"I don't need to make my theology align with the beliefs of other religions. However, if Christianity is correct, then all other religions would by consequence be fabrications of Satan and of course would venerate the serpent as wise and powerful." This is classic "invincible ignorance" which is 180 degrees apart from, in orientation, the Golden Rule. The reason you don't understand basically everything I pressed you on is because you insist on maintaining your ignorance instead of actually loving your neighbors. It's REALLY not that hard. Have you ever been rejected before? Of course you have. You're on NOSTR, meaning you're a Bitcoiner, meaning you've tried to tell people about Bitcoin before for their own well being, and those people have rejected you in the majority of such instances. Stop me when I'm wrong here. In those instances, you did not feel loved because you knew you were benevolently sharing information that the other party did not yet have for whatever confluence of reasons has maintained their separation to that point in time. Other people also feel unloved when you throw up walls of invincible ignorance. That's literally what Jesus did NOT do. He made everyone feel seen and acknowledged as the individual they were. He did not dismiss them prejudicially. That would be disingenuous. You don't understand the serpent because you don't study other traditions. At least you admit you don't understand why the baptism of the Holy Spirit is fiery. Thank you for your honesty. Genesis 1 was a story from one of the great flood events...or rather the aftermath...the 7 days over which the earth "calmed down" and reset into a "new normal". There is scientific evidence to back this up as well as linguistic evidence. The evidence was initially classified by the US Air Force in the late 1940s. You misinterpret my statement regarding Genesis 1 and the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is about seeing things vicariously from the perspective of others and using that to inform your choices and actions in positive, loving ways. That means not being closed minded and acting certain when you're nowhere near certainty. It means being honest, just like you were honest when you said "maybe everybody WAS wrong about money and these weirdos on the internet are onto something". Attempting to shield yourself from information using faith is not a tactic I will be using. I will do the opposite and actually use the internet to question the blind regurgitation of dogma that has been egotistically, ignorantly passed from generation to generation without criticism for fear of ostracization from the pack which triggers deeply seated survival fight or flight responses. In this case, the childhood dependency Stockholm syndrome has already established itself in many cases and rather than fight, flee, or freeze, children "fawn" to their captors/caretakers realizing the wisdom not to bite the hand that feeds you. Many never get over that. It's sad. No, I'm not so egotistical as to think that MY family is SO AMAZING that WE have ALL the answers in a world where there are many prominent traditions. That is laughably egotistical to think that and if that's offensive to you, it is because it is offensive to your ego. In order to understand Genesis 1 at all or its providence you would have to look into sources that are going to tell you things about "more than just Christianity" and that's out of bounds for you because you've chosen to build for yourself a personal prison of ignorance, likely with fear serving as the foundation for the structure. The language was learned in NE India. Nobody knew that language because nobody travelled there and learned that language. Think about the logistics for that day/age. Who travels that far back then with that technology to go study with the gurus and learn their language? Nobody but Christ. Imagine that...Christ was exceptional. Rome didn't conquer beyond certain boundaries. Learn your history. They were never able to fully sweep up the tracks of Christ's travels. They were able to sweep up a lot of it, including Christ's travels to the UK, Egypt, and along the Silk Road into Asia but Rome didn't pitch a no hitter and we still have records, but you wouldn't believe those records because you think everyone who doesn't toe the line of your family dogma is the devil and a liar which is how an unloving person treats their neighbors. Y'all have lost the plot entirely with this us vs them stuff. Us vs them IS A VIOLATION OF THE GOLDEN RULE! HOW CAN THIS NOT BE OBVIOUS? Baptism of the Holy Spirit is redundant because the "ba" in "baptism" is referring to the same thing that "Holy Spirit" is referring to. You would know that, but you don't need to study other traditions because you know how to demonstrate love and grace to your neighbors by being receptive and inquisitive instead of combative and afraid. Halos are how MRIs work so I'm gonna go with important. Also, you don't even understand what salvation means. That's an Egyptian term. It's an Alchemical term and it has to do with the Egyptian baptism which was the core that tied Egypt, chemistry, and Alchemy together. You don't realize that solute, solvent, and solution are an iterative expression of your 'Holy Trinity" or that Chi, Rho, and Phi are another or Osiris, Isis, and Horus is another. It's the same concepts, just distorted more or less in different traditions. You wouldn't know that because you KNOW that you don't need to study anyone else's traditions because you know how to make people feel valued and seen instead of prejudicially dismissed and worthless. Angels are the same thing as lowercase g gods aka elohim, which any Hebrew scholar worth his salt will tell you is plural. Angels are the same thing as "interdimensional aliens". Angels are the same thing as "ascended masters". The wings are representative of enlightenment and let's face it: they're always depicted as beings of light. Flight symbolism is enlightenment symbolism including the dove in Matthew 10:16 but you wouldn't know that because you don't need to study any other traditions. Prejudicially declaring something you've never studied as falsehood is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. It is bearing false witness against your neighbor, end of story. You should not opine on something you have not studied. You declare that you do not need to study it, but how could you know if you've not studied it? This is the lesson of the camel and the eye of the needle but you don't understand that because that lesson's meaning is to be open minded and explore, knowing that you will pay a cost to do so. If you don't explore, you'll never know what's inside the city walls. You are the rich man who will never enter the kingdom of heaven because you "know" what's best already, unlike the humble, honest person who doesn't masquerade as certain in some 2 bit, dime a dozen, confidence act. OK, so maybe you don't justify holy war. If you justify any holy wars, please do so. I'm talking like Crusades, ongoing Israel/Palestine stuff, etc. Cognitive dissonance is thinking that fiat is a bad word and canonical is just fine. I guess it never occurred to you how weird it was for Rome to persecute the hell out of early Christians, offing the best Christian teachers for generations before they eventually completed the hijacking and redirected the Christ movement into something that was more conducive to the continuity of Roman hegemony...cui bono?