Haleivi,
So you are saying that the punishments prescribed by the Torah were not really meant to be applied forever but were just what happened to work in that culture at that time but nowadays even if we had a Sanhedrin etc. we wouldn’t carry them out? If so, that’s an interesting idea but I’m not sure that it is what most Orthodox Jews and Gedolim see it and it’s definitely not what I heard in Yeshiva and from Rabbi A. Miller.
Also If you believe that to be the case at what point do you draw the line between what in the Torah is an eternal truth meant to be applied at all times and what is simply a description of something that was done in those times because it worked in that context?