Xerces Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 So, this is a question to the xtians lurking around the den. How do you bring yourself to worship a mass murderer? With a number of 2,270,365+ people killed by "god", not including all the people murdered during the "flood" in "genesis", its amazing how you weave reasons together to produce some sort of rationale for calling it a loving "god". You know how we deal with most problems in the real world? We don't kill each other. Link to list of bible verses where "god" murdered people Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vixentrox Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 "God can do what he wants..." This is why I think most serious christards are evil. They make excuses for their barbaric fiend-lord, and try to claim such actions by god were good and loving. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted January 6, 2011 Moderator Share Posted January 6, 2011 These are exactly the verses I started to really look at when I started to question the OT god. When I was a practicing Christian - I would NOT look at any of these scriptures. I only looked at the 'pretty' scriptures. I was so brainwashed and convinced that the bible was the true, spoken word of god and I hated when anyone brought up these types of scriptures. When I saw that it WAS God that gave them all the permission to kill - I was aghast! Christians close their eyes to these horrible scriptures. I know I did. I defended my god for many, many years - to the bitter end - then the 'holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy spirit of humanity' opened my eyes and I could no longer defend this horrible type of imaginary god that the ancient people wrote about 2,000 years ago. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabula Rasa Posted January 6, 2011 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Xerces,The reason they can worship such a psychopath? TERROR. Think back to when you still believed, and why so many of us ex's still have trouble after deconverting. Sheer terror. I can't speak for all denominations etc, but that's what keeps people from questioning and worshipping such an evil being. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to defy the mindcrushing fear that if you dare to question the authority of a supposedly all powerful being, you'll be punished forever beyond anything you can imagine. That and the idea of death being the absolute end of existence. They figure that it'd be better to kiss the ass of a complete monster, than go to a place of eternal torment(which was created by said monster.) or cease to exist. Thankfully, it's possible through learning about how the bible isn't inerrant, and how all the arguments for Christianity can't stand up to scrutiny that we are able to free ourselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest I Love Dog Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 These are exactly the verses I started to really look at when I started to question the OT god. When I was a practicing Christian - I would NOT look at any of these scriptures. I only looked at the 'pretty' scriptures. I was so brainwashed and convinced that the bible was the true, spoken word of god and I hated when anyone brought up these types of scriptures. When I saw that it WAS God that gave them all the permission to kill - I was aghast! Christians close their eyes to these horrible scriptures. I know I did. I defended my god for many, many years - to the bitter end - then the 'holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy spirit of humanity' opened my eyes and I could no longer defend this horrible type of imaginary god that the ancient people wrote about 2,000 years ago. Of course, being positive, it didn't really happen! Most of the stories about battles, killings etc. were just the Israelite/Hebrews/Jews making themselves look important. Also, can anyone really believe that a god killed a man for working on the Sabbath? Did a god really kill the sons of Aaron because they lit his altar fire the wrong way? No, of course not! It's all just to instil fear. Yes, of course Christians close their eyes to the horror of it. Most of them are decent, loving human beings who could not possibly condone the killings, the slavery, the homophobia, the misogyny, the human sacrifice, etc. What amazes me is that they can accept all of the good bits as being god's inerrant word, but ignore the nasty stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pratt Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 many moons ago, when i still believe, the killings are all justifiable. I did not see the killing of the egyptians 1st borns, I saw the power of God protecting his chosen ones, like me. I did not see Lot's wife turning to salt, but a stupid idiotic woman who did not listen to God's instruction. I did not see God's wiping out the humans on earth with a flood but God's promise and mercy with the rainbow. I did not see the senseless killings of the 40+ kids with mocking the bald prophet but the integrity of God being mocked. Yes, that was my thinking during that time, I was wearing blinkers. My other explanations during that time still "his ways are higher than our ways", "we cannot fathom the ways of Gods, God works in mysterious ways", well, "he sent his son to die for your sins".... Frankly, what is a good logical reason for God to kill/murder a new born of egyptian? I have absolutely no idea now, besides because he can, he wants to? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted January 7, 2011 Moderator Share Posted January 7, 2011 many moons ago, when i still believe, the killings are all justifiable. I did not see the killing of the egyptians 1st borns, I saw the power of God protecting his chosen ones, like me. I did not see Lot's wife turning to salt, but a stupid idiotic woman who did not listen to God's instruction. I did not see God's wiping out the humans on earth with a flood but God's promise and mercy with the rainbow. I did not see the senseless killings of the 40+ kids with mocking the bald prophet but the integrity of God being mocked. Yes, that was my thinking during that time, I was wearing blinkers. My other explanations during that time still "his ways are higher than our ways", "we cannot fathom the ways of Gods, God works in mysterious ways", well, "he sent his son to die for your sins".... Frankly, what is a good logical reason for God to kill/murder a new born of egyptian? I have absolutely no idea now, besides because he can, he wants to? That - pratt! These are VERY good points you make! Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrsRobinson Posted January 7, 2011 Share Posted January 7, 2011 Explain why Peter denied Jesus and seemed to get away with betrayal and lying, but then further on in the NT God kills a couple for stealing money and lying about it. Is God money hungry here because I thought money was carnal so really the couple lied just as Peter, but because it was about money they immediately dropped dead. What happened to forgive 70X7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 many moons ago, when i still believe, the killings are all justifiable. I did not see the killing of the egyptians 1st borns, I saw the power of God protecting his chosen ones, like me. I did not see Lot's wife turning to salt, but a stupid idiotic woman who did not listen to God's instruction. I did not see God's wiping out the humans on earth with a flood but God's promise and mercy with the rainbow. I did not see the senseless killings of the 40+ kids with mocking the bald prophet but the integrity of God being mocked. Yes, that was my thinking during that time, I was wearing blinkers. My other explanations during that time still "his ways are higher than our ways", "we cannot fathom the ways of Gods, God works in mysterious ways", well, "he sent his son to die for your sins".... Frankly, what is a good logical reason for God to kill/murder a new born of egyptian? I have absolutely no idea now, besides because he can, he wants to? This is good stuff. You hear things from xians like, "God is infinitely loving, but He is also infinitely just" and "He's so perfect that He can't tolerate sin." The natural conclusion here is that every infant of vanquished enemies of the Israelites, every infant born in Sodom and Gomorrah, every firstborn Egyptian infant, and every infant born on the face of the earth just before the flood, was so unspeakably evil that they all deserved to be killed (and perhaps condemned to eternal agony in a lake of fire and brimstone). Then, when you see the fruits of such evil when these terrible, terrible babies grow older: making fun of a bald guy, picking up sticks on the wrong day, watching smoke rise from the demolished city you are fleeing, making a minor procedural error preparing a sacrifice for the One True GodTM, you have to believe that these are such atrocities that they deserve death followed by eternal agony. ...Or you do just what countless xians do and what Pratt did long ago before he challenged it all and used his brain. Excellent illustration. I think that mindset is very common among xians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phanta Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 I guess I'm confused. Isn't everyone murdered by God (if there is one)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isawthelight Posted January 8, 2011 Share Posted January 8, 2011 Explain why Peter denied Jesus and seemed to get away with betrayal and lying, but then further on in the NT God kills a couple for stealing money and lying about it. Is God money hungry here because I thought money was carnal so really the couple lied just as Peter, but because it was about money they immediately dropped dead. What happened to forgive 70X7. They didn't even steal the money. They just sold their property and kept a little of the money for themselves. They also were never told that they would be killed if they lied about how much they got for selling the property. All of those stories that were invented in order to instill complete fear of god were absurd once the believer blinders come off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted January 8, 2011 Moderator Share Posted January 8, 2011 I always love to think about my dear,sweet nanny, (mom's mom) who just couln't believe in god. She was such a darling little lady - but no belief. She brought up 12 kids (one died), was married to a ' dirty old man' for 60 years. I sure wish I could talk to her today (because I did try to convert her).............................................. And now she is burning in hell, with gnashing of teeth, for eterity! Poor darling - her life really sucked. Nice God. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flockoff Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 I did not see Lot's wife turning to salt, but a stupid idiotic woman who did not listen to God's instruction. I first heard that story as a child watching a tv documentary. They showed a painting of it with scary music playing and I was absolutely terrified. Yet somehow I eventually got twisted into accepting things like that as unquestionable acts of a just god. Amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 You know how we deal with most problems in the real world? We don't kill each other. Link to list of bible verses where "god" murdered people Actually if you consider the majority of human history that actually has been how humanity has dealt with a lot of it's problems, killing one another. It has been a long process of not biological evolution, but social/cultural evolution which has led us to the world as it is today, where we tend to avoid killing others, or at least have to come up with less transparent excuses to do so, but the fact is that biological we are still the same humans who a hundred thousand years ago would sooner kill a member of a different tribe than give him a drink of water. Sometimes you can see the old mentality still shining through, whether it be in how we somehow put less value on the lives of people from other groups, or in how we can sometimes stupidly follow and defend our own leaders, even when it is obvious that they are wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted January 9, 2011 Moderator Share Posted January 9, 2011 These are exactly the verses I started to really look at when I started to question the OT god. When I was a practicing Christian - I would NOT look at any of these scriptures. I only looked at the 'pretty' scriptures. I was so brainwashed and convinced that the bible was the true, spoken word of god and I hated when anyone brought up these types of scriptures. When I saw that it WAS God that gave them all the permission to kill - I was aghast! Christians close their eyes to these horrible scriptures. I know I did. I defended my god for many, many years - to the bitter end - then the 'holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy spirit of humanity' opened my eyes and I could no longer defend this horrible type of imaginary god that the ancient people wrote about 2,000 years ago. One of my favorite bedtime stories: Once upon a time, a man named Jephthah had an only daughter. He loved her very much......but then........... Jephthah heard the spirit of the lord and made a vow to the LORD: "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering." Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon. When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break." "My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry." "You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin................................................................................... Mom????? Yes honey - he had to burn her to death, because he made a vow and a promise to the lord! Nighty-night hunbun............. sleep tight - don't let the bed-bugs bite................... :wacko: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Observant Noahide Posted January 9, 2011 Share Posted January 9, 2011 I always love to think about my dear,sweet nanny, (mom's mom) who just couln't believe in god. She was such a darling little lady - but no belief. She brought up 12 kids (one died), was married to a ' dirty old man' for 60 years. I sure wish I could talk to her today (because I did try to convert her).............................................. And now she is burning in hell, with gnashing of teeth, for eterity! Poor darling - her life really sucked. Nice God. Margee, I am presuming your are being extremely sarky here ... I do not believe your nanny is burning in hell for one moment. Hell is a pagan creation straight from the arms of Zoroastrian beliefs. The G-d of Israel has no enemies and no fallen arch archangel called satan either. This duel creation is false and a wicked lie, causing panic, fear and evil control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted January 9, 2011 Moderator Share Posted January 9, 2011 Margee, I am presuming your are being extremely sarky here ... I do not believe your nanny is burning in hell for one moment. Hell is a pagan creation straight from the arms of Zoroastrian beliefs. The G-d of Israel has no enemies and no fallen arch archangel called satan either. This duel creation is false and a wicked lie, causing panic, fear and evil control. yes,Observant - I was being a little sarcastic! I do not believe that my nanny is in hell. I am glad that the g-d of Israel has no enemies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xerces Posted January 16, 2011 Author Share Posted January 16, 2011 Margee, I am presuming your are being extremely sarky here ... I do not believe your nanny is burning in hell for one moment. Hell is a pagan creation straight from the arms of Zoroastrian beliefs. The G-d of Israel has no enemies and no fallen arch archangel called satan either. This duel creation is false and a wicked lie, causing panic, fear and evil control. I suppose you believe your brand of belief in god is the only right way huh? Even without satan or the creation myth in the picture, the "gawd" of israel still is a monster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted January 16, 2011 Share Posted January 16, 2011 Margee, I am presuming your are being extremely sarky here ... I do not believe your nanny is burning in hell for one moment. Hell is a pagan creation straight from the arms of Zoroastrian beliefs. The G-d of Israel has no enemies and no fallen arch archangel called satan either. This duel creation is false and a wicked lie, causing panic, fear and evil control. yes,Observant - I was being a little sarcastic! I do not believe that my nanny is in hell. I am glad that the g-d of Israel has no enemies. I, for one, would no sooner wage war against G-d of Israel than I would against Z--s of Olympus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted January 16, 2011 Share Posted January 16, 2011 If some people think I'm too high strung now, they should have seen me when I was a fire-breathing fundy! I had just as vacant a gaze as Ms. Wright in Richard Dawkins' interview. God could do no wrong and everything deserved to die that god killed, cus it said so in the bible so it must be true! It took years to realize that god is only as limited as the psychotic minds that keep cranking out xtian doctrines. It only takes one seminar of hate to spread the love of god and Jesus to foreign countries who are looking for moral ways to murder their own citizens. We allow Christian groups such as The Family to go to African nations and stir up murder, by legislation, against homosexuals because they cannot do it in America. The influence of religion on American law is due to the influence of god's murderous rage in the OT. If our laws copy that law then we know god is on our side. This is one reason why laws are passed to protect religious beliefs instead of individual rights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Babylonian Dream Posted January 16, 2011 Share Posted January 16, 2011 Don't forget, you gotta sexually mutilate little boys, its part of that whole covenant thing. How could I be so stupid to be scared into following this book in the past as a moral guidebook? What were we thinking? Screams, "I don't want to go to hell!!! God will be superangry if I disobey his evildictator authority! Gotta worship! Gotta pray! Distract myself from evil thoughts!"* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynx Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 I guess I'm confused. Isn't everyone murdered by God (if there is one)? That is exactly what always comes to my mind when I hear these types of discussions. Don't we all have to die a physical death at some point? If there is a God, I would not expect such an entity to make me live forever in this physical body, neither would I want to. I'm perfectly content with dying. And if it were true that hypothetically, if we have lived morally and believed, then we go to a place where there is no longer any suffering and only ecstasy, then death would be appealing. But if those people who were/are slaughtered (seemingly without just cause in some cases, since the bible is rather vague about that) will go to hell, then that is entirely different matter. It all depends on what their fate was intended to be after death. So, my issue is not with physically dying. My issue is with the reasons the bible gives for it--the lack of logical explanation for why God or 'his people' are morally justified in carrying out this suffering and slaughter, what the fate of the victims was after death, and the fact that murder is against God's commandments, yet he sometimes commands it. This brings up another point about Christianity. Why must so many people and animals suffer horrifically painful, barbaric, prolonged, agonized deaths...even good people who have never harmed anyone and have lived moral lives (Ya, I know, "No one is good but God"), and innocent animals who act only out of instinct and are simply trying to survive. I'm not necessarily saying that there should be zero suffering and that humans cannot learn something valuable through it (within limits), but after we've learned compassion, empathy, or whatever, why must it continue relentlessly for some, while others never truly suffer at all? That aside, it seems to me that an intelligent being could have created a better system, which could have forgone suffering altogether, but who am I to question God with my pea brain (as the Christians would say)?--if I was "created" with a design, isn't my inclination to question what does not make sense a part of that? No, I guess that's just the sin in me. Bottom line--why do decent people and innocent animals have to suffer so mercilessly, while there are psychopaths who never truly suffer? One of the most common Christian answers---"We live in a "fallen" world that is the result of original sin, so suffering, including the animal kingdom, is a product of that." Again, why is the suffering dolled out so unequally and unjustly? Typical answer--"We don't know why. It's a mystery which will only be revealed when we see God's face. Until then, we are to have faith." According to the "good" book: "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." In what way is the God of the bible just? Oh wait--I forgot--we are not meant to experience God's justice while we are in this world. We must be patient and "long-suffering" and wait for judgment day, even though other passages blatantly tell of events that do indeed demonstrate God's punishments and rewards in "this life," based on the heart and deeds of people. There's clearly no justice in this life, and apparently none in the hypothetical life to come either, if God can cause someone to be tormented for all eternity simply for failing to live up to one of his expectations, even though they tried with all their heart. If God chooses us for salvation "from the foundation of the world" and is omniscient and all-knowing, and our names were already either written in the book of life or weren't, before we were even born, then he has full control over whether we live up to his expectations. According to the good book, seems he only chooses some for this "glory" and creates others only for the purpose of making an example out of them, as a contrast--can't have good without evil, huh? The bible clearly states his favoritism for certain individuals for absolutely no reason other than his own whim, then he molds their hearts for "salvation", while he hardens the hearts of those unfavored, as he wishes. Christians will argue that we have free will, and the bible continually alludes to us freely choosing, believing, etc, but that is logically impossible based on the nature of the biblical God. Contradictions abound. This post is entirely hypothetical, regarding the existence of the God of the bible and the events being as the scriptures claim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest I Love Dog Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 My issue is with the reasons the bible gives for it--the lack of logical explanation for why God or 'his people' are morally justified in carrying out this suffering and slaughter, what the fate of the victims was after death, and the fact that murder is against God's commandments, yet he sometimes commands it. He also does a fair bit of killing himself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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