[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
Some of us believe that morality does evolve over time, and religious teachings should change to keep up with it. The Bible sanctions slavery, for example, because the idea of a society without it would have been unthinkable at the time. If you’re religious, you could believe (as I do) that God directs this evolution of morals, like people who believe in theistic evolution believe that God directs evolution. The idea that morals change over time does weaken certain concepts of God, religion, and the Bible, but by no means all of them, any more than the theory of evolution does.
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That’s pretty much what I’m saying (without the magic, of course). Personal morality was around long before any religious writings came to be. I, too, see the bible as anything but concrete, and therefore, rather pointless as a life guide. Our morality comes from within; not from a book. I think the entirety of religious texts can be set aside precisely because they are fluid, and therefore, not a “guide” to anything. They strike me more as a collection of some guys’ thoughts and no more worthy of our devotion than, say, some of Kurt Vonnegut’s thoughts on life (and considerably less entertaining). It is so erroneous, archaic, and misleading that I consider it to be more harmful than good; both to the individual and to society as a whole.