The Biblical moral crisis...Why would a holy book say these things?

Question

The bible is supposedly God's true word. And since God is perfect, so should His word. But why isn't it like that?
(P.S: I'm a Deist, I believe a Deity exists, just not the biblical one)

Tolerance to other beliefs:
** Deuteronomy 12:2 Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:

12:3 And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.

**Violence & Cruelty:
2:33 And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.
2:34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the LITTLE ONES, of every city, we left NONE TO REMAIN
(Why destroy everyone including CHILDREN?

More to be added...

**Women:
2:23 (As it is written in the law of the LORD, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;)
How about women? Can't they be holy "to the Lord?"

1Tim.2:11-12 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

History and Other biblical passages:
In Genesis 10 it says:
10:5 (and 10:20, 10:31) By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.
And this supposedly took place BEFORE the Tower of Babel was constructed.
Genesis 11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
(One verse says something and other abrogates it?) Even if this isn't the case. The tower of Babel was supposedly made around 2400 BCE there were already many languages!!
'

Ezekiel 23 seems full of erotica!!
Examples:
23:20 For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
(Flesh? Oh the "flesh" down there, that is as big as that of a donkey!!)

Answer 1

Start reading the New Testament there is far less blood because Jesus came and died for us so that we would have less violence. Why don't you people get it? NEW TESTAMENT! We are Christ-tians. Followers of Christ! New Testament!

Answer 2

Well, first the Bible largley comes from Man.

Second, the Bible is an intepretive document and it's up to you to draw from it.

Thirdly, what do you do in adverse situations. Let's say you're a leader and you are leading 3,000 people and you have 12 men below you and there is a growing opposition movement. You have several choice, appease them, compromise, reliquish authority and take your licks as they fall or make a point. Moses made a point. He had one son, I think it was the eldest, killed from each tribe. It may not be the best decision be he had to make a desicion or face an armed rebellion that could have killed him.

Men have to make hard and tough decisions.

Even God does.

God could have wiped man off the Earth. Man shows every reason to deserve it.

You have a family dog and several children and one day that dog puts one of your children into the hospital with multiple bites. What do you do. Show compassion, train the dog or get rid of the dog.

Real world and YOU have to make the decisions.

Does that make you cold hearted and compassionless!

A friend of mine is facing that with a teenage son. One son is cool, rather obient and good in school. The other plays with guns, steals, does drugs, stays out all night and screwed over with school. He was in reform school for a year. When he comes home he steals the other sons Xbox and sells it for drug money.

NOW, WHAT DO YOU DO in that situation.

Answer 3

If you were the only God, and you knew there is no other God but you and you created people and you loved them and you expected them to love you back and treat you as the only God ever existing, what would you do if people started creating gods out of rocks, starts, natural phenomena and would completely ignore you? Not only that, but they would teach their children and the faith in those false gods would spread like a disease? What if you had made a nation for yourself - people who actually know the truth about you as the only God but as fallen human are completely vulnerable to the disease spreading around? What if on that nation and on the purity of their knowledge depended the whole fate of all mankind and the plan of salvation that you devised that would help all people find the truth, be reconciled to you and live with you forever? What would YOU do?

Answer 4

You would understand why a holy book would say these things if you would read the entire book and not just pull a few random verses out from left field. God had a purpose for everything he did and his word is perfect. To understand God's word, you must take the time to study God's word. It would be like me looking up the word apple in the dictionary and asking why do all the words in the book start with the letter A.

Answer 5

Why do people always go to the Old Testement when they think we believe in the violence? God done what he done to protect the line in which Jesus was to come down, plus to give his land back to the Jews. Start from Genesis and read all the Old Testment to know why God did what he did. The scripture in Timothy you need to read all of Timothy and find the context as to why God said women are to learn in silence? There is always a reason.

Answer 6

You said:
" And since God is perfect, so should His word."

Okay. But that's something you made up. It's not me who believe's that the Bible has to be perfect. Just so you know.

About the need to moralize God:
You can if you want to. But that's something that you require of Him. I suppose it's not important to you to see that He is the boss. And if He told anyone to do those things in the old Testament, you won't like Him. That's okay if you want to do that, but don't expect anything from Him but His wrath when you get to Him. That's also your perogative.

So, what I am saying is that God has the right to do anything He wants. He owns it. And you can do whatever you want to do, just know that you are not the boss, and you will have consequences to face for what you decide to do.

Answer 7

As a christian, I probably cant answer your question in a way which will satisfy you. But I do know one thing: By saying that you feel these things are unholy, unloving, intolerant and cruel, you are defining God on your terms. In other words, the God you want to worship would not do any of these things. That does not necessarily translate into who God is. And in order to understand and know who God is, like any other person, you have to develop a relationship with him.

Answer 8

Definitely hard teachings.

The nations in Canaan were sacrificing children to idols. God allowed 400 years to elapse while the children of Abraham were in Egypt.

The God of the New Testament calls believers in His Son to be peaceful and good citizens.

Answer 9

That's God's area of authority. Whatever His reasons were ( and are ) are His. One could go into depths trying to explain these things to you, but, would that explanation satisfy someone who chooses not to even attempt to undertake comprehension of His word to begin with?

Answer 10

God is not tolerant of sin. If you break God's Law then there is a price, that price is death, but thankfully if you repent of your sins (as Nineveh did) and then put your faith in Jesus Christ (as countless billions have), you will be saved from death and sin, and you will enherit eternal life. That is the message of the Bible, not these small things.