an unfair distribution of them. There is plenty to go round if people would only share!"

I don't trust people to share, but I do trust people to not do what they cannot do. In fact, that's the only thing I trust people to do.

"Prior to the modern industrial age, human populations have been in danger of extiinciton in various parts and the effort to survive has been difficult"

Irrelevant.

I don't believe in God as a 'personal' being, and if I did, I COULDN'T love him because of his lousy treatment of his creation. If God were a personal being we would flipping know about it by now, and the world wouldn't be in this state.

Sorry I had to tear the comment apart, but I hope you see why I believe that the definition of sin is GENERAL, and not SPECIFIC.