OT/NT Inconsistency: The Progression of a Religion

These are just some more thoughts, to clarify some of my current objections to Christianity.

Rationalization aside, there seems to be a fundamental difference in the overall mood and tone of the Old Testament as compared to the New Testament. A change of ideals which, logically, seems to mirror the progression of society.

In the Old Testament we have God commanding his people to conquer just about every wicked civilization which comes up for discussion, slaughtering every inhabitant save for the virgin girls, who are taken as spoils of war. There is plenty of brute force used under the command of God, and plenty of cold, hard laws calling for capital punishment for everyone from murderers to gays to rebellious children. Not a whole lot of talk about love (at least not until long after the Law is written, with books like Proverbs and the Song of Solomon).

In the New Testament we have not one single remotely similar command, and all the sudden all of this teaching about love and unity. The specific commands that are given by God concerning particular heathen civilizations in the New Testament are for evangelism, not conquest. Two "new" commandments are introduced by Jesus: Love the Lord, and love each other. The focus of most of the epistles turns to forgiveness and redemption.

In the Old Testament, we are told to treat unbelievers like this: "If your brother... or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, 'Let us go and serve other gods,' ... you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people." (Deuteronomy 13:6-11)

In the New Testament, we are told to treat unbelievers like this: "Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person." (Colossions 4:5-6)

So, basically, we have one document which paints God as a wrathful, conquering warmonger, and then we have another document (which just happens to have been written in an era when civilization has become slightly more advanced) which paints God as a weed-smoking flower child who just wants everyone to get along (with the occasional tinges of his former wrath for the sake of consistency).

When looking at it objectively (which is apparently a no-no, according to many apologists), the Bible doesn't exactly strke me as an infallible holy document written by the Creator of the universe. It strikes me as an inconsistent and woefully fallible (a sign of human authorship) book of mythology, with ideals that are as progressive and evolving as the human culture which spawned it.

Such progression can even be seen today.

Nowadays, the bulk of the Christian community is getting more and more liberal with their teachings and interpretations of Scripture, inventing things like Arminian free-will, "Age of accountability," and so forth. Purists (as I was formerly) are vehemently opposed to this movement (and rightly so, being that it doesn't exactly line up with what's in their Bibles), calling it a perversion of a perfect religion. But I no longer see it that way. I see it as the inevitable ideological progression of a religion created and molded by man, just as Christianity originally was to Judaism.

I'll even bet that someday in the future, the Christian majority will be rationalizing away the passages which speak against homosexuality, just as they are today rationalizing away the Old Testament condoning of slavery. History thus far has shown that, while Christians fight as long and hard as they can to cling to the primitive ideals which their Bible proclaims, they eventually cave in and adapt to modern society. They did it with stoning Laws, they did it with slavery, and someday they'll do it with these other lingering issues, like homosexuality. Who knows? Maybe someday they'll even write a Newer Testament.