Hey Christians... What's up with the whole OT thing?

[tryme]

Well. In my experience, most Christians haven't even read the Bible, let alone the old testament which has some clearly heinous laws and practices accepted to be immoral and illogical by the most sound-minded people, including Christians. Many have left Christianity after actually reading the Bible in its entirety (including me).

My favorites are:
1. God commanding children to be stoned for disobedience
2. God commanding babies to be dashed against rocks
3. God commanding virgins to be kidnapped and raped
4. Punishing the victim
5. Polygamy
6. if anyone actually reads this post I am happy grow the list ad naseam

So here are my direct questions, besides any other comments you may have:
1. Do you think these OT acts and commands were moral before Jesus came?
2. How do you rectify the fact that Jesus said "I have come to fulfill the law, not abolish it. Not a single stroke of the law will disappear" ?
3. Have you ever read the Old Testament?

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 1 by tryme]

My own feeling is that rules are made for people, not people for rules. Where well-being and rules conflict, well-being should take priority. A moral rule is, after all, nothing more than a psychological aid to promoting well-being, without having to work each moral issue out from first principles, every time some ethical conundrum occurs.

And I think this is a throughly Christian attitude, which would be endorsed by Jesus, as evidenced by the passages in Matthew 12:1-14.

Best wishes, 2RM.