Wow. It truly boggles the mind where you got these interpretations from. Certainly not from the text itself - it must be from the most deliberately cynical reading of the text possible. Where to begin:Originally Posted by Cronos Impera
1. Environmentalism
The Bible does indeed state that man, being created in God's image, was given the right to rule the other creatures. However, the Biblical idea of rulership has never been despotism, but rather stewardship. The difference couldn't be more clear - a despot does as he pleases with impunity, regardless of who or what he destroys, while a steward has been given a responsibility to take care of what is not his. Mankind may be the steward of the earth, but he does not own it, and is not free to destroy it - Biblically or by any other reasonable standard.
2. Morality
Unlike most heroic narratives, the Bible reports the negative characteristics and actions of its main characters along with the good. How you have taken this bit of honesty and turned it into so-called contradictions is beyond me. Do you really think that just because Abraham's foolish, faithless actions are reported in the text, that they are "approved" of? Go back and read the text - you'll see that those actions are clearly portrayed as wrong. As you go through the Bible, you'll find the people of God making missteps left and right - that's part of being human.
Regarding the example from the Ten Commandments you mentioned, I'm truly tired of hearing the ubiquitous misquote "you shall not kill." Never is this said - rather it says "you shall not murder", a significant difference since to murder means to kill unjustly. Make whatever arguments you want for or against capital punishment, but don't claim the Bible is contradictory because God supposedly breaks a commandment he never issued.
3. Sacrifice
You're only about 2000 years behind the times on this one. Animal sacrifices were indeed performed (and ordered) according to Jewish ceremonial law in the Old Testament. (By the way, if you're tempted to protest this barbaric practice and proclaim the moral superiority of modern times because of our kindness to animals, don't - most of those sacrifices were eaten, and we eat far more meat than they ever did in those times.) Regardless, animal sacrifices were decisively ended by Christ in the New Testament. (I'm not saying they were never performed again, but rather that the need for them was a thing of the past.)
I'm done here; these posts are well off topic. But just as I'd expect to be corrected if I stated that evolution claims man evolved from monkeys, I offer this correction to a gross misenterpretation of scripture that no one knowledgable about the Bible would hold.
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