Why follow such a violent god?

Question

The God of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist. -- Richard Dawkins

Answer 1

So true. You should join the Truth Club at my school.

Answer 2

The God of the Old testament is the same God we worship today.He had to be hard on his children back then, we were lost in a wilderness and if He had not been there and loved us enough to keep us in line, the world we have today wouldn't exist! When you love someone you discipline them. Think of the people of that time as small children still needing guidance, still needing to be taught right from wrong. He gave us free will so we could learn from our mistakes. At that time He was trying to establish His people and to do that He had to have a strong hand and guide them strictly. The future of the world rested with them. If He had been lax and let them run amuck with temptations and pleasantries then it all would have fallen apart. And God has never been nor will He ever be racist! How could He? He created all of His children and He loves them all equally! I don't think you're ever tried to look at the bigger picture and really tried to understand just how hard a job God had during that time. His children constantly strayed into temptation and turned from Him. Look at the children He freed from slavery! All they did was whine about how hard life was after He freed them! Would you want to help or even love such a self centered people?

Answer 3

Lord how long? If the God you seek is all of these thing that is the god you get. God is none of the above and can only be found by those who love the truth. The Bible is like a double edged sword those who love the truth and seek God it is salvation and truth to those who as you see it seek something else they find what they are looking for or they lose interest and fall away. It is designed to either condemn or save you. It can be the word that judges you or the word that delivers you. It genuinely can kill your flesh or deliver your soul and is quite capable of doing both at the same time. Here is the truth and truly you should consider it...Humble yourself before God understanding your faults and weaknesses and short comings and know that God is perfect and righteous and we are not. Then understanding that we are not worthy and are in need of God seek him on his terms not your own. This is the the beginning of a new understanding and a new life. Wen you seek god in this way you will found him and his truth and you will found a loving God who fulfilled the law because he loves you and did pay the penalty of death with his blood for you. You will never with your physical eyes come to know God it was not meant to be and is not his design sinful flesh will perish and will not see the kingdom of heaven. It is in spirit and by his revealtion you will come to see the truth.

Answer 4

Let's have a different perspective on this. View God as our Heavenly Father. As a child, were you ever spanked, yelled at, or grounded? Most parents discipline their children in some form or fashion. They do this to assist their children in maturing.

Heavenly Father, as a parent, desires a relationship with each child. If the child refuses, then it is their choice. Just as an earthly parent cannot force their child to love them, Heavenly Father can't either.

Now, let's get into some tough examples with parenting. As a parent, if you had a child involved in some serious hard drugs, what would you do? Knowing that drug abuse can create problems (Anna Nicole Smith, Elvis, Janis Joppin, Led Zeppin) for your child, you would try to assist them with overcoming the addiction. But, if they choose to ignore your help, what do you do?

As a parent, you have the responsibility to the family. If a child is lying, stealing, and refusing to overcome the problem, you remove them from the home. You cannot tolerate their misbehavior, unless they are repenting. The sanity of each family member is at stake here.

Also, what would you do if the child was attempting to talk a sibling into do you drugs. Do you just blow it off and let things work themselves out? Or, how about if you removed him from your home, and he returned with friends to steal or cause personal injury. Would you not take act accordingly?

Heavenly Father is the same way. If people want to live in my house, they will follow the rules or be removed. If people living in my home don't love me, then why should I tolerate their presence. Especially, if I am the one paying the bills. I believe in the "Golden Rule." The one that makes the gold, makes the rules.

Is Heavenly Father not justified in asking for a relationship? He is the one who created the heavens and the earth. And, if you desire not to love him, can He not feel pain and jealousy? If you work at corrrupting other members of his family, does he not have the right to terminate your life in order to protect his children?

God is our Heavenly Father. His firstborn, Jesus Christ, was sent to earth to provide eternal life. Thru the attonement and repentance, we will return to our Father in Heaven.

Answer 5

Actually, God was temporarily indulging some of the bad habits of the pastoral tribal peoples thousands of years ago. Did you expect God to establish a liberal, secular democracy 3,000 years ago? Revelation is progressive and religious laws change according to the time and place. Dawkins' analysis is anachronistic and blatantly wrong.

Answer 6

But the God of the Old Testament did move from law to grace. This does show His love for the people.

Answer 7

R.D. made a basic mistake: he forgot that God created the world, and you can therefore not judge Him as if He were a mere human being. R.D.'s reasoning is circular: he regards God as a simple human being and then he assigns Him human flaws.

Even so, R.D. has no reason to call God "racist"(?!) "unforgiving"(?!) "unjust"(?!) and so on.

Answer 8

Listen carefully take the Bible, open it and actually READ it. He is a forgiving and merciful God. Who ever believes in Him will have everlasting life. I can't see any bad in that and if you really read it you won't either cause how ever you turn it it ain't there. He will forgive and save ANYONE, all they gotta do is ask. Thats it.

Answer 9

You call Him "violent." I know Him as "just." The fact is that, being Creator, God is the one who defines "good" and "bad," "right" and "wrong." God will judge each human being who lives, ever lived, and will live. The initial judgment of each human being is death. It is this judgment of death that you call "violent." Fine, call it that. But first, consider the important question: have you earned that judgment?

Answer 10

Maybe you enterd a marathon and found out you shoulda entered a walk a mile regarding religion?

Answer 11

There's a reason behind this 'senseless bloodshed.'

I don't think a God that sends his son to die for mankind even though we don't deserve it is very cruel.