I'll quote one by one of your questions as I reply.
First, I'd like to thank you for asking real and serious questions instead or engaging in endless mean bickering. But no, you went straight bullseye and brought up clearly what bothers you. I hope you will get satisfying answers. As a non denominational, some of the things you listed are a huge reason why I am a non denominational. I personally think this dogmatic Christianity that a lot of people got entrenched into begs for reform. Truthfulness and rigidity are two different things. God is a transcendent absolute being, who cannot be captured by a dogma, even though theologians try hard. Christianity is perceived by many as a SET OF BELIEFS. But Christianity is NOT, and was NEVER meant to be "a set of beliefs". Let's start there. If you look into the Gospels, Christianity was at first known as "The Way", as in,
the way of life or spiritual discipline, among the believers. Take this:
Romans 3:17 And
the way of peace have they not known:
Luke 1:79 ...to guide our feet into
the way of peace.
Acts 18:25 This man was instructed in
the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.
(notice he did not know the "doctrine" and "dogma" completely; but he understood the right way to live and practice spiritual truth, which is the saving thing; he was later taught by Priscilla and Aquilla to know "the way" "more perfectly". But this just perfected his discipline; he was already saved by his relationship with the Divine. The connection with God - Life Himself - is what gives life.)
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am
the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
One enters by becoming like Jesus... be like little children... be blameless... "become one like Father and I are one", connection with God who is Life... this is about spiritual condition... not
a set of beliefs. When one dies and stands before God, no theological theorizing or ritual can save them, it's all down to their personal standing with God. I don't know why is this even being disputed when it is so self evidently true. Maybe you just feel frustrated by some people. It's about spiritual transformation, spiritual discipline, spiritual living. The Bible is more like a place to start navigating and giving us a piece of history and some useful teaching. But a person can come to God without ever reading the Bible - who told the Native Americans about the Great Spirit? Also,
reading the Bible and actually
practicing what you've read are two different things. So let's go to your first point.
"1. God writes books. Unfortunately it is not always that clear. Hence, the arguments, even amongst believers."
Again, like I wrote earlier - you can't trap God into a book. He's really giant. And people want different things, and deep inside there are often different things they REALLY want. Some people really just want God to hand them a winning lottery ticket and some easy life. Some people want to be spiritually awake. Some people want to SEEM spiritual to others and be praised. Some people want to lie to themselves. Some people want other people to reassure them and tell them what to do. Some people want to be right. The book is only the starting point... Else you have a puppeteer God...
"2. God loves everyone; but if you worship the wrong God he will command your execution and favours certain ethnic groups and people."
People assume what these nations were like based on Hollywood big tribal dance scenes with cool feast parties. However, some of the things these unfavored people did might make us understand better why they were unfavored. Per example, they burned their own children alive for ritual sacrifices. They raped people and had various orgies with them on mass scale in their cities. Some were genetic monsters who were chimeras who were offspring of fallen angels, and deliberately mixed themselves with various beasts. On one occasion a certain Midianite group sent prostitutes on mass scale as a warfare tactic to cause Israelites to be infected with plague and die. Atheists, however, get very angry about the remaining chaste Israelites striking back against this group who tried to destroy them and think it isn't right. Hmm! People read with certain lenses, and also do not seem to really think about what they read, while they read. So let's get to the ancient Egypt. Most people never try to imagine themselves as the ancient Egyptian in the time of Moses. Seeing that the Israelites had light when the darkness was over the whole Egypt, and they had clean water, and no plagues at all, and their God does all these miracles while your own priests can just do a few petty tricks, are we really reading this now? Being an Egyptian, doesn't it seem strange? Would you not question your culture and gods
just a bit and try to find out about their god and what is it all about and why are these scary things happening? Or would you be prideful and stick to your traditions and simply decide to hate the bloody slave brick makers? I simply don't see a person like you not asking yourself some questions and not investigating to see if this God is the real deal and what's really going on...
If you read the Bible account as a whole, it is clear that God is about spiritually redeeming souls, and this is what mainly concerns Him. He isn't a social justice warrior. We are all spiritual beings whom God wants to connect with. God is also a very complex being, whose words are true on every level. Say, if God says, it's about to rain, it means it's going to rain right now, it's going to rain tomorrow, and it's going to pretty much rain in general, and also forever. Because whatever God says stands forever. Stupid example but try to see what I'm saying. During the Old covenant, Israel represented physically the bloodline of Christ, and the people who are connected with God. If they were not favored, Christ would also not be favored and evil would not be defeated either. If they were not liberated from Egyptian oppression, no one would ever find freedom, either. It would mean that God can't save who choose to trust in Him and want to be free, and God can't be inconsistent, it's not in His nature. Because of this, all these Old Testament stories are really foreshadowing what's going to happen in the New, it's one and the same story all over, just retold many times in history by the Divine Being.
"3.God wants us to fear him, but love him at the same time. And if we don't love him, we are condemned."
God IS love. So if you don't love, you don't know love, and that's a very miserable state to be in, so yes, it is a state of condemnation. It's being separate from the source of love. You can't love anybody in that state, including yourself. And God is an extremely powerful and incomprehensibly vast being, too. Some awe, and even fear before Him, is a perfectly normal response, just because He's so vast.
"4. The right beliefs and thoughts in our heads are more important than being kind; beliefs will save you, kindness won't."
This is what some people seem to imply. But they themselves also know that this isn't true, and that if they don't live out the truth, just parroting it saves nobody. This is seriously too clear to even be disputed... It's also made clear in the Bible in too many places. Spiritual life is beyond "beliefs" and "thoughts", some beliefs and thoughts will stem from it though.
"5. The "Good news" of the gospel is not that good. Since most are condemned."
I'll leave this one for conclusion. (have to split the post, please bear with me)
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