Was the God of the Old Testament cruel?

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As long as we can differentiate strictness from cruelty,
I think it's easy to conclude that the God of the Old Testament
did not have a mean streak -- He simply had very high demands,
reflective of His rightfully high status and authority.
After all, He set up a sacrificial redemption system for my ancestors, the Jews,
giving them full pardon from their sins against Him.

A cruel God would have let every imperfect human (i.e. everyone)
die to face the afterlife as sinners.
Being God, He didn't have to keep them alive.
Being God, He didn't have to lead them to their own land, Israel.
Begin God, He didn't have to make non-conditional convenants with them,
which promised He would never forsake them no matter what they did or didn't do.

And He didn't have to bestow any number of other mercies that He did as given
in the Old Testament, but He did.

1 John 4:8 makes the claim that "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
(That's got to be my favorite verse.)
So, was God love back in the ancient days, too?
I am convinced He was, and that He always will be.

Last edited by Ragtime on 08 May 2008, 4:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I don't even believe in it.

To confine the Creator by one sole book is to imprison the Master of all beings. Such an act is blasphemous in my belief. It is near idolatry. There is only One, and He is not confined to one book, nor to one people.

Now to answer the question:

The Bible isn't one sole book and if the Creator chooses a group of people to be separated for Himself, then who in Hell is there able to question Him?

Though I see the Christian god as just a character in a story, yes, he was "pretty" cruel. Killed a couple more people than the devil I believe.

You are not to question. Why would I question the Creator? What could I possibly ask?

The bible not being one sole book, of course not. But it IS one book.


I don't think i answered your question. I'm pretty confused by it.

Try again?

the "man" reminds me of Joseph Stalin

Remind us: Are you for or against Stalin? On a website like WP, it's important to ask before assuming.

Basically if God is the Creator of the universe, then He owns the deeds to the place.

Didn't he nuke a city in the Old Testament (sodom)...and flood the earth while sanctioning the sacrifice/killing of others? Sure, strictness and cruelty are different, but killing so many people would seem to be cruel. The New Testament God seems much nicer though.

If you men that whatever happens in this world is by His will, Absolutely.




Spoken like a true atheist.

Actually, agnostic theist would be more accurate... Anyways, he did (in the Bible at least) do what I described, no?

I stand corrected. I just hear such quotes from atheists all the time.


I would argue "no" only because the way you posed it made it seem as if He is equal to us; meaning he thinks like us, acts like us, wants like us. That is not the case.

Not exactly how I was referring to the Ownership of God over His Creation:

If He chooses to reveal Himself, then who is to stop Him? If God has revealed Himself and these events and words have been recorded, then there should be criteria and whatnot to determine what contains the words of God: that is called Canon.

Yes, a supernatural being would probably not think or want like us (and by his natural would be unequal to us). However, the question of the topic is using the human standard of cruelty, not divine standard which we cannot know.

What standard would that be? What definition so general will be made? I wonder...