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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[lemon10]

13 If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her 14 and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” 15 then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. 16 Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. 17 Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18 and the elders shall take the man and punish him. 19 They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

20 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, 21 she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

Lying about being a virgin=death.

23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

Being raped in a city (while engaged)=death.

Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

Eating leavened bread (during a specific religions festival)=death. Being cut off from Isreal means either the death penalty or exile. I'm pretty certain in both these cases it means death.

And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.

Not being circumcised=death.

And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.

Cursing your parents=death.
All these carry the death penalty, and I'm pretty sure there are quite a few more equally unreasonable ones out there that I didn't find in my 10 minute search. Now, you could argue that these laws aren't that bad for the times, and you might be right, but they are pretty terrible from a modern standpoint, much like islamic law is. Saying islamic law is bad (because people actually follow them) while ignoring how bad biblical law (because no one has followed it for over 2000 years) is is a tad hypocritical.

[Helgoland]

You are ignoring context, misrepresenting what is written, acting like this is not a religious text but instead just a judicial codex, and at least with the first quote what you claim is outright false.

I think I know what is lacking in this thread: Goodwill. As long as this place is essentially the 'Disprove Christianity' thread, it's pointless to conduct a proper debate.

[Graknorke]

Are you really going to have a Christian persecution moment right after we've been ragging on Islam? And why is it apologists always go for the 'context' argument? I'd really like to hear in what context it's okay to kill people for not following the same religious practices you do.

[TD1]

You are ignoring context, misrepresenting what is written, acting like this is not a religious text but instead just a judicial codex, and at least with the first quote what you claim is outright false.

I think I know what is lacking in this thread: Goodwill. As long as this place is essentially the 'Disprove Christianity' thread, it's pointless to conduct a proper debate.

What, so the people in this thread don't show goodwill? Hehe. That's kinda false. This is probably the most tolerant a religious discussion is ever going to get. If you want more goodwill, you ought to strive for heaven.

[Helgoland]

If this is as good as it gets, one should probably simply stop...

[Rolan7]

You might want one of those subreddit echo-chambers.  This thread has been dominated by atheists, yeah, but I think it's been generally respectful.

I don't recall the last time someone was disrespectful to a person (except for quietly ignoring them).  Attacking ideas should be okay.  Kudos to those trying to defend them, but discussion of ideas is why we're here.

If you do want a place to discuss your antisecular meetups, a "religion general" is the wrong place.

Edit:  Sorry, I *like* echo chambers and think they serve important purpose.  Even/especially for things I like.  It's nice to post somewhere where I don't have to defend what I like.
Edit2:  And I wish there were more religious people posting, but I suppose most religious bay12ers prefer not to.  I think only a fraction of them are learned apologists, and a fraction of those ever decide to post here.

[lemon10]

You are ignoring context, misrepresenting what is written, acting like this is not a religious text but instead just a judicial codex, and at least with the first quote what you claim is outright false.

I think I know what is lacking in this thread: Goodwill. As long as this place is essentially the 'Disprove Christianity' thread, it's pointless to conduct a proper debate.

You are right about the first quote, what I said wasn't nearly specific enough:  If a husband finds out his wife lied about being a virgin when they married, and she can't PROVE that she was, she gets stoned to death.

But I didn't take any of my quotes out of context in the slightest, I would honestly like to see the context in any of them (that I somehow missed) that make them not barbaric laws. If a woman is raped in a city (and anyone finds out), the bible calls for her to be stoned to death. If curse your parents, the bible calls for you to be stoned to death.
I am aware that these laws were probably not followed exactly even at the time, but that doesn't mean its not the law that the bible is urging you to follow.
And again, yes is ancient religious law, and most of it was pretty reprehensible stuff, but the same is true for islamic law according to the quran.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[TD1]

This is better than a real conversation if you ask me. Here, you know people want to speak about such things - in the real world, people tend to be reluctant to speak about their religious feelings. And if you got as much people as use this thread together to discuss religion, you'd see a lot more acidic language, and people not thinking through what they're saying.

Just my opinion, but I think I'm justified in saying that speaking about religion in the real world is worse than speaking here.

[Loud Whispers]

Saying islamic law is bad (because people actually follow them) while ignoring how bad biblical law (because no one has followed it for over 2000 years) is is a tad hypocritical.

Really

[Graknorke]

Saying islamic law is bad (because people actually follow them) while ignoring how bad biblical law (because no one has followed it for over 2000 years) is is a tad hypocritical.

Really

Well yeah, both laws are bad, just Christianity doesn't typically have a program where they systematically indoctrinate children into learning the entirety of the holy texts and the values implied wherein.

[Orange Wizard]

We do, actually, it's just the the indoctrination is usually isn't on the violent bits.

E: Or the entirety of the book. So, yeah.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Saying islamic law is bad (because people actually follow them) while ignoring how bad biblical law (because no one has followed it for over 2000 years) is is a tad hypocritical.

Really

Well yeah, both laws are bad, just Christianity doesn't typically have a program where they systematically indoctrinate children into learning the entirety of the holy texts and the values implied wherein.

No, no, you have to say religion is at its core good and everything bad that comes from it is just a corruption, or else the thread has bad discourse.

[Graknorke]

We do, actually, it's just the the indoctrination is usually isn't on the violent bits.

E: Or the entirety of the book. So, yeah.

Really? I've only heard of that kind of thing in the more extreme sects like Jehovah's Witnesses or the isolationist American ones.

[Orange Wizard]

Indoctrination is probably too strong a word. JWs and such are very extreme examples, but you'd struggle to find a church where the kids aren't "encouraged" to believe in the locally accepted dogma/doctrine.