text: "God seems ... to have allowed countless varying interpretations of the original revelation to flourish;...both other-Christian and non-Christian, many of these look regrettable, or worse."
  Now things get interesting, don't they.  God gave US, through the Church to which we belong, the mission to enlighten the world.  There are those in darkness who need that "great Light".  But why would those who are to spread that light also be in darkness?  God granted some certainty in the body of the Church.  Our closeness to that certainty, or distance from it, is our personal choice to accept or reject God's extended hand of Grace in our lives.  "Father" is not, again, a reference to the gender of a God who has none.  It is the relationship He has with us and is exactly how Jesus describes Him.  The focus on the gender of the word, I think, keeps people from growing in that relationship.  The need to see God as Mother, too, belies the real cultural fixation that is attributed to the Church.