a key part of Christian theology is that the sacrifice of Christ made the laws of the Old Testament both outdated and unacceptable.
But somehow other bits and pieces from the old testament are all good and dandy. So you get to pick what's convenient - which is exactly what I said:
Ah yes indeed, we can deny inconvenient parts when necessary.
I just cannot take this seriously - where you can argue that your books are holy at the same time, but there's also bs in them that you have to conveniently ignore.
EVERY SINGLE ONE of the bits of the Old Testament you object to was written by the Jews before Christ was born
Yes, also every single one of the bits of the old testament that I did not object to, but are accepted, were also written by the Jews before Christ was born. Your point?
I think the only conclusion one can draw from this is that the books are untrustworthy and full of bs.
Trying to claim that the Christian Church is somehow responsible for the laws of the Old Testament
The Bible doesn't deny everything in the old testament nor does the Christian church, or will they deny their own god? So yes, I can claim that they are cherry-picking what's convenient.
And you can see the same with the Bible and its "interpretations".
"Update it with the times"? And what fucking times are those, pray tell?
That was a joke if it was not obvious. The point is that the book is not the product of some omniscient being and has plenty of wrong things in it. We have better works now that tackle ethics, morals, science, and do not require "interpretations" to make sense. Basically better reads that are not diluted with indoctrinating ideas.
Knowledge that I should not (but apparently do) need to remind you was created, investigated, gathered, and recorded by those very same "outdated" peoples you insult.
I am not insulting "outdated" people, that's something you wrote. I have great respect for scientists regardless of their religious beliefs. You are conflating religion with science. Religion is about faith, science is about knowledge. Need I remind you that religions have both helped and impeded progress. Knowledge is simply not their main goal of religions - faith is.
All law is based on giving an outside authority the power to mete revenge
The idea behind law is not revenge. Your whole argument based on revenge after that is nonsensical because of that.
However, revenge is a big thing in many religions, so maybe that's where your confusion arose.
It's too bad that you immediately shoot your kneecaps out with your nonsense of "natural empathy".
I never used the term "natural empathy" - that's something you came up with, to be precise I wrote:
As for the inherent goodness of human hearts, it is called empathy - it is biologically founded and doesn't require you to read
some archaic teachings.
In that context, I think you will find this educational:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#Evolutionary_across_species
The empathy of assorted apes, where rape and crude torture happen naturally?
Empathy doesn't imply that you can do no wrong - look up the definition. I recommend reading the whole wiki page, and the some more.
Or is there some human example of "natural empathy" that outweighs humanity's base evils?
This is not about outweighing "evils". Animals (humans included) are complex beings - they are capable of great love and empathy, and at the same
time they are capable of unspeakable atrocities. It's not all black and white, you do not have angels and demons.
Western civilization was not created by "natural empathy"
I never argued it was. There are obviously many factors. I just do not agree with you attributing all ethical and forward looking ideas to Christianity, or any religion for
that matter. And I also do not agree with your statement that Christianity is the reason we have no slavery.
Western government and laws concerning individual liberty was created by centuries of philosophy founded upon the idea of Abrahamic-God-given-rights that cannot be infringed upon by any earthly entity.
I disagree, in the sense that I do not believe that is the major factor. I am not going to deny that there are ideas from multiple religions. But as I mentioned,
one of the major advancements of society was separating religion from law. If anything it seems that religions get in the way of individual liberty and in general the law.
Consider; if your "natural empathy promotes individual liberty" claim
There is no such claim that I made. Which leads me to another point - more than half of your statements that you made are of this form. You argue that I have claimed some bs
that you wrote, and then come up with some argument based on it. Considering this, it is beyond any doubt that you are arguing in bad faith and will keep throwing around strawmans.