Old testament v. new testament

[solja247]

Ok. A question for all christians to answer; We Atheists tend to quote a lot of very dodgy verses from the old testament in order to illustrate what a toe-rag god is-see thread on favourite bible verses.
What I want to know is this; How do you feel about the old testament god? How do you justify what he supposedly got up to? OR do you just write it off as a load of old story tales and believe that the new testament is the "true" word of god?
How the hell do you reconcile that god of the o.t. with the jesus guy? If they are the same entity, why are they so different? DO you think that maybe jesus changed into a "nice" bloke for some reason or what?
Genuine question. I'm not trying to take the piss. I just want to know your thoughts.

I enjoy the OT, it shows what kind of people God was dealing with and He correctly named them Israel (Struggles with God). We have to becareful with the OT. Atheists and fundies quickly say, 'That is what God is like!'
I watched a horrific documentary about what surgery was like 200-300 years ago, I am glad Im living today when we have know so much. Anyway, the surgeons, back then, did their best to help, to do surgery. Although they were off the mark, they were primitive in their understanding of surgery and the antomy of the human body. When we look at what they did back then, as surgeons, do we say, 'They were right and were scientific in that point in time.' or do we say, 'Those people had a primitive understanding of surgery and thankfully today we know better.'
We should perceive surgery and the OT to be similar. Just because it is written in the OT, does not mean we should take it seriously. I know that sounds like a paradox, believe in the Bible, but becareful with some parts...However, we need to live on a slippery slope, once we set up our fort, we are no longer a seeker of the truth, just a know it all...

Three problems I have with taking the OT seriously is;
1. Anthropomorphic (humanised) view of God (Moses seeing God's back, God being jealous, God wrestiling with Jacob etc)
2. We do not what God actually told them, what if the habitants of some cities and towns were to be spared, but they became to zealous and began murderous campaign and then say, 'God told me.'
3. We have to look at the culture, they were living in a very bloody culture. Read the Bible. would we not expect them to also engage in these sought of battles? and giving credit to their God?

So just something to think about it...

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Yes, of course, but he knew this entire woeful trudge through the desert, the almost ridiculous pattern of events (Israel disobeys, courts other gods, Yahweh gets angry, intervenes, repeat over and over), would take place before creating man in the first place. So you're saying he consciously placed man, whom he apparently loves, into this hostile environment we call earth with full knowledge of how much anguish and suffering man would endure. And, after the entire episode of the Hebrew Bible, he develops the plot, to make this hostile environment we call earth not the end for us, but the beginning, for now there is new suffering, eternal suffering, to be endured by those ever-disobedient humans, whom he created and with full knowledge of whole game before the first buzzer. The game was rigged from the beginning. So, why did God bother?

If you open your Bible to 1st and 2nd Kings. You will see the amount of 'good' kings being rather small compared to all the 'bad' kings. The OT is a beautiful picture to show how patient God is. He dealed with these people for a couple of years! Who would seriously have that patience? It shows that God also has that much patience for us and that God is slow to anger. Not rigged as such, but God knew He was going to get His hands dirty, really dirty, asociating with a bunch of uneducated slaves...