You are wrong, and ignorant
Deuteronomy 21:21 - According to tektonics.org:
But, does the text say we should stone *children*? You assume it does. This is a natural assumption for you to make, since you live in a culture where sons and daughters are required to obey the parents *only when they are children.* When the children become adults, they can pack up, leave, and do "whatever they want" - even if it's against the will of the parents - with no repercussions from society.
But the culture in which Deuteronomy was written is different. Sons still had the command to "honor their mother and father," be respectful to them and listen to their words. So how old is the "son" in this passage?
The Hebrew term for "son" (ben) employed here is indefinite. It is sometimes used of children of both sexes, but most often of the male. The word "son" here does not give any indication of age. It can refer to a child or to an adult son. Age must be determined from the context. In this case, the son in view is not a child, for the sins brought forth in testimony are gluttony and drunkenness (v. 20).
Furthermore, the actions of this son are severe. This is not the case of a child who has failed to do his chores, spoke back to his parents, or even committed a serious act of disobedience, but of a son of dissolute character who is in full rebellion to authority. The text says that the son is "stubborn" and "rebellious." Both of these descriptive terms are active participles, thus indicating habitual action. The son does not display a stubborn streak now and then, or act rebelliously from time to time, but is continuously stubborn and rebellious. The word "stubborn" refers to one who is obstinate in his resistance to authority. This son is living a life without restraint, and is a serious danger to his family and to his community.
One must ignore much to believe this verse condones murdering little Johnny for not cleaning his room.
Furthermore, the Bible imposes severe constraints AGAINST the imposition of the death penalty:
After a long, elaborate discussion of the class of capital crime befitting the stubborn and rebellious son and a description of how the execution was to be carried out, the Talmud states: "It never happened and it never will happen."
The passage then explains that the entire matter is presented purely for study: "That you may study [the Torah for its own sake] and receive reward" (San hedrin71a). In other words, the discussion of capital punishment in the Talmud seems to exist only in the realm of theoretical speculation, just as--after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem--all the laws of sacrifice were retained and studied long after the sacrifices ceased to be offered.
...
The stringent demands on witnesses in capital cases rendered almost impossible the likelihood that a defendant would be convicted. To ensure that a witness's testimony was not based on conjecture (e.g. circumstantial evidence), hearsay, simple rumor, or the observations of another witness, the court would "fill the witness with fear." Witnesses were asked to establish the day and hour of the crime and explain the circumstances surrounding it (Sanhedrin 2B). They were then warned that they would be subject to rigorous questioning and relentless cross-examination and held personally responsible should the accused be falsely condemned. Bearing false witness in a capital case was in itself a crime punishable by death (Sanhedrin 9B, 32B, 86A, & 89A). A witness in a capital case had to have seen the entire crime as it was being committed; circumstantial evidence was inadmissible. For example, Rabbi Simeon ben Shatach witnessed the following incident: "I saw a man chasing another man into a ruin; I ran after him and saw a sword in his hand dripping with the other's blood, and the murdered man in his death agony...." Even though he was convinced of the man's guilt, the rabbi could not testify against him, because he did not see the actual crime (Sanhedrin 37b). Not only did witnesses have to see the crime take place, they had to have warned the perpetrator prior to the act that he was about to commit a capital offense. According to Rabbi Judah, a warner even had to inform the perpetrator of the type of execution prescribed for his crime (Sanhedrin 8B). The perpetrator was then obliged to have verbally acknowledged this warning by saying something like, "I know I am warned not to do this"; to have admitted his liability to death by adding something like, "even though I shall be punished by such-and-such manner, yet I want to go ahead and commit this crime"; and to have committed the murder within the time needed to make such an utterance (Makkot 6A) ... Furthermore, two or three witnesses had to have similarly interacted with the accused.
And on the unlikely chance that such witnesses could be found, the Court could convict the accused only if guilt could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. According to the Talmud, "A doubt in capital charges should always be for the benefit of the accused" (Baba Batra 50B, Sanhedrin 79A). In reaching a verdict, a judge was free to argue in favor of the accused, but not against him. A judge who had argued initially for condemnation could subsequently argue for acquittal, but one who had argued for acquittal could not argue later for condemnation. Acquittal in capital cases required a majority of one vote, condemnation a majority of two.
A verdict could be reversed for acquittal if errors were revealed, but no new evidence was allowed which would reverse a decision from acquittal to condemnation.
Staying the Execution Following a guilty verdict, provisions were made to stay the execution. A herald was dispatched to announce something like: "So-and-so, son of so-and-so, is going forth to be stoned because he committed such-and-such offense, and so-and-so are his witnesses. If anyone has anything to say in his favor, let him come forward and state it."
If someone offered to make a statement in favor of the condemned man, a retrial followed. A person was stationed at the door of the court holding a signaling flag, while a horseman stood at the ready within sight of the signalman.
If one of the judges said he had something further to state in favor of the condemned, the signaler waved his flag, sending the horseman to postpone the execution. Indeed, even if the condemned said he had something further to plead in his own favor, the court was obliged to reconvene (Sanhedrin 42B)
This ruling does not mean the rabbis dispensed with punishment altogether. On the contrary, they expressed no compunction about decreeing corporal punishment--harsh physical suffering. If the rabbis/judges were convinced of a defendant's guilt in a capital case, but the high standard of evidence did not permit execution, he would be sentenced to prison on a ration of bread and water.
Regarding Slavery, you write:
the Bible condones slavery and all kinds of crimes!
No, it doesn't, not slavery as we understand it at all, but rather, indentured servitude:
An indentured servant is a Jewish man or woman who is sold into service for a period of up to six years. In some cases these people sell their own services; in other cases they are sold in order to provide restitution for serious property crimes. (The Torah does not prescribe imprisonment for such crimes; the overall Torah approach is one of rectification rather than penalization.)
For example, it is forbidden to give an indentured servant demeaning work as if he or she were a chattel slave. Only tasks of the kind conventionally given to hired workers are permitted. "As a hired worker year by year shall he be with him; don't give him crushing labor in your sight" (Leviticus 25:53).
Another example: the Torah commands the master to give "severance pay" to the parting servant after his years of servitude are completed. "Surely grant him of your flock and your threshing-floor and your wine press; what the Lord has blessed you give him (Deuteronomy 15:14). This gift is meant to enable the newly independent worker to get an economic start in life, in an occupation wherein he acquired experience and "on the job training" by the master.
The Torah acknowledges that sometimes an indentured servant wants to stay beyond the mandatory six years, because he appreciates the job security and working environment he enjoys as a servant. "If he should say to you, I will not go out from you, for he loves you and your household and it is good for him by you" (Deuteronomy 15:16). From this verse, the Talmud infers that it is the obligation of the master to ensure that it is indeed "good for him". The indentured servant has to be treated like an ordinary member of the household. "It is taught: 'for it is good for him with you' - with you in eating, with you in drinking. So it shouldn't happen that you eat white bread while he eats coarse bread; you drink old wine while he drinks new wine; you sleep in a bed of fleece while he sleeps on a bed of straw." (1)
It is clear that the Torah here does prescribe a specific minimum level of support for an indentured servant; he has to have a living standard comparable to that of the master's and has to be given severance pay.
Furthermore, and with explanations of how belief in God ordains the laws of economic egalitarianism:
In the Torah’s detailed code of law in Exodus, the very first law describes the case of the “Hebrew slaveâ€â€”a man who has to sell himself into indentured servitude because of poverty or debt. The focal provision of the law is the obligation of the owner to release the slave at the end of six years. In Deuteronomy, the law is elaborated and revised--the owner must “pile him up†with food and flocks as he goes free. Together, the two statements of the law of the Hebrew slave set up a parallel between God’s treatment of Israel and Israel’s treatment of those in the community who are poor. God, who is identified at the beginning of the Ten Commandments as the One “Who brought you out... from the house of slaves,†defines Israel as the people who liberate their own debt-slaves and sustain them in their freedom.
Indeed, the Torah’s framework of assistance for the poor is built almost entirely on a series of imitations of God, in accord with the command “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.†Life on the land God has given is a covenantal partnership between Israel and God. God and Israel each participate in making the land productive and prosperous. Israel is expected to acknowledge God’s faithfulness by reserving a portion of that prosperity for the most vulnerable. The widow, the orphan, the temporary sojourner, the landless, the poor—they command God’s special attention and concern, according to the Torah, just as the people as a whole did in Egypt. Sustaining them is in some sense the only way the community of Israel can repay God for the blessing of bounty.
In its details, biblical law concerning assistance for the poor deals primarily with four situations: the harvest in the field, the threshing floor, loans, and indentured servitude. The laws reflect a tension between dealing with immediate need—“for the poor shall never cease from the landâ€â€”and the ideal of “there shall no needy among you.†Both statements, in fact, appear in the same chapter, Deuteronomy 15.
In the field. The Torah requires farmers to leave the corners (pe’ah) of their fields unharvested, left to be picked by “the poor and the stranger.†Similarly, any grain that falls to the ground as it is picked (leket) was also to be left; so too any grapes that would fall from or be left on the vine (olalot). If a farmer or his workers missed a section of the field during harvesting, they could not go back and pick it (the rabbis later termed this obligation shikh’chah, “forgettingâ€).
In addition to these rules, which applied to every year’s harvest, every seventh year the entire Land of Israel was to be left fallow. This shabbaton (sabbatical year) not only would allow the earth to regenerate itself, but would, to a degree, put the entire community on an equal footing. Everyone would depend for food on gleaning from the land. In that sense everyone would live as the most vulnerable or marginal would in a typical year—although the more fortunate might have stored crops from the previous year.
And all this is totally opposite to your crazy caricatures! Are you ready to concede your ignorance Raoul, or would you rather instead "raise your voices to gravity" - which BTW is nothing more than a modern-day update of the worshipping of the Sun, or perhaps a mound of rock. And which you probably call "enlightened".
