[WanderingKnight]

But even if you go to the Old Testament, Moses and most of the others who spread the word of God were not exactly what I would call people in power when they were called to do so.

That's what the Bible said... but history is written by the victors (that is, those in power). You just can't take everything in it literally. The veracity of Moses as a historical figure is in doubt (unlike other Jewish heroes), for instance. But even if you take Moses out of the picture, the fact that the leading tribes wrote the Bible many years after the events had passed, and the fact that there are a lot of different metaphors for leaders (for example, each tribe is originally represented by a single man in the Bible, which even if you don't take historicity into account, is highly unlikely) scattered throughout the Torah give you another way of interpreting the situation.

But your whole argument boils down to: Whatever bad things were acceptable then is no longer acceptable in today's society.

If that is what you meant to say, then I don't see what the problem is. The way God deals with people have changed throughout the Bible, leading into modern times. It's called dispensation.

The problem is when things are taken too literally and you end up with Creationists. It's those people the ones that end up being taken advantage of by those in powers. The ones that lack any sort of critical thinking ability.

I don't have a problem with people believing whatever they might. I cannot say I'm free of any sort of irrational belief--I am but a man, after all. But putting things into perspective and questioning whether things are really what they appear to be demonstrates intelligence. I have a lot of Christian friends, and our friend Kyuusai right here is the perfect example of a level-headed Christian who manages to be devout and critical at the same time.

Christians were not asked to kill non-believers, quite the opposite actually. And no one was told to pillage, rape, etc. Whatever bad things people do in the name of God nowadays is unfortunate, but it's not a case to blame Christianity itself. They have simply misused it. There is a distinction between what God gave to specific people in the Bible and what God gave to all of us now.

I am not blaming Christianity. Where did you get that idea? Of course, the way I see it, religions were created by man, but even if I take that out of the way, there's no reason for me to hate the religion itself. The problem I have is with those who take advantage of other people using religion as a tool... which has happened with every major religion throughout its history. Hating religion as a concept is as stupid and pointless as hating math because I suck at it.

I used the New Testament because that seems, to me, the appropriate answer. Why would you use the Old Testament when talking about a God-given right to war as it relates to today's society when those rights in the Old Testament were given for a specific group for a specific reason?

Why don't you read the thread and realize we were talking about the Old Testament? Or is it less Christian? Why don't you take it off your Bible then?