Quote Originally Posted by Lemur View Post
If you're going to use the Old Testament to bash, this isn't even the best example (Issac was spared, remember?).
I am well aware I didn't even pick the worst one (which is kind of making my point for me), but it's something all the three major monotheisms praise as examplary behaviour. Muslims even hold a feast in celebration of the very act at the end of the pilgrimage. There are two hidden arguments you seem to be making, too:

1) It is easy to find horrible things in the "Old Testament", but the "New Testament" is an improvement.

No, it's not. The New Testament is literally infinitely worse, as it invents the notion of eternal torture (by this supposedly all-loving god).

2) The fact that Abraham was stopped in the very last second makes this a good, or at the very least acceptable thing.

Again, no. Are you a father? How would you react if you thought God, the God, whom you were intent on to follow, ordered you to murder your son? What emotional stress do you think you'd go through if you actually get to the point where you were actually intending to go through with it? What if God then, just before you struck the knife into your son's chest said, "oh, on second thought, you don't need to do this: I was only testin' ya".

How would you feel then? How would you feel to know that all the emotional scars, all the psychological damage that has been done to you and your son was just a joke?

Secondly, there's another passage in which god has a man sacrifice his daughter and doesn't stop it.

Thirdly... all this is irrelevant. What (believing) jews, christians and muslims alike are celebrating and praising is his willingness to murder his own son. Is this moral teaching to you?

Quote Originally Posted by Lemur
Everyone's quoting and arguing with my "religion is still useful" line, omitting the following clause: "All things in moderation."
I agree. The Aztecs might have gone a little overboard when they sacrificed thousands of people every year. Really, it would've been enough with 365 to keep the universe going...

On a more serious note, I can take another example: the Jesus story. Even the most moderate christian must believe in at least that, right?

Well, the moral of the story here, is that you can put your sins upon someone else, have him killed and thus be washed free. It is scapegoating, and it abolishes the whole idea of personal responsibility, upon which morality completely depends.

How could you possibly say this is spreading morality?

Religion is very useful though, that I can agree with. It's what has allowed the Catholic church to get away with raping children for so long, after all. It's also a very good way to get money out of people, and to get respect that you don't deserve, and to get votes that you don't deserve, and to get people to do your bidding, and for...