Technically the entire "love thy neighbour" stuff seems to largely be based on the understanding that "thy neighbour" is a fellow Christian (or Hebrew, considering Christianity wasn't yet a thing when most of it supposedly happened).
The Old Testament alone is full of double standards about how you should treat your fellow tribespeople compared to what is allowable to be done to outsiders or enemies of the tribe.
If Christianity had consistently interpreted these rules as universal, there probably wouldn't be many Christians around.
This is similar to Islam's claim of being the "religion of peace": Islam certainly expects Muslims to treat fellow Muslims well, and actually goes to some lengths to make sure non-believers shouldn't be directly killed, but it has fairly strict rules about apostates and people trying to convert believers away from Muslim faith.
On a more serious note: while that is true, there are a lot of conflicting views on how those passages interact with the rest of the gospel. Especially considering that Jesus literally said he didn't want to abolish the old laws but then contradicted them. A lot of it can't be taken logically as absolute commands (otherwise the commands would conflict with each other) yet it isn't clear how contradictions should be resolved.
EDIT: Also Samaritans are generally considered Hebrews, even though their claims of origin were disputed by the "real Jews" at the time.
There are two distinct laws found in the Bible. One is the ceremonial law, which applied to the Israelites and revolved around the sacrificial system which pointed to and culminated in Jesus' death on the cross. After this event, the old, ceremonial law (animal sacrifice, circumcision, etc.) was no longer necessary, as the type had met antitype [0][1][2].
The second, everlasting law, which represents the character of God Himself, is the moral law, found in the 10 commandments. These were summarized when Jesus said to love God and love your neighbor[3].
So there was no contradiction in Jesus' words. He came not to abolish the law, meaning the moral law, but after His death, the purpose of the old ceremonial law was fulfilled, and thus was no longer necessary. The moral law, however, was and will be forever necessary, as evidenced by the writing of New Testament authors[4][5][6].
After the Jews rejection of Christ was complete, all people were granted invitation to join the figurative, spiritual Israel[7]. Not coincidentally, if you study it out further, you will find that almost everything found in the Old Testament in literal Israel, events which led up to the death of Christ on the cross, were a figurative type of what spiritual Israel would go through after Jesus' death and ascension into heaven.
This evidence also goes a great length in explaining away most other apparent contradictions Christians and others find in the Bible.
[0] Galatians 3:19
[1] Colossians 2:16,17
[2] Ephesians 2:15
[3] Matthew 22:36-40
[4] James 2:10-12
[5] Romans 7:12
[6] Revelation 11:19
[7] Galatians 3:29
Another thing Jesus said about the Old Testament law was that it was a lowered standard. "You have heard it said" not to murder, but Jesus said being angry (unjustly) is committing murder in your heart. In the same way, lust is like adultery.
And again, in conversation about divorce, the religious leaders of his day told Jesus that Moses allowed them to divorce, but Jesus said "Moses gave you this law because your hearts were hard".
So it's clear that in Jesus' eyes, the OT law was not the ultimate moral standard, which he said was summarized in "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength" and "love your neighbor as yourself". If we truly did those things, of course we'd not murder, etc.
It's a bit like rules for children. I tell my toddler not to pull his sister's leg, but I want him to someday mature to the point where he doesn't need that rule, because he loves her and wants what's best for her.
The OT law, with its low standards, was still too hard for humans to keep, pointing to the need for Jesus to fulfill it for us - and He fulfilled not just the low-standard law, but the true one.
Not to be a pedant, but what literally happened is someone, likely well after after Jesus' lifetime, claimed Jesus said this and that. No one actually knows what Jesus literally said.
Otherwise we'd have to get into an argument who "Jesus" even was (assuming we accept the majority interpretation of history that there was someone who at least vaguely matches the biblical character of Jesus of Nazareth -- specifics aside).
That's not really a counter argument, as what qualifies as "biblical account" was decided many hundred years after the historical events.
That said, I was really just making a witty remark. I have no reason to treat biblical accounts as factual (especially given the long and complex history of why biblical canon is what it is and the unreliability of narrators with questionable identities who weren't even alive at the time of the events they're describing).
The direct speech of Jesus in the bible is not necessary the literal word of Jesus of Nazareth the (possible) historical person, but under various interpretations of Christianity it is the literal word of Jesus Christ, the (fictional) character in the biblical narrative. The only difference is that Christians generally seem to think the biblical character is an exact description of the historical person -- for which there doesn't seem to be any reliable basis.
Similarities between Islam and Christianity are to be expected. Islam is an appendix (The Quran) to Christianity (The New Testament/Covenant), added about 700 AD. And both are appended to Judaism (the Old Testament/Covenant).
But if turns out that it's very very expensive to get from one star system to another, then that recursive payoff might be very close to zero.
Musk is talking about a "cargo route" to Mars starting 2018 so 100 million years is quite a while to do things. http://qz.com/705299/elon-musk-is-building-a-supply-chain-to...
It would take a very dictatorial sort of government to overcome this kind of negative incentive.
I am Christian as well, but I didn't think the article handled religion well. In Christianity, "God's chosen people" are the tribes of Israel, not Christians. In Christianity, the meaning of life is love, something you don't have to be a Christian to believe or understand, so you certainly wouldn't have to cling to Christianity to hang on to this meaning.
Buddhism is about relieving suffering. Something that you don't have to believe in Buddhism to understand. You don't have to cling to Buddhism to believe that your meaning in life is relieving the suffering of others.
Anyway, the paragraph about religion and meaning didn't ring true for me.