Well, God wouldn't ask someone to unalive you. No matter what because that's not His character as a loving and gracious God. Morals come from religion like the 10 commandments for a basic example but God holds Christians (and everyone else whether they choose to believe or not) to be accountable to their sin. So for an atheist to have morals is based off of their own sense of right and wrong, or having been taught that by someone else....either way can be skewed. But a Christian's sense of morals come directly from a perfect being there's no getting around that. I say all this with respect, not as anything like a personal attack against you or anyone else, just answering your question there.
@Pikachu There's a lot of points you brought up, so my answer may look like a book. So, I'll address each point that brought up.
1st. The will of God, Yahweh, and His plans for all of us are not known to a degree. We know what's going to happen, because every denomination has the book of Revelations. But for every individual out there? No. No idea because my story and their story is still being played out.
When it comes to unique interpretations of different denominations under the Christian umbrella, and not even knowing the fundamental difference of each of them and say that it's God's Will that's different...is ignorance. For instance, the Jehovah Witnesses believe in Jesus and God. The difference is, they think Jesus was an archangel. Then you have Catholics that worship every person in the Bible and believe good acts get you into heaven. None of which challenges the will of God, but the issue is that they ignored scripture that was pretty black and white and addressed those things. You also have some denominations that were formed because of historical events like the Church of England forming in defiance to the Catholic Church, which was a good thing because I'm not Catholic nor do I support the Catholic Church anyway...(My reasons will be stated when I address the next point).
Abraham was told by God to kill his only son. Did he kill him? NO! Why? Because God then told him not to!!!! This was a test of faith that if Abraham loved God enough to sacrifice his only son like what God was going to do for US IN RETURN! And I'm not sure where you're getting Israelites being told to massacre everyone. If you actually read the Bible, you'd know they've been attacked several times by other groups of ancient people of that time over a 40 year period before settling into what is now Israel.
I'm surprised you didn't bring up the Crusades to back your point about God commanding people to kill people, but glad you didn't because the Catholic Church started the crusades to gain power/wealth. They wanted to be a governing body since the beginning. Hell, they were the ones that started the Dark Ages too. So no, that church is very flawed and away from God and brings me to the point that having discernment and aligning these things with what God has said in the Bible helps weed out some of the delulu denominations...even a history class helps with that as well.
But if nothing else...why would God be a hypocrite? You said he commands us to kill when he LITERALLY WROTE THE 10 COMMANDMENTS IN STONE TABLET AND GAVE IT TO MOSES. ONE OF THE COMMANDMENTS IS NOT TO COMMIT MURDER. Make that make sense.
Hell, I'll go ahead and nip this at the bud too because I was taken back by this. When you read about King Solomon and that he had to go kill a handful of people that served under King David or were family members or part of the King's advisors, ect... David commanded Solomon to do so, God allowed it. Why? Because these people committed TREASON against the King. So it wasn't cold blooded murder as it was punishment. Solomon didn't even carry out the act either, it was his number 2 that would be the equivalent of a General now days. Military Guy. Doing military things.
@Pikachu But I have a question for you that claims to be Atheist. You're debating with me under the pretense that God is real and being a blood thirsty God, and you're also angry at him because of it. If you even believe in your idea there is no God, there wouldn't be a debate because there's nothing to argue about over something that you believe doesn't exist! Nobody argues over the Greek Gods or Scandinavian Gods or Pagan Gods, why? When they've outright in their legends and such have abused, sexually transgressed, killed humans and even went to war over and with humans. Why don't atheist refute that? It's easy! Because it's not anymore real to me as it is to you...but when it comes to Jesus? God of Abraham and king of kings? That's a different story. All points brought up are under idea that it's real and has happened so there's a small pea size of belief, but because the rest of you is in disagreement, you're the one in torn up over it. Not me. So what's your beef?
No, you think you know what's going to happen. That's why Christians have been convinced they see the signs of the end times and know what's going to happen since the days of Jesus. Y'all disagree on just what the word of god is actually saying and so it would be arrogant and ignorant to suppose that you truly understand the word of god. You cannot therefor claim, when there is so much disagreement, that your morals are those dictated by god.
And I'm not sure where you're getting Israelites being told to massacre everyone
I'm not sure then that you've read the Bible. It's not a one-off occurrence, even.
Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"
-1 Samuel 15
Don't spare anyone, not even the infants or animals.
Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. -Numbers 31:17-18
So kill everyone except the girls you want to keep as sex slaves.
God commands his followers to kill other people. Even infants. This you cannot contest.
You're debating with me under the pretense that God is real and being a blood thirsty God, and you're also angry at him because of it. If you even believe in your idea there is no God, there wouldn't be a debate because there's nothing to argue about over something that you believe doesn't exist! Nobody argues over the Greek Gods
Yes, we are discussing in fiction the character of the god of the bible. Although the actual question ( and i hope we start discussing it soon) is the relative moral high ground of secular morality vs morality devised from what one imagines a god wants. I'm not angry at god any more than i am angry at Jaffar from Aladdin. He's not a good character but he's not real and so i bear him no animosity. So why would i criticize this imaginary figure? Why do we criticize the god of Abraham but not Zeus? Obvious: Because no one in our society is trying to apply morality that they believe is set down by Zeus. No one in our society is attempting to legislate on the basis of what they believe Zeus commands. To make it simple: Christianity is the the dominant faith in the countries that many of us have been raised. Ain't no one these days believes Zeus fathered a demigod by shapeshifting and boning a woman. Lots of folks believe Yahweh impregnated a teenage virgin and then performed a blood sacrifice before raising from the dead. You get me?
Abraham was told by God to kill his only son. Did he kill him? NO! Why?
Irrelevant. God ordered Abraham to kill his child and Abraham was prepared to do so until the very last moment. My question is would you do as Abraham did if god were to command you to do so?
@Pikachu yes, I would because you missed the point of that scenario. God commanded Abraham to kill his only son, the son he cherished because his other children were all daughters, and waited to see that Abraham would obey. God obviously didn't want to see his own creation killed so put a stop to it. This allowed God to honor Abraham who honored God by obeying and offering something he cherish more than anything as a sacrifice, thus came the covenant between God and Abraham which TO THIS DAY still stands.
See? You take a lot of scripture out of context and don't know the meaning of it, then throw it back at me like what Satan did to Jesus in the desert and add a bunch of crap to it that is nowhere stated in the Bible as the purpose of such scripture. If anyone really wanted to know the truth, read the text before and after so you understand the context and culture.
The Amalekites you mentioned assaulted the Jews that were escaping Egypt during the 40 year period. They are arch-rivals of the soon to be Israelites. So this was WAR, as well as keeping to the promise God made with the Jews, not some unjust murder spree and securing sex slaves by which wasn't even mentioned in the Bible...
As far as what's going to happen, so far some major events in the book of Revelations have already played out. Israel becoming its own nation after WW2, Euphrates drying up (this was even more recent), the twisted up society we live in is just getting worse day by day, ect... So, it's not what I think that'll happen but it's actually prophecy being played out in Revelations. Noticed Revelations being a book of the Bible, not a different denomination. Therefore, if each denomination has Revelations then we would be in agreement to what happens in that prophecy.
