Holy smokes Beldaran did you change or something? Somehow I had you pegged under the "militant athiest" label but lately I am more convinced you are under the "awesome dude" category. I can't quite put into words how I read your stance, but I do believe it is close to what I consider an "enlightened individual" to be.
Now here's the fun part, addressed to punkonjunk. Suppose we polarize Biblical faith into two categories:
- Those who believe at least some of the Bible is true
- Those who believe all of the Bible is false
People in opposite categories cannot use the Bible to debate with each other. If you consider the text invalid, then it cannot be used in any way, shape, or form to support any other point than the fact that you feel it is invalid.
That said, there do seem to be instances where the Bible is extreme. Resolving the wrathful God with the loving God is one of the things that a person of faith must somehow explain to themselves. My personal belief is that God is still the wrathful entity He always was, but now Jesus is the liason with humanity. Since Jesus is the kind and forgiving entity, very little of God's wrath is unleashed on the world. Of course, if you don't believe in the religion at all, this makes no sense at all to you and you can pretty much just quit reading because I cannot defend my faith without using articles of faith as evidence.
Let's discuss how I resolve some of the examples you pointed out.
First, you have to understand that (by some interpretations) some of the early books of the Bible serve a double purpose: to establish God's moral code and to establish the laws of the Jews. This is why many of the "don't do this" rules are followed with "this is the punishment for so doing". The implied punishment for each sin is condemnation against God, but the physical imprisonment or abuse mandated as the punishment was added to satisfy man's justice. My belief is that in these cases, the modern Christian is to follow the laws of the land when it comes to doling out punishments for crimes.
God hates homosexuals
To be quite honest I think there is no other way to interpret this. However, the violent punishment clashes with the greatest commandment: "Love thy neighbor."
God would rather see the offender stoned; Jesus would rather see the offender repent and be saved. By my doctrine (and by the laws of my country, which I am also obligated by faith to obey) this means I am to treat a homosexual as I would any other man because my sins are as great as his.
God says NO to cross-dressing
I justify this the same as above; God is pointing out what He has dictated as sin; it is my job to avoid this sin to the best of my ability but to not judge those who commit the sin themselves.
God says kill bad kids
The wording of this verse alone seems to imply this is a "when all else fails" scenario. I can justify it using the God -> Jesus -> Humanity chain of command, but in this case I believe I can use logic and reason rather than a faith you do not believe in:
Think about ancient communities in the middle of the desert. Resources are scarce, and only through collective hard work can anyone flourish. Criminals and lazy people take from the community without giving back, in some cases causing harm that diminishes the community's ability to sustain itself. It is no surprise that the punishment for rebellion against the established authorities carried harsh punishment.
Furthermore, how many parents do you think would raise a kid for several years, then stone him because he failed to do his chores for one day? I think it is safe to say that this rule was rarely enacted. The verse, in my interpretation, is more like: "If no matter what you do, your child will not behave in a manner that is conducive to the society, and you have exhausted all other options, the penalty of death may convince them to behave." Still harsh, but admittedly effective and necessary to guarantee the survival of the community.
God wants to kill 'em all
No explanation for this other than it is a command from a self-described jealous God who was not very fond of his followers practicing idolatry. Once again, I believe the Christian's charge renders this command inapplicable.
Rules on Rape
This is a particularly complicated piece and I do believe it does seem quite harsh by the standards of today, but the 3 circumstances are as follows:
- If a man rapes a woman within a populated area, and the woman does nothing within her power to get help, then both the rapist and the woman are to be killed.
- Special case of the above rule for rural areas; no one was around to hear the woman anyway so there is no punishment to the woman for not calling out.
- If a man decides to rape an unmarried woman, he is to marry her and pay a debt to the father. Additionally, he can never divorce the woman.
The first two I actually find reasonable, given some of the other laws at the time. If the woman in the city did not call out (and there were not circumstances such as threat of death for raising attention), she was considered as accepting the sex, thus both were guilty of sexual immorality and punished likewise.
The third is very strange in our times, but this is because of a cultural change. Women in biblical times depended solely upon their husbands to sustain them. Furthermore, only a virgin could marry a man. The rapist of a virgin thus broke the society's structure by creating a woman who could not be married, a cruel fate when your life depends upon who you marry. In this case, the criminal was forced to marry the woman (along with paying the father a fine) and barred from ever divorcing the woman. This in itself poses some problems. However, when you consider the points about a desert community sustaining itself as described above, it makes sense that the community would have such a mechanism.
Anyway, what I feel the Christian should get from these verses is that rape is a sin and should not be done. The laws of our land should be followed for the criminal and victim. Since marriage is not as important to the survival of women these days, our laws do not contain any of the "forced marriage" scenarios.
No effeminate men?
Here we transition to the New Testament, so my previous establishment that the harsh punishments can be considered superceded by Jesus do not hold. However, I'm leaning towards Saffith's bad translation theory here. My Bible footnotes this word with the alternate translation "sexually immoral", which leads me to believe 'effeminate' is probably not what the verse intends. If I could read Hebrew, I'd verify, but I think bad translation is the right answer.
In fact, the New International Version does not use the same wording at all. Please remember that the KJV was made several hundred years ago, and English then is not English now.
Note this passage introduces "homosexual offenders" as well. This prompted me to read the rest of the chapter to reveal any "cherry picking" and it seems this is the culprit. Verse 11 is pretty much key to the point that was being made:
And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
In other words "Those people who commit these sens and
are not repentant will not inherit the kingdom of the Lord."
Nice try at cherry-picking though.
Role of Women
This is a pretty big point of contention. In particular, I admit I am poorly equipped to argue against this stance, because I have yet to reconcile my personal beliefs against what the Bible says.
However, I decided to do a brief amount of research so as to have a learning experience from this defeat. The first source I found was from Landover Baptist Church, and I didn't even read a word of it because I consider their extreme views to be in direct violation of my doctrine which invalidates any authority they would have. Next, I found a useful Wikipedia article which pointed out that several Christian churches seem to respect a more equal view of women.
How can a church decide such a specifically-worded verse is not applicable? Isn't all of the Bible supposed to be true? This question is the one that bothers me about my stance vs. Biblical teachings. However, the Wikipedia article led me down a train of thought that may provide an answer.
The Old Testament was written by distinguished authors and primarily documents the teachings of prophets who were directly associated with God. Because of this, all of the Old Testament must be considered 'canon', if you will. Portions of the New Testament provide direct eyewitness testimony of the teachings of Jesus, and we must consider these portions 'canon' as well. However, after Jesus' crucifixion there is no more direct connection to God and the books are the result of some disciples' interpretations of Jesus' teachings. Even the four gospels provide differences in information (not conflicts of fact; I mean to say that often some events that are covered in detail in one gospel are glanced over in another). Therefore, one may decide that these books of the New Testament are the beginnings of the formation of denominations amongst the Christians, where factions form around the interpretation of certain points of doctrine.
The basis of this argument is that all books following Jesus's crucifixion are interpretations of His teachings, and thus may be subject to the injection of personal doctrines. The Wikipedia article points out several examples of Jesus' teachings promoting equality; conversely, it points out several Biblical precedents for inequality. When faced with a question of which stance is right, I strongly support following Jesus' teachings over the writings of his apostles.
An alternative stance holds that the inequality did not promote discrimination, since leaders were under strict command to rule with Godliness and equality. This is Biblically supported but proves to still support gender discrimination.
I do admit that I am underprepared to provide an answer I strongly support at the moment, but I think the "Jesus over Paul" solution is satisfactory until I can find some resources to help with answering the question. I do thank you for providing that verse though; this is something I've meant to look into for a while.
Anyway, as you can see, I can rectify these so-called problems with the Bible through simple reasoning and researching the opinions of my brethren. As Beldaran pointed out, to a certain extent the Bible "making sense" depends on how strongly you believe God exists and is always right in what He does. Any wavering in this belief can produce interesting problems with following the Bible. Furthermore, a true lack of belief in God renders the Bible as nothing more than several hundred pages of ancient literature, so it's difficult to believe that my defense will change your mind at all.
Oh and sorry if I misinterpreted your sarcasm lord_jamitossi; such things are hard to detect over the internet sometimes and I was already in "find indefensible positions" mode.