Reply #5: Only if you accept that the Bible is meant to be taken as a rule

[JerseygirlCT]

book, and not allegory and history. Slavery is mentioned b/c it was a fact of life. Human beings wrote everything in Bible -- perhaps inspired by God, but that doesn't make it God's own rule book.

I understand why you'd think that however; an awful lot of Christians desperately seem to need a rule book, and so have made the Bible that. I think they miss a lot that way, but I doubt they much care.

Literal reading of the Bible is dangerous but easy. The alternative takes work, perhaps.