Edit: i am rather tired of this conversation but i so want to finnish this comment. I wrote most of it already, i just got to this part and want to start with it:
The south baptist churches
This provides a lot of context and i absolutely understand how you got your point of view. Protestant evangelical has always seemed very extreme and backwards to me. I am really sorry you were forced into this.
Most of my christian influence is catholic, (i am still not religious in case this wasnt clear) technically that means the pope is considered the highest authority to set disputes though in practice thats not always the case. The big important is that they say the teaching of jesus got passed with the apostles and the later church who is able to ammend and recontextualize scripture in order to clarify what the words actually mean, hence its not to be taken literally.
Protestants literally take scripture literally, i would lie if i am not somewhat biased that i expect such to end in zealot death cults.
Does not reflect all of Christianity though which trough out is my sole point
There are fictional stories with better morals than the bible.
I don’t know how many times i need to repeat this but the bible IS a fictional story.
I am not defending the people you describe, I am defending people who ARE religious and yet nothing like you describe. Because what you describe is a stereotype.
The bible i read that was good had a really generic name. “The life and tale of Jesus Christ” i no longer own it. I don’t know who wrote/published it sorry, its over a decade ago.
The interesting odd one is the gospel of Judas. I bring it up specifically because i want to point out that christianity is a philosophy much larger than the church with tons of diverse branches. People who ascribe to Christianity do not need to be aligned with the church, like my mother in law who detests the church but does actually believe heaven is real and prays in private.
Quoting scripture does nothing for me, you can interpret those words in so many ways they basically mean nothing.
A religious teacher i once knew would say you need to read it in context of the classical era, most of it is outdated and no longer applies, but a core of philosophy remains, even if the historical author was devout they may have verbatim copied a tale without understanding the message themselves.
Times are different know and so is religion, most people can read, pretending something is absolutely truth makes a lot more sense in context of one academic explaining moral philosophy to a illiterate masses.
I don’t agree with that, that thinking corrupts so fast with clerical authority in for example, the death cults you speak off, but they are not the whole, and where i live a (loud) minority.
I do not tolerate zealots, its facism with extra steps, i could reflect your own words back that your intolerance of religious expression will get people killed. Because they don’t differentiate decent people from bad people who misuse the same idea and name.
Anyway enough internet arguing for now, have a good day.