Problem is, the Bible doesn’t present one cohesive set of positive moral principles. It’s a collection of books written over hundreds of years by many authors with their own beliefs, biases and contexts, so it’s not possible to derive one set of “Christian values” from it. This means people will cherry pick bits that align with their pre-existing beliefs and dismiss or downplay whatever is inconvenient or contradicts them, and there are plenty of less than savoury parts to cherry pick from.

If i remember correctly (it's been a while), then the Bible becomes a lot more coherent if you throw out the old testament, and keep to the new testament only - which actually is what christians should do, because the sacrifice of Jesus is a new covenant which supercedes the old one with Moses.

If you keep to the NT, then there isn't so much ambiguity - evangelicals who cite from the OT are even more backwards than catholicism itself is.

Jesus himself says that he didn’t come to abolish the old laws, but to fulfill them.

The whole book is worthless.

Jesus came to fulfill the 10 Commandments and spread the word of God being a loving God; not the ritualistic laws of the early-Israelites.

I’d say the book has meaning, but the lens in which one applies when reading it matters. There’s the text as it’s written, there’s the perspectives of the respective authors, and then there is your own lens being three main ways of reading it.

I think the biggest issue is people that are Christians in name only that pick up a Bible and call themselves Christians without even knowing the teachings of Jesus. The types that think what you do on Earth doesn’t matter so long as you believe, so they go on to do near the exact opposite of Jesus. A short comic about this: Supply Side Jesus

If that god was really loving, then hell wouldn’t be a punishment for rejection.

I’m not convinced that any gods are real, but I’m convinced that the Bible god absolutely isn’t.

The mature-faith circles I hear say that it’s a state of mind that is the only place for one who disagrees with God to go, because God fills up that much space otherwise and it wouldn’t be fair for them to experience God when they have clearly stated that they don’t want to.