Jesus and his sacrifice is Satan’s test of man’s morality.

Hi Faith,You don't know me but I've been following your posts for quite some time. It gave me chills to see you put the word Genocide in "Quotation Marks" as if were not really Genocide. It is, in actuality, Genocide. The barbarism commanded by God takes the breath away from those not steeped in and hardened to such atrocities. It's amazing to hear Christians misrepresent Syrian refugees fleeing for their lives, yet fall all over themselves in desperate attempts to excuse and justify the blood-dripping pages of their own holy texts. Your "God" (Do you mind if I put THAT word in quotation marks?) on multiple occasions ordered the death of children and babies because their parents were not Jewish. Or condemned a man to a bloody primitive death of caving in his skull with stones...because Saturday.I have said this before to a friend, that if you want to understand what it was like living under the rule of Moses look no further than the Taliban in Afghanistan. They do those kinds of things too. If you want to relive the glory of Joshua, where a merciless tribe of religious fanatics overrun a vast parcel of real estate, killing men, women, and children, even animals, because they worship a different deity, look no farther than ISIS in Syria. They are doing this RIGHT NOW. They are using the smallest infractions (picking up firewood, anybody?) as "Terrible violations" (in your words) of their God's commandment. If you defend the bloodshed instigated by the God of your preferred holy book, you have no right to ever pretend you don't understand ISIS. They think exactly like Moses and Joshua, and you, when you defend your Old Testament heroes.And this brutality is carried over into the New Testament. There is no depth of disobedience my daughter could fall to that would make me want to grab and slit the throat of a little kitten or puppy, and watch it die choking on it's own blood. Or a little lamb. And to take out that kind of brutal vengeance on a HUMAN...that I know to be innocent of any wrongdoing...the sheer immorality of that act curls the toes.Yet here you are defending it.How?Please don't put Genocide in quotation marks. Edited by Aussie, : SpellingEdited by Aussie, : No reason given.

Would you mind being more specific, Faith?In which way did God NOT commit murder? You have argued voluminously on the historicity of Noah's flood, in which God "Literally" murders the planet, almost in it's entirety. Grown-ups, children, babies, the unborn, animals. How did I misrepresent Joshua, when I compared his tactics to modern ISIS? How were they not terrorists? I agree with you in that we can learn a lot about your God from the examples of his actions.More to the point of this thread, how is it truly justice to kill the innocent for the guilty, as He killed Jesus instead of us? And like He killed Achan's children when their father stole after the battle at AI? I think you are just substituting the word "Judging" for "Slaughtering." He was harsh, bloodthirsty, and for the most part, pitiless. These are the examples He gave.I love and discipline my daughter. But the punishment has to fit the "crime." When she disobeys me, or steps out of line, I don't start killing things. I've never been so mad at her that I demanded blood and death from something. The wages of sin are death because God wants blood. Please tell me where I am wrong. Because I am a moral being (all the many flaws aside) I did not start killing the first time she stepped out of line. I instructed her, at her level, and gave her another chance, then another, then another... and she is learning and growing into a beautiful, socially well-adjusted person. Not God. He wanted blood through the ages from the first bite of fruit.Please don't confuse our moral outrage at blood-sacrifice of the innocent for self-righteousness. Edited by Aussie, : spelling

Hi Bob,I'm sorry but I can't bring myself to see what DNA replication has to do with anything I said. As to your second point, if you came into my house as a guest and ate a piece of fruit I told you not to, I would not kill you and your children and their grandchildren etc...because that would be cruel and immoral.And I certainly would not take out a brutal retribution for your little theft on my own child.Happy 2016! Edited by Aussie, : No reason given.

You are fortunate in that you questioned it at an early age. I am the son of a preacher and was steeped in it from infancy. I even preached it for years before the unanswerable questions became too many. Reading the Bible back nowadays fills me with constant wonder that I could have fallen for such barbarism. The merciless brutality of the cross when He could have chosen to...forgive. Jesus "Paying the price" is not forgiveness. It's paying the freaking sky-high price!What are we teaching our kids? That when they are wronged in the schoolyard or playground that the should forgive ONLY after extracting a heinous penalty from the wrongdoer? Or some other innocent kid who had nothing to do with the incident? That's not what forgiveness means.It's just absurd.

Do you see how you are dehumanizing the victims here? That's what terrorists do. They convince themselves and their fellow terrorists that their victims are somehow less than they are, less human. And they therefore are doing the world and their favorite deity great service in cleansing the perceived scourge. This is the type of thinking required for the leader of a primitive desert tribal leader to hear voices in his head telling him to overrun a city and kill everybody, including pregnant mothers. There is no archaeological record that "The Conquest" ever happened, thank goodness. But the stories are heinous, and please notice that you are defending terrorism.

So when God tells Joshua to spare no one, even pregnant mothers...the unborn were also guilty? Can you please tell me unequivocally that you support this? Are you willing to go on the record stating that you think it was a good thing that Joshua slaughtered the crying infants and the unborn because of their parents' religion?
Would you have participated had you been there?

Faith. We are not happy to see evil proliferate. That is why we condemn the slaughter of innocent children because of their parent's religion. The correct moral conclusion is not choosing an age at which the child should be killed! Can you hear yourself typing these words?The correct moral conclusion of a just society living in the modern world should be the condemnation of the genocide of a population because they worship a different deity than the attackers. Out one side of your mouth you condemn child sacrifice, yet out of the other side you promote the murder of babies. Think about this honestly Faith. You are publicly promoting and defending the murder of babies. We publicly condemn it. Please, PLEASE don't call us morally compromised. The killing of children "Doesn't sit right" with the author? Is he kidding? Are you kidding? The killing of children should make any moral person sick and outraged.Again I extend this to the New Testament where the innocent Son is slaughtered for a crime He did not commit.

This is very lazy Faith. I truly say this respectfully because you are about the age of my mother, and you would both get along famously. She thinks like you, exactly, and sounds like you when she discusses Scripture. But here you are, publicly defending the murder of babies, and when pressed you absolve yourself of the moral responsibility of what you say by hand-waving and declaring, "I don't judge God." No, Faith... take responsibility for your own thoughts and words. My mother will not. You are publicly approving the slaughter of children, please defend it.You have also not defended why you believe that killing the innocent (Jesus Christ) is justice.

One of my degrees is in Protestant theology, so yes I have some familiarity with Scripture. But that's beside the point. And you haven't answered me at all... could you in your own words please describe to me in which sense plunging a sword into an infant's belly is "Justice?" for the sins of it's long-dead ancestors? Would you do this if God told you to? Please don't hand-wave this away. If you had been there, would you have participated? This is an important moral point and I'm not convinced you are going to answer it directly.Why should you NOT have to defend your assertions of Scripture? Why should WE not feel offended when you offer us blood soaked pages and tell us we should intuitively understand that it is okay to carry out brutal vengeance on an innocent party, and call it "Justice."I understand well the Scriptural relation of death to sin. At the first bite of fruit, God demanded blood. In your theology there is no higher arbiter of law than God. The wages of sin is death BECAUSE of God. Instead of true forgiveness, He is only satisfied by blood...because He wants blood.

Faith...why only blood? Why not simply forgive?From the first bite of fruit He demanded a hundred thousand slit and bleeding throats. He required the torture and bloody back of His own Son. This is not forgiveness. He did not forgive...He killed. He required blood because He delights in the scent of it.Your God drips blood.

I'm sorry Faith but I must have missed where you answered my question. Can you help me find it please? Why only blood? Why not actual forgiveness. Your God drips in the blood of others. Numberless bulls and heifers and birds and baby animals. His own son was fair game. Not Him. Trying to sound prophetic doesn't help argue your case, it's not anointed, it just makes you sound silly. I don't despise Him, I just don't think He's real. I DO despise the twisted morality it conveys, causing beautiful people like you to be unable to distinguish right from wrong. Like the way you are defending the slaughter of children.

Well that didn't take you long to write me off entirely. You're already speaking of me in the past tense But before you and your blood-thirsty deity send me off into an eternity of unspeakable torture (Because He thought that eternal agony was a good idea), can you at least answer my question? Why innocent blood? Why does the death of the innocent sound like a good idea? He doesn't forgive without killing something. That is NOT forgiveness. I have forgiven my daughter a thousand times without killing anything.I suppose the irony of you talking about Reality (Capital "R") and the "Inexorable Moral Law" while defending the slaughter of human babies is lost on you...Edited by Aussie, : Spelling...Edited by Aussie, : No reason given.

Hi kbertsche,Nothing too fancy, an undergraduate degree from a Methodist college that Faith would be proud of. I'm not an expert and I don't want to be mistaken for one, but I have studied theology, and spent some time preaching the Gospel, and felt I might be able to make a contribution in this thread. I do understand that "There is none righteous, no not one," but I am forced to accept the absurdity that we are condemned to eternal torment, initially because of one act of disobedience of one couple, many thousands of years in the past. And look at the disobedience...they ate fruit they were told not to. Enter six thousand years of human suffering.And does it really make sense to you that we are sinners because we were "Theologically" participating in biting that fruit before we were born? Will you defend that as justice? Genghis Khan did some horrible and brutal things in his lifetime. Would you agree to the rounding up of all his living descendants today and executing them for "Genetically" participating in his atrocities a thousand years ago? I bet you wouldn't because you are a nice guy. But you are making that exact case.

Jesus was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the Earth.God had plans to torture and kill him long before there were people.

Hi Faith,I understand that this was made to GDR not me, but I'd like to comment here too. You are intelligent Faith, I know this from reading thousands of your posts. But I can't help but feel you are hiding under a thick blanket of self-imposed willful ignorance here. Please understand, I am not being disrespectful. But when your morality is reduced to mandatory approval of the behavior of a blood-thirsty deity written in a brutal book, your own moral compass stops indicating correctly.Please note again, you are publicly approving the slaughter of babies and children because of their parents' religion. Do you see you are defending a brutal execution of a man who picked up sticks against a religious law? Do you understand this is what ISIS is currently doing in Syria? They also are committing brutal executions over what the rest of the World sees as "petty religious offenses," that they decry to be "Serious offenses worthy of death." Please read this carefully Faith: You called picking up sticks a serious offense worthy of death. Please think about this and try to understand how primitive your thinking is when it comes to your Holy Texts. Do you see how closely Moses and Joshua align with modern terrorism in Syria in their brutal observance of the law and killing of entire families in their homes because of religious differences. And you agree with them.But I don't think you will allow yourself to consider this, and it saddens me. Remember, you are advocating the murder of children over religion. Edited by Aussie, : No reason given.