Evening everyone. For those of you who don't know, I am a former Christian who, like Dillahunty and others, was fascinated by apologetics. I wasn't a fan of any individual author, but rather by the points that I could take with me. I thoroughly enjoyed having an 'answer' to the question of evil, the weasel words you were supposed to use to respond to people marking out the contradictions, and the justification why my God was better than 'your' god (lower case fully intentional).

One of my favorites for the longest time was that, in response to the 'gays and shellfish' argument, the answer as to why so many backwards and objectively barbarous things happened in the Bible was that it was all in the Old Testament. I remember a scene from the show Moral Orel where a librarian is burning the Bible. When asked why a religiously observant librarian would do such a thing, her response was ..."only the Jewish half." I held no ill will towards Jews, mostly due to knowing nothing whatsoever about them, but I held the Old Testament in contempt. What rational person with an iota of compassion or reason couldn't?

Unfortunately, along with a lot of the old paint I had to scrape away from my mind when I started thinking rationally, I had to tear down the greatest excuse I had as a believer.

One of the oldest jokes we atheists have is that, unlike most Christians who 'live by the Bible', we've actually read the damned thing. Along with that, I came across something that both destroyed and reunited in equal measure. Matthew 5:18. This verse was what doomed my oldest and best apologetic because it fulfilled a few things:

1. The passage states in no uncertain terms that the laws written in the Old Testament are still valid and to be enforced.
2. Jesus said it.

For those of you who can't be bothered to Google it, allow me to paste the KJV:
'For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.'

I've heard people make the claim that, in dying, Jesus nulled all the old laws, ergo the 'till all be fulfilled' part, especially when you put that with the verse prior. The problem is that Jesus didn't 'fulfill' the necessary elements, at least according to Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Zachariah.

By Jesus' own metric, the Old Testament is still to be enforced by the truly observant, so I bring it up to you fine people: have you ever encountered this part of Matthew before? Have you ever had to rebut it? Now, if you'll excuse me while you formulate your response, I have a gay crawdad to throw really tiny rocks at.