I've been a student of religion of my life, being raised Sunni Muslim in a family predominantly Pentecostal. I assure you that I have indeed read the entire text in several different revisions. It's telling that your first inclination is to impeach my comprehension of the book, when it is clearly YOUR representation that seems to be out of whack with the text, but honestly that's besides the point as the contention is that it's hubris to imply that your religious interpretation is somehow more correct or more knowledgeable than someone else's by virtue of their moral standards being conflict with your own. What you are partaking in here is what's known as the No True Scotsman fallacy.
So, you read it and I was wrong. But here's why I tend to assume this, even though I shouldn't. The only 2 reasons people take scripture out of context to fit their own narrative (and yes I understand people on both sides do this), 1) they haven't read it all and are just regurgitating what they've heard from other people, or 2) they don't believe in God and Jesus. Both of these interpretations are lacking. And thus their interpretation is solely based on the natural world and not how it's supposed to be looked at, which is as divine inspiration, as God's word.
I think you'd probably really like Christian Apologetics like Melissa Dougherty and the Capturing Christianity channel on YT. Especially the later, it's very, very grounded in theology more than I can explain myself as I'm just a lowly grass roots Christian who reads her bible daily and never studied this in Uni (not being sarcastic lmao).
Thinking back I should have taken some Theology classes as it's super interesting. Either way, me trying to dismiss your opinion was invalid in the way I did it, and I do understand where you're coming from, I was there once, but understanding the bible is one part theology and one part supernatural love and that's why I wholeheartedly believe THAT someone doesn't have a relationship with God, cannot fully understand the weight of it, feel His presence etc., It's like when you're in love with someone, and you're trying to make someone else understand. Sure they can relate to them being in love with another person, but they can never feel the same love you have with them unless they feel the exact same love for that same person. It's the same for God and Jesus!
So, point is, what I was trying to say when we started this convo (which looking bad I articulated very badly), is that people who are influenced by religion, instead of God's love and Jesus' teachings, will always contradict themselves and hurt other people because religion is man-made and as humans, we're flawed and will make mistakes and thus, give God a bad name. Which is also true for anyone, whether they follow Jesus or not, but usually when you put religion ahead of God, you're more prone to mob mentality.
Hope that made sense.
Here's a video I really enjoyed I feel like it might be right up your alley.
www.nbcnews.com
www.cnn.com
