Why does god want to cut off women's hands?

[John V]

haha.. well, the methods do seem foolish...

But I was going first to point something out:
In other parts of the world, such as India and China (or even in places where their religion has died such as Egypt or Mesopotamia)... other revelations from other alleged gods followed... pretty much, the same methodology.
What happened, there?
.A screw up from the messenger? A misinterpretation of a flawed method of passing a message? ---- Can't be, Israel was the chosen people, right?
.Other divinities passing their messages? ---- It is claimed that the god of Israel did warn people not to worship other gods before him... it's almost like there are others!

A Biblical case can be made that there are demons which have been considered gods.

.Or can we just lump all of them together and see all these methodologies as simple manifestations of psychological disorders (or flat out lies, made up stories and events) accompanied by the ability to convince other people of such events?

You can do whatever you like, but lumping them all together seems simplistic to me. Even if you don't accept any as genuine, with the ubiquity of religion I'd think you'd consider some sort of evolutionary psychology explanation. Another explanation is that some stories which were initially intended as fiction took on legendary status over time. Was Homer claiming divine revelation in his works, or just writing stories which took hold? We don't really know.