Deuteronomy 13- If you hear of another city where another God is worshipped, you must kill everyone in that city. Men , women , children, babies, even cattle, and then you must burn that city to the ground. oh and by the way, "thou shall not kill." those are directives, they're not something that can read and taken any other way. well, scratch that, something that cant be taken any other way by me. i cant read it another way.
That's swell, Tommy. The point is that it's unbelievable facile and myopic to jump on your high horse and pretend that laws and policies are the result of rational intellectual exercises and have nothing to do with the prevailing religious beliefs within the society that enacts them. It's such a meaningless statement, akin to "You can't legislate morality." So stupid.
But...but...but...the bible says thou shall not kill. Error! Error! Abort rationale conversation. You are just taking this verse out of context. What they were really saying is...
You don't need a religion to have empathy. You understand that you wouldn't want a certain thing done to you because it causes harm and suffering. Therefor you understand why another person would also not want that done to them. As a deist, this makes the most sense to me. It's an easy concept that anybody can understand, regardless of any higher moral authority claim. People forget that god is supposed to be about a personal spiritual bond, not dictation of a religious dogma or attempted psychic communication via prayers.
There is a very certain dishonesty when one of "the faithful" can decry sexual predation on the part of clergy but at the same time allow that clergy free rein to ravage the worldly possessions of the very same people they claim to serve.
" verb verb: ravage; 3rd person present: ravages; past tense: ravaged; past participle: ravaged; gerund or present participle: ravaging 1. cause severe and extensive damage to. "fears that a war could ravage their country" synonyms: lay waste, devastate, ruin, destroy, wreak havoc on, leave desolate
ok let's just grant the possibility that the creator of the universe, an all loving, all wise, all knowing, omniscient God, occaisionally authors books. He would have a scribe and dictate to him what should go in that book. Think of just how good a book that would be, All the great things in it, all the beneficial tips, and just the general decency of what that book would contain. But with the bible, for me, im not speaking for anyone else, is just not very useful. there's acres of iron age barbarism, but there's nothing about electricity, dna, infectious disease, there's nothing in the bible that couldn't of been written by a 1st century person. everyone of our sciences has superseded the wisdom of scripture, be it in regards to cosmology, psychology, economics, the universe and our place in it, we know so much more about ourselves now, well, more than anyone writing the bible.
A all powerful, benevolent god would have not condoned rape, murder, genocide, infantcide, and slavery. He also would have known that Pokemon Go would be out in 2016. Not a single mention of that in the bible. FAIL!
"Some 180 young adults and teens from the archdiocese [of NY] ... join an expected 2 million pilgrims in Krakow, Poland, for World Youth Day. The pilgrims, hailing from 187 countries across the globe, will be in the Polish city for the weeklong celebration July 26-31..." http://cny.org/stories/New-York-Pilgrims-Sent-Forth-to-World-Youth-Day-in-Krakow,14254 Pope, Traveling to Poland, Looks for Youths to Spread Hope in Chaotic World http://cny.org/stories/Pope-Traveli...-Youths-to-Spread-Hope-in-Chaotic-World,14298
