Quote Originally Posted by DuncanONeil View Post
Sorry but I must disagree. The vast majority of Christian theology comes from the New Testament, rather than the Old.

Arguably true, but we weren't talking about theology, but about appeals to the Bible for mundane law. And people looking for rules generally refer to the OT, because Jesus's reported sayings are way too liberal-hippie for most Biblical literalists' taste. (Though of course there is a rich seam of dictatorial and misogynist pronouncements from Paul.)

If you really believe there is no current movement for Christian religious law, you're not following the news: http://www.bdsmlibrary.com/forums/sh...186#post881186

Still there is no expressed intent to replace all other religions by force or duress, as there is in the other in the discussion.
In the first place, you were the one who introduced that as a test of liberalism: the rest of us were discussing more everyday issues of law and social attitudes. In the second place, that's a consequence of history, not a sign that one text is more humane or enlightened than the other. The Israelites didn't bother about converting other peoples, by force or otherwise, because they simply massacred them. And the early Christians had to convert people by being nice (indeed, it's been argued that they censored a great deal of militant stuff from the early Bible to make themselves look safe and acceptable,) because they were too few and weak for a Jihad. Once they were in a position to replace other religions by force, history records in detail all the bloody ways they did it, but that came too late to be part of the Book.

And if you think the OT is more liberal than the Quran, note that it doesn't even require witnesses before a woman is put to death for adultery...
I wholeheartedly agree that no nation needs to be ruled by a set of religious laws. However when I speak of the major tenents I have morals and values in mind. The Christian book does not make a distinction between our kind and another kind when it comes to murder.
As I have noted, much of the OT is concerned with lists of the various tribes which the Israelites are proud to record that they slaughtered to the last man. (And, by implication, raped to the last woman, but that's another issue.) There is no record of their god or his priests showing anything but approval for these massacres, nor for other piecemeal killings of assorted enemies. A reasonable reading is that when their laws said "Thou Shalt Not Kill" they understood it to mean "...Your Own People."

To the best of my knowledge, the NT says nothing for or against the subject.