Do you think if your first exposure to god was reading the old testament that you would love and praise god? [Spirituality & Religion]

@AngieB
Yes we deserve what’s coming to us if we reject such a free gift from God as Jesus taking our sins and paying our fine! God bless you for witnessing! 🌷

@AngieB

I agree that the isrealites fucked up again and again in hilarious fashion.

But you'll have to do a lot to convince me that hundreds and thousands of babies [i]deserved[/i] to be killed or that in a given city every man, woman, child and animal [i]deserved[/i] to be killed.

Sorry, but indiscriminate mass slaughter is certainly heinous shit in my book whether the perpetrator feels wronged or not.

@Pikachu Yeah, I really can't understand killing the animals. It's a total waste, let alone out of all proportion.

@Bushranger

I've heard the rational that the people were having sex with them. It's the same rational that apparently killing ALL the children is good and just on the basis that the people sacrificed SOME of their children...

Honestly that just sounds like propaganda to me though:

"The enemy is evil! They do these vile things and we are right to destroy them!"

The rallying cry of war hawks for millennia.

@Pikachu Must have been very cute animals, lol. But is this another case of victim blaming?

@Bushranger

lol definitely

@Pikachu Don't forget 2 Kings 3:19. Let's kill those sinful trees as well!

@canusernamebemyusername Immorality with trees, WTF? And that 2 Kings verse is out there too.

@canusernamebemyusername OK, that's hilarious.

@Bushranger @LeopoldBloom Can't tell if it is just a meme or it was a real cover. And that is the sad part. Lol

@canusernamebemyusername At least the Druids admitted that they worshipped trees, lol.

@Pikachu

[quote]But you'll have to do a lot to convince me that hundreds and thousands of babies deserved to be killed or that in a given city every man, woman, child and animal deserved to be killed.

Sorry, but indiscriminate mass slaughter is certainly heinous shit in my book whether the perpetrator feels wronged or not.[/quote]

How many people are massacred a year through abortion? Is that better or worse because it's more targeted and less indiscriminate?

(Btw if we want a debate about abortion let's have a different thread though or this one will get off-track lol)



God doesn't operate on a human level, which is why we have such a hard time relating to Him, and why by our standards (of the 21st century...not of when the Bible was being written!) God seems to overreact to such minor things as being inhospitable to guests and trying to r*pe angels (the real sin of Sodom, as it happens: though insofar as angels have a sex, I think they're male). The hard time we have (and the ancient Hebrews had!) relating to God is also of course why Jesus turned up),

@AngieB

[quote]How many people are massacred a year through abortion? Is that better or worse because it's more targeted and less indiscriminate?[/quote]

Obviously i don't concede the point that abortion is in any way similar but even if i did, how would that possibly excuse god's slaughter of women and children?
No red herrings, please.

[quote]God doesn't operate on a human level[/quote]

Yes, that's the standard excuse offered for god. His ways are not our ways.
Unfortunately this does little to mitigate the horrifying crimes perpetrated by and at the order of the god of the bible.
By any recognizable standard of morality, including the one god lays out in exodus, this is not excusable behaviour.

@Pikachu The point (appears to be) missed though, in sweeping aside 'God doesn't operate on a human level' - they are horrifying crimes [b]by our particular standards[/b], but, presumably, not by God's. You speak of recognisable standards of morality, but appear not to recognise any other than your own.

What we often learn (thanks to the influence of the beautifully poetic but inconsistently-accurate King James Version of the Bible) as 'Thou shalt not kill', is in the original Hebrew לֹא תִּרְצָח - "no murder".

The Old Testament sees (as do societies today) a distinction between the killing of innocents, and killing in consequence of a crime (which is related to the idea of killing being more easily justified, even if not desirable, if it is done in self-defence). The idea continues into the New Testament: one of those crucified with Jesus was (apparently) a murderer, and reportedly sees a difference between his own (justified) death, and Jesus's death which as Jesus is innocent, is unjustified.

(This infinite sacrifice of his innocent Son is, of course, at the heart of our salvation; but again perhaps a matter for a different thread).

If God is incapable of evil, then by definition something God does however perplexing and awful we find it to be, cannot be evil. Presumably no one is going to argue that, assuming God exists, He isn't capable of any good at all.

But, if God can do good, but does (seeming) evil too, then why do we find Him so fickle, performing miracles in saving people one minute and raining down brimstones the next?

The answer must be that God in the OT, with all his smiting, drowning, burning etc, is doing justice - by His standards rather than ours. If you read verses other than the ones about plagues and lightning strikes, it becomes apparent that God's "criminal" action comes only in response to a human offence.

By the standard of morality which by implication God recognises, it is entirely excusable and justifiable. The fact that some of us today do not like God's standard of morality is our problem, and not God's.

But lest we forget, God sacrificed Himself as well, to break this cycle of death altogether.

@AngieB

[quote] but, presumably, not by God's[/quote]

Yeah dude, that's special pleading. It's a logical fallacy wherein you seek to give special exception to something without sufficient reason.
In this case, you attempt to excuse horrifying behaviour with nothing more than the justification of "god's ways are not our ways".

This is unconvincing as a moral argument.

[quote], but appear not to recognise any other than your own.[/quote]

I don't think you really meant that.
By your standard of morality, would it be wrong to go to your enemy's country and kill not only his soldiers but the old and the sick and the women and the babies and maybe their pets and livestock for good measure?

Of course.
I think anyone who isn't a psychopath would hold that same standard.

[quote]"no murder"[/quote]

Yup. And i'm pretty sure killing a baby or hundreds of babies or thousands of babies would count as murder, yes?

[quote]If God is incapable of evil,[/quote]

I reject your premise.
There is zero justification for this conclusion beyond that it is baldly asserted in apparent contradiction to god's "documented" actions.

[quote]The answer must be that God in the OT, with all his smiting, drowning, burning etc, is doing justice [/quote]

Again, i reject your premise. You have offered no justification for why his bouts of mercy and murder must be considered the application of justice.

[quote]it becomes apparent that God's "criminal" action comes only in response to a human offence.[/quote]

Sure. And an abusive husband only beats his wife when she offends him.


[quote]But lest we forget, God sacrificed Himself as well, to break this cycle of death altogether.
[/quote]

Lest we forget, god sacrificed his weekend.

@AngieB Yes I agree with what you said! God is just to kill the guilty, and we are all guilty! So it’s a gracious God to save even one person! This is spiritual truth! However, when Jesus became the slaughtered lamb to forgive our sins he did not abolish sin in the world and that still has consequences! The world is still cursed because of our sins and God sends plagues, fires, and terrors to us as signs of his soon return and judgements!