God is a Dictator.

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I don't think God is a dictator, but many of his followers want to be.

Good will be very much like his followers, if his followers speak for him.

God (or Gods) has often been used as an excuse to oppress and/or kill other people.

God Himself can do as He wants, even if that means bringing destruction, war, etc. HOW God chooses to act is not really much for discussion. It's pointless. That God chooses to act AT ALL is more relevant.

As for being an excuse--I think it's important to look at peoples' motivations for ascribing something to God's will when what precisely that will IS may not exactly be obvious to us. I think that one way or another, we're stuck within a greater plan, whether we choose to do good or evil, to TRY to conform to God's will or to openly rebel.

What angers me about probably most of Christianity as a whole is the pervasive idea that justice and vengeance ONLY belong to God. Christians tend to focus ONLY on mercy and compassion. While I agree that God's wrath and anger are slow in coming, God's wrath will show up eventually.

Biblically, when God shows up, it's always through one or more people that His will is carried out. God considered the Canaanites undeserving and nearly unredeemable. The Israelites arrived at just the right time to execute God's vengeance on them.

But what about when God's chosen people refuse to stand for justice? The Jews had fallen into the same pattern as the northern kingdom before them, and the Canaanites before them, and it was wave after wave of unbelievers who carried out God's justice on them. As Christians, I think we tend to view the bad things that happen to us as signs of the same oppression and persecution we experienced in the first centuries. But western society is framed predominantly by Christian values. So why do we still feel we're under attack?

I think it's because Christians are so motivated by guilt and driven to mercy and compassion ONLY because of a sense of obligation. We've been conditioned to believe that a life of misery and suffering is the will of God. Think Mother Theresa, whose work was not to end suffering, but rather make suffering more livable. She was not merely content with her own misery, but rather applauded others who were. No...misery and suffering are products of living within a world broken by sin, NOT the intention of God for the world as He created it. Misery and suffering are to be AVOIDED, not expected. So persecution and oppression are what we should expect, according to the usual Christian mindset, and we should celebrate when we experience it, all in the name of humility, grace, mercy, and compassion. And we do so at the expense of justice.

There is NOTHING merciful or compassionate about denying justice. When people do evil things, where are the hands and feet of God in punishing them? Aren't Christians supposed to be God's representatives on earth? So why don't we judge others FAIRLY and help the oppressed and persecuted? Why don't we do more to get rid of murderers, rapists, etc.? If you want to talk about mercy and compassion, leaving a criminal in prison for life to slowly rot is neither merciful nor compassionate for the prisoner, nor does allowing those who take life to keep their own show mercy to those who've lost loved ones.

That's when it falls on evil people to correct the good, and I look at what ISIS used to be in terms of what to expect. These aren't people who are interested in exercising restraint. And they'll take out their vengeance on Christians and other non-violent groups that we allow, pretty much, to be our scapegoats. And rather than fight back, we just say, "Oh that's ok...we'll just let God take care of it."

I do agree that the name of God has often been misused in the way of oppressing others and controlling populations. I don't dispute that AT ALL. I don't dispute that extremists "in the name of Allah" are doing some horrible things. But I do think you have to be careful going down the guilt-trip path to say Christians should do NOTHING, because the results of a do-nothing, wait-on-God mentality when God is urging believers to take action are as bad if not worse than actions that are motivated by greed and envy, which I believe are the primary elements of religiously-inspired hatred in the current day and age. I think Westboro Baptist is an example of this, yet do also serve as an example of a group that MIGHT have a genuine concern for bringing Christianity back on track. They are misguided, but they are symptomatic of a greater illness--that justice is denied when it should be the role of Christians to be as much fair and just as it is to be merciful and compassionate.

So waging war in the name of God--ok, so how do you justify killing in the name of God? I would say, paradoxically, that a just war is about the preservation of life rather than killing. I believe that sanctity of life is a key element of Christianity. In order to protect the lives of citizens, a military is necessary. Any attack on a sovereign nation that threatens the lives of its citizens requires retaliation, which inherently means killing attackers if necessary, in order for a sovereign nation to save its own. Life being the highest Christian value, it's logical to invoke God's name in order to serve justice. Oh, and I'm not a huge of fighting in foreign wars. I'm sure there are times when that is warranted, but I prefer that wars be limited to defense of one's own country.

But wars for any other purpose and invoking God's name? Ok, so what about invading a country and forcing religious conversions? First, I don't consider forced conversion to be legitimate. The Bible shows that God rejects whoever refuses WILLING allegiance. If God doesn't have your heart first, THEN obedience, you don't belong to Him. So as a nation, how can you justify forcing everyone to convert when forced conversions put the conquered people in no better a spiritual condition than the one you found them in? You think it's ok for a conquest to live life of bitterness and resentment? Wouldn't you fear that those people might stab you in the back at the first opportunity? So you don't help anyone through use of force "in the name of God." It's not logical.

God has nothing to do with war, it is humans who choose to fight wars.

How do you know that?

Because humans make the choice to kill each other.

God does not allow evil without the greater good.Example: God allows poverty for the rich soul to be saved by charity

How are you certain humans even have a choice?

I’m more of a free will person myself. I’m not disputing free will. It’s your implication that there is no relationship between God and war I find objectionable. That’s simply not true. God commanded the Israelites to wage war. From a purely logical angle, consider also that omniscience is a divine attribute. You cannot say there is no relationship between God and war due to human free will. That’s because God already knows what man will freely chose, which in turn means God has the ability to intervene or not. And that means it’s up to God to decide to allow war or not. And if God chooses to allow war or not, then a relationship between God and war DOES exist. That God gifted man with the ability to choose is hardly relevant.

The BS with the Israelites (God's 'chosen people' my ass ) does not make much of an argument to me because what they did to the city of Jericho was nothing less than genocide.

So you have an anti-Semitic bias, then? That means you can't be objective. Also, it's unnecessary to assume what happened with Jericho was genocide. Why would you assume that? The presence of the Israelites was well-known in the region, as well as their intentions. It would be foolish to presume that absolutely NOONE from Jericho evacuated the city. Further, it was the city and the occupants that were destroyed, as opposed to dwellers outside the city. And finally, you have the problem of Rahab and her family surviving the attack.

Also, the term "genocide" itself is questionable. Here's the wikipedia link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions

The classic definition is the destruction of an entire race of people. In that sense, the Jericho incident hardly qualifies as it was a city and most occupants, rather than an entire race, that was destroyed. Rahab's family's survival alone is sufficient to disqualify Jericho as genocide. Just how many people died in Jericho? A few hundred? 2,000-3,000? By some definitions of genocide, that could mean any number of people of any given population, regardless of ethnic makeup. So...what does that even mean? If the definition of genocide entirely subjective? Is 5 people enough to qualify as genocide? Under a more narrow, objective definition restricted to an ethnic group in which only 5 people remain of an ethnic group, that's logically possible. But then what exactly constitutes an ethnic group? Is there an objective means of defining that?

If terms like "genocide" and "ethnic group" are loosely thrown around and only subjectively defined, then it casts serious doubt as to whether, in objective terms, genocide even happened at Jericho. Calling it genocide--and why bother labeling it?--for, I guess, apparent emotional effect isn't very useful.

Logically, I think a more important question is whether it is possible for a large population to be so irredeemably corrupt that they can be denied their right to exist. Can you, for example, find areas with large populations of known criminals? Actually...yes, you can. Prisons, for one example. In some parts of Honduras and El Salvador, local populations are controlled by gangs who persist in ignoring the rule of law outright, and you'd be hard pressed in some areas to find someone who ISN'T a gang member. Entire networks of violent, organized crime "families" and cartels are known to exist. And then you have destructive extremist groups like ISIS. The Klan. National Socialists.

Is wiping out ISIS genocide?

Is wiping out white supremacy genocide?

Is wiping out National Socialism genocide?

What about wiping out cults/new religious movements? Examples: Police raids on The Family International, most famously the FBI seige of Branch Davidians near Waco, ongoing issues with FLDS, and IRS investigations of people like Kenneth Copeland. These are groups that have, in various times and ways, have shown that they are harmful and to some extent have had their right to exist threatened, most of the time with the approval of the general public (though the Waco incident is seen as an extreme, unreasonable use of force that ended in the unnecessary loss of life). Speaking of Waco...there were survivors. Not of the attack itself, but rather people who for whatever reasons happened to not be there at the time it happened. Obviously, I'm not coming up with EVERY example, or necessarily even the best examples, but it stands that people find all sorts of justifications for suppressing people-groups.

Are people-groups defined not just by ethnicity, but also or alternatively by ideology? What about the Manson family? There you do have a significant group that has been ACTIVELY suppressed and killed off, albeit through lifelong incarceration. Is that not also genocide?

So we know it not only is logically possible, but actually does occur in real life. Moreover, it happens and we APPROVE of it. It's not a stretch to lump corrupt people into a single location. And that's where you find Jericho. You have ONE repentant family (that the Bible tells us about) who escapes the carnage. And if you go further back, what about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? God promised Abraham Sodom would be spared if 10 righteous men could be found there. I read that as extending to Lot, as he occupied space outside the city and benefitted from it. With the last vestiges of righteousness abandoning the city, God destroyed it.

But perhaps most relevant is whether God even needs a justification for His own actions. If God chooses to destroy any or even all of His creation, He is free to do so. If God chooses to do this directly (a la Sodom), to use a select group of people (Jericho, the conquest of Canaan), to use forces that are more or less natural or supernatural (the Deluge, and whatever possibly happened between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2), God can do that without asking His creation for permission or approval. Liking or disliking the scope and methods depend on subjective preferences, and that's going to be guided by irrational bias. I suggest not looking at it from an emotional POV. You're making the incorrect assumption that something is necessarily wrong with genocide without consideration for any possible, LOGICAL justifications for it. You're also making the assumption that God isn't justified. And finally, there's also the assumption that God NEEDS a justification at all. The best discussion is going to require taking an unemotional, objective look at the issue, something I think you might struggle with.

I'm not anti-semetic, I just don't believe that the Israelies are any better than the rest of us humans.

And fanatics who approve of genocide and killing children are exactly why I despise religion.

And regardless is it was true genocide or not, killing an entire city including CHILDREN is a pretty f****d up thing to do! Anybody who actually thinks it's ok to put an entire city to death along with all the children and animals has something seriously wrong with them.

I guess I won't be converting to an apparently bloodthirsty Abrahamic deity anytime soon.

If the only TRUE God is a cold calculating killer and an oppressive tyrant then I think I'm better off not worshipping any gods.