Muslims promote Sharia law. Why do Christians not promote their law?

Christians are largely ignorant of what the Bible says, and instead work on the assumption that whatever it is, it must be in accordance with their prejudices. Tell the religious right that their God has no problem with abortion but favors the death penalty for working on Saturdays and they'd just stare at you blankly. Of course their God isn't like that, they should know, they made him in their image.

"Slaves, obey your masters in all things." - Colossians 3:22"Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord." - Ephesians 5:22"For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does." - 1 Corinthians 7:1"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." - Romans 13:1-2"Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution." - 1 Peter 2:13"If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, Let us go and worship other gods [...] you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock." Deuteronomy 13:12-15"Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death." - Leviticus 24:16"If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death." - Leviticus 20:13"If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother [...] then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you." - Deuteronomy 21:18Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

That's gotta be the first time I've ever heard anyone complaining about how darn secular the Iranian mullahs are. It seems that you are one of the very very few people whose criticism of the Iranian regime is that it's not theocratic enough for you.

No, they're enforcing it. Well that would be the first duty of the theocrat. That's not opposed to theocracy, that's a corollary of it. If the most important thing is to enforce God's laws, then it is absolutely necessary to ensure that the people who want to enforce God's laws are in a position to do the enforcing. In a theocracy, killing dissidents isn't secular. It's theocratic.In case you missed it, here's Deuteronomy 13:12-15 again: "If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, Let us go and worship other gods [...] you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock." Not particularly secular, is it? Er, you know Hitler was a theist, right?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Cherry picks? My dear marc, the whole darn Bible's a cherry pie smothered in cherry sauce and topped with cherries. This is a book that regulates what sort of clothes people can wear, what crops they can plant in their own fields, what sort of meat they can eat, how they can shave their beards, and whether they can plow with an ox and a donkey in the same yoke, and forbids the breeding of mules. It's not exactly a manifesto for individual liberty.And you're only going to address two of my quotations? Er ... so that would be ... um ... what sort of fruit would you say you were picking there? Wait, so I'm cherry-picking, and there's so much of this stuff that you wouldn't be able to find the time to answer it all? Like so many things that you don't doubt, that is completely untrue. Maybe you should doubt more things. Especially, y'know, things you make up in your head on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. My bad, 7:4. Thank you. I never mentioned inequality, we were discussing liberty. If you really want, we can discuss whether the Bible makes women equal to men. Otherwise maybe it would be better if you kept quiet about that subject, instead of bringing it up and pretending that I was discussing it. Well, I never claimed that the Bible was consistent. However, Romans 13 says "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." But it did, didn't it? If the Founding Fathers had obeyed the clear commands of the Bible, they wouldn't have been the Founding Fathers, they'd have been loyal subjects of George III. "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment." If you can find an inch of wiggle room in that passage, then you should turn your hermeneutic skills to the Book of Genesis instead and see if you can quit with the creationism.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

What do you mean "may be tyrants"? It's not actually difficult to find out whether someone is a tyrant or not. You look for little signs like where he bans elections and has the opposition shot. So, I agree, let's ignore those people and their views on "how the planet should be saved". Let's ask someone else who isn't a tyrant but is a subject-matter expert.

Is there some sort of zoo where we can look at these people, maybe feed them peanuts? 1791. No it wasn't. Unless that's because there used to be a law against filing lawsuits, what in the world does that have to do with anything? Ah yes, the good old days. I'll give you that one. During the whole of the eighteenth century, not one single lawyer advertised on television. Or chased an ambulance, for that matter.But I guess now that they do advertise on television, we should pass laws forbidding them to do so ... er ... for liberty!Can we ban other groups from advertising too? I can think of a few people who annoy me. But perhaps you feel that the First Amendment should protect the people I don't like. I think there was also one saying you had to give back any escaped slaves that took refuge with you. Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

A book which tells you how to trim your beard and what clothes to wear, which criminalizes freedom of speech and of religion, and which urges complete submission of subjects to kings and slaves to masters, is a manifesto for individual liberty?If you want me to believe that, you'll have to do more than just say so. If so, then I seem to be in good company. You know who else didn't understand it? The Jews. When they read all that stuff about stoning unbelievers and annihilating entire towns for religious unorthodoxy, they didn't rush out and pass a bill of rights enshrining freedom of religion. The apostles, also, may have had the gifts of tongues, of healing, and of prophecy, but they couldn't understand the Bible like you did, or they'd have drafted an early version of the U.S. Constitution. The Protestant reformers, too, seem to have overlooked the message of the Bible in this respect --- how fortunate you are that your Biblical scholarship is better than theirs. But without referring to it in the U.S. Constitution. Funny that, isn't it? It's almost as if you're ... wrong. I never said they were. However, at least atheism doesn't tell us that there's a God who wants complete submission of slaves to masters and subject to kings. So it's got that going for it. If you don't like being debated, you could stop posting on forums devoted to debate; if you don't like being proved wrong, you could try acquiring some opinions that aren't wrong; and if you don't know what "moving the goalposts" means, you could stop using the phrase.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Glossing "better" as "(more free)" doesn't actually make them synonymous. Event held to support victim of spinal cord injury Kansas Inmates Raise Money For Boston Bombing VictimsBrunswick boosters hold fundraiser for crash victimsFundraiser for victims in fatal Schaghticoke crashYoungstown News, Fundraiser planned for accident victimRaising Money for Crash VictimDropkick Murphys Raise Over $300,000 For Boston Marathon Bombing VictimsCommunity Supports Local Tornado VictimsRunners hit trail to raise money for Boston Marathon bombing victimsLocal group raises money for Boston marathon victimsCommunity raised money to help children of young couple who was shot and killed on McFaddin BeachGambrills dance troupes help raise money for hurricane victimsShelton and J.C. Penney raising money for tornado victimsFundraiser at Mongolian BBQ raises funds for OK tornado victimsByrd students raise money for injured classmateWallingford fifth-graders come to aid of tornado victimsLocal Children's Lemonade Stand HelpsCommunity answers call for Oklahoma tornado victims reliefTourney aids victim of boating accidentFundraiser collects money for Orange deputyIndian Valley Middle School helps Oklahoma victims"Miracle on the Hudson" survivor gives backFrigid dip raises money for Stony Point Sandy victims'Crowdfunding' sites pay medical bills, raise hopesNew fundraising goal for bus crash victims already metAustin shoppers raise money for wildfire victims 26.4.26 Foundation to Deliver $30K From Marathon to Sandy HookCorvallis residents rallying around GAN victimsCrash victim's father delighted by memorial cruise responseRaising money, hope and spirits: Events to aid victims bring in millions of dollarsFundraiser held for victim killed in gas explosionKids pitch in to help superstorm Sandy victims across Long Island2 burn survivors join Ohio State 5K to help victimsNewtown students come together to help Oklahoma tornado victimsCharlotte Helps Children of Couple Killed in AccidentYeah, where'd all the compassion go? And why are these two suing each other ... Son of victim comforts driver in crash ... oh, wait.

Blasphemer! There can only be one secular government! It must be in accordance with the word of not-God, as revealed to his not-prophets and codified in the non-Bible. The not-Pope was very clear about this in his latest not-an-encyclical, and if you don't believe me you should consult your not-pastor. If you commit the non-sin of conservatism, you risk you not-immortal non-soul, not to mention not-excommunication from the non-church. That's what you get for joining a monolithic non-religion.

No. Here's a hint. You can find out what I really believe by reading what I really say, rather than by making up shit in your head for no reason. I have never denied that the Founding Fathers referred to the Bible from time to time. For example, Thomas Jefferson referred to the Bible when he wrote that he considered the Book of Revelation "merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams" and added "I do not consider them as revelations of the Supreme Being". If the imaginary things in your head didn't amuse you, they would serve no purpose whatsoever. What a peculiar lie. And a peculiarly random lie at that. Why did you choose to tell that particular lie at that particular juncture? I'm intrigued.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

(1) Freedom is good.
(2) Giving gay people the freedom to marry makes them more free.
(3) Society includes gay people.

I've come across winteryknight before, and know him to be a fraud using bogus statistics. Don't pass on anything he says without looking at the primary source.

Tell you what, you can balance the imaginary establishment of atheism with an imaginary establishment of religion.

The majority doesn't. And isn't getting married part of the "pursuit of happiness" (see below)? Need, schmeed. That's not the criterion for whether you can make a thing illegal. People don't need donuts or wallpaper or cable television, but that's not a reason to arbitrarily ban things. If people have a right to the pursuit of happiness, as you admit, then unless there's a really compelling reason to ban something which makes someone happy, we shouldn't.