That's totally irrelevant. I don't believe in a creator who would have ever told anyone to do anything like this, EVER. Whether it would apply to us today is totally irrelevant. The story is still *based* on immoral nonsense, IMHO.

I knew he was a dino racer!

I looked up the opinion on stoning just to see what the opinion was of it in Jewish and Christian law. Apparently the Jews did not believe in capital punishment except in the most egregious situations (under circumstances much more strict than those required for a modern day death sentence for example) and Jesus also did not believe in capital punishment either.



"In the following centuries the leading Jewish sages imposed so many restrictions on the actual implementation of capital punishment — especially, many difficult-to-fulfill conditions for a testimony to be admissible (Sanhedrin) - as to make the imposition of capital punishment virtually impossible in practice.

The Talmud limits the use of the death penalty to Jewish criminals who: (A) while about to do the crime were warned not to commit the crime while in the presence of two witnesses (and only individuals who meet a strict list of standards are considered acceptable witnesses); and (B) having been warned, committed the crime in front of the same two witnesses.[18]"

Well, there you go. Neither Jesus nor the Jews believed in the Old Testament.

Ha ha...My point is they believe in it alright but neither share your interpretation of it!



but you can write the minority opinion for the court...

I don't see where any interpretation is even required. It's pretty straight forward. You either believe in stoning people to death for comming "sins" or you don't. Clearly Jesus didn't.

Now you could try to claim that by "interpretation" you're suggesting that all these stories about god directing people to stone sinners and heathens to death is a mere "metaphor" that isn't supposed to be taken literally.

I have two major problems with that.

First off, if that's supposed to merely be a metaphor, it's a pretty sick metaphor and could easily be understood and taken "literally", which would imply that "God" isn't very wise when it comes to having his will conveyed in writing.

Secondly, even if I were to accept this drastic of an 'interpretation' of so-called, "metaphors" then it would be a very easy step to suggest that Jesus being the "son of God" was also just a metaphor, etc. etc. etc.

In other words, once you go off the deep end of accepting extreme metaphors for everything in the Bible then it no longer holds any meaning because everyone can take that view to the extreme and apply it to the stories about Jesus himself which suggests that the whole story itself is just intended as a "metaphor".

I've gone through this many times before. You need to keep in mind that at one point I was actually out to "defend" the Bible as the "Word of God" (back when I was extremely naive).

Even then I had to face the reality that it must either be taken literally, or all bets are off. Once you start allowing for extreme metaphors then it looses any vality as being the "word of God". It becomes nothing more than an "interpretation" of men.

And like I say, once you start with that, then you have no choice to but to agree with my conclusion that the idea of Jesus himself being the son of God would be nothing more than a metaphor. A metaphor that could easily be taken to men that ALL MEN are the son of God, and that Jesus was therefore no different from any other mortal man.

Even the ressurrection, etc. would need to be taken as a metaphor, because to demand that this should be taken as literal would fly in the face of the suggestion that other parts of the book should only be taken as metaphors.

It comes back to the "Salad Bar" approach. What you LIKE about the Bible you put on your plate as "TRUTH", what you don't like about the bible you pass by as a "mere metaphor".

The religion becomes a "Salad Bar" religion where you just take what you like and reject the rest. But trust me, a LOT of religious folk do precisely that. And it works for them as a personal belief system. More power to them! But then if they start trying to sell their salad plate to someone else, the other person might not like everything they had choosen to put on their plate.

Then the religion reduces to a bunch of "protesting" salad eaters.

And that basically describes the whole Abrahamic picture today actually.

It seems like some people really believe this story.