Although, I admit, it's Deuteronomy 13:6-10, not Leviticus.
If thy brother the son of thy mother, or thy son, or daughter, or thy wife that is in thy bosom, or thy friend, whom thou lovest as thy own soul, would persuade thee secretly, saying: Let us go, and serve strange gods, which thou knowest not, nor thy fathers,
Of all the nations round about, that are near or afar off, from one end of the earth to the other,
Consent not to him, hear him not, neither let thy eye spare him to pity and conceal him,
But thou shalt presently put him to death. Let thy hand be first upon him, and afterwards the hands of all the people.
With stones shall he be stoned to death: because he would have withdrawn thee from the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage:
What truth? What Christian or Jew has stoned anyone in the last 1,000 years? Much less a stoning sanctioned by a Christian/Jewish governmental or religious body. Are you really this obtuse?
Notice the circumscription of this commandment.
Only someone who is close to your heart, who then takes advantage of this closeness and seeks to secretly lure you away from your faith in God is subject to the death penalty.
This doesn't apply to Baptist missionaries or Jehova's Witnesses knocking on doors bearing mezuzot.
And in Jewish tradition, a religious court that actually imposed the death penalty once in eighty years was considered bloodthirsty.
Meanwhile, the Hadiths tell of Muhammed waiting until dawn to attack a city, because unless he heard the chazzan calling out the Islamic morning prayer at dawn, he'd attack. Convert or die, in other words.
**In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Coulter Wars Continued: A Muslim-Christian Dialogue, Chemist_Geek wrote:
"What's the matter, can't handle the truth?
Although, I admit, it's Deuteronomy 13:6-10, not Leviticus.
"If thy brother the son of thy mother, or thy son, or daughter, or thy wife that is in thy bosom, or thy friend, whom thou lovest as thy own soul, would persuade thee secretly, saying: Let us go, and serve strange gods, which thou knowest not, nor thy fathers,
"Of all the nations round about, that are near or afar off, from one end of the earth to the other,
"Consent not to him, hear him not, neither let thy eye spare him to pity and conceal him,
"But thou shalt presently put him to death. Let thy hand be first upon him, and afterwards the hands of all the people.
"With stones shall he be stoned to death: because he would have withdrawn thee from the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage:"
That's not for leaving the religion, it's for breaking the First Commandment.
You're missing one big distinction. For Moses to say it makes it justifiable; for mohammad to say it does not.
Apologize for the slander.
With regard to that point in history where the ancient Jews were told to do this...I ask you to research the CONTEXT, and you will be surprised. It was necessary to preserve a small, fledgling people against the hostile environment in which anything--incest, infanticide, even child sacrifice--was the norm.
God said clearly why the ancient Jews had to be tough: they couldn't dare associate and bring that cultural pollution into their society, they were making a holy, ethical society. They weren't even supposed to have kings, did you know that? They were supposed to be a clean nation, a nation of priests, dedicated to holiness and the worship of God.
Compare and contrast that to ANY other Earth culture: and you see clearly that Someone was influencing them for the working of great Good. The fact that it didn't quite work out, get finished, was due to the fact that the Israelites got lazy when they were almost finished, and then began intermarrying, backsliding.
If I were God, I would rise one people up to be a "model" for humanity, and I'd put them--shucks, what a coincidence!--right at the land bridge between three continents for better dissemination of my message.