Today I’d like to talk about four verses that I think are arguably the most disturbing in the whole Bible (but it’s a strong field and I’m happy to hear any competing suggestions).
If you maintain that the Bible is the word of God… what do you make of the suggestion that God commanded for parents to torture their own children to death in public participation events for the “crime” of encouraging the worship of the wrong deity?
Deuteronomy 13
⁶ If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
⁷ Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
⁸ Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
⁹ But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people
Are you a torture apologist?