God: A Mass Murderer?

[surfsatwerk]

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

 

[Paladin3]

I'm Agnostic myself. I'm not advocating any of the following, but if you guys want to debate Christian religion and God's killing of man, then at least do it right and don't skew the Christian argument like you've been doing in this thread so far. Here are a few points in the Christian argument as I understand it:

I think the issue many of you are running into is that you are trying to limit God's actions to conform to the laws he has set down for man, his creation. God never said he couldn't kill. He has made several promises that he would not do so again in certain ways (no more flooding the entire world, etc...), but he clearly states that blood is His and not to be shed by man except under very specific conditions, and even then he said blessed are the merciful to encourage man to be so.

Also, this mortal life, which so many atheists place so much importance on, is nothing compared to the eternal afterlife in Heaven that the Christian saved will eventually experience. God may allow an innocent child to suffer in the mortal moment for His divine purpose that we cannot understand, but He loves that child and will grant them everlasting life in Heaven.

An important point to remember is that Christians firmly believe that this mortal life we are all desperately clinging to is *nothing* compared to everlasting life in Heaven with God. Many feel that this mortal life is the trial or suffering we undergo before we attain our peace in God's Heaven.

God's actions are may not be immediately understood by man either. Dose a child understand and agree with every decisions made for their benefit by a parent?

And the Bible clearly says that anyone who refuses God will not receive everlasting life. What in that statement makes anyone think God isn't reserving the right to kill the mortal man when He will absolutely forsake the soul of anyone who rejects him? Again, atheists, understand that your immortal soul is what you should be worried about, not your mortal body and this earthly life.

God also gave us free will to accept his Son and love him or not. The world as we know it is supposedly in a learning stage where he is not exerting direct control, but allowing us to learn by our own mistakes for a short time. Removing Satan and all evil from the world would not be allowing us to fully exercise our free will. It also means that any of us have the ability to commit evil acts and wrongly claim we are doing it in His name. When the Son returns and exerts control over the world again, only then will we understand this and have to decide once and for all to accept or reject him.

I have the same issues many of you seem to have with Christianity. I see the evil that exists in this world and have trouble believing there is a loving god out there somewhere who could stop it all if he felt like it. But I also have issues with agnostics who twist the Christian argument to make it sound silly to further their agenda. For the most part, Christians have a decent argument if you can just make that *HUGE* leap of faith necessary for it to work.

 

[JD50]

Isn't it funny that we can kill certain people in certain situations by denying their "innocence"?

No, it's not funny, it's common sense. People that haven't been convicted of committing a crime are treated differently than criminals. What are you even talking about?

 

[JD50]

Even on that subject God is the biggest "Killer".

Try again.

fail

 

[Gothgar]

No, it's not funny, it's common sense. People that haven't been convicted of committing a crime are treated differently than criminals. What are you even talking about?

it's actually hilarious

 

[totalnoob]

For the most part, Christians have a decent argument if you can just make that *HUGE* leap of faith necessary for it to work.

Faith is not a virtue. It means turning off your brain and holding positions without evidence or rational justification.

oh, and I don't believe for a minute you are an agnostic. No agnostic I know of capitalizes "His", "Him", "He", "Son", etc. in the middle of sentences. Nice try at building atheist "street cred" for yourself though.

 

[MJinZ]

I'm an agnostic and have thought about these questions before.

So there are instances in the bible where God is shown as a mass murderer:
- The great flood
- Sodom and Gomorrah

Those are the two I can think of. Sure they were acts of divine retribution for all those sinners and non-believers. Does it not count as mass murder if it's done by the one that created the people being killed off?

If the religious are against killing, why do they worship a God that does it on massive scales?

Why would a loving God demand worship and send those that don't believe in him to an eternity in hell?

Also, if I remember what I read in the Bible, God killed a whole lot more people than Satan did.

Is there something I missed or did Satan go around masking himself as God?

God killing is different. He gathers you up and snuffs out your heart and a halo appears and you fly away into heaven.

So it's OK.

2 mil or whatever are all good.

Satan will rape you in Hellfire.

 

[Blackjack200]

Faith is not a virtue. It means turning off your brain and holding positions without evidence or rational justification.

oh, and I don't believe for a minute you are an agnostic. No agnostic I know of capitalizes "His", "Him", "He", "Son", etc. in the middle of sentences. Nice try at building atheist "street cred" for yourself though.

I'm an atheist and have always thought that capitalizing "God" and any pronoun referring to him was just proper English...

 

[gimmewhitecastles]

<snipped>

I'm a person who believes in God, but sees religion (run by man) as being corrupt.

If you look at the Bible's account of Job, Satan challenges God, claiming Job only worships God based on the prosperity bestowed upon him instead of true reverence. So God allowed Satan to bring calamity to fall on Job to prove a point. God blessed him two fold for his faith and endurance.

In a broader perspective, this also applies to the rest of humankind. Which explains all the pain and suffering going on today. If God had wiped out Satan and his minions from the start, then the challenges issued by Satan would not have been answered, which in turn could have led to another rebellion by another angel who was witnessing this event.

And yes because of free will, the angels as well as humans decided on their own if they were going to be with or against God.

 

[Blackjack200]

No, it's not funny, it's common sense. People that haven't been convicted of committing a crime are treated differently than criminals. What are you even talking about?

Are you saying that we only justify killing when someone is convicted of a crime?

 

[Blackjack200]

I'm a person who believes in God, but sees religion (run by man) as being corrupt.

If you look at the Bible's account of Job, Satan challenges God, claiming Job only worships God based on the prosperity bestowed upon him instead of true reverence. So God allowed Satan to bring calamity to fall on Job to prove a point. God blessed him two fold for his faith and endurance.

In a broader perspective, this also applies to the rest of humankind. Which explains all the pain and suffering going on today. If God had wiped out Satan and his minions from the start, then the challenges issued by Satan would not have been answered, which in turn could have led to another rebellion by another angel who was witnessing this event.

And yes because of free will, the angels as well as humans decided on their own if they were going to be with or against God.

Don't you think it's pretty strange that God would do all those horrible things to someone to prove a point with The Devil? Job has always struck me as an odd book.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

For the most part, Christians have a decent argument if you can just make that *HUGE* leap of faith necessary for it to work.

The leap of faith necessary to make Christianity work is the same size as the leap of faith necessary to make Jack and the Bean Stalk work.

Jumping out of a burning building and expecting the firemen below to catch you in a net is a leap of faith. Moving to a new city hoping to find a better job is a leap of faith. Answering a personals ad in the paper is a leap of faith. Convincing yourself there's an invisible mass murderer in the sky who loves you is NOT a leap of faith, it's just freaking stupid.

 

[totalnoob]

I'm an atheist and have always thought that capitalizing "God" and any pronoun referring to him was just proper English...

I don't think it is..It's just something theists do to show extra respect when referencing their god.

 

[Paladin3]

Faith is not a virtue. It means turning off your brain and holding positions without evidence or rational justification.

oh, and I don't believe for a minute you are an agnostic. No agnostic I know of capitalizes "His", "Him", "He", "Son", etc. in the middle of sentences. Nice try at building atheist "street cred" for yourself though.

You must have a lot of faith in your belief that no agnostic would ever capitalize a pronoun reference to the Christian god. Enough so to call me a liar when I said I was agnostic. Been "turning off your brain" much?

For the record, it's a habit I have after 13 years as a newspaper journalist when I occasionally covered stories for the religion section. I also do it because I don't want to insult any Christians who may be reading this. Just like I try not to draw pictures of Muhammad, walk on flags, or piss on crosses.

And if you want to start a thread arguing against the existence of God, then I can take the other side just as easy. I wasn't telling you what I think, just what I understand the Christian argument to be after hearing it so many times because I felt it was being misrepresented in this thread.

 

[gimmewhitecastles]

Don't you think it's pretty strange that God would do all those horrible things to someone to prove a point with The Devil? Job has always struck me as an odd book.

God didn't partake in those things, he let it happen.
Well once the point is proven, there will be no more challenges or rebellions because there is precedent. He took the future into consideration.

 

[totalnoob]

 

[totalnoob]

God didn't partake in those things, he let it happen.

It's true God didn't do all of the evil crap himself..but he did command it and prescribe rules for how bad things were to be carried out..

for example:

 

[Blackjack200]

God didn't partake in those things, he let it happen. Well once the point is proven, there will be no more challenges or rebellions because there is precedent. He took the future into consideration.

That seems like a distinction without difference to me. If you have the power to prevent something and you don't, you are implicitly responsible.

 

[child of wonder]

I'm Agnostic myself. I'm not advocating any of the following, but if you guys want to debate Christian religion and God's killing of man, then at least do it right and don't skew the Christian argument like you've been doing in this thread so far. Here are a few points in the Christian argument as I understand it:

I think the issue many of you are running into is that you are trying to limit God's actions to conform to the laws he has set down for man, his creation. God never said he couldn't kill. He has made several promises that he would not do so again in certain ways (no more flooding the entire world, etc...), but he clearly states that blood is His and not to be shed by man except under very specific conditions, and even then he said blessed are the merciful to encourage man to be so.

Then god is malevolent.

I would not teach my children that stealing is wrong, then steal money from their piggy banks.

"Well, stealing is wrong unless I'M the one doing it because I created you."

Also, this mortal life, which so many atheists place so much importance on, is nothing compared to the eternal afterlife in Heaven that the Christian saved will eventually experience. God may allow an innocent child to suffer in the mortal moment for His divine purpose that we cannot understand, but He loves that child and will grant them everlasting life in Heaven.

Unless the parents of that child failed to baptize the child, which means the child must go to hell. Or if the child has the slightest doubts about god given that no evidence to support the theory of god exists whatsoever they must go to hell.

No loving creature capable of knowing the future would create something only to have the vast majority of that creation be punished forever. This would make god nothing more than a kid with a magnifying glass torching an anthill.

Free will doesn't excuse this either, since god KNOWS most of who he creates will suffer for eternity.

You cannot create beings only to test them and ultimately damn most of them to eternal torment and still claim to be all loving or have their best interests in mind.

An important point to remember is that Christians firmly believe that this mortal life we are all desperately clinging to is *nothing* compared to everlasting life in Heaven with God. Many feel that this mortal life is the trial or suffering we undergo before we attain our peace in God's Heaven.

I'll pass on the "trial." If a god exists that will make a determination on whether we experience unimaginable torture for all time based on whether we successfully chosen the correct religion out of thousands when none have a shred of evidence to support them then I would choose to actively oppose that god.

God's actions are may not be immediately understood by man either. Dose a child understand and agree with every decisions made for their benefit by a parent?

No, but the child can eventually understand those actions and determine their moral standing.

If a parent raped their 4 year old child every night and taught the child it was "love" and "normal," the child wouldn't know any better but that doesn't make it right. Being a parent or creator does not magically subscribe one to some higher form of morality that transcends all others.

And the Bible clearly says that anyone who refuses God will not receive everlasting life. What in that statement makes anyone think God isn't reserving the right to kill the mortal man when He will absolutely forsake the soul of anyone who rejects him? Again, atheists, understand that your immortal soul is what you should be worried about, not your mortal body and this earthly life.

There is no evidence of a soul. Stories told by people living in the Middle East over 2,000 years ago are no more valid than tales of Zeus, Thor, Ra, Assur, etc.

God also gave us free will to accept his Son and love him or not. The world as we know it is supposedly in a learning stage where he is not exerting direct control, but allowing us to learn by our own mistakes for a short time. Removing Satan and all evil from the world would not be allowing us to fully exercise our free will. It also means that any of us have the ability to commit evil acts and wrongly claim we are doing it in His name. When the Son returns and exerts control over the world again, only then will we understand this and have to decide once and for all to accept or reject him.

Then why the test? Bring on Jesus right now, let us see some actual evidence to support these fairy tales and make our decision then.

And how does one learn from mistakes when one mistake can earn you an eternity of torment?

I have the same issues many of you seem to have with Christianity. I see the evil that exists in this world and have trouble believing there is a loving god out there somewhere who could stop it all if he felt like it. But I also have issues with agnostics who twist the Christian argument to make it sound silly to further their agenda. For the most part, Christians have a decent argument if you can just make that *HUGE* leap of faith necessary for it to work.

If you're playing Devil's Advocate, I appreciate it since it helps advance the argument.

 

[Jeff7]

I'm a person who believes in God, but sees religion (run by man) as being corrupt.

If you look at the Bible's account of Job, Satan challenges God, claiming Job only worships God based on the prosperity bestowed upon him instead of true reverence. So God allowed Satan to bring calamity to fall on Job to prove a point. God blessed him two fold for his faith and endurance.

In a broader perspective, this also applies to the rest of humankind. Which explains all the pain and suffering going on today. If God had wiped out Satan and his minions from the start, then the challenges issued by Satan would not have been answered, which in turn could have led to another rebellion by another angel who was witnessing this event.

And yes because of free will, the angels as well as humans decided on their own if they were going to be with or against God.

So God is incapable of issuing challenges on his own? He's incapable of properly engineering a being, and then debugging his own design? He needs someone else to torment and torture his beloved creations to tease out flaws?

While I'm ok with some animal testing, done for things like live-saving medicines, well, we humans don't have "all-knowing" on our resumes. The Christian god does. I'd expect even just a reasonably-advanced alien race to be capable of creating a simulation which would show how a human brain would react to any given situation. Certainly an all-knowing, all-powerful entity would be able to just give the scenario an idle thought, and arrive at a conclusion, all without the torture and such inflicted by one of his out-of-control creations.

 

[MJinZ]

Agnostic vs Agnostic, alright let's party:

I'm Agnostic myself. I'm not advocating any of the following, but if you guys want to debate Christian religion and God's killing of man, then at least do it right and don't skew the Christian argument like you've been doing in this thread so far. Here are a few points in the Christian argument as I understand it:

We are beginning to get an idea of Christian God:

I think the issue many of you are running into is that you are trying to limit God's actions to conform to the laws he has set down for man, his creation. God never said he couldn't kill. He has made several promises that he would not do so again in certain ways (no more flooding the entire world, etc...), but he clearly states that blood is His and not to be shed by man except under very specific conditions, and even then he said blessed are the merciful to encourage man to be so.

#1) Do as I say but not as I do.

Indicators: hypocritical, dispassionate, illogical, unreasonable.

All fairly human indicators actually.

Also, this mortal life, which so many atheists place so much importance on, is nothing compared to the eternal afterlife in Heaven that the Christian saved will eventually experience. God may allow an innocent child to suffer in the mortal moment for His divine purpose that we cannot understand, but He loves that child and will grant them everlasting life in Heaven.

#2) God is a pedobear. Because he gives children a free pass. After 4 years old - "Too old, do not want".

Indicators: Grown humans are tainted. By what? The world God created?

An important point to remember is that Christians firmly believe that this mortal life we are all desperately clinging to is *nothing* compared to everlasting life in Heaven with God. Many feel that this mortal life is the trial or suffering we undergo before we attain our peace in God's Heaven.

#3) Mortal life is simply a test.

Indicators: puppeteer, control freak, mastermind.

I will not discuss here what Christians actually believe - they clearly do not believe that Mortal Life is meaningless or they wouldn't having nice things, cheating on their wives, and making ponzi schemes. On the other hand, Atheists and Agnostics like Gates and Buffett are out there actually caring about mortals with massive charity - /end side note.

God's actions are may not be immediately understood by man either. Dose a child understand and agree with every decisions made for their benefit by a parent?

#4) Manchilds we all are.

Indicators: God does or doesn't think we can be anything else than children? I'm confused.

And the Bible clearly says that anyone who refuses God will not receive everlasting life. What in that statement makes anyone think God isn't reserving the right to kill the mortal man when He will absolutely forsake the soul of anyone who rejects him? Again, atheists, understand that your immortal soul is what you should be worried about, not your mortal body and this earthly life.

#5) Don't worry about your mortal life. So why does the Bible set all these rules for mortal living?

I think everyone who considers the question of the afterlife ponders about the "soul". That's pretty stupid to think otherwise.

Indicators: confused, inconsistent

God also gave us free will to accept his Son and love him or not. The world as we know it is supposedly in a learning stage where he is not exerting direct control, but allowing us to learn by our own mistakes for a short time. Removing Satan and all evil from the world would not be allowing us to fully exercise our free will. It also means that any of us have the ability to commit evil acts and wrongly claim we are doing it in His name. When the Son returns and exerts control over the world again, only then will we understand this and have to decide once and for all to accept or reject him.

#6) I give you a choice to love me... or else bitches.

Indicators: narcissistic, sadistic

PS. Have you tried rejecting the sun before? If you stare at it long enough and go blind, it might work. You would still die of skin cancer probably.

I have the same issues many of you seem to have with Christianity. I see the evil that exists in this world and have trouble believing there is a loving god out there somewhere who could stop it all if he felt like it. But I also have issues with agnostics who twist the Christian argument to make it sound silly to further their agenda. For the most part, Christians have a decent argument if you can just make that *HUGE* leap of faith necessary for it to work.

Actually you have none of the issues I have with Christianity:

1) A God with all the characteristics of a human being. Completely, utterly, flawed, stupid, selfish, good, evil - everything

2) Arbitrary rules and regulations. Butt fucking is bad. It just is. Mm kay?

3) Capriciousness resulting in rapid changes. One second you're drowning everyone. Next you're fucking a Virgin (sort of), having a son and forgiving all the people you just drowned (sort of?). I'm looking forward to Episode 3 of this exciting trilogy.

You are not an Agnostic, you're just a Christian with doubts.

True agnostics are intellectuals (like me), who will consider all the possibilities, probabilities, and plausibilities.

Have you ever considered that life may just be a bitch and then you die?

Have you ever considered that God exists, but he's just a very powerful Big-Daddy in the sky - like a Super human with a huge dick?

Have you ever considered that God may be evil?

Have you ever considered that our little planet is just a Sims 3 Game to the Gods for their enjoyment?

Have you ever considered that God may be great, loving and all - but flawed?

Have you ever considered that there are a bunch of Gods?

Have you ever considered that there are good Gods and evil Gods?

Have you ever considered that there is a God who is actually THE God that ascends all human concepts and even the imitation Christian concepts like "sin"?

I know it's a scary thought and Christianity is very convenient. Especially for those who live their lives to fullest and then intend to shut their mind off, give their soul to Jesus, and live their afterlife to the fullest. So tempting...

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I don't like this argument. It really only has merit if a theist will stipulate some other premises -- particularly that his god's moral system is objective and static. Otherwise the theist will simply special plead for his god, alledging that his god is "above the law," so to speak.

It somewhat pathetic that such an idea satisfies the committed theist, when on it's face it's pretty silly to revere and worship a being that is supposedly omnipotent yet unable or unwilling to abide by the same rules it set for everyone else. In every other circumstance we hold individuals in high regard that do not exempt themselves from the rules.

 

[gimmewhitecastles]

It's true God didn't do all of the evil crap himself..but he did command it and prescribe rules for how bad things were to be carried out..

for example:

Well that law is not directions on how to carry out a bad deed. If you look at the context of that law, the dude was "caught". And he had to pay a fine. As for the marrying part, back in the day, no man really wanted to marry a woman who was violated, cuz you know, virgins were the "in" thing. So the arrangement was meant to preserve the honor of both sides.

 

[gimmewhitecastles]

That seems like a distinction without difference to me. If you have the power to prevent something and you don't, you are implicitly responsible.

Well he did promise clean up everything and eliminate sickness and death in the future. He could have cleaned up everything but in order to do so, to prevent challenges like this in the future, he would have to eliminate "free will". But receiving worship from "robots" does not serve any point or purpose.

 

[totalnoob]

As for the marrying part, back in the day, no man really wanted to marry a woman who was violated, cuz you know, virgins were the "in" thing. So the arrangement was meant to preserve the honor of both sides.

It doesn't matter what local traditions were at the time..The bible is supposed to contain the supreme moral law by a flawless being. Forcing rape victims to marry their rapists would be considered quite sick by modern standards. The fact that genocide, rape, slavery, etc were common thousands of years ago is no excuse for a timeless god. He would have known these things were wrong and issued commandments against them, rather than prescribing twisted rules for how they were to be carried out. Mere mortals should never be able to surpass the morality of a timeless god, but apparently we have.