Is God A Moral Monster?

Here is a quote from a leading New Age Atheist.

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Due to confusion from other threads on this very issue. I will in detail speak on this issue.

Most Christians believe the Bible to be the Word of God. To be true. And God to have certain characteristics like all loving but also all just. This is the typical belief. And for the time being I will assume we do not need to go into Biblical evidence or on how we can know the Bible to be true. I will start with that conclusion that the Bible is 100% true.

So with this in mind it is intellectually honest for people to question scriptures that deal with the killing of woman, children, God causing miscarriages, or a raped woman is forced to marry the rapist, or even slavery is brought up by critics. Now remember we say the Bible is true and the Word of God.

I will list 1 example of each.

1 Samuel 15:2-3, 8 New International Version (NIV)

2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.
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.’”
8 He took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword.

Numbers 5:21-22 New International Version (NIV)
21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 New International Version (NIV)
28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

Exodus 21:20-21 New International Version (NIV)
20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.

Those verses will fill your church pews wont they?

I'll start with 1 Samuel 15.

Let us remember God is Holy. A Holy being is perfect. God cannot sin but is all good and loving. But being Holy he must be just because sin cannot dwell with God. Adam cursed all of mankind.

Romans 5:12 New International Version (NIV)
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

Was the Amalekites innocent? In God's eyes no one is innocent in less you in the OT followed the ceremonial sacrifices or in the NT put faith in Christ who became the ultimate sacrifice.

This was a point in history, a season in history, where God is the immediate king of a people, Israel, different than the way he is the king over the church, which is from all the peoples of Israel and does not have a political, ethnic dimension to it.

With Joshua there was a political, ethnic dimension, God was immediate king, and he uses this people as his instrument to accomplish his judgment in the world at that time.

The Amalekites was heavily pagan and seeping so deep in demonic evil for a very long time and God patiently waited as he does with any nations judgement in the OT. Their time had ran out and when God decides to judge a nation he is Just for doing so.

When God takes life he isn't a murderer but is well within his resume as the creator of life. Dealing with the Amalekites, Saul failed to kill all as God commanded and the Amalekites just a couple of decades later, there were enough to take David and his men’s families captive (1 Samuel 30:1-2). After David and his men attacked the Amalekites and rescued their families, 400 Amalekites escaped.

If Saul had fulfilled what God had commanded him, this never would have occurred. Several hundred years later, a descendant of Agag, Haman, tried to have the entire Jewish people exterminated (see the book of Esther).

So, Saul’s incomplete obedience almost resulted in Israel’s destruction. God knew this would occur, so He ordered the extermination of the Amalekites ahead of time.

I will add in time 3 more explanations of the next 3 scriptures critics like to pick out. I'll post this first one. Feel free to add more details for the new in faith.

very good explanation about amalakites i will add this to my explanation list.

i wonder why we are told in new testament to love our enemy? seems ot has better advice, take them out. new testament advice leads you to be abused and trampled on. you are guaranteed to lose in life. why is it?

maybe God wants christians to be like lambs, weak and sweet who are slaughtered in his name? to bring more wrath on enemies? i dont know. anyone got good answer? @Roughsoul1991

It's hard to call someone a monster who has time after time and generation after generation patiently extended grace after grace, to rebellious humans.

The Bible is the inspired word of God. However the sentence structures, lack of punctuation or vowels and changes in the languages over the many thousands of years make it subject to interpretation as well as the attitudes, upbringings and cultures have taken a toll also. A couple I'm quite aware of is where Jesus tells his disciples that a time is comming when they (we by default) may have to sell their cloaks and buy a sword and buy one. They replied "look lord we have two." he then said "that is enough." as if he was satisfied Luke 22:36-38 in one translation while in another translation he exclaimed "that is enough!" as if he was angry. A certain ammount of discernment is quite helpful.

The next example is Blessed are the meek, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven... People commonly think of meek as shy or cowardly. That is very incorrect because the Greek definition of the word in the text is more like Humbly and fearlessly obedient.

God is a jealous God Exodus 20: (4) You shall not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything in the heavens above, on the earth beneath, or in the waters below. (5) You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6but showing loving devotion to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.…
Berean Study Bible

Well, if you are going to start with the ! Samuel passage, you need to read the Nephilim thread. God does not command humans to run their swords through the hearts of 3 year old boys and girls, in front of their parents, and then slaughter the parents, of OTHER HUMANS!

MELACH:
are you saying they were nephilim then? those in samuel?


Yes.

"Is God a moral monster?"

The question presupposes the idea that we humans can conceive of any coherent concept of morality that is not based at least distantly on the nature of God. We can't.

The question also presupposes that we have any right or authority to judge God. We don't.

Atheists defining God in a negative manner are like fish criticizing fresh air.

We get the blessing of retrospect, but just for any confused God has been God the whole time and NEVER changed. He was UNBELIEVABLY loving in the Old Testament, and if you think that Jesus is any less perfectly just, and unyielding to sin in the "new T", then you're not understanding something.

Gods law was always for our good, we took is and applied through our fleshly understanding and behold the chaos that follows, it was always meant to be applied as Jesus taught, it was us that warp His word. In the Torah when it says "you shall not commit adultery", it always carried with it "even if you look with lust", it was always beyond our grasp because we had a dead spirit that could see, hear, do nothing. So all we had to work with was in the flesh, therefore we start with the LAW(S)! One of the most out of our grasp description of Gods love is found in Hosea, and the most fierce descriptions of His wrath are in Revelation hands down. When you split these testaments in any way you're doing such a HUGE disservice to His-story. Jesus wasn't "plan B", from the foundation He was always "THE" plan.

What else did you expect?

Whenever we study God's judgments in the past, or the even more terrible judgments to come in the future, we need be be very clear about several things:

1. God's absolute righteousness and holiness require that sin, evil, and wickedness be punished. That is an expression of God's justice.

2. At the same time, God gives sinners and evildoers a great deal of time to repent and be converted. This is an expression of God's longsuffering.

3. Because there is an eternal Hell created for the devil and his angels, there is also the Gospel of Christ which is to be preached in all the world and to every creature. This is an expression of God's grace, mercy, compassion, and love.

All of God's attributes are always in perfect balance. That is why Scripture urges sinners to flee from the wrath to come. We see this throughout the Bible.

He is the potter, we are the clay. He is the Smith we are the Iron to make suitable vessel or tool requires fire, work and time. and time. Life is the kiln.

Does it really matter?
If so why so?

i just want to hear about nephilim from brother @PennEd thats all.

truth always matter

That’s interesting about not commanding humans to kill children, maybe not in the order you mentioned but in Joshua 11, I can’t say that the children were spared scripture does say not sparing anyone who breathed. that’s quite a thought about that makes me ponder about the children of that place.

Joshua 11
14The Israelites took for themselves all the plunder and livestock of these cities, but they struck down all the people with the sword until they had completely destroyed them, not sparing anyone who breathed. 15As the LORD had commanded His servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua. That is what Joshua did, leaving nothing undone of all that the LORD had commanded Moses.

Send him a PM.