You often hear the claim that the whole bible is god inspired, god breathed and inerrant. Is it? I want to just consider one attribute of this claim - gods nature towards human war.
For example the nature of god in the earlier portions of the bible is very war like
quote:
Ex. 15:3 The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his name
Ps. 24:8 The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.
Psalms 144:1 Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.
Psalms 137:9 How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies and smashes them on a rock!
Numbers 31:17-18 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
These are the thoughts and words of god? Blessings on those for smashing innocent babies on rocks? Approval for raping young girls?
First thought is that this is a view of god by a warrioring people caught up in a revenge cycle. This is how a struggling people would (like) to view god. The warrior Greeks, Romans and Norse had similar view of god(s).
Muslims have also cultured this war like image of god. In addition Muslims have, in a similar manner as the bible, interspersed their scripture with contridictions of a caring and loving god.
Secondly, it is obvious to me that the writers of the old testament saw themselves as being in the image of god but not their enemies.
Finally, and most important, thought is that we now have a better glimpse of the universe with all its splendor, size and scale. We also have a much better idea of the complexity of the biology on the microscale and have no choice but stand in complete awe and humility.
How then, can someone with this knowledge still envision that the creator of such extravagant magnificent creation could be so directly involved in wars and rancor between puny humans, all supposedly made in his image.
It would like myself squashing ants on the sidewalk and jumping up and down trash talking about my "opponents" and seeking glory from my victories. Actually this analogy doesn't rate since ants are not my creation, and the distance between ants and myself is small compared to the distance between the creator of the universe and humans.
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