Yuku free message boards

I replied to your second post about God's apparent genocidal tendencies. In a nutshell, I argue that an all-powerful God should be able to come up with something better than killing his masterpiece (made in his own image). Humans arguably have the right to kill someone in self-defense, or possibly to prevent future killings when no other solution is humanly possible. Since God can do anything, and can harden or "soften" anyone's heart that he wants to, I can't find any justification for God killing anyone.

andygeers wrote:

---

Personally, I'd say it was neither the questions nor the answers, but the attitude. To say "God, I don't understand this - help me understand what's going on" is very different from "I'm repulsed by what I see here - I want nothing more to do with this god, but will continue to rant about him".

Believe me, for years I wondered about why God did things and didn't do things, both in the Bible and in the modern world. I used to pray to God all the time about the good and bad things that happened in my life, before I eventually realized that the good and bad things in the world and in the Bible made a lot more sense without a God. Until people stop doing things in God's name (such as killing or anointing the room where the Sotomayor confirmation hearings will occur) there will be a reason to rant about God.

andygeers wrote:

---

[I]t goes hand in hand with a trust in the consistency of God's character, and the expectation that he wouldn't suddenly tell you to do something arbitrary like rape five year olds (I'm presuming that was a random example, rather than something you think comes from the Bible?). Even Abraham rationalises based upon his knowledge of God's character - see Hebrews 11 for the description - and infers from his knowledge of the goodness of God that he must have had some plan to bring Isaac back from the dead.

Let's leave aside for the moment that God's character in the Old and New Testaments appears to be different. What in the Old Testament gives you "a trust in the consistency of God's character" as concerns the Old Testament? The only constant seems to be that God is very demanding and that you may be killed by him if you're an Israelite and do something bad (like try to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling), or if you're not of tribes of Israel and are still breathing when they come around. If these are not the constants, what are they?

Concerning your example of raping five-year-olds, what is God's plan or sign of his goodness when he lets Moses order the death of all the remaining male children and non-virgin girls in Numbers 31? I just finished rereading Numbers, so this example is fresh in my mind. It doesn't say God told Moses to do this, but it also doesn't say anywhere that God refused the 32 virgin girls offered to him (what did he do with them, by the way?), or that he punished Moses for ordering the unnecessary deaths of the boys and non-virgin women.

You seem to emphasize in your blog that the Old Testament makes for an interesting, exciting albeit "weird" story. Do you believe there's a point to this story? What are the "answers" you get from the violent actions of God in the Bible? It seems like you admit that the Old Testament is weird and violent, but that you believe it's okay because we just have to trust God knows what he's doing. What indication do we have of this?