"If you are a true Christian who loves God with your whole heart and hates sin with your whole heart, then you are increasingly dismayed at the increasing godlessness in American society. As Christians, we realize that the real problems of the world can only be solved with reference to Biblical principles" - from God's Law in the Modern World
I remember once, not too long ago, standing in a long line at a store listening to two "good Christian" women behind me, complaining and bemoaning the fact that "if only this country would go back to the bible", if only the people would obey the 10 Commandments, if only people would go back to church, everything in the US would be just about "perfect". There would be peace and harmony and life would be so much better. "God's Laws" are more divine than any written buy humans. Why on earth do so many people reject paradise?
I didn't say anything to those women at the time, because my experience has usually been, that arguing with people who "know" everything is usually a futile waste of time. But I couldn't help wondering if all these people nowadays who want to follow "biblical laws" have actually ever read the complete bible, and know what those laws are.
"We must advocate the implementation of biblical Law in modern society and the Law's prescribed sanctions. More than just being involved in a few "hot-button" issues, biblical Christians must develop a comprehensive biblical worldview which can explain exactly how God's Word can be applied to changing society on all levels."
I've been trying to imagine what would happen to the US Constitution if the Religious Right had their way with it. What new "Biblical" laws would come into effect? Here are just a few of the new laws:
Capital Punishment Laws as taken from the bible:
-All witches will be executed. (Exodus 22:18)
-Homosexual men are to be executed (nothing about women, however) (Leviticus.20:13)
-Anyone who curses his father or his mother will be executed (Leviticus 20:9)
-Anyone who works on Saturday (even lighting a fireplace) will be executed (Exodus 31:1-3)
-Adulterers will be executed (Leviticus 20:10)
-rape victims who don't scream out loudly enough will be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:23-24)
-If a man decides that he doesn't like his wife, he can claim she wasn't a virgin when he married her. If her parents haven't kept the proof of her virginity (bloody sheets, nightclothes), then she will be stoned to death. (Deuteronomy 22:13, 21)
Other new criminal statutes/commandments from the bible:
-If a woman is suspected of adultery, her husband will take her to a priest, who will give her dirty water to drink. If she gets sick, she is guilty. (Numbers 5:12-31)
-Woman wearing men's clothing and men wearing woman's clothing are an abomination to God (Deuteronomy 22:5)
-Shellfish are an abomination - no more lobster, crab, shrimp etc. (Leviticus 11:10-13)
-You are not to wear a material mixed of wool and linen together. (Deuteronomy 22:11)
-Farmers can't mix different types of crops or cattle in the same fields. (Leviticus 19:19)
-Men are more valuable than women (I guess this means women can be paid less at work) (Leviticus 27:1-7)
-According to the bible, everything about a woman is unclean while she is having her menstrual period. A women cannot be allowed to work or go to school while she is having her period (Leviticus 15:19-24)
Another big change:
-Slavery is legal again. According to the bible, you can have male and female slaves, acquired from "pagan" nations. (Leviticus 25:44-46)
-It's ok to beat your slaves, as long as they are still alive a couple days after their beating. (Exodus 21:20)
On the other hand, I was not able to find anything in the bible that is specifically anti-abortion. God ordered thousands of babies to be killed throughout the bible - and even pregnant women to be "ripped up". According to Leviticus 27:6 there is no value on fetuses or infants less than one month old. In Numbers 3:14-16 children less than a month old were not even to be counted. So why all the Fundamentalist concern over the topic of abortion?
There's also nothing in the bible that would seem to be against medical stem cell research. Actually, there's nothing even suggesting that people back in biblical days knew anything about cells or medicine or even basic science. In Leviticus 14 , God gives Moses a long first-aid "remedy" for the treatment of infectious skin diseases (leprosy) that primarily involves sacrificing birds and lambs. Again, why all the religious upset over stem cell research?
Mankind has evolved in so many areas - medicine, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, engineering etc etc. and yet we still live with Stone Age religions. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights are advanced political documents for an advanced form of government that was unthinkable back in the biblical times. Yet modern Religious Fundamentalists are trying to say that it has some kind of Christian biblical foundation to it.
Apparently Christian Fundamentalists think that slavery really wasn't so bad back in ancient biblical life, and women really had rights, and all those wars and the rape and pillaging and diseases and burning people to death and crucifixion and the genocidal killing of every man woman and "unborn" child in a particular tribe that God decided he didn't like - all neatly described in the bible - must not have really been so bad after all. No, those were the "good old Stone Age days" - the days the Religious Fundamentalist want us all to go back to.