Thanks for all the great bible quotes. I find it interesting that some literalists of the bible are quick to refute things like human sacrifice but remain staunch about things like homosexuality being a sin.

We have to remember that the bible was written in a very brutal era in human history. Of course this shit happened. It still happens in some cultures that have failed to modernize. The writers of the bible were trying to curtail this brutal behaviour, making it a book full of contradiction and compromise, just like the koran. Change can only be expected incrementally. To be excepted by the brutal tribal peoples of the time, the Koran couldn't go all out on the murder thing either.

Both testaments and the koran document the evolution of morality and spirituality in human history. And now when the average comfortable person within countries with clear human rights laws picks up the bible, they pull the good out of it and call the evidence of brutality symbolic. Or just become selectively literal.

People should feel freer to pick and choose the peaceful messages from among the fray of recorded history. Wouldn't it be great if some fundamentalist Muslims were encouraged to do the same?