Biblical Verses Lost and Found

The Bible is one of a number of sacred books based on the legacy of the lives of great spiritual masters. I try to honor all spiritual traditions, but lately some in the United States who wish to politicize evangelical Christianity into a one-party theocracy seem to find a few things in the Bible that I cannot for the life of me find there.

For some reason I always thought Christ based his message on love, faith and mercy and somehow came to update the old Jewish law. Where in the Bible does it say:

Thou shalt discriminate against all who are not like you.

Thou shalt not allow Gays to marry.

Thou shalt honor only Christians who take the words of the Bible literally.

Thou shalt steal from the poor to give to the rich.

Thou shalt not kill--unless of course it is "anyone wearing a towel around their head," (as one conservative Southern senator remarked), or those referred to as the "collateral damage" of war or maybe a doctor who honors a woman's right to choose.

Thou shalt base U.S. foreign policy on hate, fear and divisiveness.

Thou shalt base U.S. domestic policy on hate, fear and divisiveness.

Thou shalt treat with contempt any mainstream Christian who questions your beliefs.

Thou shalt believe that God created the world in seven days. (Even if God did create it in seven days as it states in Genesis, I do not find a passage in the Bible that says you have to believe that concept literally.) This leads to the ancillary commandment following:

Thou shalt assume that thou knowest the mind of God (Hey, just what exactly is a "day" in the mind of God anyway?).

Yea, thou shalt rub mercury and PCBs into the fertile land, destroy the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea--since it matters not a gasping salmon after you are Raptured.

And ye waiting for the Rapture, pay not attention to the following words of Christ recorded in the Gospel of Mark (13:32) about predicting the time of Christ's second coming: