@Demon:
The thing most people don't acknowledge about the bible is probably the most important part about it, and that is this simple fact:
The Bible was NOT written by God, it was written by man. The faithful believe it was divinely inspired, but it was still penned by man.
Then, after being written, the church (Once again, men, not any Divine being himself) took the Writings in the Bible and, independently of the writers, edited it into official church "canon". The Bible has official "Canon". It'd be funny if there was someone going "You can't count Corinthians, It's totally filler!" (Joke! Joke!!)
But seriously, The hand of man is too deeply in play here. I highly doubt the bible is 100% the word of God, hell I doubt it's even 60% the word of God.
When you factor in all of the inconsistencies and the fact that the Bible gives an official rulebook on slavery, I refuse to believe it's accurate.
Yes, according to the Bible, slavery is A-OK! You can buy Slaves as much as you want (Leviticus 25:44-46)
You can sell your daughter as a Slave (Exodus 21:7-11)
And, you can beat your slave as much as you want so long as the slave doesn't die RIGHT away. He or she has to live a day or two before dying. (Exodus 21:20-21)
There is no way to explain any of this away without casting everything else in the Bible into doubt.
Yeah, I refuse to believe this is the word of God.
The quotes you listed come from old testament/old law/Judaism, that Christians are no longer under today (they are under the teachings of Christ, the new law/testament). And even some of those laws are outdated/no longer practiced in Judaism, well except for Orthodox Jews. There are people who claim to be christians who do follow some, or all, of these laws (I beleive the 7th Day Adventists practice a lot of those concepts, not the stoning stuff, but a lot of the faith rules of the time that were no longer practiced in the new testament), but they really aren't commanded to do so. (Also had this argument a couple of pages ago, but that was kinda where it got nasty).
The old testament is in the bible to begin with because Judaism was God's religion until he sent Christ to begin the teachings of Christianity. There are many things in Christianity taken from Judaism, so it's still very relevant to learn the history, it's just not in practice anymore.
Like I put in my last post, there are many things left up to interpretation because we don't get the full or correct/intentional translation because there are many words that have multiple meanings, or don't have meanings, when translated to english.
Not every interpretation of the bible is correct, but God's not gonna come down and tell us what it is, so it's everyone elses responsibility to study and learn it for themselves. Something will be right, everything else is wrong, and that's that. But no one can rightfully say the know the real truth.
I beleive a lot of things in there are true and good, but there are some questionable things I would like to research further and try to come up with an answer to. Not questionable enough to make me completely question my faith, there's just some things that are confusing that could use more clarification.
But hey, to each their own. Like I said before, I'm not trying to convert anyone. I know many people who have a fundamental problem with all this and have chosen not to beleive, I even know someone (who is also homosexual) who is a preacher's son who knew all about the bible and later chose not to follow it. That is their decision and I totally respect that. Everyone has been given their own free will to choose their own destiny and live their own lives. We can suggest things and try to convert, but everyone has their own individual choice to make that NO ONE has the right to influence, everyone must choose their own path. We can agree to disagree.
But I'll be damned if I drop my faith just because some people find it offensive who were offended by people who were acting most un-christian like. That's just silly.
@Hiroy:
We aren't put on this Earth to satisfy other believers, even if you are religious(yeah, I know people use God's name to win a "debate"… but anyone can...)
Amen to this.