Biblical Christianity 101, a study of the book of Romans

[KevinM1]

The bible has a shit ton of detail about lineages and whatnot, but the basic story is very simple -

less than 1/16th of the total volume is dedicated to geneologies.

Hence 'whatnot'.

Mankind is cursed with sin due to Adam and Eve engaging in the Original Sin.

"Original sin' is not a topic mentioned or taught by the bible.

Genesis 3 is all about it.  Humanity is cursed because Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

makes commandments, demands sacrifices, smites people, etc.

This was not so from the start.. there are a few thousand years between Adam's first day out of the garden and when any of that was true. So why the need for it? "pop morality" and the decline of man's ablity to identify right and wrong.

You realize you're defending your god for committing genocide because the people were wicked before he decided it may be a good idea to lay down some ground rules (the commandments)?

After a time, he decides to give humanity an out, so he sends himself (or, a portion of himself) down to live among the people and teach them the right way to live.

Actually the 'out' has been their from the beginning. That's what the sacrifices were all about. It was to train and ingrain what a sacrifice meant and the depth of what God was actually doing when He sent Jesus to be that final sacrifice.

LMFAO.  Man, killing and burning livestock parts is completely different than having a person be tortured to death.  There's false equivocations, and then there's this.

Cue: virgin birth, blah blah blah
Jesus performs some miracles, gains a following among the locals

Why did he do those things?

I honestly don't care.

 Claims to have fulfilled the old prophecies of the coming messiah, but, eh, let's agree to disagree.

If you want to resolve this disagreement I can point to 353 prophecies, and show you where/how they were full filled.

If you feel like starting a new thread.  I'm sure that would yield some giggles.

to himself (lol),

God is a title not a name. Jesus prayes to God the Father.

So, you're pagan, then.  Cool.

In doing so, since he was the epitome of innocence and righteousness, his sacrifice magically gives the rest of humanity a way out of perpetual sin...

Their no magic about it. Jesus' Death and blood shed is the Physical manifestation of the Pain endured by god to forgive sins. We have been given this physical example of pain so we could have some idea of the Spiritual cost. In so far as we can learn to respect what has been given so that we may not be held to account for the sin we have committed.

...that entire description is magical.  Seriously, I've read similar kinds of mumbojumbo in Dungeons and Dragons books.  It's also heinous, morally speaking.  God is powerful enough to do anything, so he can't just give everyone a vision or something, and instead must have his son go on display and be tortured as a lesson to everyone else?  How is that not evil?

You can quibble about the details all you want.  That's the crux of the story.  The blood price paid by Jesus saves humanity, who would otherwise all be sent to writhe and burn in the hell his Phase 2 form created earlier.

"The details" are the whole point.. Knowing the 'crux' without the details is the same as knowing how a movie ends with out the work up/without the details of the story. The whole point of a movie is the whole journey, not just how it ends. What if i gave you the ending of the next starwars movie before you got to see it, what would you call that?
Whether you like star wars or not the point is discovering the 'crux' of a story is not the reason we go to the movies and watch them. its the whole journey, its the details leading up to the 'crux' that gives a movie it's value. The same is true here. Yes you can boil Jesus whole life down to your 'crux', but what gives His work any real meaning are in the details of his story. Which by the way maybe why so many Christians have the 'proof' of God that illudes you and everyone else who just seek the 'crux.'

Except Star Wars is interesting, and Jesus isn't.

No, I'm serious.

I'm one of those people who cannot force themselves to go through media - stories, movies, music, etc. - they don't like.  I've tried reading the bible to see what the fuss is all about.  I can't make it past the first few chapters of Genesis.  It's just wholly uninteresting and boring to me, and I really don't care.

Now, if someone can provide me with 3rd party, legit, verified evidence that this god character you keep talking about is real, then maybe I'll take it more seriously.  But right now?  It's a collection of boring stories that beg the question, and I treat them as such.

What is more unlikely is you being honest enough with yourself to point these supposed problems out rather than just giving a random list of random "problems" and not tying them to the narritive in any way shape or form.
Or can you honestly not see the basic fallacy in reasoning here?

Drich, you're trying to say that if everyone understood the narrative of the story, it would all make sense.  What I'm saying is that the narrative cannot make the ideas of:

God
Hell
Sin
Virgin pregnancy/birth
Resurrection

Less goofy.  It may fit the narrative of the story, but when contrasted with reality, they make no sense.

To go back to Star Wars, The Force, Jedi, Sith, ghosts... all of it (mostly) makes sense within the movies.  The narrative, of varying quality (those prequels... yuck), makes sense.  It's credible and self-referencing.  But, the story obviously don't apply to real life.  You're asking everyone here to take the ancient Middle Eastern version of it seriously, as though it's not fictitious.  And there's no secondary sources of information that tell us we should give it any more respect than any other collection of myths.