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Well... Jesus is also old testament God. People popularly think he is more forgiving than he is, in new testament (he isn't, for example he explicitly says he

Well... Jesus is also old testament God. People popularly think he is more forgiving than he is, in new testament (he isn't, for example he explicitly says he "brings the sword", he more than once displays he is at least annoyed with people, and the famous passages about giving the other face and so on are more about civil disobedience than forgiveness) And people like to portray old testament God as unforgiving (he isn't either. he did forgive people a bunch of times, and was very patient, and some of episodes that understood today as cruel, were necessary for one reason or another, for example when he told Israelites to execute the children of their enemies after a particular battle, the reason for that is the battle happened in the middle of the desert in a place with not enough food for both groups, it was either execution or abandon them to starve on the desert on their own).

kazoomonger 5y ago
> it was either execution or abandon them to starve on the desert on their own Yeah, that's cruel and unforgiving. Surely an all-powerful deity could've sprouted a few plants and let the kids join the conquerors with enough food. The much more reasonable explanation is that this was purely human cruelty created by a lack of resources because there never was a higher power helping them out in the first place.
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
> Well... Jesus is also old testament God. The Gnostics would disagree with you. :-)
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  The diversity of philosophy in early Christianity is really interesting, I'd advise anyone from the most evangelical of Christians to the most evangelical of atheists to study it with an open (but not uncritical) mind. At the very worst, you'll have gained new insights into what might have been had history worked out a bit differently which is always really interesting in my opinion. Love it or loathe it, Christianity has had an enormous influence on Western civilisation so if that's where you hail from it will always be something worth knowing about and knowing about from a neutral perspective.
datavirtue 5y ago
In the new testament they are bouncing back and forth between man-jesus, God Jesus, and eastern philosophy quotes attributed to man-god Jesus. Select the Jesus you want or just ignore him and focus on Paul's letters.

kazoomonger 5y ago

> it was either execution or abandon them to starve on the desert on their own Yeah, that's cruel and unforgiving. Surely an all-powerful deity could've sprouted a few plants and let the kids join the conquerors with enough food. The much more reasonable explanation is that this was purely human cruelty created by a lack of resources because there never was a higher power helping them out in the first place.

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

> Well... Jesus is also old testament God. The Gnostics would disagree with you. :-)

BoxOfRain 5y ago
The diversity of philosophy in early Christianity is really interesting, I'd advise anyone from the most evangelical of Christians to the most evangelical of atheists to study it with an open (but not uncritical) mind. At the very worst, you'll have gained new insights into what might have been had history worked out a bit differently which is always really interesting in my opinion. Love it or loathe it, Christianity has had an enormous influence on Western civilisation so if that's where you hail from it will always be something worth knowing about and knowing about from a neutral perspective.

datavirtue 5y ago

In the new testament they are bouncing back and forth between man-jesus, God Jesus, and eastern philosophy quotes attributed to man-god Jesus. Select the Jesus you want or just ignore him and focus on Paul's letters.