'This thread is getting, like, complicated and stuff.'
Technology has changed. Human nature has not. The burden of proof is on your side to show that those rules are merely to satisfy the needs of a pre-industrial society, and not to satisfy the deepest needs of human beings, needs that are part of their nature, not part of their technological surroundings.
'This thread is getting, like, complicated and stuff.'
Ah, but it has! Improvements in transportation, communication, and even in the way we feed ourselves has altered every aspect of human interaction. Just for fun, I grabbed a copy of the 1970's book Future Shock, and highlighted all of the predictions that were spot on, and all of those that have not come to pass, or won't. It is amazing to know how speeding up life has changed us as a species.
The burden of proof is on your side to show that those rules are merely to satisfy the needs of a pre-industrial society, and not to satisfy the deepest needs of human beings, needs that are part of their nature, not part of their technological surroundings.
I offer as proof the fact that even traditional religionists have changed the old rules when they saw fit. Forty-two years ago, people were wondering if someone who married a divorced person (Nelson Rockefeller's wife had been divorced) were fit to be President. Then, sixteen years later, Ronald Reagan's divorce wasn't an issue for even the most religious of conservatives.
In fact, the primary differences in the ten thousand flavors of Christianity are because of which things to throw out, and which ones to leave in, as I see it. Suggest to them that they merge into one faith, and you will be assaulted with doctrinal differences that are based on man-made interpretations of the same book.