TIL Hitchens's Razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence," a dictum coined by antitheist Christopher Hitchens.

You said a verse is only for jews in israel.

That is kind of close to what I implied. The absurdity of his previous claim was the idea that you can give from commands given to Israelites to proof Christians use the Bible to justify racism. There are troubling commands given to the Israelites, and Christians have justified terrible things, but there's not a connection between his claim and his citation there.

As far as 'just for the Jews,' there's the problem which you first introduced. The idea that belief, adherence, and relevance are all one in the same simply isn't true. I don't live under the Crown, but I believe in it. I don't have to follow its laws, but its laws are still relevant. Most Christians follow the NT track (particularly around food laws in the Gospels, Acts, and 1 Corinthians, and Galatians) that OT laws still apply to Jews, but not to Christians. They believe they exist and are relevant, but do not adhere to them.

It's also worth noting that the idea that OT=harsh God & NT=loving God is a soft form of Marcionism, and is considered heretical by all mainstream Christians.

From there, an entirely different discussion can be had as to how Christians & critics (& Jews & Muslims) might pluck out some of these verses.

People have already started deleting comments because this comment chain is fucking cancer.

It's mostly just the one guy.

Unlike you, I'm willing to say there are problems with it.

Not that anyone asked, but what I find most morally abhorrent in the Bible is found in the "historical" writings, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles. There you have a narrative which includes God intervening in human affairs in a non-allegorical, inexcusable way. To be fair to that other guy's original point, that is what many Christians ignore. (The idea that they all can/do ignore 80% on a whim is, again, just absurd)

Anyway, I quote back the rest of that stuff. I hope your day gets better, and I'm happy to discuss any of this at a later date.

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - en.wikipedia.org