@chaw Yes I got some of your points but it bothers me that God not only acted like a kid with emotional issue but he also has this kind of superiority and narcissistic complex. "Worship and obey me or die". Where's God the merciful? He was being contradictory to the "love and compassion" values. [quote=bubblegum;#391257;1396578322]No concrete evidence that the Epic of Gilgamesh came first. There are several possibilities such as the Old Testament has been preserved through oral tradition before written into manuscripts should be taken into account, making it older than the Epic of Gilgamesh. No concrete evidence can back up this one though. And yes, they have several similarities but it could have been the other way around.[/quote] We could say that both came from oral tradition before written into scripts. And take into account the fact that Sumerian civilization had been around since 5000BC while records of ancient Jewish started at around 1500BC. Old Testament is just a copy-paste from the books of Tanakh so the "preserved oral tradition" can't go further back from the Jewish timeline. [quote=bubblegum;#391257;1396578322]That's because Christ did not exist until the New Testament. He was the ultimate atonement for our sins. On the part where you said "kill and destroy", I believe you were referring to the enemies of the Israelites(chosen people of God). They were pagans and God detested their stubborn hearts and evil practices. The old testament was legalistic because it involves a lot of laws and rituals that needed to be followed. The punishment for sin is death. Like, if you sinned, you have to make a sacrificial offering, e.g, offer a bull to the altar so that you will be cleansed. That way, you who has sin will be blameless and the bull who was blameless will be the sacrifice. This is a bit complicated to explain. There is a transfer of sin from you to the bull so that after the sacrifice, you are once again, acceptable in the presence of God. However, in the New Testament, Christ was the ultimate sacrifice. He died ONCE and for ALL, so that we would never have to do what was required in the old testament. What was once exclusive for the Israelites, became available to us Gentiles. Salvation is a gift. If you don't accept it, it isn't yours. You don't have it. If you don't accept Christ, you don't have salvation.[/quote] It sounds laughable to me, the concept that God is like a bloodthirsty divine being who requires sacrifices from living creatures like bulls, and Christ. So can people go like "weeeeee new testament! lets go nuts do whatever things! accept christ! get salvation!"? For the sake of argument lezz just assume the Old Testament has became obsolete since post Christ era. What are Jesus last words? Who went to Jesus' tomb and who did they see there? Ask Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, we get some different answers from them. Holy spirit surely could do a better job writing a consistent story. [quote=bubblegum;#391257;1396578322]What? I don't even- most of our laws are based on the Ten Commandments. But CHrist gave two: Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. But if we follow just the first commandment, there would be no conflict. If you love God, you will not do anything to displease Him, that includes doing something wrong to everyone around you like stealing, murdering, or lying. The book of proverbs talks about what you need to do to live in this world. It's a great start in reading the bible. They're just simple guidelines on everyday living.[/quote] You cannot take that kind of pars pro toto point of view because the Ten Commandments is just a tiny fragment and don't represent the whole what's in Bible. It's impossible to ask God directly what actually the things that displease him, people can only try to do whatever they can to grasp the true meaning of the Bible passages. This is subject to conflicting interpretations and errors. People can do good just for the sake of goodness, as opposed to doing good to gain favor because they're in lovey dovey with God. Einstein once said "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties; no religious basis is necessary". You will find the truth behind that quote in the example below. Continuing about morality, it does not seem that Jesus changed much of morality points from the Old Testament. An example, slavery. Nowhere in the Bible slavery is condemned. Bible goes as bizarre as to explain how to get slaves, how to beat them, how to have sex with slaves, etc. Society regarded slavery as consistent with Bible and christian teaching. Christian leaders owned slaves, branded their chests like cattles with some red hot iron, worked them out in plantations, etc. When eventually some centuries ago human's moral intuition evolved to the point that they recognize that it's simply wrong to practice slavery, the abolition of slavery movement started but Bible and christian fundamentalists became an obstacle. As a moral guidance, Bible is flawed and incomplete.