I don't know you though I am sure you are a great person, but I...

I don't know you though I am sure you are a great person, but I would love it if every christian actually critically analysed their beliefs against what is observable, repeatable and more importantly probable.

And, at the end of it all, accepted the inevitable results of that analysis, and moved on with their life. Having recently moved to Beijing it is almost liberating to be in a country where religion plays such a small role in everyday life as to be almost non existent, and that having come from a Muslim central asian nation after 3 years.

people love to quote religious texts as a form of evidence of some divine truth and I would be happy to accepts that as academic testimony if those same people treated the bible as a single document and didn't just pick or choose which bits to interpret. So you either accept all of the bible, or none of it, not just selectively pick pieces you think support your case.

let me give you some examples of things in the bible you might not like but by accepting christianity, you accept:

Judges 11:29-40 - If you give me victory over the Ammonites, I will give to the lord the first thing coming out of my house to greet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering." He then proceeds to sacrifice and burn his daughter. nice eh?

Deuteronomy 13:13-19 (if a town doesn't believe in god then...) put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the lord your God.

"However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46)

so god apparently wants you to own slaves?

further:

If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her. Deuteronomy 22:28-29

so first you get to rape her, then she has to marry her rapist?


so my point is this. Don't be selective about the stuff you sprout from the bible, if one thing it says is true, and it is, as you claim, the word of some supernatural hyper being, then it all must be true.

so do we need to be saved? yes from vengeful, slave condoning, rapist supporting, imaginary beings.