How do you defend the old testament law and criticise people who practise it?

Ooo, ooo, teacher, teacher <raises hand with arm fully extended with added extra height gained from leaning opposite from chosen hand>..let me answer this one!!!

Examining the first paragraph, ONE is capitalized, so I will limit this scope of answer to address just one part as if I were taking to a Protestant follower knowing only what is gleamed from occasional attendance to a organized church and accepted by the local community.

Examining the second paragraph, ....”If”.... ya, this is what I call premature ejacuthibkjng. <snicker, snicker for the intensional misspell>

My parable to help explain:
• the Old Testament is like a Owners manual to this car you now own. In this manual you will learn many things to keep you safe. There are 10 highlighted rules that you spotted as being important to follow.
1) keep arms and legs inside the vehicle while moving
2) don’t rubber neck....you can get the idea.

What’s interesting about this OldCar is that it drives itself and the operator doesn’t need to make choices about destination. All that’s needed is how to work the car operationally.

Part 2 of the parable:
• a fascinating event took place where ONE person, Jesus, followed all these rules as given in the owners manual, but introduced 4-wheel driving, #baby !! Woot woot...look at him go off the the beaten trail... “Hey, you can’t do that!” yelled the Pharisees and Sadducees, “that’s Sabbath land...and we can only go on that land if you give 30 hail-marry-juju-beads for every shadow cast.”..bla-bla-bla.
• so Jesus said hey, just love the land like the trail & don’t forget to engage the 4-wheel driving, else you’ll get stuck in the misinformation.

=====

Okay, now to explain what I just help confuse the shit out of myself.
• the Old Testament Laws are like the car manual and it’s good to know how to get about using the knobs and switch’s and when not to stick your arm and leg out the window. But if this is where you stop, and let the vehicle, that being the church or some organization, make decisions as to where you need to go without your input for the final destination you thought you were heading, then you are “sheeple”.
• the New Testament has one Golden Rule, and with this knowledge, you will be held accountable for your 4-wheel thinking, not just your actions, but the choices of thought process merged with the old laws you already knew before to put your hands on the steering wheel of life.

Errt. My apologizes, but I help explain much better than just using scripture to point out the obvious. I’m needed elsewhere ...so my time for this reply has been cut

The old laws point out the sinful nature of man. The new law points you to the perfect driver already at the finish line; keep your eyes on Him, hands on the wheel & foot on the gas...this way you will not need to memorize those laws to keep hands and feet inside while moving...the hands and feet are already doing the work.
Brake for sin. ( just because you brake for the possum in the road don’t mean you need to get out of the car and play with it. Is that how you enjoy sin/possum?
Gas pedal for Jesus.

Most liberal influence into any religion is focused on things like textual criticism where they apply processes they believe are inherently better than the authors of the original texts (autographs).

Once they've done this they tend to historicize the supernatural events. All tools are applied to the text and any known related texts, along with the history and archaeology/anthropology.

Then actual, supernatural events like

Genesis 19:24

Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens.

Become asteroid or meteor showers. Everything is aimed at explaining the supernatural account by science thus making the
Bible a man written account of history.

Revelation 2:9
Revelation 3:9