@Pinochet73,
Pinochet73;13014 wrote:"calm down"
Likewise.
"In the new testament Jesus criticizes the pharisees for not stoning their children, uses as an analogy the then common practice of beating slaves..."
Wha......? You're going to have to prove that one, Slick.
"......Paul in Romans says after the crucifixion that gays should still be killed."
Likewise.
"Paul makes sexist remarks about women in the name of god, and gives guidelines for slavery."
Paul was Paul. He wasn't Jesus, nor even knew Him, personally.
"The only reason Christianity isn't as bad as Islam when it comes to human rights is that Christian Churches dine buffet style from the table of theology."
That's a dumb statement. Pleae back it up.
"I'm not sure why anyone is afraid they are gonna be threatened in this thread. This forum does not tolerate threats of the physical nature."
Remember Nick Berg?
I was shocked when I read this stuff and I wrestled with it along time but after much thought I concluded that writing off the statements made by Jesus and Paul (Only Luke wrote more of the NT by volume) would be blinding myself to the complete truth of what the Bible says. I'll give you one example, I'm going to do a complete write up on this later but this will give you an idea of where I'm coming from.
for the sake of simplicity in reading I'll quote from the NIV: Mark 15: verses 1-9
1Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2"Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"
3Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God said, 'Honor your father and mother'[a] and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' 5But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' 6he is not to 'honor his father[c]' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.'[d]"
The first thing to note in all fairness is that Jesus does not come out and say "stone your children", but when you take a honest look at the context of the remark it become quite clear what he would have said.
Jesus is debating with some Pharisees essentially about the way you should live your life, specifically Man's Law VS God's Law. They ask Jesus why he doesn't wash his hands before meals and he counters by asking them why they don't keep the laws of God and instead use man made laws.
The example he gives comes from Exodus (which apparently Jesus feels still applies although the modern church would disagree... with Jesus... on this matter). Basically it says that those who strike or curse their parents should be stoned to death.
The key here is that Jesus calls them hypocrites, this says a mouthful about where Jesus was coming from. The whole concept of child execution is a bit tough to get you head around, so lets look at how hypocrite can be effectively used in a debate we can understand.
I support the war in Iraq (calm down I'm not shifting the focus of this post). As you have seen many times there are heated debates between the "stay the course" and "leave Iraq" sections of our country. The best example of all occurs on capitol hill. Everyone in office claims they support our troops, but some have very different ideas about what they should do.
Pro war congressmen often call their anti war counterparts hypocrites because they claim they are supporting the military, but do not support the war it is fighting. Now regardless of your stance on Iraq anyone with a critical mind can see that using the hypocrite term only works if your on the other side of the issue. A self proclaimed patriot who disagrees with the war can't call another self proclaimed patriot who disagrees with the war a hypocrite for claiming to support the military but not the war. That would be about as effective as trying to build a boat out of a cheese grater.
Going back to Mark 15; The Pharisees themselves claim to be the teachers of God's law, we know this from history. But they no longer feel it's the will of God to stone their children so instead they disown them. Jesus debates them on this point, even calls them hypocrites. So Jesus either disagrees with not stoning your children, or makes possibly the worst blunder ever recorded in a debate. It would be the classic "Pot calling the Kettle black" for Jesus to call the Pharisees hypocrites for doing something he didn't believe in either.
But why child stoning, why didn't he choose something else? Look at Mark 7 verses 6-13 (same story retold by Mark instead of Matthew)
6He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
" 'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.' 8You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
9And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe[c] your own traditions! 10For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,'[d] and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'[e] 11But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."
look at the last phrase "And you do many things like that". A person with any real understanding of how the human mind works knows that in a heated debate the first thing that comes to mind will be the strongest polarities. Of all the "many things like that", Jesus choose the stoning of children.