Part of the function of a religion in a society is to lay down the rules for how that society should live. It provides a code of ethics and behaviour. These particular rules, which have been illustrated in such detail here, pertain to a particular group of people from the ancient past. Many of them can still be applied today because I think most people would agree that any society would not be able to function if people were murdering each other, not respecting each other's property, etc. Some of these rules do not apply. Here is where all the debate comes in. I guess fundamentalists would say that God gave these rules and therefore they are set in stone, like the ten commandments. I find this attitude frighteningly rigid and chillingly extreme. There are always exceptions to rules, and societies change. Of course there should be lots of debate about which rules, and how, but it does need to take place. We are not living in Palestine 1,000 b.c. I don't think this dilutes the general messages of the prophets in the Bible, or the stories in it and what they teach. Those are more universal and timeless. You could be quite a devout Christian and be saying these things. Religion needs to be a living thing; and if it is not, people will begin to see it as an anachronism and start deserting it (or at the other extreme, stick to the letter of its law and rail against the evil and the heretics in the world).