What Major Intellectual Issue Most Keeps You From Accepting The Christian Narrative?

[Mister Agenda]

I'll take a stab at this. I was a Pentecostal Christian. I read the KJV cover-to-cover. I read it again in a modern English version to make sure I had understood it correctly. I had. Before I even got to the NT, the barbarity commanded by Yahweh and the inconsistence of the narrative had me convinced that it did not originate from some theodic being. The story of Adam and Eve is ludicrous, akin to a moral test of toddlers involving leaving them in a room with a loaded shotgun and a guy motivated to get them to play with it. How were they supposed to know they were doing evil before they learned the difference between good and evil? Why does Yahweh pretend he can't find them? Isn't that dishonest? Why didn't they die the day they ate the fruit, like Yahweh said they would? Why didn't God accept Cain's sacrifice? That's all just in the first few chapters. In addition, I had been taught that God never changes, but reading the book through like that, the evolution of Yahweh from chief deity of the Hebrew pantheon, to greatest God evah to 'those other gods ain't even real' is pretty evident. Plus, I caught a few contradictions, and Pentecostals believe the Bible is perfect.

Then the NT. God goes through another change, becoming a God of love, not war (but Jesus introduces the concept of infinite suffering for finite crimes), to the point that early Christians refused to fight. They got over that when they came to power, of course. The endings of each of the Gospels are a mess when you compare them to each other, Matthew (IIRC) has rodeo Jesus riding a colt and a donkey simultaneously (it's clear he's trying to make the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem fit a prophecy that he does not actually understand).

Talking snakes and donkeys. The sky is a 'firmament'. The OT is half between mythology and fable. The NT at best is a gross exaggeration of the deeds and words of an apocalyptic rabbi who ran afoul of the Romans. Don't get me started on Paul.

The main intellectual problem with accepting the Christian narrative is, frankly, that many parts are ridiculous. As an atheist I can keep whatever good I can find in Judaism and Christianity (and Buddhism and so forth) and throw out the rest. I can keep hippie Jesus (good Samaritan, love your neighbor, be more forgiving) and reject mean Jesus (cursing innocent figs and failing to condemn slavery).

If you threw out everything that was harmful and irrational in Christianity and kept the best of it, you might have something admirable. But a wise man is supposed to have said something along the lines of knowing a tree by its fruit. The fruit of Christianity is at least half spoiled.

And that's not even addressing the failing of supernaturalism in general as a hypothesis.