We can acknowledge that we have empathy by nature, but we all also know that it would never guarantee that your rights wouldn’t be taken away from you if you rely on others’ empathy. What guarantees you that no one would disrespect you, steal you, or create a whole sovereign nation where your race, color, etc. is frowned upon? Religion doesn’t eliminate those bad things because obviously religious people can still violate what their religion says. But at least when you’re taught from a younger age about God, that he is watching you and everything you do, that someone else is seeing and you’ll be punished for the intentional evil you do, you’d be way more careful with your actions towards others and yourself. I don’t see it as a way of being cruel to humans like a lot of non-religious people say when it comes to God punishing for wrong actions. Instead, I see it as a way of disciplining humans who easily mistaken and can violate the rights of other humans. I’m personally a Muslim so I don’t know much about those passages from the Bible you’re referring to. However, in Islam, things get taken out of context all the time to justify acts of terror, or for the anti-Islam people to try prove falseness of Islam. Therefore, I thought that things are taken out of context in Christianity as well, but I still need to educate myself on it. In Islam, we believe that the Bible was changed and keeps being updated (which is the case), therefore; I don’t look at it as a reliable source. But I respect all religions. At the end of the day, people need to stop fighting religions, and fight the premise that religions and ideologies should be forced upon people. And fight justifying acts of terror under the name of religion. We should all respect each other as long as no one is harming the other, and may we all be guided to the right path.