What you are not understanding is that Jesus was not sent to condemn the world but to save it..."God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him".Jesus was sent so that people like this woman who was about to be stoned could be given a second chance through repentance of her sins.Jesus was sent by God because God would rather prefer people confess their sins,avoid sin,and be forgiven rather than die for their sins.God gave Jesus as a sacrifice so that any sin the people committed would no longer be punished by a death sentence no matter what the Old testament laws were.

People like yourself love to bring this stoning issue up time and time and time again over and over and over.Stoning may have been a law in the Old testament but it was rarely if ever enforced.If you would do some research you will find stoning someone to death was justified for many reasons including blasphemy.Yet where are all these reports of Jews stoning people to death?The only verse I remember anyone ever getting stoned to death was a man preaching Christianity by a angry mob of non believers.


Understand that God would always forgive people who were sorry,who repented of their sins,and who tried to live a Godly life.If the church carried out all the Old testament laws concerning death for a certain sin there would be no Jews alive today since all of them would have been put to death for their sins since all were sinners.They were not put to death because they repented of their sins and tried to live a life closer to what God demanded.


Jesus did not change any Old testament laws including stoning for adultry because he did not say "do not stone this woman".He did not say "this law is no longer valid or relevant".He said "he who is with out sin may cast the first stone".Meaning if someone was with out sin they may stone this woman for her sins.Obviously nobody was with out sin and nobody worthy to pick up a rock to stone this woman.This is not a conflict with Gods law nor did Jesus change Gods law.Jesus was simply saying everyone has sinned and everyone is guilty of judgment and all deserve to die.But under Gods grace everyone is also saved from death from those laws because God will forgive a person who confesses their sins.Jesus was also saying you have been forgiven for your sins which should have been punishable by death but were forgiven and allowed to live.


A eye for a eye and tooth for a tooth in the Old testament and Jesus telling us to turn the other cheek was not in conflict with each other.Why?Because Jesus is telling us to not fight evil with evil.He is telling us it is better to just walk away then to start a fight.Is the Old testament law saying if someone takes your eye you should also take the others persons eye as well?No it is not.It is saying if someone puts out my eye I have the right under the law to take theirs as well for restitution.Or I can just walk away and leave the other person alone.This Old testament law is not commanding anyone to do anything.It is simply saying it is justified.Jesus is telling us instead of being justified turn the other cheek and do not seek restitution.

AMEN!!! VERY VERY VERY VERY good.

First off, it should be glaringly obvious that there WAS no _Christianity_ in the Old Testament. Further, Jews to this day don't accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, so they are just as much 'unbelievers' as other non-Christians.

Luckily, we live in a time when the Old Testament, with all its barbaric practices, has been rendered illegal by superior legal documents like the Constitution of the United States. That particular document doesn't allow religious maniacs to murder with impunity through the application of frontier justice those people whom they adjudicate as being guilty of thought crimes against their favorite conceit. Or to administer cruel and unusual punishments. Or any punishment, for that matter, without being found guilty by a jury of their peers.

Besides, since it supposedly only takes one sin to prevent someone from getting into heaven, how many times did stoning have to happen in the Old Testament at the hands of the faithful before it became morally wrong?

-Kerry O.

LoL that comment "there WAS no _Christianity_ in the Old Testament" is an oxymoron all in it's own. How is there no Christianity in the old testament. hmmmmmmmmmm......... Christianity = Follow the laws God has set before us, or accept the consequence, death. Does it really matter "WHEN" you die for your sins? Now, or later? What difference does it make when your life in the end will have been pointless.

::::boggle ::::

So let me get this on the record-- you're _actually_ saying that unless you're a born-again Christian, your life is pointless?

That, say, someone like Einstein, who, if I remember correctly was a Jew and never accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour, lived a pointless life? E= MC^2 and all?

And by comparison, any Christian was more than he?

Is it any wonder I referred to Christianity for some as a conceit? Because when people of an uber religion start to get in touch with their human foibles, such conceits bring out the worst in them by virtue of their thinking "it's only Them, if they are not with us, they are against us and our religion says we can do as we will and still be pleasing in the eyes of the One True God".

The bloodiest incidents of human history are made of this.

-Kerry O.

The fact of a life being pointless was referring to one's own self, it is pointless to one's self. If someone doesn't accept Jesus as Lord and saviour they will NOT receive eternal life for Jesus is the light and the pathway to heaven.

===============================
John14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

============================
John 5:24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
=============================

And once again, you use pointless Bibe thumping to pretend you have expertise in judging your fellow humans through the lens of what YOU believe and cannot even begin to prove.

Even other uber Christians can't agree on exactly what happens when in the supposed afterlife. For example, some of you believe in The Rapture, others don't. Some of you think Revelations is metaphorical, others take it literally.

And none of you want to tackle the problem of Judaism's apostasy, so you take the easy way out and go after athiests and agnostics, spouting such gobbledygook as 'unbelievers lead pointless lives that are pointless to themselves because they are pointless.'

Oh really?

Just what have Bible Thumpers done to better the human condition?


-Kerry O.

Hmmm, quite a bit I would say.

Obviously you have the internet, ask Jeeves your question.

But the things you've said here make no sense, and are indeed irrational.

You say:


But I do understand it fully. From my perspective you're the one who seems to be misunderstanding things.

Your interpretation here makes no sense, because you're implying that God was unhappy with his first directive to people and now he wants to chance his mind. That implies that God himself was either confused, had a change of heart, or is simply experimenting with different possible rules.

You say, "Jesus was sent by God because God would rather prefer people confess their sins,avoid sin,and be forgiven rather than die for their sins."

Well, if that were true then God would have already been an idiot for having established this practice in the first place.

You say:


You don't need to have every stoning reported in the Bible. Clearly there could have been thousands or even millions of stonings that were never recorded. Do you realize that people are still being stoned to death to this very day because of these old myths?

Moreover, it's crystal clear that the Jews were indeed still stoning people to death during the time Jesus lived. How else would that story of the woman who was about to be stoned to death at the well make any sense? The mere fact that Jesus just happened to randomly be a place where a person was about to be stoned to death suggests to me that it must have been a fairly common practice at in those days.

Besides, it's totally irrelevant how many actual stoning took place. The only thing that is relevant is that fact that God supposedly condoned and even directed people to perform this practice. I personally don't believe that any all-wise God would have ever done such a thing.



All you're saying here is that God was indeed utterly stupid to have even told people to stone sinners to death then.

This is precisely why I'm convinced that this whole concept can be nothing more than a fabricated religion by men. No genuinely all-wise God would have ever told people to stone sinners to death. That also carries with it the automatic necessity that people would have also had to have judged other people to be sinners, for how can someone stone a sinner to death if they haven't first judged them to be a sinner?



But clearly that would have been a change in the law and a very drastic one indeed!

Now you're trying to suggest that god only wants sinless people to stone sinners to death. But that wasn't the original directive. Moreover, if it was it would have been an oxymoron because, as you say, no man is without sin in this stupid mythology.

So once again, if you try to wiggle around with these kinds of 'excuses' for God they just don't work. All these things do is suggest that God was stupid when he first invoked them and didn't make things crystal clear.



I disagree. Basically, the Old Testament was condoning revenge, and Jesus was renouncing.



And who's law might that be? God's Law? or Man's Law?

If God condones revenge and says it's alright to take revenge, then by golly it's alright!

You can't have a God here who has double standards.

A God who sends mixed signals and messages that mortal men are supposed to sort though to decide whether it's better to obey God's Law, or place their own moral values above God's laws?

I don't buy it at all. Not one bit.

Jesus saw that FLAWS in the teachings of the Old Testament and taught a higher level of morality and wisdom. A level of moral wisdom that is far more in harmony with the teachings of Buddhism than with the teachings of the Old Testament.


For me to accept your interpretations I would need to assume that the God of the Old Testament was a bumbling idiot who couldn't even communicate properly and/or had a change of mind. Then he had to send Jesus down to straight up the mess that God himself created due to his unwise and poor instructions.

Then his Only Begotten Son who is trying to straighten this mess all out gets crucified for blaspheme as per God's very own instructions!?

I'd have to believe that God is a complete idiot to believe that.

No way.

If this God wanted to straighten things out and make his messages clear there would be no need to have his son brutally crucified for blaspheme as per his very own instructions!

That makes absolutely no sense at all.

A God who can't even save his only begotten Son from the fate of his very own instructions to mankind?

No.

This story is simply absurd. That's all there is to it.

There is nothing in this story that would even remotely make me want to believe in it. I'd have to believe that my creator is a complete bumbling fool who can't even straighten up his own miss-communication of important directives to mankind without ending up with having his own son crucified for it.

That's just too crazy.

It is wrong to say God doesn't know what he is talking about or doesn't know what he was doing.God sending Jesus as a prophet to speak the gospel and later die for the people was spoken about by God in the Old testament.There was no mystery to Gods thinking or what his plans were concerning Jesus.You can say he was changing his mind about sin but clearly we read that one would die for sin in the Old testament.

If you read the New testament you will realize that one day God will destroy this earth and all the unbelievers all with it.Is God changing his mind regarding death for sins since Jesus died for our sins and we should not be put to death for it?No because he already told us what he is going to do and who will die.


I have said this before.Stoning may have been a law in the bible but it was rarely if ever enforced.There is only one instance of stoning in the bible and that was for a man preaching Christianity.


Saint Stephens(died c. AD 36, Jerusalem) First Christian martyr. As told in the Acts of the Apostles, he was a foreign-born Jew who lived in Jerusalem and joined the church at an early date. He was one of seven deacons appointed by the Apostles to care for elderly women, widows, and orphans. As a Hellenized Jew, he was strongly opposed to the Temple cult of Judaism. For expressing his opposition, he was brought before the Sanhedrin. His defense of Christianity so outraged his hearers that he was condemned to be stoned to death. One of those who assented to the execution was Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul).


I also said this before if they would have carried out stoning for sins all the Jews would be dead.Here is a list of sins punishable for stoning in the Old testament.Keep in mind this is just related to stoning.There is many more laws punishable by death for other reasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning

Bestiality committed by man (Lev. xx. 15; Sanh. vii. 4, 54b; Sifra,
Ḳedoshim, x. 1; Mek., Mishpaṭim, 17).

Bestiality committed by woman (Lev. xx. 16: Sanh. vii. 4, 54b; Sifra, Ḳedoshim, x. 3; Mek., Mishpaṭim, 17).

Blasphemy (Lev. xxiv. 16; Sanh. vii. 4, 43a; Sifra, Emor, xix.).

Criminal conversation with a betrothed virgin (Deut. xxii. 23, 24; Sanh. vii. 4, 66b; Sifre, Deut. 242).

Criminal conversation with one's own daughter-in-law (Lev. xx. 12; Sanh. vii. 4, 53a; Sifra, Ḳedoshim, ix. 13).

Criminal conversation with one's own mother (Lev. xviii. 7, xx. 11; Sanh. vii. 4, 53a; Sifra, Ḳedoshim, ix. 12).

Criminal conversation with one's own stepmother (Lev. xviii. 8, xx. 11; Sanh. vii. 4, 53a; Sifra, Ḳedoshim, ix. 12).

Cursing a parent (Lev. xx. 9; Sanh. vii. 4, 66a; Mek., Mishpaṭim, 17; Sifra, Ḳedoshim, ix. 7).

Enticing individuals to idolatry: "Mesit" (Deut. xiii. 7–12 [A. V. 6–11]; Sanh. vii. 4, 67a; Sifre, Deut. 90).

Idolatry (Deut. xvii. 2–7; Sanh. vii. 4, 60b; Sifre, Deut. 149).

Instigating communities to idolatry: "Maddiaḥ" (Deut. xiii. 2–6 [A. V. 1–5]; Sanh. vii. 4, 67a; Sifre, Deut. 86).

Necromancy (Lev. xx. 27; Sanh. vii. 4, 65a; Sifra, Ḳedoshim, xi., end).

Offering one's own children to Molech (Lev. xx. 2; Sanh. vii. 4, 64a; Sifra, Ḳedoshim, viii., parashah 10, beginning).

Pederasty (Lev. xx. 13; Sanh. vii. 4, 54a; Sifra, Ḳedoshim, ix. 14), and sexual activity between men (Lev. iii, 18:22)[9].

Rebelling against parents (Deut. xxi. 18–21; Sanh. vii. 4, 68b; Sifre, Deut. 220).

Shabbath-breaking (Num. xv. 32–36; Sanh. vii. 4; Sifre, Num. 114).

Witchcraft (Ex. xxii. 17 [A. V. 18]; Sanh. vii. 4, 67a; Mek., Mishpaṭim, 17).


What you keep failing to realize time and time again is that much like today's justice system people were always given a second chance.If someone committed adultery they could repent their sins and promise to lead a better life and that person would be forgiven by both God and the church.That is why you will probably never read of any instances of capital punishment in either the Old or New testament by the church.I don't remember ever reading any.

The woman sent to Jesus for adultery was a test.They were even breaking Gods laws as she would normally stand trial for her actions.


In order to make this issue as simple as possible I will say this...

Everything that was considered a sin in the Old testament is still just as relevant as it is today.Everything that offended God in the Old testament still offends him today.

There has been some huge changes in the Old testament since the death of Jesus because nearly all the laws of the Old testament speak of punishment or death for sins.Since Jesus died for everyone's sins many of the Old testament laws died with him.

Animal sacrifices were no longer necessary as a sacrifice for sins.

You could eat all animals including hoofed animals.

Death was no longer necessary in any form of punishment for any crime as the price was paid for sinful people and their actions.


With that said it is stupid for Atheists to keep bringing up the punishment for Old testament laws including stoning and death since they have been irrelevant for over 2000 years and will never be used again for any reason.



God sent Jesus as a sacrifice and a prophet to the people.It was Gods wishes for Jesus to die for the people.Jesus himself even said in Matthew 26:39

"And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

Jesus knew he was going to die.He spoke about it many many times long before he was crucified.

Mark 10:32-34
Taking the twelve disciples aside, Jesus once more began to describe everything that was about to happen to him in Jerusalem. "When we get to Jerusalem," he told them, "the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die and hand him over to the Romans. They will mock him, spit on him, beat him with their whips, and kill him, but after three days he will rise again." (NLT)

Mark 10:43-45
Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all. For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give my life as a ransom for many." (NLT)


You also fail to realize Jesus had all the power in the world to do anything he wanted.Jesus could have moved mountains if he wanted to.He raised dead people!He had so many people following him everywhere he went the witnesses say it would be impossible to count them all.People hated the Roman empire and Jesus could have easily formed a Army and overtaken the Roman empire with little ease.Nobody could stop him.One of his apostles even told Jesus he should take over the Roman empire for the way they treated Israel but Jesus rejected the idea.

Yes Kerry I realize there was no Christianity in the Old testament The verse I spoke about is the only verse in either the Old or New testament with regard of someone actually being stoned to death.The verse I spoke about was written in the New testament about a man who was stoned to death because he spoke about Jesus.

I also realize that Jews reject Jesus and only believe in the Old testament.Jews should believe in Jesus because Jesus was spoken about in the Old testament including where he would be born,the life he would live,and how he would die and rise again.This is probably the reason you have Christians numbering in the billions and Jews only in a few million.


Your rant on the Constitution and how it speaks of banning Old testament laws is one of the funniest things I have ever heard .If you would read the Constitution it doesn't even mention the bible,the Old testament,laws relating to the bible,or capital punishment dictated by the bible.It also doesn't mention Jews or Jesus.So where you are getting these ideas from is beyond me.

If you knew the slightest thing about the bible you would know all those laws haven't been practiced for at least 2,000 years.When Jesus died he paid for every death sentence for anyone who would break any of those laws from when he died until the end of earth.


Sins can be forgiven.People sinned all the time including priests in the Old testament times.I have never read any bible verse in the Old testament times where someone was put to death by the church for his or her sins.They repentanted and were forgiven.People always had a choice.

Everything in the Old Testament still applies...







































































































Except that which we can make excuses for no longer applying, especially when we do those things...

So you read that one would die for sin in the Old Testament. I'm supposed to be impressed by that?

Evidently you're viewing the Old Testament as unquestionably the "Word of God". However, I've come to the realization that it's nowhere near intelligent enough or wise enough to be the word of any supposedly all-wise being.

It is said that God is all powerful and knows your every thought. The Christians pray to this God to individually cure them of cancer or save a loved one from death or disease. Yet you're telling me that this all-powerful God couldn't murder sinners on his own?

If the penalty for sin is death, then an all-powerful all-wise God who is closely monitoring the every thought of every human being could easily administer the punishment of death himself via giving the sinner a heart attack or any other lethal health condition, or even killing them via a controlled natural disaster (act of God).

Yet you expect me to believe that this all-wise God instructed mortal men to judge each other instead and to stone the people they believe to be sinners to death?

From my point of view there is nothing even remotely wise about a God asking mortals to do his judging and executing for him.

However, if you imagine for just one moment that these fables were written by mortal men who knew that they couldn't be there to administer these rules and punishment so they were attempting to get their loyal readers to do their dirty work for them, it makes perfect sense!

So as far as I'm concerned the mere fact that these fables have God commanding people to judge each other and stone sinners to death is a huge RED FLAG telling me that this book is not the word of any all-wise all-powerful God, but instead it's just a man-made concoction to try to get the masses to keep each other in line.



You're just proving my point right here. You're suggesting that God's directive that we should stone sinners to death and murder heathens has basically amounted to only a few innocent people being killed. The justification for crucifying Jesus comes directly from the fact that the Old Testament directs and condones people killing heathens and blasphemers.

The mob that demanded to have Jesus crucified were only doing what the God of the Old Testament directed that they should do!

So here you have an example of a supposedly all-wise God having confused the objects of his creation so grossly that they end up using his very directives to murder his "Only Begotten Son"?

Obviously that makes some sort of sense to you. But I find it to be utterly absurd.

It makes far more sense to me to simply recognize that the Old Testament was a mythological fable not at all unlike the fables of Zeus (in fact it's actually extremely similar to Zeus).

Then later Jesus, a mortal man who clearly had a pantheistic view of life (which had been well-established in India and was prominent at the time as Mahayana Buddhism), came along and having recognized the absurdities in the Old Testament he tried to teach better moral values. Moral values that almost every mortal man will even agree with! Jesus was basically teaching common sense, which is indeed the wisdom of Buddhism.



Well this is just yet another example of how this religion got derailed and so far off track. Originally this religion was supposed to be all about moral values, but now it's all about "Believing" in this utterly stupid mythology.

And that just brings me to yet another oxymoron.

So you're telling me that an atheist who just happens to be a really great person and humanitarian will be destroyed simply because they don't believe that this sick demented dogma speaks for "God"?

As far as I'm concerned this is just further proof of how utterly absurd this religious dogma is.

Further more this dogma claims that no atheist can be righteous. And that non-believers are automatically sinful heathens.

You can buy into that one if you like. Personally I can see it for precisely what it is; religious bigotry made-up by the mortal men who wrote this trash.

I personally don't believe that any supposedly all-wise God could be that ignorant. It's as simple as that.




Where there you go. Just a great example of how the laws of the Old Testament would have backfired once again on this supposedly all-wise God.

Are you suggesting that God wasn't wise enough to recognize that these laws he made up would never be properly implemented?

This just proves my point that no truly all-wise God would have ever issued such a directive in the first place. Instead he would have just done his own judging and killing of sinners.

Why should an all-wise all-powerful God have ever placed his power of judgment and punishment in the hands of men to begin with?

What would have been God's motivation to do such a thing? Laziness?

This is why I don't buy it. This Old Testament wasn't written by any all-wise God, I can assure you of that. It was written by mortal men who were attempting to get the masses to do their bidding in the name of a fictitious Zeus-like Godhead. A Godhead who just happens to be male-chauvinistic, and favors slavery, etc. These ancient laws were written by men and "FOR MEN" based on what suited them best at the time.



Well there you go again. Do you honestly believe that an all-wise God would have actually made these directives?

I don't. It's that simple.



We have no clue what Jesus might have spoken about in detail. All we have is hearsay quotes from unreliable sources. Sources who had a clear motivation and agenda to portray Jesus as the "Messiah", which the Jews vehemently disagreed with.




I'm supposed be impressed by this?

I'm not impressed in the least.

If God is all-powerful, then why doesn't he make his message clear to all humans on Earth with no ambiguity. If God is all-wise and all-powerful surely he can figure out a way to do this.

Matthew claims that God spoke from heaven saying to some insignificant crowd, "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased".

So why would God have even bothered to speak out to a random crowed of mere laymen? Men who never even bothered to report this event historically to anyone?

If God were going to speak out from the sky why not speak out when Jesus was standing beside Pilot and the Crowd was screaming "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!".

That's when it would have made sense for God to speak out from the sky.

Everything you bring up that you seem to think should support the story is just further proof to me why it can't possibly be from any "all-wise" deity. There's just never any "wisdom" in anything that happens in this entire story.

Moreover, simply recognize that the Old Testament is just man-made dogma intended to get the masses to do the bidding of the mortal authors of these writings and it makes "Perfect Sense".

Also, simply recognize that Jesus was a Mortal Man who held a pantheistic view of "god" and was simply trying to teach his own people a better way of life and again it makes "Perfect Sense".

Finally, (and this is probably the most important of all) realize that you can't just accept everything that is written in the "New Testament" as being the "Gospel Truth". Because, it too, is nothing more than hearsay with an obvious agenda to make out that Jesus was the Son of the God of the Old Testament.

Once you realize that Jesus a mortal man who was not sent by God, and he was merely trying to teach better moral values, then you suddenly realize also that the New Testament is not the "Word of God" either!

A famous Christian writer once said, "Either Jesus truly was the Son of God, or he was a raving lunatic". However, the problem with this statement is that it assumes that every quote attributed to Jesus that is written in the New Testament actually came out of the mouth of Jesus verbatim!

I think once you recognize that Jesus was not the son of God, then you'll finally begin to realize that you can't trust the writings of the New Testament either!

Plus, this is just yet another reason for me to reject the whole story.

I personally feel very strongly that if Jesus was indeed sent by God with a message for mankind, then God would have been wise enough to have Jesus write this message out himself in no uncertain terms. And then PRESERVE those writings for mankind.

But no, instead, I'm supposed to believe that God never had Jesus write anything down and then had a bunch of mortal men write it all up in conflicting hearsay?

Then God expects us to put our faith and belief in this ambiguous hearsay?

Well, I don't know about you, but from my perspective that wouldn't even be very smart, much less the act of an "all-wise" deity.

We're now stuck with having to place our faith in totally ambiguous and often conflicting hearsay?

And if we refuse to do that we will be guilty of "SIN" and be destroyed because we failed to place our faith in ambiguous hearsay?

What kind of a God would that be?

Certainly not an all-wise nor all-compassionate God.

The story just can't be true. It's simply filled with far too may unwise things to be the word of any "All-Wise" God.

Oh, from people like yourself who go on and on ad nauseum about how this is a Christian nation founded on Biblical precepts and how no one else's rights matter if they somehow conflict with the Christian god's 'laws'.



Except when the topic of homosexuality comes up. Then people like you jump right in with Leviticus and Romans and death sentences. And how this country is going down the tubes because we are getting away from the same Biblical laws which you're now saying aren't in the Constitution. But somehow still apply.

So which is it?


And since Romans was written after the life and gospels of Jesus, why didn't its author know and take the same stance on Jesus' having commuted all such 'death sentences', including those for homosexuals?

It's a shame Jesus didn't come up with the most civil of laws in the history of mankind:

"In that none is harmed, Thou shalt mind thine own business."

Seems to me a lot of bloodshed and ill will could have been prevented.


-Kerry O.