The bible is a terrible place to get your morals from

I'm glad to see that my opponent is going to make this very easy for me indeed! Con asks us to consider *context*; the context that he offers us for the war crime of genocide is the following: Complaining about God ordering the death of children is a vain gesture when one realises that they were spared the worse fate of being reared as saves ["slaves"] under the domination of sin Slaves to what sin? Worshiping the wrong God. Great. Con essentially believes that life as an atheist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist or a Baha'i is a fate worse than death... AND, presumably, that this absolutely justifies murdering them (I suggest that any war crime tribunal today, Christian or not, would profoundly disagree). Presumably Con could make some special pleading for Jews (or, perhaps, at a pinch, the Muslims), since they (sort of) worship the same God. That is quite likely to instantly win me about 66% of the World's population so thanks for that, Con! Also, if I now wish to pursue the theory that the bible inspires misogyny (good suggestion, thanks Con!), I have a shining example, in Con, of misogynist thought... directly inspired by the holy bible! Thank you so much, Con, you really are making this easy! Why do I say this? Well, let's have a deeper look at what Con says about the rapist who must marry his victim: ... he is punished for this: he now must pay up (he can't opt out any more) and marry her (which could be a major punishment in itself if this was a foolish, spur-of-the-moment act and she really wasn't the right woman for him!) WHAT THE HELL!? What kind of a twisted moral compass would make you think that a marriage between two people who weren't "meant for each other" would be a good idea? To use this ill-fated marriage AS A FORM OF PUNISHMENT is lunacy and completely disrespects the woman's part in this. I say "meant for each other" but actually, Con's misogyny runs far deeper than that... he writes "she really wasn't the right woman for him"! Oh, me, oh my! Don't worry, Con, I know that you do actually think there's a way out... you've already outlined it... let's look at that in more detail... because a woman must be under the direct authority of a man from birth through to death (according to the bible and, apparently, Con), her father (her current "authority") could look out for her and prevent the marriage... phew... except that this is misogyny compounded upon misogyny and it doesn't account for the case of where the father might selfishly decide that this was a perfect opportunity to ditch the responsibility of looking after (and feeding) his daughter... or the case where her father is a twisted masochist who wants to hurt his daughter and forces her into this loveless marriage (don't think for one second that the mother has any say in this, she is "under the authority" of her husband). I have now probably won half of the remaining 33% of people. You're down to about 16.5%, old chap. Good luck. Oh, by the way... there is also one other interesting fact to point out here... Con's argument so far absolutely relies on the assertion that there is a God and that the Bible is the inspired words of that God. That's sad in the context of this debate, because it really does mean that Con is going to lose out possible support from anybody of any other [or no] faith. Why do I say this? Because nobody in their right mind could condone genocide in retaliation for the crime of conversion to a "false god" unless they believed, to the disturbing level that Con seems to believe, in a holy book. And of those people who are as profoundly fundamentalist as Con, it's only the fundamentalist Christians who will agree with Con at this point. Finally, Con, I'll leave you with a thought which is a *slight* deviation from the debate at hand, but might help to illustrate to you the total immorality of what you are saying: what if the boot was on the other foot and it was you and your family and your whole city who were to be killed for the crime of promoting the wrong faith? There exist in this World PLENTY of people who, being as fundamentalist as you, would LOVE to do it. They have other holy books that tell them how moral it is to kill infidels such as yourself and I condemn the idea that their books are a good source of morality with as much conviction as I do yours. Note to most Christians: I know that you tend to distance yourselves from the Old Testament and likely do not agree with Con's hard-line confirmation of the morality of some of the "worse bits" from the Old Testament (I'm atheist myself but spent half my life as a Christian). I urge you to vote on my side of the debate *based on the arguments being made*... partly because even if you think that the bible is a good source for morals, if you think I've out-debated Con then I beg that I deserve that... but also because, even if you think that *for you* the bible is a good source for morals, I hope that you'd agree that it *can* go wrong as it seems to have done in Con's case.