God is Love?

It always amazes me how many times I hear this drivel that the God of the Bible is LOVE and loves you and loves us... however, this "God of love" orders the killing of innocent people even after the Ten Commandments said “Thou shall not kill”.

For example:
- God kills 70,000 innocent people because David ordered a census of the people (1 Chronicles 21).
- God also orders the destruction of 60 cities so that the Israelites can live there. He orders the killing of all the men, women, and children of each city, and the looting of all of value (Deuteronomy 3). He orders another attack and the killing of “all the living creatures of the city: men and women, young, and old, as well as oxen sheep, and asses” (Joshua 6).
-In Judges 21, He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, God told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife! Just about every other page in the Old Testament has God killing somebody!
-In 2 Kings 10:18-27, God orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own church! In total God kills 371,186 people directly and orders another 1,862,265 people murdered.

The God of the Bible also allows slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:1-11), child abuse (Judges 11:29-40 and Isaiah 13:16), and bashing babies against rocks (Hosea 13:16 & Psalms 137:9).

This type of criminal behavior should shock any moral person. Murder, rape, pillage, plunder, slavery, and child abuse can not be justified by saying that some god says it’s OK. If more people would actually sit down and read the Bible there would be a lot more atheists like myself.

 

God is not all love. God is culmination of all things. All things are right, and perfectly obedient to the laws of nature God set up.

 

You sound more like a pantheist than a Christian...I could embrace pantheism before theism anyday...makes more sense.

 

My understanding of it all: It does shock me. There are many texts that need to be addressed in a mature manner, particularly Old Testament texts.
The Hebrew Scriptures are the schematic and history to understand the theological salvation strains that Jesus of Nazareth is addressing. Even though he comes from that tradition, he strikes out on his own path, literally touching the unclean, as well as "Gentiles." That's a huge part of my faith: how amazingly nonjudgmental Jesus (as God) was to humankind. There's no caste system, no demand for ritual cleanliness (like in Islam where I can't enter the mosque while I'm menstruating.) That's where my faith starts from: in that love.
And I agree...I wish that there was more intelligent reading of the Bible going on.

 

Jesus strongly approves of the law and the prophets. He hasn’t the slightest objection to the cruelties of the Old Testament from his own words.

He also demands people truly love him more then they love their own family. I ask you how can we love someone that we can not see or interact with? And especially someone who DEMANDS it! Love is an emotion pertaining to physical existence not to faithful ideologies, yet this God threatens you with death just because your love for your mother maybe stronger than your love for him.

I don't see his compassion in such situations pertaining to Hell and his condoning of such a punishment either. He seemed to have great animosity for those who didn't want to listen to his preaching. And he explains why he speaks in parables to confuse people so they will go to hell in Mark 4:11-12. He okays slavery and beating slaves in Luke 12:47.

Jesus (assuming this man truly existed) may have spoken some good things and did some good things, but he was by no means a great moralist and hardly "perfect".

 

"all thinking men are atheists"

it is true.

 

God is love, but he is also holy. That's why the cross is so central to Christianity. In order to truly embrace Christ, one must first realize that we all deserve the wrath of God revealed in the Old Testament. Otherwise, the gospel message is "foolishness" to those who are perishing, as Paul says.

 

You are fucked in the head, man.

You think those babies deserved to be killed, women deserved to be raped, virgins deserved to be "taken", and people deserved to be slaughtered just because Invisible Sky Daddy says it's ok??

We DESERVE his "wrath".... ???

That's the reason I don't believe in any god or gods...because no god could possibly be that fucking stupid and still be called "god".

 

Then you shall burn in hell..

 

Hell is in your mind. And I'm burning already trying to figure out how so many people could worship a murdering, rapist invisible man in the sky.

 

You can't grasp the concept of God's wrath unless you acknowledge the hideous reality of human sin. Until then, the gospel will remain a "stumbling block" to you.

 

<3<3<3

Enjoy arguing with the religious right fanatics or should I say fanatic (huckfinn)....

Christianity is illogical and dumb

 

How can one argue with someone you can't even "reason" with?... shit...

This dude thinks it's ok for "God" to kill, rape, maim...etc...because of the man's "sin" against the Holy Murderer's fucked up "plan"...

At least some of these Christians could present a decent argument, surely!!!

 

Libertin .... You never understand until you believe in God Its hard to explain.

 

how do you know the innocents wont be saved?

 

Assuming this question is directed at me, I think the only possible "innocents" in these accounts are the very young children. They very well might be saved. (See 2 Sam. 12:23)

 

Those people were just angels (God) pretending to be people. So what if God act's all dramatic in front of God's kids, it's just a story.

People are funny. The other day I saw this little kid cover her eyes when the dog chased the toys in Toy Story II (almost got Woody!! OMFG!!).

 

God to some people .. is everything ... every atom .. depends on what they define as GOD ... is it really what is written or defined by the book of man

 

Kissy Kissy

 

All you have to do is check history; Einstien believed in God, Martin Luther King jr. was a minister, certainly wouldn't call Ghandi an atheist, Socrates alluded to some Universal force of principle (don't remember what he called it), . . .

(and quote from Libertine) If more people would actually sit down and read the Bible there would be a lot more atheists like myself.

Only if you consider the Judao-Christian god the only possibility.
Even someone who does believe in that god could argue that the earth and everthing in it belongs to him so who are we to tell him what he should do with it.