Op is educated [spoiler]wtf[/spoiler]

The truth of the situation is that Jesus was trying to bring the knowledge of a loving God. Not the God Of the Old Testament , a God That is mean vengeful, petty vindictive and condemning . See the Jews set up that Version of God because they needed a more powerful God to overthrow the idolatry of many Gods. So they made him more powerful and tougher.... Jesus though tried to bring the knowledge truth that God is loving and perfect.

Stop these posts. You are not helping Christianity like you think you are.

Man... How the story got so twisted over the years ill never understand.

I've always been taught that the coming of Jesus made it to where you didn't have to perform animal sacrafices or anything following the old laws, you only had to have a relationship with God and ask forgiveness for your sins, and he would help you be how he wanted you to be. BUT I was also taught that God is the same and has always been the same, and he doesn't make mistakes, which means he's the same God that flooded the Earth and routinely punishes people with his "holy wrath" or whatever. If he doesn't make mistakes, why did he make the rainbow as a promise to never flood the Earth again? Could that have been a mistake? Also, God seems pretty self-absorbed if you ask me. He created a whole universe with humas just to worship him and gave the humans free will then allowed them to go to hell when they actually used it. Why do we feed into that when we despise it when other humans have that quality? Maybe it's because we percieve ourselves to be lower than him. Whatever. I hope I explained myself adequately. [spoiler]I do believe in God, but I'm not religious and not a Christian even though I do have mostly the same set of morals, just to clarify.[/spoiler]

What about the no hell thing in the Old Testament?

Lol remember that time god killed every first born child, or all the other times he killed thousands of people at a time, ahh good times

Cheery picking intensifies

This doesn't make the book any more accurate, or any less hypocritical. Look at the entirety of the book of Job and then like all of the book of Psalms. Job centers around the idea that we cannot fully understand God's will, nor can we explain His justice for the world. Bad things can, and will, happen to good people, and good will happen to bad. Then you have the book of Psalms, and other books such as Proverbs, which continuously say "do good and good WILL happen to you" promising riches and a thriving house/family. Those are teachings, not laws. I'd also like to mention that the authors of the books themselves are hypocritical. Solomon constantly talks about how evil "strange women" are and further admonishes women in his book saying how it's better to live in the -blam!-ing woods than to live with a testy woman, but he himself was led astray by women at the end of his life. Also, the Old Testament repeatedly has references to God saying that fathers will not pass their sins to their children, but he constantly punishes entire nations and subsequent generations for the actions of a few. I'm still reading through it and only up to the book of Isaiah, but there's been a lot of stuff which doesn't make sense so far...

Christianity is a very peaceful religion now, it had it's bumps, but it is fine now. [spoiler]-your friendly neighborhood athiest[/spoiler]

From what I gather God in the old testament was a bit of a dick. Then he had a son and chilled out.

That's very convenient for a Christian to believe, but I don't know how you could try to justify the Old Testimate genocide.

Well at least I'm not going to be stoned to death here.

Yay these posts are back!

The biggest thing to realize about the Hebrew Bible (I don't call it the old testament), is that it is not about God. It is about what the authors thought about God. Examples -the creation myth- with multiple authors writing about the creation of the world(it is also a very late addition to the HB, one of the most recent books), it was an anti-pagan polemic. The "inconsistencies" of the creation myth were not because they were stupid, it was to show the other religions of the ancient near East that the HB God was better than all other gods. -prophetic books- most of these books(Isaiah as an example), were not about Jesus, but being saved from the Babylon Ian exile (speaking of exile, as I previously mentioned, Genesis is a new book, written after the exile). They viewed God as the one to save them so they could return to where they came from. If you would like other examples, I can add to my post/add it in a reply. The laws that were written in the Hebrew Bible were cultural and specific to the time they were written. Also, you have to look into who wrote it, to whom, when, why... Etc. To the point of the OP, yes, Jesus, according to the Bible, if you believe it to be the authoritative word of God, came to fulfill the law, not get rid of it. Many of the laws in the Hebrew Bible are still followed (think kosher laws or not shaving the side of your beard for example). Most of what was done away with was the ritual laws.

[quote]“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law[/quote] lol

So... what? The Old Testament is both valid and invalid?