Greatest I Am writes:
That being the case and since most recognize the absurdity of that scripture, would you like to speculate as to why it was included in the selection of scripture.
Could it have been just to activate debate?
No.
You can see from the responses of Buzsaw and ICANT that people do take that passage and others like it seriously. It would have been irresponsible of the Bible writers/compilers to include such absurdity "just to activate debate" when they should have known some people would take it in the stupidest possible way.
The more reasonable conclusion is that they meant it in the stupidest possible way.
They meant what they said, so everything they said has to be scrutinized even more closely. But there's no reason to think they wanted us to scutinize them more closely.
“If you had half a brain, wouldn't you have realized after the second time, that it was you, not God?” -- riVeRraT
(see context here)
“The endearing controvertist! One needs to become acute in the ploys of his kind.” -- ThreeDogs