Your reply was lengthy, given the simple question, but I don't think you hit to the heart of what I asked, and so my question still stands. What about Christianity exclusively and necessarily means "turning your back on honesty, bravery, or empathy?"
You claim that, for you, fear would be the only- or at least chief- reason to follow the Bible. Is not fear the predominant reason for many to follow any other moral paradigm? Read Hobbes. Read John Locke. Is not the fear of returning to that "nasty, brutish, and short" state called "nature" the very reason why Man makes social contracts and erects the State to begin with? I will never entertain the notion that our country is founded on anything less than the Judeo-Christian paradigm; but even if founded on any other principle, it is that same fear which would drive it's founding- fear of death, fear of destruction, and fear of losing an overarching sense of well-being.
It seems you use "courage, honesty, and most of all, compassion" loosely, picking and choosing as you will. Needless to say the OT and NT are complete opposites, in terms of which God-figure is used as the chief schema. I' 'd like consistency. Are you using these descriptives to mean the people mentioned in the Bible? The belief of the divinity surrounding those people, including Christ himself? The people following the Christological paradigm in Biblical times or in all the ages subsequent to the Bible's inception? Paul, certainly my favorite Apostle, was an end-of-days believer. He believed there were no slaves or free men, but had no qualms with owning slaves, for the mere reason Christ was coming again in the immediate future. If you take it to mean these descriptives pertain to modern-times followers of Christ, then I need only point to every major human rights movement to show the contrary. All white men, and subsequently blacks and women were given various modern freedoms within the context of this country and others because of the Christian movements that were there at the time, so clarification is needed on what and who these sets of adjectives of yours pertain to.
