How to convert Christians to atheists in 30 seconds (ironically, using bible)

[Tonus]

2) Why can't they figure this out?

It would be one of two things, IMO: he did not leave sufficient evidence after he left, or the multitude of texts and writings are all fictional.

3) I wasn't referring to religious people, I was referring to the whole of humanity.

But most of humanity is still religious, and that percentage was much higher in the past. I would anticipate that very few people would be on the path to destruction if it came down to innate desires and the kind of person we are inside, etc.

4) It isn't about the instructions. It's about a particular kind of relationship with a person.

But it's not anything like the relationships we have with people. It's entirely one-sided, where we do all of the communicating and understanding and we then determine what the other person's responses are and interpret intent and meaning. It is indistinguishable from any other non-interactive agent that we ascribe motive to, such as luck or karma.

6) Yes. If god made you human, then he made you with a fundamental desire to be the best version of humanity that your personality can become.

How can we know this? If the Bible shows us God's opinion of mankind, it is not a very positive one. His perfect creation (Adam, Eve, presumably the spirit that made the serpent talk) turned against him, after which he degraded humanity and we've been falling far short of his standards ever since. The Bible beats us over the head with how lowly and wicked we are, then the God whose "good" and perfect creation is the source of the mess creates a way out for an infection that he bestowed on us as penance for someone else's sin (and someone else's poor design!). How can I imagine that God only wants the best for me when he has treated his own creation so shabbily?

7) God's universal will for every human's happiness is seen in what-we-are (i.e. our nature). From the start, we were not successful at bringing about our own fullness freely. He did not abandon us to that failure. The narrow gate IS Jesus, and he gave himself to us freely. You don't have to "find" the narrow gate. The narrow gate will find you.

But that's not what Jesus says, and it's not a complicated analogy that he drew. He does not say that he is the gate and that we don't have to find it. He speaks of the roads that lead to destruction and life. The concept of "the path we tread" is pretty common and easy to understand. He is saying that many will walk the road to destruction and few will find the road to life. It is clear what he is saying, and it's tough to infer anything hopeful from it.

8) I don't think so. I think the Old Testament stuff is more complex than first glance. The Old Testament is a gradual restoration as preparation for Jesus.

I'm not so sure about that. Jesus turns out to be much milder than the preparation that the Israelites go through in the OT. Maybe it's more complex because it seems so brutal and cruel when taken at face value and a fair amount of mental energy must be expended to make it seem like something less so.

I understand the parables of the lost sheep and the prodigal son, which imply that God is not just merciful but that he fervently desires the best for us. The contradictory messages are one of the things that make it seem man-made to me. The idea that the Bible is a book with deep wisdom that must be read and studied carefully is one thing. The idea that it's a convoluted and confusing set of writings that require extensive interpretation through prayer and divine inspiration wouldn't seem so far-fetched if humanity could come to a consensus on it instead of being so fragmented. People have been convinced by divine revelation to claim that theirs were the 'last days' for many centuries, and to this day we hear of divine revelation which sheds new light and new understanding on the writings. I find it difficult to believe that God is still slowly unwinding the Bible for us today.