Okay, it looks as though I am going to have to flex the knowledge muscles. Fuck my life.
Jojo: yes, I also find it humorous that that statement is bandied around so much without a shred of a clue as to why it's said.
EC: No, the original commandment against homosexuality is Leviticus 26. Apologies, my friend.
Blueserpent: Thank you for starting with an outrageous claim. Humorously enough, the US does not actually represent God on Earth. The funny thing is that the United States of America is a multicultural country that is far from dominated by Christianity, and that does not go to war for Christian reasons. There is no commandment to "police thy neighbour".
Crafty:
1: The fighting of the Catholics and the Protestants amounts to politics and tradition and has no spiritual or Biblical basis. The Catholics fought the Protestants to keep control over the Church - for power, because, in that day and age, the Pope was more like a Mafia Don than a holy man. The Protestants fought back for religious freedom. They have been going at it ever since, and, much like the Serbs and the Croats, no one actually knows why they do it anymore. It's political - nothing more, nothing less. If anything, this fighting is just another confirmation that: "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
2: Ah, the Crusades, the most often touted example of Christian immorality. The Crusades are *not* an example of a Godly or Christian action. In the Bible we are not commanded to fight or to kill others. We are told not to kill others. We are told to love our neighbour - which, by the way, means everyone (it's actually quite proto-hippy! :P) We are told to tolerate and respect others. Yes, we are told not to venerate other Gods, but that is the same as telling someone who has one wife not to go and sleep with another: it disrespects God. The point I am getting at here is that the Crusades were a sinful action by Christians. Humorously enough, atheist, agnostics, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims (need I go on) have all committed sinful actions. Remember: "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". That includes Christians. You can't say "Religion is bad" because religious people have fought in wars.
But now, you are saying to yourself, "But Pope Urban II claimed that the Crusades were a holy war!" Yes, sirs, and I claim that I am hung like a horse to get the ladies. Why? Because went you want something - whether that something be lands, political power, subjugation of a massive threat from a foreign region, or women, you are willing to lie to convince people to help you get it. Pope Urban II lied - it was not a holy war, and the people that died in that Crusade did not die to fight "the Infidel". They died because the Pope needed to secure himself against the new Muslim threat. They died because the Pope was hungry for lands. They died because of ambition, not because of God. Any questions?
3: And this has to be the biggest fallacy of all. Jesus advocating slavery? What an insult this is to both God, the Church, and the millions of Christians (both black and white) who fought slavery in the name of God.
Slavery occurred because of racism, not because of God. But I suppose you would have a point *if* even a single point in the Bible or the teachings of the Lord claimed that anyone was superior to anyone else.
Humorously enough, yet again, there is not a single word in the Bible which calls Christians or white men or Martians superior over any other person. At the time of Jesus, the Jews thought themselves superior to the Gentiles. What did Jesus do? He welcomed Gentiles into his discipleship, he told stories of the glorious and holy things that Gentiles had done (cf. Good Samaritan parable) and, when he died, Gentiles were welcomed into his Church. Why? Because no where did God ever tell the Jews or the Christians that they were superior over anyone else. Let's take a look at that verse again:
"For ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
"ALL have sinned"
"ALL"
This one phrase is one of the most powerfully egalitarian statements in history. Whether you be black, white, or Martian, you have sinned, and thus, in the eyes of the Lord, we are all sinners, and equal in our sin, and equal to each other because we are sinners. The disgusting fallacy behind slavery was that "the black man" was a "savage", and that he was therefore an animal. Slavery's first roots were in pre-Roman times, and in the time of Jesus, it was a Roman practice. When the early Church was formed, thousands upon thousands of slaves flocked to the Church because of its powerful egalitarian message: in the eyes of the Lord, we are all equal, and we can all be born again and receive the love of Jesus. This message brought hope to thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of slaves throughout the Roman Empire because it was so radically different to what was being preached by everyone else at the time.
And when the Afro-American people threw off the chains of racism during the early to mid-20th Century, what group was at the forefront of the movement, giving them hope? The Church - the black gospel Church (c.f. Martin Luther King, Jr.). And why did those men and women find so much hope in Jesus? The same reason that those Roman slaves found hope almost 2000 years before them. It's up there a few times if you can't remember it.
Finally, if I may make one last, passing statement: the driving "moral principle" behind the British enslavement of native peoples was, in fact, the "scientific" belief that they were superior to the natives. That belief was one day melded with Darwinism to create Social Darwinism, the ideal that motivated Hitler to murder 6 million Jews in the Second World War, along with hundreds of thousands of gypsies, homosexuals, and the disabled.
4: Thank you for your time.
Billy Bob Joe Bob Steve/EC: Let's not get onto abortion. To BBJBS: the killing of an abortionist, regardless of whether or not abortion is immoral, is a great sin. It violates the spiritual laws that forbid both the judgement of others ("Judge not lest ye be judged", as people like to quote), and the commandment not to kill. Oh, and the commandment to love one's neighbour. Oh crap - it also violates the commandment not to idolise, because you are idolising yourself over God by telling yourself that you must enact God's will. Oh, and that violates the commandment against having another God alongside Jesus - because to idolise yourself is to lift yourself above God. I guess you could say that one who kills an abortionist is acting in an extremely un-Christian manner.
Now, can we *please* move on? I really don't want to enter a massive theological discussion here.