"That massage is not about violence but about strife between families - something anyone in a mixed-religion family can attest to. One parent is a Christian, the other an Atheist, or a Muslim, or a Jew, etc... Jesus still preached absolute pacifism, but pacifism doesn't mean there is no strife between people, it means you don't resort to violence to get your way." Well, that is YOUR interpretation. A sword is a weapon, a strike, not a strife. You can say whatever you want...

"As to the idea that a given religious writing "cannot change" this is infantile. Although great strain has been taken by copyists to accurately reproduce the text by hand it has ALWAYS been acknowledged that these copies are imperfect, and for this reason earlier copies have always been preferred. This goes back in the christian tradition at least as far as Jerome" Exactly!!! So the pretendence of religious people to know the alleged words of God is absurd. But when the text is clear, as slavery, slaughters, genocide, burning witches etc, nothing changed. Open your bible and these words are still nowadays in it, clear, precise, concise. Words of God or not? Religions say yes. Jesus did say, as much of the witnesses are telling as, that the Old Testament is still valid, so invasions, rape, slaughters are legitimate. It was with these texts that slavery was organised in the 3 Americas... Tell me if you dare that slavery is not allowed in the Bible!!!
So the Bible is against one of the basic Human Right. The Bible stated that women are inferior to men. The Bible gave numerous examples of slaughters not only authorised but ordered by the Divinity... All these are against the Humanity made rights.

"I've been saying this for a decade now, and you've been here all that time so there is no excuse for this sort of sloppy argument. Buck up or I'll file a report with the moderators and let them decide whether your response to my point is spam or not." Still better than to be burned by the Holy Inquisition, I suppose.