God is quite busy
Out of context: Reply #172
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- ukit0
IMO, religion is a snapshot of the morality of the culture when it was created. That's why modern day Christians tend to emphasize the loving aspects of Christ, and ignore a lot of the anger of vengeance of the God in the Old Testament.
We even have 7th Day Adventists, who I think are trying to say that God doesn't banish unbelievers to hell eternally after all, he just kills them (lol). Or some churches moving towards admitting gays.
But even the most hardline conservatives Christians of today would be very uncomfortable with following the original Bible word by word, which included some pretty harsh, gruesome punishments for people, and called women subserviant to men, endorsed slavery, etc.
So how do you square the God of the Old Testament with the loving God of modern day Christianity? The answer is pretty simple IMO - the Old Testament was written in a primitive, brutal society by the people of that era. The rulers of that time needed to keep people in line - hence the idea of hell, sin etc., and the gruesome punishments. As society has evolved, we need less and less of that, hence the moderation of POV of the church.
- *it was actually Jesus who spoke about 'hell' for the 1st time in the bible, not the old testament-time rulers.mikotondria3