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http://www.hsa.org.uk/downloads/related-items/religious-slaughter.pdf http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/waitrose%E2%80%99s-response-bnp%E2%80%99s-halal-campaign-claims-%E2%80%9Chumane-slaughtering%E2%80%9D-exposed http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17972-animals-feel-the-pain-of-religious-slaughter.html But the Muslims have a study saying slitting the throat is more humane. Because, you know, people who defend their religious practices would never continue to do so if those practices were judged to be inhumane or immoral. Clearly they did the research before reaching their conclusion and not vice-versa. Mind you, this digression is brought to you by the fact that the Muslim practice of Halal was raised as a defense against a claim that Biblical animal sacrifice is immoral. However, let's all keep an eye on the topic and not stray much farther from it. Our hold is getting tenuous. ;)

I get that they were eaten. To not eat the animals would be completely pointless if not downright impractical. Th irony of using a Muslim site was not lost on me as they are the mother of all religious rationalizers. But here's the point: Competely draining the animal of its blood is the most important thing, not necessarily the animal's comfort. According to this site http://m.wikihow.com/Properly-Slaughter-a-Cow-Under-the-Kosher-Method-Shechitah, It's more efficient to let the animal bleed out, and it's just not kosher to stun the animal. And it says this: But don't you know that even the pagans of that day as well as today do the same throat cutting? Nothing special beyond to WHOM the animal was sacrificed. Yahweh could have done something completely different, but nooooo.

He could have just told us all about how DNA works, so there would never be any question of who the baby-daddy. But that would require a level of scientific knowledge that was unavailable to [an omniscient] God at the time. While He was at it, He could have told us about germ theory. Not only would it have been handy to know, saving countless lives, but it would have demonstrated unequivocally that He had a base of knowledge far above and beyond the limited culture of the time. If you had life-saving information and the means to communicate it to people, would you do it? You would, if you valued those people's lives. Yahweh kept that information to himself.

Yes, and that was immediately taken away. Adam disobeyed god and was "punished" by being thrown out of the garden and given lordship over Eve whom was merely deceived. Perhaps that was the first of many bad ideas. But it's hard to see that when people are told that god can't have bad ideas. And if you think it's a bad idea, then you are wrong. How convenient is that? We are told that disease and death is something we brought on ourselves through our disobedience. Well maybe it's something that simply happens. I don't know if you've noticed, but it appears that a large segment of the population's behavior can be controlled by hanging the carrot of "eternal life" over them. The rest can simply be killed if they step out of line. Back then all of this seems to have had the purpose of protecting the herd (tribe), but are they merely bad ideas? There ARE a lot of good ideas in the bible. But unfortunately when one is required to accept it as a whole, given by a supreme being, then one can't take the good without being accused of cherry picking - if one is to be honest. The REALITY is that benevolent slave owners who tithe, stone to death homosexuals, stone to death non-virgin women, and stone to death mouthy kids while avoiding pork, shellfish, and milk with their meat are the most virtuous people on the planet.

Apparently he'll only do that if you lie to the Man of God about how much money you have to put in the cornucopia or if your entire city is on fire and you succumb to the perfectly normal human impulse to look back. Picking up sticks on a Friday night does not rise to that level of evil. For that, we need a slower, more painful death inflicted by the people acting on Yahweh's direct order, which is ok, because He is the potter and we're just clay.

Might I interject that this is about the morality of buying people and considering them to be property. Is there a circumstance where this should take place, EVER? The idea that the "god of the universe" is good with people acquiring other humans regardless of the time in history is ghastly. If it were such a great idea, then why do or why would we push against it now? We gloss over the FACT that this is something that took place up until the mid 1800s in the US. We gloss over the FACT that it is going on today because it is ordered by someone's god. And we especially gloss over the fact that this is a practice that is sanctioned by a supposed "god of love". Not WAS; IS. God has not changed. The attempts to sanitize or justify buying people in any context is just simply astounding. Picking verses apart trying to determine the hidden meaning when no one at the time thought there was any hidden meaning. People owning was a fact of life. People owning was a fact of life that could have been wiped out with a single declaration from the god of the universe. And it didn't happen. EVER. Not then. Not now. NEVER happened. You either agree with god or you reject what god has to say on this issue. Which is it?