Was the God of the Old Testament cruel?

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The same I say about a book by Karl Marx...

Now you're claiming I'm a Marxist? I'm getting a bit tired of being slammed for every aspect of the left that you don't like just because I don't march lockstep with your dumbass conservative views, you and Ragtime both. Go douche yourselves. I don't attack you for remarks made by Fred Phelps or Pat Robertson. Perhaps I should, just to show you how annoying that crap is.

Look, you guys, please just READ the Old Testament. Even if you don't like the literature, it remains that these books are a very important part of our culture. A great deal of our history and culture makes a lot more sense if you have actually taken the time to read through some of these books. The Old Testament god is neither good nor "trouble." He is a god, much like the ones that you learned about in Greek mythology, and these writings have had colossal impacts on what has taken place in our history. The more I hear from you people, the more convinced I become that the lot of you have never actually bothered to read through ANY of it. All I'm hearing is popular soundbytes that have been taken out of context to promote one person or another's dumbass arguments. I'd appreciate some of you giving a more in-depth exploration of what actually occurs in these books.

An evil good wouldn't have created the world.

The Yahweh of the OT was your typical tribal god of the ancient Near East, like other tribal gods in other states when things went the Hebrews' way they claimed they had the favor of Yahweh and when things turned bad they started flagellating themselves because they though they angered Yahweh. Typical superstitious religious beliefs of the time period, not really that different then those of their Phoenician and Aramaic cousins to the north.

... and children.


lol, probably the worst.

That seems to imply that it was ok for God to kill children and babies from Sodom and Gomorrah, as well from the Flood, considering the story mentions only adults surviving, meaning babies and children all over the world being killed by God, and that makes him look being not that much different from tyrants as Saddam Hussein and perhaps Hitler.

And, what are exactly the claims that they did to deserve an act of genocide from God? Incest, bestiality and homosexuality? is that enough to kill them all, even children when they were also victims? if so, how come societies like Greece and Rome were not destroyed in the same way?

God from the OT being that cruel actually shows how the ancient judaism society and culture was at the time, and personally, I believe that most or probably all civilizations in ancient history were barbarians.

If the Creator is Omnipotent and Omniscient then everything WE do is under HIS will. That is, when we are helping people, He is helping people. When the criminals are punished, He is punishing them.

The sense of morality is different in all beings. Your idea of morality is not the same as mine. I see no problem with the execution of a rapists, murderers. If He can see inside the hearts of people (and indeed an Omniscient Lord will) then who are you to call such an act barbaric?

You can also not compare an ancient society to ours. The modern world's sense of morality is VERY recent. Frankly, I find much of the secular humanist movement lost.

BTW, a "Barbaric" person, in the original sense of word, would be a person having a beard...



English to Latin:

Beard:


barba, barbae N (1st) F 1 1 F [XXXBO]
beard/ whiskers; large unkempt beard (pl.); [Jovis ~ => shrub Anthyllis barba];

barbatus, barbata, barbatum ADJ [XXXCO]
bearded, having a beard; (like the men of antiquity); (as sign of) adult;

barbula, barbulae N (1st) F 1 1 F [XXXCO]
little beard (as worn by young Romans L+S);


Also interesting: what was the Roman view on "cruelty" toward criminals?

Yah, Barba...

Jesus, being a religious Jew, would be "Barbaric" by definition then. Jesus Christo teine barbas!

Actually, the original meaning of the word seems to be a lot different than "beard" and mostly closed to the verb "to babble" or so. From ancient greece, it meant "foreigner" someone who didn't speak their same language.

"Where would you yet be struck, you that rebel again and again? The whole head is sick, the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot to the head there is no sound spot; wound and welt and gaping gash, not drained, or bandaged, or eased with salve." Isaiah 1:5-6, New American Bible. Pretty graphic, huh? This is what the Lord supposedly told Isaiah was in store for the people of Israel. "Where would you yet be struck?"

Now I am a screwed-up perceptually disordered Aspy, but something in this picture just doesn't strike me (pun intended) as being right. This sounds like an abusive parent to me. An extremely abusive parent. If someone can explain to me where love is in this image of wounds and welts and gaping gashes not drained nor bandaged, then please, please do so. Because I just don't get it.

This is not an isolated verse. The Bible is full of verses like this. Revelation especially is a love-feast, wallowing in graphic detail of what is going to happen to all those bad people out there at the end of time. They will get theirs, don't you worry about it. It's a disaster-junkie's dream. You name it, it's in there. Earthquakes, famines, wild beasts, economic disaster, mass destruction--I'm surprised someone hasn't made a movie out of it yet. Why people would be flocking to theaters just for the special effects!

I find it very interesting and significant that of all the things God says to Job, not once does the word love occur. I had a Christian friend who disputed this, but when I asked her to find a verse with that word, she declined. Because she knew that it isn't in in there. Not once. In fact, God tells Job's friends that he is very angry with them because they did not tell the truth about him, they were trying to whitewash his character, whereas Job told it like it is. I get the impression that the Book of Job is somewhat of an embarrassment to Bible-believers; it's in there, so they have to accept it, but they try not to have too much to do with it if they can.

So yes, there is plenty of Biblical evidence that God is not as nice or as loving as his adherents would have you believe; that in fact he is capable of downright cruelty. If the existence of pain is God's problem to explain (as the recent book of that title has it), then the existence of God's cruelty is the believer's problem. Denying it is not going to make it go away.