That's the baffling part.

What you are saying is that there are plenty of good, sane people who are Christians and can reconcile their faith with certain parts of the Bible that are out of date. I agree with that. What I'm saying is that there is a small minority of Christians who are insane and let doctrine take precedence over morality. For these people the Bible can be as much a hindrance as a help if they take the passages I mentioned into account and one of these people happens to be running for office. There are a majority of Christians who don't read the Bible (at least not the parts I mentioned) and, as a result, never have to confront this reality and can therefore be more easily fooled by an insane person. These are the voting populace and the portion of the population I am most worried about.

Why? People give a shit about what Plato and Aristotle said, do you find that equally baffling or do you place a different value judgement on it? I hate to sound like I'm defending the Bible here, because it's pretty equivalent in value to Aesop's Fables in my mind, but its age doesn't appear to be a good reason by itself to declare it value-less.

Its content on the other hand...

If it's the word of God then it's the word of God. Acting like you can pick and choose is not sane, just desperate to justify it.

Same with abortion and people like Romney. Yes it seems more sane on the surface to support it in rape cases, but honestly if you believe it's murder then it's fucking murder, who cares what the situation was? Would it be okay to kill rape babies after they're born? Because the whole point of pro-life is not seeing a difference.

The same thing could be said of people who ignore parts of the bible so they can be gay and religious. This shit is not "good, sane accepting religion" it is actually prolonging what should be the death of horribly outdated bullshit philosophy. It is keeping it alive by pretending it isn't what it is.

/religiousrant

Our morals and society are extremely different from 2,000+ years ago, so getting your modern education from a 2,000+ year old book is not a very smart idea. Pretty simple really. The content issues are a direct result of this.

This was really grasping for debate material, by the way.

So, it is just as stupid, less stupid, or more stupid to use what Plato and Aristotle said as a springboard for modern, higher learning (part of which forms our modern philosophy and moeurs)? I mean, we don't do a lot of the stuff those guys did either...

Also, a lot of the Bible is quiet a bit older than 2000 years, especially the portions that contain most of those annoying rules. I guess if you're using the "put together on" date you could even argue it's only 1400 years old and therefor 600 years more relevant!

If you live your life by everything they wrote then yeah, you might have some problems. I never said we can't discuss the bible, I said basing your morals on it...

Still reaching.

Hence the little "+" symbol you seem to have missed.

I did, indeed miss the + symbol.

You originally said "give a shit", I just thought that was a bit extreme, obviously people give a shit and find many things important, age doesn't seem to be a determining factor in something's value (unless you're speaking of antiques).

Fair enough, I did say give a shit about what is says about morality, rather than basing their morality.

I meant the latter.