Sorry, were you somehow under the impression that the people of Sodom, Lot, and his daughters are being held up as models we should all be emulating?

I always find it a bit strange that people despise simplistic "Sunday-school" answers to life, but then when they read the Bible and find messy situations like the one described above, they say, "What kind messed up story is this?" Real life is sometimes messed up. A book that skipped over the messed up stuff would be pretty useless.

If you read the old testament, it's brutal and often barbaric. It's written in bronze age and relfects life of the time. To argue that it reflects morals or 'messed up' situatuons we'd consider in civilised society is to be delusional.

So first of all, I think you're failing to acknowledge the brutal barbarism of our time. The Killing Fields? The Cultural Revolution? Stalin? The Tuskegee Syphilis Study? They told that story about Lot specifically because it was not the norm, but was the kind of thing that could actually happen.

Secondly, the claim was that Christianity -- that is, the teaching of Jesus -- has affected European ideas about morality. Lot is further away from Jesus than Jesus is from us.

I think the person you responded to has an inaccurate view of the history of slavery in Europe. But only someone who has never experienced a different culture could say that Christianity has had no effect on the moral ideas of the West.

That is my whole argument - the times were barbaric, both the old testament and to some degree the new testament largely capture that, so you should not be going round claiming they brought morality to the world / west. I am nor arguing it had to effect, I am arguing it's not like we'd all be a moral vacuum without it.

I am very surprised you are claiming the old testament is somehow not part of Christianity or should now be considered- am I misunderstanding you? I am not a religious scholar, but that's not a view my local priest would support.

Also I fail to see how bringing up Stalin is relevant, you can't even find a communist these days that thinks he was morally upright.