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[Fear the Reaper]

Is the Biblical God Fit for Worship?

You'll often hear people argue back and forth over whether the God of the Bible exists. I think an equally valid question is this: even if the God of the Bible does exist, is he fit for worship? Here are some of the numerous moral objections I have to the character of God as found in the Bible:

* The same God that says "thou shalt not kill" committed acts of excessive violence against the Egyptians, the Caananites, the Midianites, and many other groups -- millions of people were murdered at God's command during the exodus, the conquest of Caanan, and its aftermath.
* The same God that says "thou shalt not steal" led the Israelites, his chosen people, in a bloody conquest to steal the land of other nations away from them.
* The same God of whom the psalmist David later wrote, "His mercy endureth forever" instructed the children of Israel to "show no mercy" to the inhabitants of the Promised Land. He commanded them to kill everything that breathes, including women, children, infants, and animals.
* The same God who says we should forgive others will refuse to forgive others at the Great Judgment. It doesn't matter how kind and sweet and loving and selfless you were on this earth. According to a majority of believers, if you don't believe in their God, you'll spend eternity suffering unimaginable anguish in the flames of Hell. There are around 4,300 religions out there, but if you don't accept the right one, simply on faith -- too bad, no forgiveness for you.
* The same God who tells us that we should treat others the way we want to be treated also punishes the innocent for the actions of the guilty:
* God strikes down the firstborn of Egypt after God hardened pharaoh's heart so that pharaoh would refuse to release Israel from Egyptian bondage.
* King David committed adultery with a woman named Bathsheba (and I would contend that he raped her, although that's a separate discussion). In any event, he then murdered her husband Uriah so that he could cover up the fact that he impregnated her. So God punished David by killing his newborn son (2 Sam. 12).
* David took a census to size up his army (a census that God may or may not have himself authorized depending on which of the contradictory accounts you read - 2 Sam. 24 or 1 Chron. 21). As punishment, God killed 70,000 people with pestilence.
God said numerous times that he visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children even to the third and fourth generation (Ex. 20:5, Ex. 34:7, Num. 14:18, Deut. 5:9).

These are just a few examples. There are many, many more.

The nature of the God described in the Bible is both contradictory and oftentimes, ruthless. So in conclusion, even if there were evidence that the God of the Bible exists, why would anyone willingly worship him?

[jimwalton]

You've given so many examples the forum can't handle adequate answers. If you want real answers, and not soundbites, we can't deal with so many misunderstandings all at once. I'll answer briefly, but you have to understand that the answers aren't complete. There isn't room for complete answers.

> The same God that says "thou shalt not kill" committed acts of excessive violence against the Egyptians, the Caananites, the Midianites, and many other groups -- millions of people were murdered at God's command during the exodus, the conquest of Caanan, and its aftermath.

You have a serious misunderstanding of these events. They have been discussed many times on this forum. I could refer you back to those discussions, or we can have them again on a separate forum (no room here for everything). Suffice it to say, God did not commit excessive acts of violence against these people groups, as you have falsely accused.

- His acts of judgment against the Egyptians were aimed at their perverse and deceitful religious system. All of the plagues were to break down their religious lies, even the final one. Much longer explanation is warranted.
- The alleged "genocide" against the Canaanites and Midianites is a misunderstanding. No population groups were wiped out, nor were children being slaughtered. It was warfare rhetoric not actuality, for one, and second, the intent was to do away with the Canaanites' identity as a people group, not to kill them off. Much longer explanation is warranted.
> The same God that says "thou shalt not steal" led the Israelites, his chosen people, in a bloody conquest to steal the land of other nations away from them.

The ONLY land that Israel was to take was Canaan, which was given to the Israelites and promised to them. According to the Bible, the Canaanites were the squatters. The Israelites went to war to recover what was theirs. Other than Canaan, the Israelites were never authorized to engage in offensive battle, and there was never any effort to expand their country into other lands.

> The same God of whom the psalmist David later wrote, "His mercy endureth forever" instructed the children of Israel to "show no mercy" to the inhabitants of the Promised Land. He commanded them to kill everything that breathes, including women, children, infants, and animals.

Same conversation as the false "genocide" accusation. The "kill 'em all" was warfare rhetoric, not meant to be taken literally. Secondly, the term often translated as "kill 'em all" is herem, which has been found to more accurately mean, "remove from human use" rather than "kill 'em all." Many "herem" items had nothing to do with death and destruction. The Israelites only destroyed 3 cities in the Conquest: Jericho, Ai, and Hazor. Much longer explanation is warranted.

> he same God who says we should forgive others will refuse to forgive others at the Great Judgment.

Forgiveness is conditioned by repentance. You have your whole life to repent. You can repent even now. Don't wait another day. If you refuse, don't blame God for your decision. Any judge worth his salt knows how to vindicate the innocent and pronounce verdict on the unrepentant. If a judge forgave all crime, he wouldn't be much of a judge, and crime would become the norm. That's no way to run a kingdom.

> God strikes down the firstborn of Egypt after God hardened pharaoh's heart so that pharaoh would refuse to release Israel from Egyptian bondage.

- Pharaoh hardened his own heart. A much longer explanation is warranted.
- The Egyptians had slaughtered the Israelite children. Retributional justice is fair.
- God's actions against the sons of the people is a strike against their religious lies. A much longer conversation is warranted.

> King David committed adultery ... So God punished David by killing his newborn son (2 Sam. 12).

- In the ancient Near East, including Israelite culture, there was no distinction between natural and supernatural. Their perception was that God or the gods were involved in every detail of life. Thus anything that happened was considered to be an act of God. It's not surprise they word it this way. Any death was "God killed him." Any life was "God spared him." The Lord closed wombs; the Lord opened wombs. Everything was perceived as an act of God. It is very active language that shouldn't be taken in a modern sense. At the same time, the author's point is that David is being judged by God for his sin. If you look at the whole story of David, you'll discover that David loses 4 children as a result of what he did. One son murders another. One son is executed by David's general. This son dies of some kind of disease.
- In our modern way of thinking (whether it's more accurate or not is impossible to say), we would not word it this way or understand it this way. We would say the child died a natural death, and that David was cut to the heart with grief, and that was his judgment. But since they saw no distinction between natural and supernatural, they expressed it differently. That's not to claim that the child would have lived anyway. The child may have been born very sickly and was so unhealthy he was going to die. That's how we would say it. The way they said that was "The Lord struck the child and he became ill."
- It was perceived, along with the eventual deaths (by completely different and unrelated means) of 3 more of David's sons, as David's punishment for his adultery with Bathsheba. That's what makes it justice. The text is concerned to show us that David is paying for his sin with his family (his offspring, and therefore "eye for eye" for adultery) going to ruin and his heart being filled with unquenchable grief.

> David took a census ... God killed 70,000 people with pestilence.

God knew there was compromise, idolatry, and ungodliness in the nation, and inciting David to take a census was a mechanism to bring out the truth of that, and how corrupt the people were. Given that the case was established, judgment was pronounced and the punishment executed. A much longer discussion is warranted.

It’s just like Jesus saying to the woman at the well, “Go get your husband,” knowing full well she didn’t have one. The suggestion of the action reveals the truth of the sin.

> God said numerous times that he visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children even to the third and fourth generation (Ex. 20:5, Ex. 34:7, Num. 14:18, Deut. 5:9).

If you study the text, you'll see that this is more descriptive than prescriptive. Sons tend to be like their fathers, and fathers train their sons to be like them. Sin in the family can last for generations. God isn't punishing people for what was not their infraction. A much longer discussion is warranted.

> The nature of the God described in the Bible is both contradictory and oftentimes, ruthless.

Your misunderstandings are deep and severe. A much longer discussion is warranted.

> So in conclusion, even if there were evidence that the God of the Bible exists, why would anyone willingly worship him?

Because you have misunderstood just about everything about Him. We can talk more, as you wish.

[Epsilon]

> Pharaoh hardened his own heart. A much longer explanation is warranted.

No he didn't. On at least one occasion, the pharaoh was going to give in to your god's demands, before your god actively intervened to prevent him. I have yet to see any longer conversation even remotely justify that.

> The Egyptians had slaughtered the Israelite children. Retributional justice is fair.

No, it isn't, particularly when the retribution falls on someone who did not commit the crime. This is vengeance and injustice, nothing else.

> God's actions against the sons of the people is a strike against their religious lies. A much longer conversation is warranted.

That doesn't even make sense and still runs into the problem of punishing people who were not guilty for the ... actually, "religious lies" isn't even a crime, so it's just punishing others for the sake of causing suffering.

[jimwalton]

> "Pharaoh hardened his own heart. A much longer explanation is warranted." No he didn't. On at least one occasion, the pharaoh was going to give in to your god's demands, before your god actively intervened to prevent him. I have yet to see any longer conversation even remotely justify that.

Pharaoh hardened his own heart before God says anything about it, showing that when God "hardened Pharaoh's heart," he wasn't doing anything actively but merely letting Pharaoh pursue the course Pharaoh had already decided to pursue.

Pharaoh reveals a hard heart from the starting line towards the people of Israel (Ex. 1.11-22). Pharaoh also shows a hard heart towards God in Ex. 5.2. Exodus 7.13 says Pharaoh's heart became hard and he would not listen to them. Exodus 7.14 says Pharaoh's heart was unyielding. Exodus 7.22 says Pharaoh's heart became hard. Exodus 8.15 says Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Pharaoh is said to have hardened his own heart in 8.32. And THEN we read that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. God hasn't done anything actively like interfered with his free will, but rather has left Pharaoh to harden his own heart. By the time in 9.12 it says for the first time "The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart," Pharaoh was resolved already to pursue the course he had freely chosen. God gave him over to it (as in Romans 1.18-32: when people exercise their free will in rebellion against God, he doesn't stop them but lets them do it. He doesn't interfere with their free will.) God is not forcing Pharaoh to be rebellious, Pharaoh has already decided that on his own. God isn't actively forcing Pharaoh to do anything against his will, but rather just affirming what Pharaoh has decided on his own. God "hardened" hearts that are already hard. They made their choices, God brought elements into their lives that should have turned them around but only cemented them further in their positions. It is only in that sense that God hardened hearts.

To me an example is like a parent whose teenager is making a terrible decision, and the parent fights with them for a while and threatens them, knowing that the decision is going to train wreck the situation and be hurtful of them. But eventually the parent has to back off, because of the resistance, and say, "Go ahead, but don't say I didn't warn you." The teen, with their even more hardened heart (hardened more by the parents' attempts to change them), goes and does it, the situation train wrecks, and people are hurt.

There are other parts of the "hardening" that people don't realize.

1. The Egyptians believed, as we do, that judgment took place in the afterlife. The Book of the Dead speaks of a scene in which the heart of the deceased is weighed on a scale to determine if it is heavier than a feather, representing the Egyptians' conception of right and wrong. If it is not (meaning, if the heart is light), the deceased is granted great favor. If it is heavy, they will be consumed. The biblical expressions about a "hard" or "strong" heart are actually about a heavy heart. Each time his heart is hard, it grows heavier, meaning he, the Pharaoh, becomes more guilty. At time, YHWH is said to make Pharaoh’s heart hard, which means not that God is making Pharaoh obstinate, but that YHWH is judging the Pharaoh as guilty, even though ancient Egyptians believed their king could do no wrong.

2. "Heavy-hearted" is also an Egyptian expression meaning that he has great self-control and is able to refrain from speaking rashly. Our expression for it would be "level-headed;" theirs was "hard hearted" (much like our "stout-hearted"). It's as if God is giving him over to his disposition and choices (Cf. Rom. 1.18-32). YHWH is giving the king exactly what he wants, and that which is prized in Egyptian culture. In this case, the Pharaoh leads his people into disaster.

There are evidences for either of these interpretations also. So we have any number of directions to go with "God hardened Pharaoh's heart," but the one that is definitely wrong is the way most people read it—that God is forcing Pharaoh to do things the king doesn't want to do, and then God blames Pharaoh for what God made him do in the first place!

> No, it isn't, particularly when the retribution falls on someone who did not commit the crime. This is vengeance and injustice, nothing else.

It seems you have not read the text. You'll notice in Exodus 1.22 that Pharaoh ordered all the Egyptians to murder male Israelite children. The nation was complicit in the crimes ordered by Pharaoh. It's like Democrats pronouncing judgment on all Republicans because of DJT, that they're all white-supremacist, xenophobic, homophobic, racist implorables, just because they're Republican and people hate DJT.

> That doesn't even make sense and still runs into the problem of punishing people who were not guilty for the ... actually, "religious lies" isn't even a crime, so it's just punishing others for the sake of causing suffering.

Let's suppose you knew the truth about science, but the people in power in the country were teaching everyone that the earth was flat, that the moon was made of cheese, that the earth was the center of the solar system, that animals are there just for us to slaughter for fun, that anyone who was handicapped should be killed, and a hundred other things. First, would you actively work, protest, and rebel against those lies? Of course you would. No one puts up with that kind of lying to our children and to people who don't know any better.

But let's up the ante. Suppose the people in power were teaching that all Democrats and liberals were a danger to society and should be killed. Would you just sit around calmly and submit to that? Of course not.

Now let's up the ante again. Suppose you knew, hypothetically speaking, that the lies being taught were so insidious and dangerous that they were creating violence, destruction, corrupting people's thinking, and basically ruining the country. Would you think the perpetrators of these horrors were worthy of punishment? I would.

Now, let's assume for a moment that God actually exists, the YHWH is the only and true God, and that there is eternal consequence for missing the truth about him. I would consider religious lies some of the most dangerous and horrific crime possible. Even things like murder and rape, as horribly wrong as they are, would pale in comparison to people's eternity. That is the perspective of the Bible.

[Goo goo]

> It's like Democrats pronouncing judgment on all Republicans because of DJT, that they're all white-supremacist, xenophobic, homophobic, racist implorables, just because they're Republican and people hate DJT.

And you think that's just and fair, like retribution visited on children?

> Even things like murder and rape, as horribly wrong as they are, would pale in comparison to people's eternity. That is the perspective of the Bible.

This is exactly why magical beliefs are so dangerous. A heretic is considered more threatening than a child rapist.

[jimwalton]

> And you think that's just and fair, like retribution visited on children?

All right, so maybe my illustration was not the best choice. My true point was that the nation as a whole was guilty. The Egyptians as a people group were guilty of murdering children. They had "all," generally speaking, participated in the murder of Israelite children, and so they all bore the guilt of their actions.

> This is exactly why magical beliefs are so dangerous.

I agree that magical beliefs are dangerous. That's why we as Christians don't subscribe to magical beliefs.

> A heretic is considered more threatening than a child rapist.

in the grand scheme of things, we all struggle to create a hierarchy of wrong. The courts struggle with this all the time, which is possibly why we have so many categories of "murder": murder (first degree, second degree), homicide (intentional, unintentional, justifiable), manslaughter (voluntary, involuntary, constructive, vehicular), self-defense, mental incapacity, and war. Sometimes trying to compare values and crimes is like comparing apples with cars with computers (which is more valuable).

A child rapist is pretty much the worst thing we can think of on our scale of horrific crimes. There is no more depraved and demented an abomination. Unless, of course, we consider the spiritual parts of life and spiritual realities, which I might be able to assume you think are all fairy tales and magical beliefs, which is why you can so easily consider them to be worthless. But for those of us who know that they aren't worthless fairy tales and magic stories, there is more at play in the "crime" hierarchy than just the horrors of this life.

[Goo goo]

> All right, so maybe my illustration was not the best choice
So it's not just and fair to judge all Republicans for DJT? But it is just and fair to punish children for the actions of their community?

Do you think the children of Nazis should have been punished at the Nuremberg trials like their parents were?

> we as Christians don't subscribe to magical beliefs

heh

> an abomination. Unless, of course, we consider the spiritual parts of life and spiritual realities

Yes, I understand why Christians might consider heresy a greater crime than child rape. Magical beliefs about "spiritual realities".

[jimwalton]

> So it's not just and fair to judge all Republicans for DJT?

Of course not. Some Republicans voted for him because they thought Hillary was a criminal, not because they liked Trump. Some Republicans still think he's a big jerk with no filter on his mouth who says stupid and dangerous things.

> But it is just and fair to punish children for the actions of their community?

In the ancient worldview, "the community" was the locus of all things. It was an honor-and-shame world. If one individual shamed the community, they were all shamed. If one individual committed a crime, they were all guilty. It was the mindset of the ancients. The children were just as much a part of the community as anyone else. There was no individualism in the ancient world. If they were guilty, they were all guilty; if they were blessed, they were all blessed. It's a completely different way of looking at things from our modern mindset. In the ancient world they wouldn't have blinked twice if the children were punished for the actions of the community—of COURSE they would be! (That was their mindset and expectation, in any case.) They would have perceived it as perfectly fair because the children in the community were the offspring, and therefore the budding flowers.

Of course you and I see things differently. We grew up in a 21st-c. mentality that sees us all as individuals. Community has very little to do with anything in our worldview.

You're probably talking about the 10th plague in Egypt. The plagues were directed at the religious system of Egypt, a showdown between YHWH and their panoply of deities. For instance, the 9th plague was a plague of darkness. The Egyptians worshiped the sun god (Ra or Re), and so the plague of darkness showed their god to be powerless against YHWH. The other eight plagues were continuances of this same showdown between the false deities of Egypt and YHWH. Regarding the 10th plague, the pharaoh was considered to be a god on earth, and when he died, it was believed that he became Osiris, the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead, as well as the god of resurrection and life. He was considered to be the grantor of all life.

After having rebuffed YHWH nine times, and having been on the losing end all nine times, Pharaoh is still stubborn against the request of Moses (and the command of God) to free the people. The ultimate challenge, which was a challenge to Pharaoh's person, his kingship, and his "divinity," was a showdown about life and death, over which the pharaohs were believed to have ultimate control. The way to break the king, since the contest between every other divine notion of Egypt didn’t bring about the freedom of his people, was on the pivotal and supreme issue of life and death.

In Deuteronomy 13.12-17, in a passage about worshiping other gods, God says that if wicked people have led a town astray with idolatry, everyone in the town must be killed—its people and its livestock. We think, "But there must have been some in the town who were innocent? Weren’t there any babies? There must have been some decent people in the town. At least the animals had nothing to do with the sin!" This perspective misses the impact of influence in a community and the true nature of leadership. As go the leaders, so go the followers. Sin is easily and rabidly contagious, and attitudes and values play themselves through an entire community. It true that collective punishment affects them all, because as being part of the collective community, they are part of the mentality and value system of the whole.

We also need to understand that all Egypt was complicit—guilty—of infanticide of the Israelites. The king had given an order to the whole population to kill Israelite children (Exodus 1.22). In Exodus 1.9-14, all Egypt treated the Israelites cruelly and oppressed them harshly (look at Exodus 4.22, where God says that Israel is his firstborn son). God's judgment on the children of Egypt was simply an eye for an eye—let the punishment fit the crime—no more, no less.
While a superficial impression might be that it was Pharaoh who sinned and not the Egyptian people, the people were not innocent bystanders. The Egyptians were part of the enslavement of the Israelites. Don’t they share responsibility for the persecution of them? We indict the German people, and even the German church, for standing passive while Hitler exterminated Jews in WWII. Isn’t failure to do what is right a sin?

Regardless of how you evaluate the use of nuclear weapons at the end of WWII, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was designed to send a message to the Japanese government that assassination of their emperor and prime minister would not have accomplished. The judgments of YHWH (again, characteristic of all 10 plagues) had to affect the whole nation or they wouldn’t mean anything. The only way to speak to the deception and fallacies of their mythologies and the national nature of their murderous sin was to act in a way that included the entire nation. Because the king and the nation had demonstrated their cruelty, we understand the fairness of the sentence.

In their mindset, a strike at the children was not a strike against innocents (as it seems to us in our modern mentality), but a strike against the core perceptions of the community (the firstborn were the family priests) and the depravity of their religious system (Pharaoh as the giver of life to babies).

> heh... magical beliefs.

Mock all you want. We believe in free speech in this country. I would say you haven't sincerely tried to interact honestly with the text of the Bible. So why did you enter this conversation?