Response to Takis Konstantopoulos:

“The reason that it is ridiculous to bring god/religion into society is precisely because I care a lot about the well-being of all human beings and all life on Earth. Infanticide had been practiced in the name of gods in the past.”

That’s as absurd and ridiculous as saying “it is ridiculous to bring science into society because infanticide has been practiced in the name of science.”

“The second reason that it is irrational to talk about gods and religions is that there are many gods and many religions. Which one should I choose? By convention, typically, one chooses the gods/religion he/she is brought up with (like Lennox). But why is this a right choice?”

One must first investigate the claims of religions, and which one produces the best explanation. Christianity, of course, provides the best explanation and best evidence over any other religion. Saying “there are many religions” does not entail “all religions are false,” which seems to be the kind of logic you are implying here.

“The third reason it makes no sense to have religion in our society it is because it makes people lazy: for instance, you think it is a cosmic accident that we are here. You need to spend lots of years and effort in order to understand scientific facts which are not possible to grasp by trivial observations. If someone says ‘the Bible says so’, most likely this person is lazy.”

That depends on what one is explaining and what justification one is providing for such an explanation. This is another classic example of over-generalization. You say “some people use religion to provide inappropriate explanations” and then take a huge somersault into the conclusion “therefore all religious explanations are false.” Leaping gaps in reasoning, much?

“4) Lennox is an ex-mathematician, just as Collins is an ex-atheist. The thing they have both in common is that they use their credentials in order to impress people who don�t have them.”

No one is using their credentials to “impress” anyone, it’s just that you can’t stand the fact that there are smart people who disagree with you (the sign of a delusional mind). It’s interesting to note that you aren’t protesting at all about Dawkins, Dennet, Hawking, and other atheists “using their credentials to impress people.” Of course, it’s easier for you to apply double standards, so you just do it.

...people have killed and tormented each other for all kinds of reasons: political (ie, the quest for power), economic (the quest for wealth), out of personal reasons such as pride, family and tribal loyalties, falling in and out of love- but I’m not sure theological differences have been a major cause of violence; it would seem to me that most ‘religious violence’ in fact can be reduced to one, or a combination of, the other causes listed above...A case in point is trying to separate ‘religion’ from ‘politics’- Europe alone has multiple examples of ‘national churches’ such as the Church of England, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Catholic Church, more the result of nation building than theology. In fact Christopher Hitchens had it backwards: if I were to write a headline grabbing book, it would be called ‘The will to Power- How Politics Oppresses Everything’, outlining the nefarious influence of politics on religion, art (Nazi art, socialist realism), even science (E=MC*2 equals Hiroshima plus Nagasaki)… Jesus did say ‘My Kingdom is not of this earth’; all of us should thinking very seriously about what that means....

Don Blosser (and others):

The reason that it is ridiculous to bring god/religion into society is precisely because I care a lot about the well-being of all human beings and all life on Earth. Infanticide had been practiced in the name of gods in the past.

The second reason that it is irrational to talk about gods and religions is that there are many gods and many religions. Which one should I choose? By convention, typically, one chooses the gods/religion he/she is brought up with (like Lennox). But why is this a right choice?

The third reason it makes no sense to have religion in our society it is because it makes people lazy: for instance, you think it is a cosmic accident that we are here. You need to spend lots of years and effort in order to understand scientific facts which are not possible to grasp by trivial observations. If someone says “the Bible says so”, most likely this person is lazy.

Finally, let me correct you and others in three of your inferences:
1) Someone mentions the word “random” in their message. I very much doubt that they know what it means.
2) You say I am a leftist. I am not. You also think that being leftist is related to being atheist.
3) Perhaps you are implying that I am atheist. I am not. I am neither atheist nor theist nor deist.
4) Lennox is an ex-mathematician, just as Collins is an ex-atheist. The thing they have both in common is that they use their credentials in order to impress people who don’t have them.
5) Somebody else talks about god (i) as if there is one god and (ii) as if god is male (he uses the male pronoun). Hindus claim there are many gods. Why should I accept one and not two or five and a half gods?

Takis Konstantopoulo makes the following statements:
>>> “I’m replying to this after a very long time.”

my response:
Really? Hmmm, didn’t seem to help you come up with much.

>>> “The most stupid thing to do, when there are matter upon which not all members of society agree, is to bring god and religion as a solution. This is nonsense.”

my response: So all of your time and thought only resulted in name calling and dogmatic, unsupported assertions. I’m not impressed.  You attempt to make up for the weakness (or total absence) of your argument by resorting to calling theists stupid and their approach nonsense.  Well that certainly raises the bar on this debate- NOT!  Has anyone noticed that in general society, the weakest arguments are often supported by the strongest (ie foul) language?  In the world of academia it seems to work much the same only there is even more childish bullying and outright lying, e.g., we are the BRIGHTS, all those who do not agree with us are just ignorant, or maybe even wicked.  What a truckload of hubris and perverse misinformation!  Has Dawkins or any of his ilk ever had the guts to say that to the face of any of the many intelligent, highly educated and believing scientists such as Lennox, Francis Collins, etc.???  I doubt it very much. They prefer to intimidate and bully those who do not know any better- and they have made MILLIONS doing so!

>>> “Abortion: it’s a matter of personal choice.

my response:
Huh? I do not recall that topic previously being raised in this comment thread.  I’m not saying it has nothing to do with the power establishment’s entrenched commitment to brainwash the general population into blindly accepting the party line that we are all here by accident, mere activated slime,
but its another example of your proclivity toward unsubstantiated leftist dogma.

Since you brought it up however, If we are all a cosmic accident, why can’t I say that infanticide is “just a matter of personal choice”?  How about rape?  or murder?  When you saw off the branch you are sitting on, it’s called moral free-fall.
Happy landing

Question: I’m no historian, but weren’t the Crusades actually started in response to military incursions by the Muslim armies into new areas of the Middle East & Mediterranean, & then escalated as the two groups struggled for control of the area? That’s the impression I got from what I know of them. Because if that’s the case, then wouldn’t the root cause of the Crusades was politics more than religion?

Dr. F. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is an American physician-geneticist, noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HGP) and described by the Endocrine Society as “one of the most accomplished scientists of our time”. Collins is a former atheist. He NOW claims that there is indeed a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries actually bring man “closer to God”.

Collins says: “I have found there is a magnificent harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God’s majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.”

During a debate with the biologist Richard Dawkins, Collins stated that God is the explanation of those features of the universe that science finds difficult to explain (such as the values of certain physical constants favoring life), and that God himself does not need an explanation since he is beyond the universe. Dawkins called this “the mother and father of all cop-outs” and “an incredible evasion of the responsibility to explain” ...  to which Collins responded “I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That’s an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as ‘Why am I here?’, ‘What happens after we die?’ If you refuse to acknowledge the appropriateness of such questions, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn’t convince you on a ‘scientific proof’ basis. BUT ... if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are indeed consistent with that conclusion.”; that in the final analysis it takes great courage to face the ego-shattering fact that “Only egotistical fools put their own egos ahead of truthful discovery.”

Collins now says: “it is in fact Atheism which is the LEAST rational of all beliefs”.

Last year Stephen Hawking claims that a creator is unnecessary. The claim is based on the premise that the universe’s existence is a result of M-theory, which suggests that the collision of two membranes could have caused the Big Bang. While Hawking’s M-theory proposal may well be valid, it raises the question of whether the existence of God can be disproved by science. While many scientists support such a view, others disagree. As science has progressed into the 21st century, a growing number of scientists have begun to explore the complementary nature of science and religion.

Professor J. C. Polkinghorne, a theologian and scientist from Cambridge University and co-author of Questions of Truth: Responses to Questions about God, Science, and Belief, recently shed light on a new, harmonising model of science and religion.

Polkinghorne claims that the 20th century saw the death of a merely mechanical view of the world, and 21st century science has re-opened the possibility of a world that is random, unpredictable and cloudy at times; not because of the absence of God, but due to the fact that God designed a world with the ability to create and act freely, according to its nature.
Yet Polkinghorne suggests that such a world, with the capacity for change and creativity, is indicative of a god who does not intervene in magical ways. For example, the earth’s crust, as a result of God’s design, is free to behave in accordance with its nature. This may lead to earthquakes and tsunamis, but nonetheless the earth is free to act in its own way, just as we are free to act in ours.
The unpredictability of nature, therefore, is bound up in the very essence of its design.
The terms ‘cloudy’ or ‘unpredictable’ may not match up to the rigid, clear-cut science you were taught in high school. But neither is science always rigid or predictable. As Polkinghorne points out, the quantum world is anything but.
Quarks are particles smaller than protons and neutrons. Their properties are entirely random, and no one has ever isolated a single quark in the lab.
Thus, the discovery of the quark was an interesting experiment in faith. Several properties of the physical world could only be explained by the unseen quark. So, suddenly, in the scientific picture, appeared these unseen realities that gave intelligibility to the world. Parallels could be drawn here between science and religion, notably to passages of Christian scripture that refer to ‘believing without seeing’.

Polkinghorne claims that an understanding of the relationship between science and religion cannot be based merely on the old ‘God of the gaps’ theory; that is, the idea of God accounts for the things that science can’t explain. He suggests that if God is the god of truths, perhaps the more that science advances, the more we learn about God.

The 20th century realisation that light is both a particle and a wave sparked doubts about a ‘mechanical’ worldview. The fact that light could exhibit both wave- and particle-like properties stumped many scientists. Some refused to believe. Some accepted the proposal but shrugged it off as weird. Others pushed so hard for light’s dual nature that heated debate ensued.
Yet today, one century later, there is a general consensus that various substances in the physical world do possess a dual nature. Polkinghorne asks whether it is reasonable to believe that God too, could have a dual nature? That He could indeed enter the earth as both God and human?
It is not a matter of using science to prove the existence of God, but rather to illustrate that God and science can co-exist in a harmonious, complementary kind of way.
Hawking insists that science is able to disprove the existence of God. Yet Polkinghorne is adamant that science explores only ONE LAYER of existence. God works through
poetry and artwork, saints and mystics. You cannot fully appreciate an artwork by examining the chemical composition of its paint. Similarly, you cannot understand God’s function in the universe by looking only at its physical nature.

Because of mankind’s sin and his continuing to choose to sin (e.g. murder, waging war because of ego and lust for power and other people’s resources, stealing, tax evasion, lying - it goes on and on) mankind chooses to continue living in a “broken world” - broken by sin.

Mankind also has been given the gift of Free Will, a gift which God will not take back.  Free Will must be used by mankind to decide for the good or for the evil. Mankind has the power to do exactly just this, and is thus answerable for his crimes/sins. Without Free Will mankind just becomes a “wind-up toy”. God wants mankind to make a conscious decision to become part of God’s family.  But whatever mankind chooses, he knows quite well the consequences that await him. The Ten Commandments (to work for the “common good” of the entire community/nation) have been given to us and Christ’s teaching of “love one another” (respect, cherish, appreciate, forgive, be compassionate, etc. ); “love even your enemies” “he who is angry with his neighbour will not enter Heaven” (do good even to them who declare themselves to be your enemies, break the cycle of violence); “who is my neighbour?” It is every human being with whom we come into contact. “what you have done to others, you have done to me”

Mankind has been given the power to use Free Will, from which a greater good eventually results - even in this very temporary and transitory “testing journey” on earth.

Religion, especially organized one, has never managed to create a set of coherent understanding of morality. Rather, morality is imposed to its members by instilling in them fear. It is *precisely* because we ought to care about moral behaviour that we should get rid of the chains imposed by religion. In fact, religious morality is full of contradictions. Whenever I encounter a religious person who claims to be ethical, I am afraid. In Texas, for instance, where I spent an unfortunate number of years, being religious and carrying hand-guns are correlated. Jehova’s witnesses have, as part of their ethical system, the weird rule not to seek medical help even when they’re very sick. Some say we should respect religious behaviour like this. No we shouldn’t. We should point out the errors they make in the hope that some day they will become free of the drug that poisons them, namely, religion.

I don’t expect Lennox followers to agree, because they are all religious and, in fact, following a particular christian sect: presbyterianism, I think.

I have seen here some discussions on old testament law and how atheists use this to condemn Judaism/Christianity in general.

Because the Law prescribed certain matters only means that is is “lawful” to do something. It does not mean it is REQUIRED. Forgiveness and mercy are other alternatives.

There were different schools of Jewish thought.

Jesus stated at Mark 2:27 that the Sabbath was for man and not man for the Sabbath. In other words, it was for man’s benefit but was not absolute for his “service” to God to be accepted. The Sabbath was a HUGE issue in some schools and still is today. To each his own.

I do not intend to follow up on this post, just adding some meaningful food for thought.

Takis says: “Abortion: it’s a matter of personal choice.”

But a “personal choice” means exactly this: a choice that only matters to the person who makes it. If your choice brings major consequences to someone else, it is not “personal” anymore because it transcendes you. Abortion is everything but “personal” simply because the consequences of the act are supported by someone else.

And goes on:

“One of the big problems of religion (and one which makes it totally distinct and incompatible with science) is this: Its texts (written by blood-thirsty self-righteous people thousands of years ago) are accepted unaltered. Nobody ever proposes a revision of these nonsensical texts. Science never accepts anything for granted: it puts everything to test and modifies a theory accordingly.”

Why are atheists so deeply ignorant and angry? Historical documents (and the Bible is one) can not be “altered”, because that would be a fraud. Historical documents can be interpreted and elucidated.

Theology has been elucidating biblical texts for centuries, and not a single biblical text has been accepted “for granted”; For instance, the four gospels were accepted by the Church only after discussions, comparison to other texts, analysis of the styles, analysis of the historical context, investigations about its authenticity and analysis of the coherence they had with each other.That took hundreds of years, and shows that there is no lack of serious discussion in religion. 

On the other hand, science accepts many things for granted, like the the postulates of mathematics and logic, which can’t be proved by science (this is basic in philosophy, but even scientists ignore it). So, the very basis of science is not put to test.

And if science “puts everything to test and modifies a theory accordingly”, that means that science will permanently change its “truths”. What scientists claim to be correct today will be modified tomorrow. Now, many materialistic scientists say that human beings are just genetic machines, that there are no real emotions or free will, no real “self”, and the mind is an “illusion”.

For materialistic science, we are slaves of our genes and we are no better than insects. In the future, these statements will be changed, because science will have new informations that will destroy these beliefs ("puts everything to test and modifies a theory accordingly)”. So, a knowledge that suffers deep modifications permanently, correcting its statements from time to time, can’t be the ground of the most important decisions in human life.

On the other hand, religion shows us that ethics and values are timeless, and plays a major rule when it comes to guide human life, because it reminds us that we are not “things”, but conscious beings, able to love, forgive and have a meaningful life.

Both Atheists and religious fanatics made crimes. But it is not God or Christ. It is the man. And looking to atheist murderers: Stalin, Mao etc. Whether religious or not, the man is responsible for the crime.

It seems to me that most of what we think about as religious crimes were actually political crimes- if I were to write a book to make headlines it would be titled something like “The Will To Power: How Politics Ruins Everything”. After all, the medieval church was a political entity as well as a spiritual enterprise. And politics does not only contaminate religion- look what it did to the Twentieth Century’s most brilliant scientific discovery, E=MC*2: the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…

Interesting video.

However, could & should it not be argued that Christian evil-doing is worse than that of atheists ? The standard I would apply is that of the claims made by the acting parties; by a Christian standard - though maybe not by an atheist one - of two comparably bloody massacres, one by Christians & the other by atheists, that by Christians would seem (all things being equal) to be worse than the other. Atheists do not claim to serve a God of Love & Mercy - but Christians make this very claim.

Christians claim also to have means of help of a value & power that atheists do not claim to have; so surely Christians ought to be conspicuous for their beauty of their moral characters - but how often is that the case ?

By Christian standards, atheism lacks so many safeguards against the evils in the hearts of its adherents that the crimes of Enver Hoxha, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, & other atheists are - almost - to be expected; the Christian notion of the Fall, because treated as a truth about reality makes their crimes anything but surprising. But the logic of the beliefs held by Christians about what Christianity is, condemns the crimes of Christians as far worse than the crimes of atheists, because Christians have (if their claims are true) far more light & grace to sin against than atheists do.

Christian sin is ISTM inexpressibly worse than sin by atheists.

Which introduces complications into apologetics.

I’m replying to this after a very long time.

The most stupid thing to do, when there are matter upon which not all members of society agree, is to bring god and religion as a solution. This is nonsense.

Abortion: it’s a matter of personal choice.

Most people reply that it is god (or her representative) who wrote these texts and therefore their writings cannot be doubted or altered.

I cannot speak for the Jew or Muslim, but as a Xian I am not sure what the point of altering the text would be.

You do understand that Deuteronomy was not written for all cultures, right?

In fact, as I see it (though I could be mistaken) the “rules” were not as rigid for the non-Jew (ironically enough) as they were for the Jew.

Those who cling to worthless idols (Non-Jews) forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

When God saw what they (Non-Jews) did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts.

I revealed myself to those (Non-Jews) who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation (Non-Jews) that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.

Again, I could be wrong.

I am curious what your solution would be (without mentioning god) for situations where we as a culture cannot agree on certain laws that are clearly important, i.e. abortion?

What would you say to the atheist who thinks that it is murder to abort an unborn child?

Or conversely, what would you say to the pro abortionist if you happen to think that abortion is murder?

Could you offer an objective secular resolution to this?

I find that it is easy to diagnose and that it is very difficult to objectively prescribe.

Perhaps you can offer help.

All the best,

Michael

Michael,

I do agree with you in MANY points:

-That the Hebrews had a system of laws and the Deuteronomy presents part of them. (Just like the Hamurapi Code in Mesopotamia.)

-That the text (Deuteronomy) has probably lost its original meaning and intent.

-That a theocracy is very dangerous, not only in our days; it has always been so.

-That there are many in the US wanting religious establishments to play a major role in the government (e.g. Tony Blair: he couldn’t quite do this in the UK, so he went to Yale to preach, after he became christian-catholic.)

What I don’t agree with (and this brings us back to the main point) is the implicit assumption that the Old Testament (the Deuteronomy is part of it) is a religious text, i.e. one written by some divine being. And I don’t see any point in having such ambiguous texts (Old and New Testament) in a church.

To reply to your question:

> Do you really believe that children were stoned to death by merely disobeying their parents?

My answer is: I do not know. First, it’s not what “I believe” or what I do not. It’s not a matter of belief. I just read what it says in the Deuteronomy (and other parts of the Torah). Stoning is still practiced today in certain parts of the world. Fortunately, Judaism and Christianity have gotten rid of it. But not Islam. So how do I know what was being practiced 3000 years ago?

As to your last implicit question

>B) I am not sure I understand what you are asking,

The answer is: because most people reply that it is god (or her representative) who wrote these texts and therefore their writings cannot be doubted or altered. As I said above, there was a code in Mesopotamia too: http://www.scribd.com/doc/6074404/Hamurapis-Code)

The difference of this and the Deuteronomy is that Hamurapi’s code seems to be part of no religion nowadays (even though it does mention the word god), whereas the Deuteronomy is part of (I think) Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The choice is arbitrary!

You changed the text and made it suit your purposes.

Without getting into the Hebrew, the word “glutton” need not mean simply one who over eats. Some translations use the word “profligate”,which is an acceptable translation I feel. I gave you the definition of the word profligate (utterly and shamelessly immoral or dissipated; thoroughly dissolute).

Now if you will at least concede that this is a fair translation I think that we can both agree that such a person is in fact, a serious danger to his community.

Some definitions of the word profligate include, “licentiousness” which is defined as, lacking legal or moral restraints; especially: disregarding sexual restraints.

I do not feel that a label of rapist is off the mark here. If you choose to think that the offenses are petty, please be reminded that it was the parents who were to turn the man over to the elders.

Do you really believe that children were stoned to death by merely disobeying their parents?

The offenses must have been extremely egregious to warrant any parent to act such.

But it is silly, irresponsible, and dangerous to have religious texts replace laws. The Deuteronomy may have been a set of laws 3 thousand years ago. We do not use them any more.

I am not sure who in America is lobbing for this, but I certainly agree that a theocracy would be in our day, very dangerous. Consider the following quote from C. S. Lewis, I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.

And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated. In a word, it forbids wholesome doubt. A political programme can never in reality be more than probably right. We never know all the facts about the present and we can only guess the future. To attach to a party programme—whose highest claim is to reasonable prudence—the sort of assent which we should reserve for demonstrable theorems, is a kind of intoxication.

We may perhaps agree more than you think. The passage that you have the problem with is not too far from our current system of justice.
You answered my question with, I would bring him (or her) to the court of law. And this is exactly what the Hebrews did, Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city.

Where we might have a problem would be in what we considered just punishment. And if we disagreed with the Hebrews, it would not be on the grounds that they took a cavalier approach to good and evil.

Surely you agree that such a person as described in the passage you site deserves to be punished by the state? I can respect your opposition to the punishment, but can we agree that the offenses were not petty?

As to your questions, A) I have no idea and B) I am not sure I understand what you are asking.

Sorry for the length.

All the best,
Michael

Michael:

POINT No. 1:

I am sorry but I cannot read ancient Hebrew. The information I have is obtained from English translations (always written in arcane kind of language so that they appear authoritative, i.e. written by a divinity or something; and, like in any other culture, deities avoid modern languages). Here is the text:

21:18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

21:19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;

21:20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

21:21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

The text only mentions “rebellious”, “glutton”, “drunkard”, “stubborn”.

You added: “dangerous behavior”, “profligate”, “shamelessly immoral”, “dissipated”, “thoroughly dissolute”, “serious danger”, “rapist”.

Well, you changed the text and made it suit your purposes.

If you continue, you can think that the text is talking about a son who has raped 150 human beings, about a son who has gone to war and killed several innocent ones,etc. But the text is as above. (In the translation I found on the Internet.)

POINT No. 2:

I absolutely agree that there should be laws governing our society. But it is silly, irresponsible, and dangerous to have religious texts replace laws. The Deuteronomy may have been a set of laws 3 thousand years ago. We do not use them any more.

POINT No. 3:

You ask me a question (which was asked in order to divert from the main point, but I will answer it):

Q: I am curious what justice (if any) would you have meted out on a habitual rapist?

A: I would bring him (or her) to the court of law. But I would not invoke “religious” texts as legal documents. If we started doing this, then we might as well use the Odyssey as a legal book, right? You probably think that the Torah was written by your god, and that the Odyssey describes gods who do not exist, but this is a personal interpretation.

So then, let me ask you a question:

Who wrote the Deuteronomy and why is it considered a religious texts so much so that it is in every (I presume) Presbyterian (say, but not only) Church?

Takis said, “If one’s son is rebellious and does not comply with his parents teachings then his parents should stone him to death. (Deuteronomy, 21:18,19,20,21)”

This is not exactly what the text says. The text does not describe a five year old who sasses his parents. Nor does it say that the “parents” are to stone him. The text is talking about an ADULT who is to be held responsible for his actions.

So what are the actions that he is to be held responsible for?

1. His unwillingness to change his dangerous behavior after repeated
attempts at correction.

2. He is a profligate (utterly and shamelessly immoral or dissipated; thoroughly dissolute). In others words, he is a serious danger to those in his community.

3. He is a drunkard. Should one be surprised, if one were to discover that this man made a habit of raping women?

Something else that should be mentioned here is that it is “the parents” that is to bring him before the elders.

Perhaps you have no children, but I, as a parent, can only imagine the pain that must accompany the knowledge that you have done all you can do and must take such an action as the above to prevent your child, whom you surely love, from being a threat and danger to those around him. 

There is a lot in the Hebrew Scriptures that make modern folks like me feel uncomfortable, but this passage is not one of those.

It is unfortunate that you have misunderstood it.

I am curious what justice (if any) would you have meted out on a habitual rapist?