New Testament: Intolerance

[HVAC Instructor]

For a thread that is supposedly about intolerance of the New Testament, it seems to be more about intolerance of anyone professing the Christian faith and offending as many of them as possible.

My point is that because most Christians I know are entirely decent and tolerant people I don't understand why you and others here feel the need and/or duty to constantly berate and belittle believers over the shortcomings of their chosen faith.

Apparently you are a non-believer of some sort or other, but by constantly harping on the negative aspects of religion in general and Christianity in particular, you and the others do a disservice to non-believers everywhere by perpetuating and reinforcing the (generally misguided) stereotype of an elitist, arrogant, disrespectful group who show no more tolerance and respect for opposing views than the even the most hard-core fundamentalists of the religions they mock.

It's not as if Christians have never heard about the darker portions of the scripture. It's not as if you've found something new. Many people I've discussed this sort of thing with accept that those portions are there, but choose to focus on the portions that they believe make them better persons, as in being of a generous and loving spirit; as well as the portions that can provide spiritual comfort in tough times. Is that so bad? In a sense, it's a form of limited atheism, not much different that someone choosing to live their life in a more generous and loving way, not out of a fear of Hell, but rather for a variety of other more-or-less altruistic reasons. IMHO, constantly harping on your favorite controversial portions of scripture does more harm than good overall.

Why is you and other "tolerant" believers cannot simply answer the question which is the topic of this thread?

Why is there such a chip on your and others shoulders that you have to claim persecution every time someone questions the texts of the bible that are clearly intolerant? From your post above:

I don't understand why you and others here feel the need and/or duty to constantly berate and belittle believers over the shortcomings of their chosen faith.

So what you are saying is that because I posted 156 verses straight from your new testament that clearly say what they say, you call that "belittling"? I did not write those verses. Why are you attempting to paint me as a villian instead of defending your own beliefs?

Once again, there are 156 bible verses posted above from the new testament. There are similar verses all through the koran. Why is it that Christians have chosen to ignore these intolerant and sometimes violent passages? Are these passages that Christians choose to ignore fictional? If these passages are fictional and not worthy of following to the letter, then what does that indicate about the remainder of the text?

Are these intolerant, and often violent passages really divinely inspired? If so, then why do Christians only pick and choose verses that they percieve as peaceful to follow? Could the bible simply be only philosophical fictions passed down from generation to generation?