How come people mess with....?

Every part of the bible is to be messed with. Great fiction.

Well, I can only talk with you from personal experience. The morals from the NT are better than the morals from the OT, however...! Jesus' message was rejected from 3 towns when he shook the dust off his sandals and cursed the inhabitants of those villages (presumabely they had SOME children in some of those villages).

Some would argue that the morality of "hell" is poor. To be punished infinately for a finite sin... For instance, I would think that Hitler should burn in a fire, 1,000 years for each person he killed in the holocaust. But after that, we can stop torturing him. God would go on ... FORVER...for far less reason.

And lastly, my biggest problem with the NT is my same problem with the OT. Too many internal conflicts. The most important even ever - the resurrection - conflicts on about 25 different points, if you read the gospels. WHO went to the tomb, when they went, why they went, who was there (men or angels), how many (1 or 2), where were they situated, was the stone rolled away, what did they say...etc etc. For a perfect book from god about the most important event ever - at least don't contradict yourself!

The four gospels do not even tell the same story of Christ's resurrection. It's not that one of them isn't right (even though fundamentally, and for other reasons, I believe none of them is). It's just that they can't ALL be right. And if that's the case, the reliability of the whole text collapses.

I think atheists are less hard (I am, at least) on the NT because as a moral guide, Jesus is pretty good. That is, provided you see him as a humble man, who cared for the poor, who opposed violence and authority; who was, in other words, a first century radical. Why would I mind about that?

Well im confused as to why many christians on here are always quoting the old testament, yet in the next breath they claim they only follow the new testament.

The new testament is a little kinder and gentler. So critics of Christianity tend to stay away from it because the adherents are more open minded and to have a really good argument, you need to lock horns with the nutty old testement types.

Because Thomas Jefferson already did it, and did it in the full. Look up the Jeffersonian Bible sometime.

I simply have to shout a "hear hear" to JP's fine suggestion!