I disagree with most of what you said– but not on religious grounds. Rather, I disagree on economic grounds.
Judaism originally developed as an oral tradition– something memorized by successive generations to pass along to their ancestors. Imagine having to memorize the basis for your religion– you would make the corpus of it as lean as possible– cut out the fluff.
Now, imagine that you are a lot closer to the edge of survival then modern man. In other words, if you get it wrong, it’s not like you just go on unemployment insurance for a few months or dig into the 401(k) to pay your medical expenses. Instead, you die.
It would seem likely that economic rules which are most beneficial to society are the ones that get embodied in the corpus of religious knowledge. In fact, an atheist would say that the religious prohibitions on certain acts are made just because the prohibited acts are so economically damaging. The punishment for non-compliance (i.e., eternity in hell) needs to be so high because other means for enforcement (i.e., hunting down cheating spouses) are just too hard.
In other words, over time, that which is most economically beneficial is that which becomes encoded in religious law.
Now– let’s face it– we are a wealthy society and times have changed. We can afford to have parents living apart just because they “don’t love each other.” Limited premarital sex isn’t catastrophic when everyone can afford contraception. Thus, we have luxuries that the people who memorized the bible couldn’t afford. But make no mistake– these items are luxuries– the same as a plasma TV or a huge SUV.
