I can't speak with absolute 100% authority on the Jews. But I have very little hope for them.
Uh huh. That was the church's excuse for making them second class citizens in christian countries, persecuting, them, stealing their property, torturing them to save their souls, and murdering them en masse, for on the order of 1200 years. What a fine moral instruction that was.
Yes, but unimpeachable, doesn't mean untwistable.
Uh huh. Who was it that was just jiving and shucking thru every obscure corner of the bible to try to make "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" to mean anything but what it actually says?
The Bible says a man will cling to a woman (singular), yet then it gives instructions for your behavior if you do violate that principle and take multiple wives. The Bible says God hates divorce, but it gives principles for divorce. The Bible says not to take a man to make merchandise out of him, but then it gives directions if you do have a slave, and it even uses slavery as a punishment, both for Israel and those who attacked Israel.
If you are intent on twisting each of those to mean the Bible promotes multiple wives, or divorce, or slavery, then you'll never "get it".
Uh huh. Is it me, or is it the bible that supplies the contradictory instructions you just enumerated? By "get it" I presume you mean "just take the the word of me, the high priest, and don't you go digging around in the holy books yourself". This has been a pretty lucrative confidence game for the last 10,000 years or so, but it wears a little thin over time--ask Martin Luther.
Yes it is. If you never sinned, you wouldn't need to be "saved", because you wouldn't be under judgement. However we know nobody has or will do that.
And so that gobbeldy gook about being saved by being true to your conscience was just so much confused biblio-drivel from that unimpeachable source of clear-cut moral guidance, the Bible. Like "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", and the unsymmetric laws against incest, and the rule against eating bats and pigs, and the instructions on fair dealings with slaves, and the instructions to the jews to enslave the virgin daughters of the Mideanites.
I think you have greatly exaggerated the churches relationship with the Jews. But there have been incidents of evil, and that was the result of evil leadership. It was against the commands of scripture.
"Who was it that was just jiving and shucking thru every obscure corner of the bible to try to make "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" to mean anything but what it actually says? "
I give up who? If I remember correctly, I told you it was moral to outlaw witchcraft and spiritism and prosecute them and that it was a moral lapse to let them practice in open. I only questioned the manner in which the trials were conducted.
"Is it me, or is it the bible that supplies the contradictory instructions you just enumerated? "
It's you. It's like your parents telling you not to get into trouble, but if you do come talk to us. "Come talk to us when you are in trouble" does not condone getting into trouble in the first place.
By "get it" I presume you mean "just take the the word of me, the high priest, and don't you go digging around in the holy books yourself".
I mean read the books in their entirety until you have enough knowledge to interpret these snippets you keep pulling out of context. You don't need me to tell you what they say, but if you are going to only read biblical "sound bites" from atheist websites, you are going to end up with a dramatically different view of the Bible than you should. Just like if you listened to MSM sound bites of presidential speeches.
"And so that gobbeldy gook about being saved by being true to your conscience was just so much confused biblio-drivel from that unimpeachable source of clear-cut moral guidance, the Bible.
That everyone else sinned, does not make sin acceptable.