Intelligence is a Curse

[The Grand Nudger]

Genuine moral and ethical behaviour doesn't require motivational promises of reward, or inhumane sadistic threats of eternal torture. Don't think for one moment that I can't take the teachings of jesus alone (ignoring the entirety of the old testament) and build a dystopia. Even taking only the golden rule and "turning the cheek" one can present the believer with a cruel mirror image of his own faith. Perhaps the masochist should engage in sadism, and we should not defend ourselves or each other from the kind of aggressors who would destroy every bit of our way of life and indeed erase us from history itself if given the chance. Jesus is a firm believer in thought crimes, but paradoxically he does not believe in punishment for transgressions against the law (at least not by us lowly mortal sinners). Any system of law that suggests we punish those who are convicted of crimes, for example prison sentences for convictions of child molestation, are firmly against the doctrine of "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". What exactly are we to make of the "if thy own eye offends thee" passage?

How does jesus himself measure up against these things? He doesn't seem to be the type to turn the other cheek, his enemies will be punished, eternally. How does he treat others? He heals the blind but not blindness itself. He doesn't seem to have cared much for amputees. He pays lip service to the unwashed but in the end we're either "with him or against him" and he spends more time telling us what will happen if we are against him than any other character in the entirety of the bible. No one is so enamored with the idea of hell as jesus. He is after all a demi-god and we are but lowly sinners, requiring his guidance. We are sheep, he is the shepherd. The capstone to this narrative? Vicarious redemption. The thought that a being may be scapegoated for the crimes of others and through brutal torture and subsequent execution somehow absolve them of the responsibility and consequences of their actions. All this without first asking if we wished for anyone to be tortured for what we may someday do. These are not the actions or thoughts of a just being. The narratives of the new testament are monstrous from start to finish and I, for one, am appalled that anyone would seek to paint them as anything other than fiction. What kind of person would wish for any of this to be true?

So you may be relieved that you are not held to the laws of the OT, I assume you feel that they are barbaric and wish to distance yourself from them as a christian. That jesus supposed authority is derived from this text seems to be a non issue for you. You reject duetoronomy and leviticus (and rightly so) but have on these very boards proclaimed your support for the xenocidal act of a global flood which thankfully never occurred. You may feel that you've squared the scriptures away with your modern notions of morality and ethics by cherry picking your way through the text, but you seem to have missed these things I mentioned above. Now I personally don't want anyone to live their life by the bible. Not one bit of it. I do however feel that people should realize what's in the bible, beyond their own naive and unjustifiably positive interpretations. You give approval for these things by your proclamation of faith in them. All of this without being able to offer a scrap of evidence that any of it is true, or even that god exists to begin with.