I view all my articles as one, so they hang together and build on each other. This article is one piece of the puzzle. It addresses a specific problem which is the mystery of the obnoxiousness of many conservative Western Christians. I don't rest my case with just one article. If you want more detailed and substantive ones, try the links below. (For a list of them all, see the last link.)
Even if you can interpret the first chapter of Romans as including quotations, it wouldn't affect my argument, would it? As it's handed down to us, in its present form, it looks like Paul's view, and that has obviously rubbed off on many Christians for the worse.
Romans 2:1 is presumably directed towards his readers at the time. Paul is saying they, too, are subject to original sin, to a depraved mind and so forth. Otherwise, what would be the need for Jesus's sacrifice if all the sin in the world had been concentrated in that earlier generation? Just as that generation didn't escape God's judgment, neither would Paul's present one.
Is that supposed to alleviate the obnoxiousness? Paul is saying we're all wicked in one way or another and deserve to be punished by God. That comes to a head in the obnoxiousness of double predestination in Romans 9. Paul's theology makes nonsense of Christian morality by turning God into a monster that doesn't deserve to be worshiped and that isn't subject to the exoteric personifications (to the comparison of the creator to a loving father and wise judge).
Everywhere you turn in Paul you find a grotesque hash. The Gnostics made better sense out of it, but they didn't prevail because the essence of Christianity isn't politically useful.
http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2013/02/map-of-rants.html
