What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Catholic_Lady]

You've gotten flack for playing -brinksmanship- with allegory.  You've used it as an excuse, rather than an explanation.  The things you feel are morally questionable are allegory.  You're about as much of a believer as I am.

Let me try to explain it better for you then, Rhythm. I hope I can be more clear this time.

Before Jesus came, people followed the Old Testament. Jesus came and taught us new things that we didn't know before. Many of the things he taught contradicted things in the Old Testament. He Himself, as a person, contradicted how God was depicted sometimes in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament God was, at times, depicted like a very harsh judge. He was depicted as an entity who told us to kill others, told us to have slaves, told us to have multiple wives, etc. Jesus came, and was completely different from the entity that was depicted in many parts of Old Testament. He told us to not throw stones at anyone. He told us to turn the other cheeck to those who hurt us. He told us to love our one and only spouses.

If we believe that Jesus is God, what this shows us is that what we *thought* God was like wasn't entirely accurate or complete. If we believe that Jesus is God, we believe that He came to set the record straight about Himself (being God) and about the correct distinction between morality and immorality.

You cannot believe in the literal definition of the Old Testament and the New Testament at the same time. You cannot do this because they contradict each other sooo much. So you have to pick one. If you are Christian, you will pick the words of Jesus in the New Testament.