Following The Bible

Now before you think this is going to be a preachy Christian post by me, worry not. It is a preachy historical post instead. The religious reference is important for the fact that well, modern society these days derived its moral authority from religion, which back in ye olden days provided for a mostly civilized setting for the people back then.

One of the things that infuriate me when it comes to the discourse of any issue is when the person goes into ideological mode and starts to quote the Bible as a justification for his/her very flawed beliefs. From capital punishment ("an eye for an eye") to condemnation of homosexuality, these ostrich-people (cos' they stick their head in the sand) simply parrot back that it's wrong and it says so in that oh-so-very-flawed book.

Well it says in the Bible, Deuteronomy 21:18-21, "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death."

That is but just ONE example of the many outdated "teachings" from that book. It also says that thieves should get their right hand lopped off, if a woman loses her husband, his brother should take her in along with any surviving children, polygamy is approved of and oh by the way, so is slavery! if one was caught doing work on the Sabbath,

This next one is hilarious. Deuteronomy 22:11 says "Thou shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together."

I believe that the Bible reflected the thinking of times back then and it served its purpose. But for modern day context, a lot of it is just plain wrong. As thinking and feeling humans, to blindly follow the words from a book reproduced from over 2,000 years back is not just wrong, it's intellectual abdication.

And for the fundamentalists who cherry pick and choose which "teachings" they wish to follow and which ones to rabidly espouse, evangelise and advocate, it's moral hypocrisy.