The Bible is an immoral bit of utter crap.

While dismissing the Bible's commands that people commit genocide, slavery, rape, sex slaves, various murders, thought crimes, punishing children for their father's sins, and cleaning up sin with some blood of birds and such. We are now told that it's not the source of our morals, but that the ten commandments are. -- 1) I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt not have no other gods before me. -- Religious intolerance is prohibited by the first amendment. 2) Do not make unto thee any graven image. -- Drawing a picture of a horse should not condemn your great great grandchildren. 3) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. -- Freedom of speech. 4) Remember thou keep the Sabbath Day. -- There are some blue laws, but such a widespread rule has been found unconstitutional. 5) Honor thy Father and thy Mother. -- You can't murder unruly children. Also, what if your parents sexual abuse you? 6) Thou shalt not kill. -- This is a rule in every culture even those long predating this rule. (See Hammurapi). 7) Thou shalt not commit adultery. -- Killing adulterers sounds fun, but the Constitution prohibits all such laws. 8) Thou shalt not steal. -- This is a rule in every culture even those long predating this rule. 9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. -- Accusing your neighbor of a crime is no longer that serious of a crime because we now view people as innocent until proven guilty. 10) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife or goods. -- Thought crimes are not enforceable. Further, this is the core of capitalism. You need to covet your neighbor's goods. Also listed in the commandment are slaves. No coveting of slaves. Slaves fine, coveting bad! Which of these could actually be part of American Jurisprudence? Only stealing and killing, the rest are strictly unconstitutional. It's hard to say that Christianity is the core of American government when it's prohibited from being a part of the American government. America is a child of the enlightenment which was a move away from the Church and Monarchies and towards individual freedoms. The rights of the government do not come from God, they come from the consent of the people to be governed. That is the central theme of American government and what sets our government in apart. If you want to see what government by way of Christianity does, look up Europe during the Dark Ages. -- "Anger is not murder. How do you put together such a connection?" While I freely concede that the connection is silly, it's biblical! It's from the Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 5:21-22 Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. -- "Such a definition should have been mentioned in the first round, not the second." You were the one who defined them. I pointed out that my meaning was the colloquial one the next round. I still think it's immoral crap. But, crap in the general sense rather than in the specific one. I don't even see how the literal definition makes any sense. -- "Additionally, the book was where we got the Ten Commandments, and our current, successful democratic government." The Bible is littered with Kings with dozens of wives and murders, genocide, and slavery. Nothing in the Bible speaks to the sort of self-empowerment that democracy does. A Biblical government would be a theocracy. -- "You concede that the Bible has a moral backbone, which means that it is not immoral." No. I said nothing of the sort. I conceded that I was blasphemous. However blasphemy is not a crime and it would be a victimless crime if it were. I said that you could cite "do not kill and do not steal, as a moral backbone of the Bible (...) but those rules are found in every semicoherent set of laws" -- I was pointing out how baseless the claims you had yet to make would be. -- "The Bible is part history, part morals, and the history is the part that is filled with what we now consider immoral actions." The Bible is not very historical. http://video.google.com...; http://video.google.com...; -- "The moral parts, found mostly in Proverbs, are very moral." Proverbs is a collection of proverbs taken from various culture. Some of them are taken from the Instructions of Amenemopet others are taken from other cultures around at the time. They aren't religious wisdom or moral pronouncements they are wise sayings that kick around a culture. http://en.wikipedia.org... 19:18 Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. 22:15 Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. 23:13 Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. 23:14 Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. 30:17 The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. Judging by how many there are about beating the crap out of kids, I'm not too impressed. Though, I never said there weren't some good bits. Ingersol said of proverbs: "In the Proverbs there is much shrewdness, many pithy and prudent maxims, many wise sayings. The same ideas are expressed in many ways -- the wisdom of economy and silence, the dangers of vanity and idleness. Some are trivial, some are foolish, and many are wise. These proverbs are not generous -- not altruistic. Sayings to the same effect are found among all nations. " http://www.infidels.org... They aren't moral statements or the foundations for real morality. Not one of them says never own other people, don't murder entire towns because they don't worship your god, don't kill people and keep the little girls for raping. They are pithy and somewhat banal. In short, they are pretty much crap, and not written by Solomon. -- "I would feel displeasure and resentment if you called capitalism a failure," Capitalism is a failure. How much resentment? How much displeasure? Are you seething? -- "Religion is very important to many people, and offending it is, well, offensive." The point is, I'm not offending it! It's a bunch of beliefs. By definition if I called a person fat, I am saying something about that person. I'm saying, this bronzed aged religion that insists people be murdered, raped, slain, cut open and their fetuses stabbed, is an immoral bit of utter crap! I've said nothing about people. It isn't "offensive" though you can take offense to anything. -- "You think Proverbs are bad? You think the Ten Commandments are bad?" Yes and yes. -- "you misquoted most everything you said from the Bible. That was not the Bible talking; that was God's instructions to a group of Israelites in the past." Are you telling me to blame God, not the Bible? The Bible is just records how God does evil stuff, but doesn't advocate doing evil stuff yourself. But it says, "have slaves", "kill gays", "beat children"! Jesus says in Matthew 5:18 "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." -- Jesus says it will all apply until the end of days. The ten commandments are the commands to kill sabbathbreakers, unruly children, adulterers, unbelievers, and those who covet (a thought crime). You're telling me to ignore the parts that tell you to kill people and rather look at the ten commandments! Those are those parts!