The God of the Bible is Evil

purpledawn asks:

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So in the context of the story and the age it was written, is God really evil?

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Of course he is. He's supposed to be all-knowing, right? So he would know that killing innocent children is evil. The context is irrelevant.Once everyone realizes that the bible is nothing but a collection of ancient fairy stories, written by barely civilized tribal nomads who didn't even know enough to keep their exrement away from their food (since God apparently was too busy killing innocents to point that out to them) then perhaps we can get beyond these silly questions about whether or not the King of all the fairies is evil.

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W.W.E.D.?

purpledawn writes:

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And Harry Truman was evil because he ordered bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

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Not even close to a fair comparison! Harry Truman wasn't an all-knowing, all-seeing king of the fairies.

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W.W.E.D.?

purpledawn writes:

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Like the vision and the prophecy, nothing bad actually happened.

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Didn't Abraham have a knife at his son's throat by the time god, the egomaniacal king of the fairies, stopped him? You don't think old Abe and/or his son might have had a few mental issues to work through after an experience like that?It's been a long, long time since I read this inspiring and uplifting story about the wonder of god's tender and merciful love, but from what I remember I wouldn't be so sure that "nothing bad actually happened".

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W.W.E.D.?

As I see it, you and purpledawn are dancing around one of the most basic problems with biblical christianity. Any decent god who sees his or her subjects sacrificing one another as some sort of plea for good weather should make an Endora-style appearance out of nowhere and tell them to "stop, stop, stop it this instant!" The fact that he or she doesn't do so should tell us everything we need to know about this ridiculous, capricious drama queen.

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W.W.E.D.?

Oh, I know you're a liberal Christian and that you and I usually agree on social issues (I think the same is true of purpledawn), but both of you seem to be trying to put these actions by the god of the bible into some sort of context, which I see as ridiculous. My point is that an all-knowing god would know better than to behave like this. A human being living at the time of Abraham might be excused for having such a low regard for human life, but there can be absolutely no excuse for an all-knowing god.I agree with you entirely about the C.C.O.I. (although I might quibble that it isn't confined to the US). I'm just trying to point out a catch-22 about the biblical god (which the very title of this thread is talking about). If God exists and he is good, then he can't possibly be the god of the bible. If he exists and he is in fact the god of the bible, then he isn't good. You can't have it both ways, unless, I suppose, you wish to posit that this god character isn't all-knowing.AbE: I forgot to address one final point:

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This story is a great example of that. It is one of God telling folk to "stop, stop, stop it this instant!"

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But why couldn't God just say "stop, stop, stop it this instant!"? Why does he have to put Abraham and the kid through such an ordeal? In other words, why the drama? And why is the story presented (at least by my recollection) as an example of God testing Abraham?Edited by berberry, : explained in text

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W.W.E.D.?

jar, everything I've said is in support of the assertion made in the very title of this thread, I can't see how it's off-topic. But I've misunderstood you:

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Again, I don't think you can point to where I have asserted that God is all-knowing. In fact, the Bible stories themselves contain examples of God not knowing everything.

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I'm sorry, I didn't realize that was your position. It's rather unusual, though. This is the first time I've encountered anyone (so far as I know, anyway) who believes in a god afflicted by ignorance.I think the bible itself does assert that God is all-knowing, but I can't remember where. Certainly the belief that God is all-powerful (omnipotent) would require that he be all-knowing - knowledge being power and all. Or am I missing something?

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...this story does exactly what you say it should be doing.

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With a lot of superfluous drama, I suppose maybe it does. I still say that any god who is indeed good would have done it with just a few choice words.

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The whole point of human sacrifice is that life is held not just in high regard, but the highest regard.

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In a way, yes. I think there's a potential argument here, but it probably would be off-topic. But again, I've never considered the possibility of an ignorant god. I suppose that would change things a little.

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W.W.E.D.?

purpledawn writes me:

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I don't think I've ever claimed that God is all-knowing.

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If God is ignorant, that explains a lot more than we're discussing here.

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W.W.E.D.?

Ringo asks:

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...we read Little Red Riding Hood in the context in which it was written, not in our own context. Why do differently with the Bible?

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I dunno, maybe because no one worships Little Red Riding Hood?So far as I've seen, anyway. But what do I know? I didn't even realize that God is ignorant until today.

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W.W.E.D.?

jar writes me:

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Whether or not GOD is All-Knowing or ignorant has nothing to do with either the topic or what has been presented so far.

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Yes it does. It has everything to do with it. If God is ignorant, then perhaps he can be excused for his immoral displays of genocidal revenge, bloodlust and egomania. If he's all-knowing, he can't be excused.

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W.W.E.D.?

jar writes me:

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As I have pointed out several times in this thread, there is NO God of the Bible. Instead, there are many different depictions found in the Bible and those tales should be looked at within the context of the full story.

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As I see it, jar, the phrase "god of the bible" refers to Jehovah, the incubus that impregnated Mary. The Episcopal church I grew up in taught, in no uncertain terms, that God was all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful, thus I usually take that much as a given in discussions of this sort.I'm talking about the god who is presented mostly - but not entirely - in the old testament. The one who ordered the Amalekites slaughtered, including the suckling infants. The one who killed Lot's wife for showing the slightest sign of intellectual curiosity. The one who never got round to telling Lot that he was wrong to offer his daughters to be gang-raped by an angry mob. The one who, for that matter, never bothered to tell anyone that women shouldn't be treated as property, nor that slavery was wrong.This god bears no resemblance to the god I once worshiped, and in fact I was taught that all those horrible stories were false. They were stories told by particular tribes to scare other tribes; barely civilized people trying to manipulate other barely civilized people with tales meant to show that "my god is bigger than your god", more or less. Therefore, they weren't stories about god at all, just early concepts of him.Suppose we were talking about Richard III, as presented by Shakespeare. If we are to judge whether or not Shakespeare's version of Richard is evil or immoral, we can't bring the real Richard III into the picture - except so far as the play itself does (I hope you know something about Richard III - if not, suffice it to say that Shakespeare, for political reasons, depicted him very unfairly). If we do, we're judging the historical Richard, not Shakespeare's creation.But there IS a Richard III in Shakespeare's play, and even though the Bard's Richard is only a character who never existed, we CAN judge his actions as they are presented to us. In the same way, there IS a character called God in the bible, and we can judge his actions too, at least as they are presented to us. This god might be entirely fictional (as I believe God is, anyway), but as a character in a book I believe we are fully entitled to pass judgement on him.Frankly, I don't fully understand your assertion that there is no god of the bible. You seem to refute that yourself right away when you say there are many different depictions of him.

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We are discussing the "God of the Bible" in this thread.

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Yes. And that is why the stories told about god in the bible are relevant. And since they are relevant, it is not only fair but absolutely imperitive to consider these stories and whether or not the actions related can be reconciled with a god who is not evil. And that is why the importance of your assertion that god might be ignorant can't be overstated.Edited by berberry, : Reworded one sentence in the part about Richard III.

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W.W.E.D.?

You're really funny sometimes, jar. Seriously, I got a good laugh out of that!

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W.W.E.D.?

jar writes me:

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But women were property, and were treated as property, somewhat more valuable though than a goat or cow.

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Exactly. Why didn't God do something about that? The only possible reasons are a: he's evil or b: he's ignorant. And if we're going to hang the argument that the god of the bible isn't evil on the possibility that he's ignorant, then there was no point to this thread to begin with and it never should have been approved. I think the same could be said about many other threads on this forum.

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W.W.E.D.?

Ringo writes:

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We are talking about how God was portrayed in the Bible, not how He "is".

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Yes!

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The portrayal is not evil because the people doing the portraying didn't intend it to be evil. Any "evil" in it is painted on by your preconceived notions.

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Then let's go back to the Hitler analogy. If I go and read that Nazi propaganda you were talking about, I'd be wrong to consider Hitler evil because the people doing the portraying don't intend him to be portrayed as evil? Even if that propoganda talks about the ovens and the gas chambers?

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W.W.E.D.?

Ringo writes me:

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You'd be wrong to claim that he was portrayed as evil.

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Perhaps. But not to claim that he is evil, as portrayed.

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W.W.E.D.?

jar writes me:

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Or that God did not write the Bible or that God did do something and is doing something about it.

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Fair enough. But the question is whether or not the biblical god is evil. That would mean God as he is presented in the bible, not god as he actually exists (assuming...)

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W.W.E.D.?