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[Newbie]

God kills, punishes and tortures people for not obeying and worshiping him sufficiently or the "right" way, same reasons as Voldemort.

God claims this right for himself and his focus is on his needs, not on humanities needs. Many of his most important laws are about how to properly worship him and ensure you do not offend his ego. He is jealous and demanding.

He has his minions, his followers who he tolerates to a certain degree but he can be pretty cruel to them too. They worship him out of fear. They claim to love him because they are afraid of him.

What makes you think he is the hero? If you heard the Bible stories without being told who was the hero, without what you have been taught, would you still identify the god of the bible as the hero of those stories or would you see him as the villain?

[jimwalton]

Wow, hard to know where to start with this one. First of all, we can drop the literary comparison, because it's not your point. Your point is that God is as immoral as a being could get.

I 'm confident that it's fair to say you've read about 7 sentences in the Bible, taken them out of context, distorted them, assumed the worst, ignored the rest of what the Bible says, and come to conclusions without looking past any superficialities.

Maybe some discussable specifics rather than fierce generalities would lead to more dialogue or debate.

> What makes you think he is the hero?

Hm. Let me try a few.

Gen. 1: A God of ultimate power creates a beautiful and functional world characterized by purpose and order, and creates beings in his image, invests them with authority, and establishes a relationship with them

All through the Bible: hundreds, if not thousands, of references to God being a God of love, grace, and forgiveness.

All through the Bible: a God who is both transcendent and immanent, holy but involved, whose primary interest is to redeem his people who have been kidnapped away from him by sin.

Rev. 22: A God of ultimate power restores a beautiful and functional world charactered by purpose and order, and takes the beings in his image, invests them with life, and and affirms a loving relationship with them.

Those are starters. There are a couple of hundred more. We can talk more as you wish.

[Fly on a Wall]

Your confidence is enormously misplaced.

You are absolutely wrong about what I have read in the Bible. I was raised in a conservative Christian bubble (a child of missionaries) and not only had to read the Bible, but I also had to memorize vast swaths of it.

I also had the "privilege" of listening to Wycliff Bible translators struggle with Bible translation. They struggled to make the Bible actually match what they claimed it taught.

But really, your argument is that the god described in the OT is a kindly, loving old man? Did you skip the flood? That single story tells us a lot about his murderous true self.

You said, "Gen. 1: A God of ultimate power creates a beautiful and functional world characterized by purpose and order, and creates beings in his image, invests them with authority, and establishes a relationship with them."

You neglect to mention that he claims to create them (his minions), sets them up for failure, punishes them for desiring knowledge and for being vulnerable to trickery and then punishes all their descendants for this "sin".

He is jealous, petty and demands they worship him. He is clearly much more concerned with how they worship him than the well-being of his creation.

Yes, the god of the Bible does frequently proclaim himself loving and great, but his acts speak louder than his words.
He tortures Job for no reason other than to prove a point to the devil. He commits genocide, endorses rape and murder, (in his name) and makes many laws just about how to properly worship him.

But here, others have written more eloquently than I:
http://listverse.com/2012/06/23/top-10- ... the-bible/
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=21
http://www.evilbible.com/

[jimwalton]

Thank you for the reply. Now we have something to dialogue about. I don't know who taught you, but you have some pretty serious misunderstandings that I would be glad to discuss with you.

> Did you skip the flood?

The flood story, similar to other Bible stories, is one of righteousness. From the very start we have a contrast of depravity vs. righteousness (6.5-8). The point is not “Is God murderous?” but will his righteousness do what is demanded of righteousness, or will he cave? Miroslav Volf said, “I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn’t God love? Shouldn’t divine love be beyond wrath? God is love, and God loves every person and every creature. That’s exactly why God is wrathful against some of them. My last resistance to the idea of God’s wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3 million were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in 100 days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandfatherly fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators’ basic goodness? Wasn’t God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.”

> You neglect to mention that he claims to create them (his minions), sets them up for failure

You have a serious misunderstanding of the Garden of Eden story. I'm surprised that as an MK you didn't get better training. In Gn. 2.17, there is nothing here that even begins to suggest that God was setting them up for failure. They had a reasonable ability to decide. From the onset man had the power to decide for himself. In the image of God he was created with free will, with every expectation that he would use it. What was being offered by the tree was whether he would use his free will to be self-oriented, or use his free will to be God-oriented—whether he would find his moral ground in self or in the character of God. In order to be what he was created to be, humankind must continue to orient himself to the unwavering reference point rather than to an undependable one (himself). Much like sailing across the ocean, a sailor has a choice to orient to the stars or, say, to the clouds.

The choice presented by the tree is not "Are you going to be a person who thinks for himself, or an empty-headed slave of God", but rather "Are you going to act as if you made yourself and you know how best to govern yourself, or are you going to act as if God made you and you refer to him as the one who knows you and loves you."

Since "the knowledge of good and evil" is a judicial idiom, humankind was being presented with a choice to judge the legitimacy of God's claim upon him as his creator and moral ground. To decide against that was to cut his ties to God and stand alone as his own Master of the Universe. There is absolutely nothing in this story that was a set up or trickery.

>He is jealous, petty and demands they worship him

Wow. Recognition of proper authority is anything but jealous, petty, and demanding. When your parents required obedience, were they being jealous, petty, and demanding? What about teachers, administrators, law-enforcement people, employers? When you have a job, you do what the boss says. There's a job to be done, and legitimate authority is an important part of that. And yet God is jealous, petty, and demanding when he asks it of us? I think maybe you're seeing things askew.

> He tortures Job for no reason other than to prove a point to the devil...

Wow. You have a serious misunderstanding of Job. Job is not a historical person, but theological wisdom literature on the subject of the retribution principle. The book of Job is a legal trial of God. Our questions about suffering ultimately lead to God: "Blame God! He's murderous, petty, jealous, and demanding. He cares more about himself than us! He commits genocide!" The book of Job is God on trial. It's not historical. It's not about a cruel bet. Seriously, we need to talk. You've been mis-educated, and now you hate God on the basis of misinformation. Let's talk, please.

> Genocide.

Sigh. SERIOUS misunderstanding. No genocide ever took place, nor was it ever commanded. Ancient Near Eastern war bravado and warfare idioms. You just have to look even 2" below the surface and do a smidge of research. Please, let's talk. You've been misguided.

I looked at your links. You've been fed a delusion and swallowed it whole, and now you hate the One you don't understand. Can we talk?

[BCRE8TVE]

"Your point is that God is as immoral as a being could get."

Not necessarily maximally immoral, just far from the ideal of omnibenevolent, is all.

"I 'm confident that it's fair to say you've read about 7 sentences in the Bible, taken them out of context, distorted them, assumed the worst, ignored the rest of what the Bible says, and come to conclusions without looking past any superficialities."

There are quite a few chapters in the bible devoted to the Israelites either getting horifically killed by YWHW for not having obeyed him (including the one time they invaded a city and contrary to YWHW's orders didn't kill everything and everyone in sight) and chapters devoted to how YWHW ordered the israelites to murder everyone in other cities. When you get to the NT, you get a rather consistent message about how worthy people get to heaven and nasty people get burned in hell. You can interpret that metaphorically, but I would think that would be going rather against the grain of the text.

"A God of ultimate power creates a beautiful and functional world characterized by purpose and order, and creates beings in his image, invests them with authority, and establishes a relationship with them"

And then curses them and their children to suffer and die, to scrape the earth for their food, for their women to suffer and die in childbirth, and to punish all their children indefinitely for the crimes of the parents. Don't forget that he also then drowned the vast majority of those descendents. Why should I obey God's suggestions for my children, when he drowned his own?

"All through the Bible: hundreds, if not thousands, of references to God being a God of love, grace, and forgiveness."

And in the OT, just about as many references to a fearsome God whom we must fear and worship, the saviour of Israel and the punisher of all other religions.

"All through the Bible: a God who is both transcendent and immanent, holy but involved, whose primary interest is to redeem his people who have been kidnapped away from him by sin."

Honestly, I'm not even sure what this means.

"Rev. 22: A God of ultimate power restores a beautiful and functional world charactered by purpose and order, and takes the beings in his image, invests them with life, and and affirms a loving relationship with them."

That's the book describing where the Beast will come forth and end the world, with sinners cast into a lake of fire right?

[jimwalton]

> just far from the ideal of omnibenevolent, is all

It depends if you are defining omnibenevolent against all sense of justice ("I'll be everyone's teddy bear and grandpa no matter how evil you are, how many people you slaughter, and how much immorality you commit") or within a sense of justice, where goodness is a function of righteousness, and justice really punishes evil and rewards good.

This carries through to how God treats all people, whether Israelite, Canaanite, or otherwise. I think we would quickly lose all respect for a god who turned a blind eye to wickedness, abuse, oppression and evil. We all have a built-in sense of justice, that some things simply should not be, and anyone with a brain in their head and a conscience would DO something about it. And yet when God calls evil evil, calls people on it, and enacts consequences, we accuse HIM of being evil. We recognize the proper forum and use of both retributive and distributive justice, but then we fault God for using them. It seems, if I may say, a bit hypocritical to me that we rise up with OUR sense of justice to call God unjust for exercising HIS sense of justice.

> And then curses them and their children to suffer and die...

That was a decision the people made. God had warned them, "The day you eat this, you will be doomed to death." And they went ahead with it, and then we fault God for following through. When children have parents who don't follow through, we think the parents are weak, inconsistent, and lacking the authority it takes to be a good parent. Again, I sense an inconsistency in you.

> many references to a fearsome God whom we must fear and worship, the saviour of Israel and the punisher of all other religions.

A good parent rewards and disciplines, benefits and punishes. So also God. Have you read "Lord of the Flies"? A society without boundaries falls quickly into depravity. A real God is not all squishy love or horrid punishment, but abounding love and appropriate punishment.

> Honestly, I'm not even sure what this means.

God is transcendent, above all possibility of sin or evil, but he is immanent, and wants to have a personal relationship with us. Despite being "high," he is also "present." He is holy (untainted by evil, so he can be trusted to be just), but that doesn't mean he is aloof from us. His primary interest is not to maltreat but to redeem.

> That's the book describing where the Beast will come forth and end the world, with sinners cast into a lake of fire right?

That's right. We're back to a sense of justice. Suppose an army walked into your country, started slaughtering people, raping women, butchering children, burning and looting, and then a hero stepped in to make it right. Would you want your hero to ignore all the war crimes, or to bring those responsibility to justice? If you vote for justice, welcome to the book of Revelation. The Beast comes forth, but God judges the Beast. Sinners are forgiven if they repent, but those who don't reap the consequences.

[This Is My Login]

"Gen. 1: A God of ultimate power creates a beautiful and functional world characterized by purpose and order"

Does this "purpose and order" include the shifting tectonic plates that cause violent earthquakes? Magma buildups that lead to volcanic eruptions that wiped out entire cities in ancient times? Freak weather events that would wipe out crops causing famine, disease, etc?

[jimwalton]

Usually when a natural cataclysm happens (earthquake, volcano, tornado, hurricane, etc.), people are very quick to ask why God is so cruel. But do such natural disasters have any benefits?

According to Dr. David Rogsta , one of the benefits from earthquakes, for instance, is "that Earth maintains the right levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to compensate for the Sun’s increasing luminosity. This is accomplished by what is called the carbonate-silicate cycle. CO2 is removed from the atmosphere through weathering. The weathered products are eventually drawn into the Earth’s interior via plate tectonics. Processes inside the Earth’s interior release the CO2 back into the atmosphere via volcanoes. While all aspects of this mechanism are not yet fully understood, it has been instrumental in providing a stable environment for life on the Earth for billions of years."

As far as volcanoes, volcanic gases are the source of all the water (and most of the atmosphere) that we have today. The process of adding to the water and atmosphere is pretty slow, but if it hadn’t been going on for the past 4.5 billion years or so we’d be pretty miserable. Volcanoes also cool the earth by removing heat from the interior. They are also a source of geothermal energy and nutrient-rich soil. They suffocate poisonous gasses and release beneficial gases such as hydrogen and CO2.

Maybe, then, we need to understand that our earth is a "living" planet, and without these "tragedies," life as we know it could not exist. We need to approach our experiences with a sense of balanced understanding. These temporarily cataclysmic events also have beneficial long-term effects that make life possible on the planet. So I'll stick by what I said: A God of ultimate power creates a beautiful and functional world characterized by purpose and order.

[BcRE8TVE]

> A murderer need only repent to be forgiven.

And the only one who can forgive is the victim. Even with forgiveness, a punishment ought to be carried out, or else anyone could falsely claim they repent to avoid the consequences of their actions.

> Because justice has been served and the punishment already meted out.

How so?

> The scapegoat logic is not moral if the man who takes on the penalty is unwilling, but a man who takes the penalty willingly and on the basis of his love for the guilty one is one of the pinnacles of morality.

It is moral to want to do take the punishment of others, but one cannot take the guilt from the perpetrator, and only the victim can forgive them of their crimes. Justice cannot also be served if the perpetrators receive no punishment whatsoever.

> He did NOT call a genocide on the Canaanites.

You're right, I was mistaken, it was the Amalekites God ordered a genocide on, and when the Israelites did not kill absolutely all of them, for example the old or the virgins, God punished the Israelites also.

> Read some of the rest of the thread for LONG explanations. And as far as the israelites being God's chosen people, you'll notice in the Bible that when the Israelites turned evil, God judged them too. God didn't play favorites; he was just.

If you read pro-Nazi literature, I'm sure you'll find plenty justification for why they thought what they were doing was right, and plenty of demonization of their enemies. Why should I take what is said about Canaanites and Amalekites at face value as reasons for killing them all? Why should I think the Amalekites were really evil?

> People used their free will to do what they wanted, which included all kinds of evil.

Free will is not an excuse for evil, because there is evil and suffering without free will. Unless you think the Fall ushered suffering throughout the entire planet for all animals, there is evil that does not depend at all on human free will. A good example of which would be the needless natural catastrophes God could have stopped, but did nothing to prevent.

> Do you think I never went to school???

Honestly, when having discussions on these matters I really can't assume how much a person knows about what we discovered in nature. Some are more educated than me, and some are creationists. I'm just saying, from my perspective morality seems to be the result of social animals living together, and has little to do with God.

> No babies were ever exterminated. Who TAUGHT you this stuff?

1 Samuel 15:3 "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"

Then there are all the babies who no doubt died when God unleashed the 10 plagues on Egypt, as well as all the babies God drowned in the Flood.

> Maybe we need to examine God's sense of justice, since you seem to have a rather superficial view of it.

Sure.

> It's awfully difficult for you to tell me with certainty what Adam & Eve knew and what they didn't. I think you're extrapolated a little bit here.

Nobody has been able to give me a straight answer about what eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil did to Adam and Eve. Some take a more straightforward interpretation, and some interpret eating the fruit as the Neolithic revolution. Really, I think the only reason we don't all agree that this is entirely a made-up myth is that some religious people just can't accept that.

> The flood wasn't global. It was large, but not universal. It wiped out the wicked.

That's kind of like saying the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki only wiped out the wicked, isn't it?

> The 10 plagues of Egypt were addressed at the religious system of the Egyptian peoples. They confronted the lies of their false religion.

And they supposedly killed at the very least hundreds.

> Hell isn't fire. The Bible talks about it as punishment to fit the crime, appropriate to the infraction.

There are about two dozen verses in the NT likening punishment in the afterlife to fire, and about half of them saying that the fire is eternal. You can disregard them if you want, but if you do I have no idea on what you base the assertion that the punishment fits the crime.

> Seriously? Let's talk. I hardly know where to go with an aspersion like this.

It's a crime against Kim Il Sung to praise anything other than the NK regiment. It's a crime against God to praise anything other than Him. It's a crime in NK to do things that are not approved of by the NK regiment. It's a crime in the eyes of God to do things he doesn't approve of. Both 'states' if you will have thought crimes, both have absolute and total authority and control over your life, and both will punish you for not following their rules. At least you can die to escape from North Korea, but you can't with God.

> The same way we know anything about YHWH. He revealed Himself to us this way in the Bible.

You know God is holy because he said so?

> The person who hasn't done the research into the culture isn’t going to pick up on the fact that this stereotypical ancient Near Eastern language actually describes attacks on military forts or garrisons, not general populations that included women and children.

Really? Specific commands to kill men, women, children, infants, and even donkeys, is used to describe attacks on military outposts?

> It's illegitimate to do a surface reading of these verses and assume God's immorality.

It's similarly illegitimate to presuppose that the Israelites never did any of those things, when it is explicitly written that they did in the Bible, and to try, like William Lane Craig, to portray that ethnic cleansing as moral. Honestly, unless you presuppose that the Israelites were chosen by God and had all the rights, they were no different from any of the other warring tribes killing each other off at that time.

> Any German who surrendered was not shot. The war ended, and some of them even moved to America! I've met some of them. What's so unjust about that?

I'm sure we'll agree that it's myth to maintain that the allies behaved perfectly well, and that there weren't any soldiers who disregarded the surrender of German troops or tortured them. What I am talking about in the case of God, is that you either join him in heaven, or face punishment in hell. There is no third option. It's like saying to the German soldiers that they must join the US army after they surrender, or they will be tortured. It's not leaving them a third option, and that is no justice at all.

[jimwalton]

This is getting too huge to handle in a single post. I'll try, but some of the topics will be dealt with more superficially than is warranted.

> forgiveness

The forgiveness that God offers can be called "judicial forgiveness." While personal forgiveness can only be offered by the victim, judicial forgiveness can only be given by someone who has the right to judge and sentence others. God's forgiveness completely removes the guilt of sin and replaces it with his righteousness. It's a judicial act of imputation, not a personal one. God's forgiveness also requires justice: someone has to pay, even if it is a substitute. While this may not please some who want vindictive retribution, it's a legal option to fulfill justice. This may address, although briefly, your first three questions.

> The Amalekites

The command didn't mean "genocidal obliteration". In 1 Sam. 15, you'll notice that after the "genocidal obliteration," the Amalekites are still around (1 Sam. 27.8; 30.17-18). They were even still around 250 years later (1 Chr. 4.43). These writers are using the bravado warfare language and rhetoric of their day. Let me give you some examples (from a book by Paul Copan):

- Egypt’s Tuthmosis III (later 15th c.) boasted that “the numerous army of Mitanni was overthrown within the hour, annihilated totally, like those (now) not existent.” In fact, Mitanni’s forces lived on to fight in the 15th and 14th centuries BC.
- Hittite king Mursilli II (who ruled from 1322-1295 BC) recorded making “Mt. Asharpaya empty (of humanity)” and the “mountains of Tarikarimu empty (of humanity).”
- The “Bulletin” of Ramses II tells of Egypt’s less-than-spectacular victories in Syria (1274 BC). Nevertheless, he announces that he slow “the entire force” of the Hittites, indeed “all the chiefs of all the countries,” disregarding the “millions of foreigners,” which he considered “chaff.”
- In the Merneptah Stele (ca. 1230 BC), Rameses II’s son Merneptah announced, “Israel is wasted, his seed is not,” another premature declaration.
- Moab’s king Mesha (840/830 BC) bragged that the Northern Kingdom of “Israel has utterly perished for always,” which was over a century premature. The Assyrians devastated Israel in 722 BC.
- The Assyrian ruler Sennacherib (701-681 BC) used similar hyperbole: “The soldiers of Hirimme, dangerous enemies, I cut down with the sword; and not one escaped.”

The average person isn't going to pick up on this if you don't know ancient Near Eastern culture. These writers were using the normal warfare language of the day to assert "total victory," not genocide and annihilation. In Josh. 11.21-22, Joshua says he "utterly destroyed" Anakim, but then he gives Caleb permission to drive out the Anakites (Josh. 14.12-15). Was Joshua a liar or just stupid? Neither. He was speaking in a language that everyone in his day and culture would understand. When they say, "utterly destroy," they mean victory, not annihilation. He did not call for genocide on the Amalekites or on any people or ethnic group.

> Free will is not an excuse for evil, because there is evil and suffering without free will.

If there is evil without free will, it cannot be labeled "evil." It is then mere stimulus and response, or determinism and consequence. But it's not evil. There is no such thing without choice.

> babies who died in the 10 plagues and the flood

Certainly you understand how the socialization process works. Certainly you've seen the news from Africa about children being taught to murder and pillage. Certainly you've seen documentaries about the neo-Nazi culture that teaches even infants about hate and violence. Certainly you must realize, then, that a nation (or sub-group of people) steeped in hatred and violence, and that is systemically corrupt and morally bankrupt requires action to even the lowest levels.

> Hell isn't fire.

- Mt. 8.12 and Jude 13 speak of hell as darkness. If it's only fire, and fire brings light, darkness isn't a possible option.
- Lk. 13.27-28; 2 Thes. 1.7-9 speaks of hell as separation from God, and as a place of grief, but fire is not mentioned.
- Mt. 24.51 mentions punishment, but not fire.
- 2 Thes. 1.7-9; Rev. 20.14 say it's a place of death and destruction.

Why do we see so many references to fire then?
- It's a symbol of God's judgment.
- Fire is a stellar symbol of destruction
- Fire is an adequate metaphor for torment
- It's a timeless image. Everyone everywhere will always know what fire is.

> I have no idea on what you base the assertion that the punishment fits the crime.

Mt. 11.22-24 – “more tolerable”
Mt. 23.14 – “greater condemnation”
Rev. 20.13 – “each in proportion to his works”
Lk. 10.12 – “it will be more bearable for Sodom than for that town”
Lk. 12.47-48 – beaten with few blows or more blows

> North Korea

OK, now I at least understand the parallel you're making. The problem with the analogy is that in one case the potentate is a child with delusions of grandeur; in the other case, the potentate is a beneficent ruler who rules with love, justice, and mercy.

> What I am talking about in the case of God, is that you either join him in heaven, or face punishment in hell.

No analogy is perfect, but let me try to get close. Suppose you lived in north Japan, and it's March 10, 2011. Let's also suppose, for the sake of the analogy, that you somehow "know" that an immense tsunami is going to inundate the region in 24 hours. I'm talking to my friend, and I say, "A tsunami is coming tomorrow. You only have two choices: come with me, NOW, and we'll live, or stay here and die." And my friend says, "You're so narrow to say I only have two choices. Why can't we just (fill in the blank)." But I know the magnitude of this thing, and so I say, "There are only two choices: follow me, or die." Am I being outrageous? God knows the magnitude of life and death, and there are only two choices: align with Life and live, or refuse life and don't live. That doesn't make God narrow, or cruel, or stupid, but PLEADING. Just because there isn't a third choice doesn't mean there is "no justice at all."