Many Christians reject the practical application of The New Testament and prefer the Old one. For instance Christ's stand against the orthodox Judaism at the Temple where he upset the money changer's tables. He certainly would have objected to today's greedy capitalists. He advocated forgiveness of one's enemy when most people would rather bash them. Revenge is mine etc...........It hardly ever works out that way. The villains just get away with it. Pampering criminals in prison is another mute point.
I learned the gospels were written later than Paul's letters. I believe so. The western countries and their overall culture and laws have been greatly influenced by the values and principles of the old testament and gospels, according to some writers nowadays. My paraphrase. I agree. They say every person living today is actually affected directly and indirectly by this same whole framework. I agree. Elimination of slaves practice and providing education to females were two outstanding examples that were initiated by progressive Christians. I think they were/are truly remarkable.
I would say a lot of problems still around today are due to culture and laws being influenced by Christian values. Indeed many Christians used the Bible to defend the institution of slavery. Many still very much use it today to marginalize and discriminate against others. Equality, inclusiveness and progress usually occur despite Christian values, not because of them. Christian values like Islamic values and pretty much any other religious values can be used in part to present a benign appearance, but on the whole offer up an ugly picture. Old Testament is a classic manual for hate bigotry and malevolence matched only by Mein Kampf. It's empathy first, not Christian values, which brings good into the world. There is no good thing that cannot be achieved without religion.
For most western countries, there were a long period of time they were ruled by kings implementing theocratic system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy. The kings and his spiritual guider followed the Christian bible. Many times even the spiritual guider who had better knowledge and wits was the actual ruler, rather than the king, especially youth king who has no time to study the bible which contains a number of conflicting information for people to make diverse and confusing decisions differently, without clear answers. That's why the king needs to consult the spiritual guider for answers on various subjects/issues, and this guider sometimes also the kings teacher since he was a boy. That's why the guider was often the real king. ... It's a long time tradition in various cultures. Even nowadays, The king's words were laws in a theocratic system. Rather than based on science, logic, rationality, statistics, and/ or human nature/behaviour. Many of the modern democratic countries were also having a long period of time defining laws based on the same bible, which then became the source of arguments and settlements. When most the laws makers in these democratic countries were wealthy Christians with powers and owning lands, the laws were based on so-called Christian principles and values according to the 'knowledgeable' Christians in order to protect the wealth, lands, principles, values. etc. The laws defined in that way by those makers were actually unfair laws in today's standards where seeking equality, liberty and inclusiveness. That's why almost every country they need to have a committee for updating their old laws that are still applicable and effective nowadays. Too many are pending to be updated.
After reading that " When religions have a "holy book," it is used as a direct message from God. Law proclaimed by the ruler is also considered a divine revelation, and hence the law of God. As to the Prophet Muhammad ruling, "The first thirteen of the Prophet's twenty-three year career went on totally apolitical and non-violent. This attitude partly changed only after he had to flee from Mecca to Medina. ..." from the above link, I searched for its source then found the following relevant page. Looks quite informative to me, as I have been thinking to learn a bit about this topic. Also:
If there really is a God then people ask why the heck is he doing allowing the Hitlers and Stalins of this world. The evasive answer has to be on the lines that He lets humans work out their own destiny. My answer is that the theory of God plays a useful part in human life but is man made. Has anyone been able to prove Gods existence ? NO Ditto with ET etc. People seem to need more than just facts.
There are two schools of definition of God that I understand. One is man-making God, as the Stoics would think. But we don't fully understand the man-making process yet. Maybe one day our scientists can find out more details about the man-making process. The Stoics also call this God other names including Nature, Universe, Reason, Logos, Nature Law, etc. - All in one! The Stoicism has a whole set of ethics based on law of nature according to human nature and behaviour. Everyone is an individual and equal. One of the leading Stoic in his era was once a slave. Another one was an emperor. Most people don't like this God concept because their teacher always tells them to be an independent thinker, just like the Real Jesus. (my paraphrase) Too hard! Eternity is nothing more than what a man would contribute to humankind while on earth. Another is man-made God, as many man-made religions would think. They individually define their God as what they want/like the God to be. And they would like to do many things in the name of God. Most often they don't really like science, whenever any science is against their theory/theology according to their old-time history. Some of the extremists believing they can kill others in the name of this God concept, because sometimes they can even hear clearly what their God tells them what to do. Many people prefer this God concept because they just follow what their teacher tells them to do. Fairly simple! Besides, believers are promised to have eternal life in heaven! LOL
The Stoicism God, AFAIK, is a Scientific God that is based on evidence and statistics, therefore this Scientific God is observable in our daily life, with a universal spirit of Nature that exists orderly and systemically in everything and all things of that each is equally part of God, especially living plants and living animals including humans such as the Real Jesus, who was/is also part of God. Who also had/has shared the same God spirit with all others/things alive, humans, animals and plants. Furthermore, this Scientific God in Stoicism is about not only ethics, but also physics and logic. These three streams are not completely isolated nor unrelated. To certain degree, they relate to and support each other among them. A bit amazing, if not unrealistic. Stoics are not only independent thinkers, but also systems thinkers. That's what I know. LOL
Based on evidence and statistics, science hence is developed/deployed/used as a tool to understand/know/investigate systematically and methodically more and more about God. Most likely a never finishing process. Logically, there would be no absolute timeline defined for how soon, how much, how fast, and how far humans should develop advanced and more advanced science by utilising unlimited resources. Therefore, a bit slowing down of science advancement and weaponry research and development may be a good thing if the resources could be alternatively allocated for helping more humans for better well-being. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_race