New Testament: Conclusion

I have finished reading the New Testament. Achievement Unlocked!

The New Testament is very disappointing. I was not expecting to dislike it as much as I do. It is aesthetically inferior to its prequel, the Old Testament, but presents a better ethical code. It reminds me of the Qur'an.

The Qur'an and the New Testament are very similar. Both are laughably unimpressive; both contain occasional good lines which are drowning in drivel. Both obsess over the end of the world (any day now); their ethical codes are both based on keeping your spirit pure for Judgement Day. Both talk about eternal damnation a lot.

The New Testament is mostly pacifist: punishment is postponed until Judgement Day or the afterlife. The Qur'an permits violence as a defensive measure (when Defence Mode is activated, you are allowed to slaughter your enemies), and advocates corporal punishment for certain crimes. The Qur'an advocates religious pluralism; the New Testament makes it extremely clear that Christianity is the One True Faith.

The Qur'an has a very simply message: God sends prophets to people and wants them to do good things; he will punish and reward them for what they have done.

The New Testament is more convoluted: God requires bloodshed in order to forgive sins, and animal sacrifices aren't powerful enough to get rid of sin entirely, so God sent a willing human sacrifice to be the ultimate blood sacrifice in order to forgive everyone's sins (except blasphemy, which is unforgivable), as long as they get in on that human sacrifice action. If they are unwilling to get in on that sacrifice, perhaps because they don't believe that forgiveness requires bloodshed, then God will torture them literally forever, no matter how they behave and how much good they do. God judges first and foremost about whether they have acknowledged the magic human sacrifice.

This is so disgustingly barbaric that it genuinely makes me feel sick. The New Testament has become my least favourite of the Holy Trilogy (Hebrew Bible; New Testament; Qur'an).

There is another problem with the New Testament: it comes with the Old Testament. It annoys me that the superior testament is reduced to a mere prequel. The Old Testament is like the TV series 'Friends'; the New Testament is like the short-lived spin-off 'Joey'. Imagine if 'Joey' got a dedicated fanbase who decided that 'Friends' was always just a prequel to 'Joey'. (The Qur'an is like a low budget Arabic reboot of 'Joey', with a far simpler story.)

In the New Testament, God is supposed to be loving and benevolent, and not responsible for evil. That's what the devil does. In the Old Testament, God is responsible for both good and evil, and he boasts about it. Jews take monotheism seriously; God would have just destroyed any rebel angels. The combination of the two, the good God in conflict with the devil and the good-bad God who condones genocide, has made Christianity such a dangerous religion throughout history. Whenever it was politically expedient, Christianity could become morally worthless. Some branches of Christianity have fully acknowledged this and decided that there's no such thing as good and evil: just do whatever God wants so you can get into heaven, whether that's giving to the poor or executing children.

I was not expecting to dislike the New Testament as much as I do.