One of the longstanding quarrels I've had with many Christians is that they take the Bible literally. And if one reads many of the passages in the Bible literally, the God as described and some of his requests of his people are profoundly cruel and violent.
[I'll preface this with I am an ex-Catholic who was raised as a Catholic only to fall away from the Church over a period of time through study of the bible as well as some of the positions the Pope had and the positions the Church has with regard to homosexuality, birth control, condom use etc.]
I like many Christians/Catholics, was raised and in going to Church was read the passages of the bible pre-selected for the service or the homily message. These passages were always about a loving and forgiving God, both plucked out of the Old and New Testaments very selectively. As an adult however, I picked this book up with a more educated and critical eye. I read about Gods instructions for mass murders. I read about God's instructions to murder one's own children. I read about God's murder of people of committing completely victim-less and many times harmless crimes.
I find it very confusing that any rational person could believe such a book is moral. A loving God for example doesn't instruct his 'servant' to murder his child just as a test of faith for goodness sake.
OK, that being said, I'm interested to hear how many of you resolve this dilemma and believe that the God as depicted in the bible is a loving God. If one reads the entirety of his actions against many innocent people, you'd think he's a mass murderer.
Some examples: [I can come up with much more, but who has the time to post them all.}
The famous Sodom and Gomorrah destruction. However a rational person/God wouldn't destroy an entire city to stop a few rape gangs and what he considered to be immoral behavior. This would be akin to the United States dropping a nuclear weapon on Baghdad during the war to stop Saddam Hussein and a few of his followers. I find this cruel. How do Christians justify the killing by God of the innocents (e.g. Children) in this story?
Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah--from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities--and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Once again God murders innocent children to punish ADULTS. No rational and moral person would command or do such an act. If God had murdered the first born child of every Southern Plantation owners first born pre-civil war, I doubt the South would be a rapidly Christian as it is today.
At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.
The book of Leviticus is filled with rules and regulations, in fact too many to discuss in the original thread. Therefore, I'm going to post the most bizarre in my opinion. The one below would have us believe that once again 'The Lord' Kills someone for committing the victim-less act of lighting a fire when instructed not to. :roll:
Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.
Leviticus 20:9 God says you must kill your children for 'cursing' at them. I imagine that if we followed such a rule today, in every household in America would be a parent in jail for murder.
If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death.
Numbers 14:29-33. You'll note tha because people were complaining, God killed them and/or made them suffer. Once again, applied today the entire state of FL would be a waste land of complaining retirees.
In this desert your bodies will fall--every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you--your bodies will fall in this desert. Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert.
Numbers 14:36. Don't be a bearer of bad news or God will kill you. Yet another victimless crime. In this case, I'd be hard pressed to even call it a crime.
So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it-- these men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the LORD.
Numbers 18:2. Another victimless crime, approching the alter and you must die.
Bring your fellow Levites from your ancestral tribe to join you and assist you when you and your sons minister before the Tent of the Testimony. They are to be responsible to you and are to perform all the duties of the Tent, but they must not go near the furnishings of the sanctuary or the altar, or both they and you will die.
Deuteronomy 7:1-5 They didn't even bother to invent a victimless crime for which this is the punishment. Their only crime is that these people currently occupy the lands promised to Israel is apparently crime enough.
I suppose the State of Israel still practices a watered down version of the below today!
When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations--the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you-- and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.
Deuteronomy 13:12-15 Entire towns destroyed for exploring other religions. If this is the punishment BTW for doing such, why aren't Christains advocating the fire-bomging of Salt Lake City Utah?
If you hear it said about one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you to live in that wicked men have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods you have not known), then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. Destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock.
Joshua 10:11-14: First God helps the Isrelites murder their enemies. But the kicker with this is the sun stopped in the sky. Please tell me you don't really believe such a thing happened?
As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the LORD hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites. On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: "O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon."
So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!
1 Samuel 5:6-12 God inflicts people with "tumours" for the victimless crime of living in whatever city the Philistines are using to store the Ark of the Covenant. As usual, women and children are not spared.
The LORD's hand was heavy upon the people of Ashdod and its vicinity; he brought devastation upon them and afflicted them with tumors. When the men of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, "The ark of the god of Israel must not stay here with us, because his hand is heavy upon us and upon Dagon our god." So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and asked them, "What shall we do with the ark of the god of Israel?" They answered, "Have the ark of the god of Israel moved to Gath."
So they moved the ark of the God of Israel. But after they had moved it, the LORD's hand was against that city, throwing it into a great panic. He afflicted the people of the city, both young and old, with an outbreak of tumors. So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. As the ark of God was entering Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, "They have brought the ark of the god of Israel around to us to kill us and our people." So they called together all the rulers of the Philistines and said, "Send the ark of the god of Israel away; let it go back to its own place, or it will kill us and our people." For death had filled the city with panic; God's hand was very heavy upon it. Those who did not die were afflicted with tumors, and the outcry of the city went up to heaven.
Isaiah 9:19-20 Eat their own children? How horrible.
By the wrath of the LORD Almighty the land will be scorched and the people will be fuel for the fire; no one will spare his brother. On the right they will devour, but still be hungry; on the left they will eat, but not be satisfied. Each will feed on the flesh of his own offspring.
The 'bible' has been described by many filled with 'morality' These are but a few of what is a book full of wierd and contradictory instructions. I find the God described in the bible to be NOT loving whatsoever by any modern conventional standards.
It should be noted that I've discussed this at length with my Catholic parents. They take
none of this literally They tell me to toss this all aside as nothing more or less than the conventional wisdom of 2000 years ago and flawed writings/misintrepretations of God's instructions. That's a nice apologist view and I'm glad it works for them. However many take this stuff literally.
AND I for one cannot possibly understand how you could?