Displaying all 13 Forum Posts for the Thread:

Proof of "Gods" true nature. Not Loving!!

06-01-2009, 08:15 AM

Monalisa Sweetheart
Durban , South Africa
Posts: 2

The christians constantly rant on about how "god loves you" and "god is always loving towards humanity no matter what" etc, etc… They base their entire religion on this statement, really believing it to be true. However, if one turns to the bible, this statement is quickly thrown into doubt.

The truth is that this "god" orchestrates nothing but hatred, violence, discrimination, intolerance and injustice from beginning to end. There is nothing "loving" about this god. I will give a few examples of this (There could never be enough time or space to fit them all in), and then you can decide if you think this god is really "loving"

Rape

Yes, this god advocates rape, even going as far as to set rules and laws as how it is to be done.

The jews are sent to a city on gods orders, to kill every person there who is not a young virgin girl. Every male, small child and adult, every non-virgin woman, young and old, were brutally slaughtered, but god ordered them to keep the young virgins for themselves and rape them, so that they could have children and ensure the continuance of their tribe. (Judges 21:10-24)

The same thing happens with the Midianites, except at first all the woman were spared. Upon hearing this, Moses becomes angry and orders them to slaughter all of the non-virgin woman, because only virgins are fit for rape. (Numbers 51:7-13)

Now, god gives laws on how to rape. (Apparently, it was that important). If a man rapes a woman who is not married or engaged, he must pay her father fifty pieces of silver, and she then belongs to him. So now, the poor woman has been raped AND then bought by the man who raped her. You call a god who would advocate that loving??? ( Deuteronomy 22:28-29)

A married woman who is raped must be stoned to death. How sick and twisted is that?! (Deuteronomy 22:23-26)

Murder

Murder is common throughout the bible, accepted and orchestrated by "god".

(Hosea 9:11-16) god states that he will slaughter all the peoples children, some even before they are born.

(Ezekiel 9:5-7) god commands his people to murder all the people of a Pagan City, including "young girls and woman and little children"

(Jeremiah 51:20-26) god sends his people to murder all the people of Babylon, including little children.

Eating Children

This is repulsive and unbelievably cruel. On a few occasions, god made and threatened to make people boil and eat their own children. Anyone who reads this and still thinks this "god" is "loving and good" is seriously mentally unstable.

(Leviticus 26:16) god commands people to eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. This happens again in Leviticus 26:29 and again in Deuteronomy 28:53.

More Cruelty to Children

(Psalm 137:9) god says that everyone who "taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the rocks" will be happy and loved by god. On a number of other occasions, god commanded the babies of a city that was being invaded be "dashed against the rocks".

Discrimination

The god of the bible was constantly discriminating against various groups of people.

In Genesis, god destroys an entire city simply because a few of the men were supposedly homosexual. He leaves all of the inhabitants to burn to death, including the woman and children.

Later on in the New Testament, Jesus is constantly discriminating against Gentiles, ordering his disciples not to teach them, and referring to them as "dogs". Don't the christians always say Jesus and god are one and the same? Clearly, this god doesn't like Gentiles.

The bible is also extremely sexist, putting very little worth on the lives of woman and girls. According to the bible, a woman who has just conceived is "un clean", and she has to go through various rituals of purification. (This also displays this gods dis-like for children). However, if the mother births a boy, she is only considered "un clean" for half the amount of time that she would be considered "un clean" if she had birthed a girl. Girls are obviously considered less "clean" and less important than boys.

Woman were banned from speaking in "the house of god" (church), because they were considered un-worthy of speaking in the presence of god. If a woman dared speak in church, she was stoned to death. This is also why there are no female clergy members in the christian religion.

*********************************************************************....

After all of this, it seems impossible that anyone can still believe that this "god" is loving. Far, far from it. The christian "god" is not loving, forgiving, kind or good. People who believe this are seriously deluded to the truth.

The truth is that this "god" is nothing more than a program of mind control, with the purpose of keeping the world weak and ignorant to the truth. The christian religion is and always has been FALSE.

http://www.evilbible.com
http://www.exposingchristianity.com

03-25-2010, 12:51 AM

Kyle
Denton, TX
Posts: 1

Hi Monalisa Sweetheart!
   I don't know if you will end up seeing this reply or not considering how long ago you wrote it. I am a relatively new Christian and was looking for some online Christian forums when I stumbled upon your message. I can understand how and why you might feel the way you do after reading those passages in the Bible. Until three months ago I was a devout Buddhist who had arrived at Buddhism after many years of searching for the truth. I believed that all Christians (and not only Christians but a great many of the followers of the varied and numerous religions) were people who were afraid to stand on their own, people who for one reason or another grasped with their whole heart, or in many cases only with as much of their heart as they felt they could get away with, to a truth which had far too many inconsistencies and contradictions to be spoken of in one go. I realize that this may not be your point of view and that your motivations might be far different than mine. I suspect that they might be something along the lines of liberating those who are trapped within a faulty system from the lies that they have believed out of honest naivety and a simple lack of Biblical study. Anyway, I by no means consider myself to be a man of great faith or of righteousness, but I do aspire to be. I write this reply to you simply because I feel that your post was well researched and deserves a reply and also because I find it a little disturbing that no one has attempted to defend the honor of the Lord and in so doing offer hope to those who find themselves on shaky ground.
I would like to start things off by saying first that there are numerous passages within scripture which tell us that God does not contradict Himself nor lie. Is it in a being to contradict its own nature without any outside influence? I don't personally think so. Titus 1:2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago... There are many others of similar nature but it would take me all night in order to communicate them all to you and sadly, my Biblical knowledge is not what it needs to be. In light of this understanding what we must consider is that each passage of Scripture may or may not be elaborated upon further within the Holy Word. Crossreferencing within context is an essential tool of Biblical hermeneutics. Scripture must be understood and proved by Scripture. The Holy Bible is, afterall, the Lord God's self revealing revelation for humans, to humans, and in relation to humans through history, prophecy, and ultimately the coming of the second person of God, Christ Jesus. We must therefore conclude that anything not addressed within Holy Scripture is something not on a "need to know" basis for our salvation and spiritual success within this earthly domain. Otherwise, it must be a simple lack of understanding on the part of our human intellect. Anyway, I may not be able to fully comprehend the Word of God and I may never within this earthly existence be able but, I promise you that every question or doubt that you have I will attempt to address. Those that I cannot I will take to men and women of God who have a greater understanding than myself and take to the Lord Himself in prayer.
   I would like to address your concerns roughly in the order that you presented them. Firstly then, is Rape. Deuteronomy 22:23-26 does not advocate the stoning of a woman who is a victim of rape. Rather, it commands the purging of evil through the stoning of a woman whom was a willing participant in adultery. The Lord makes His intent crystal clear. V. 24 " ...because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he violated his neighbor's wife." V. 25 "But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. V. 26 But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case." It is clear therefore that the intent of the Lord was not to condemn an innocent woman to death but to condemn the guilty. We might then wonder why the merciful Lord would condemn them to death rather than allowing them the opportunity for repentance. Romans 6:23 sheds some light on this question when Paul tells us "the wages of sin is death..." This is a theme which we can find all throughout the Bible as we look at the many offerings required to attone for sins contained with in the book of the priests, Leviticus. These offerings were most often an animal sacrifice, i.e. life in exchange for forgiveness of sins. Seeing as Deuteronomy was written in a time long before the coming of Christ to attone for our sins, God tells us that each will bear the weight of their own sin. (unfortunately I can't seem to find the exact passage and don't have the time but I can promise you that it is within the original five books written by Moses which are collectively known as the Torah.) In John 8:2-11 we see that this style of purging is no longer necessary when Christ Jesus spares the adulterous woman in front of the Pharisees. Deteronomy 22:28-29 is slightly more tricky. If this passage is in fact refering to rape then I would have to say that the orders of the Lord were intended to protect the women. In Genesis chapter 2 the Lord God tells us His purpose for sexual relations: to end aloneness. That the man and woman, now husband and wife would come together and become "one flesh". (Gen. 2:24) Therefore, the woman who has laid with a man is now considered to be of one flesh with him. She then would have been considered less desirable or, altogether undersirable by her fellow Israelites. This passage also states that the man must then take her as his wife and "cannot divorce her all his days." (Deut. 22:29) I think that it is important to note that it does not say that the woman cannot divorce the man. Holy Scripture goes over acceptable conduct for a husband toward his wife and over the subject of divorce but those are subjects for another discussion. Something I noticed about this passage was that verse 28 says, " If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered..." Looking at this passage closely it becomes apparent that whether or not this is a case of rape rests entirely on the word "seizes" but, is it not possible for a man to seize a woman within the grounds of her compliance? I think that it is interesting that God, in His infinite wisdom, chose to say that "they" are discovered. I think that this single word, as well as the preceeding passage which was dealing with rape and adultery, makes it clear that this passage is actually talking about willful fornication. Though in reality, I could be wrong. As far as the passages concerning the "rape" of the Midianites and the enemies of Israel in the book of Judges, I think that by building upon the Biblical knowledge we have already accumulated and a look a the book of Genesis we can understand not only these passages but your qualms with the topic of "Biblical murder". The Midianites as well as the people mentioned in the book of Judges, were among the number of people that God had judged for their own sins. Remember Romans, the wages of sin is death. That their distruction was for their own sins is apparent from a careful study of Scripture. Genesis 15:9-19 tells us that the reason Abraham's descendants would have to wait to receive the land God was giving to them is that " the sin...had not yet reached its full measure." God graciously provided an extra 400+ years for the nations dwelling within the promised land to repent and turn back to Him. In the Ten Commandments given Moses by God we see that, "You shall have no other gods before Me" is the first command and that "You shall not murder" is the sixth. The peoples of the promised land had broken His first and most important comandment. This sin was worthy of death. Knowing that the Lord does not contradict Himself it is therefore impossible that He would order the Israelites to break His own orders. Rather, the fallen nations, already judged by the Lord, would be used to test the faith and courage of the Israelites. Scripture tells us that the Lord God is life. Thinking about this makes perfect sense from a logical standpoint. If God existed before anything was and is the creator of all that is as He says then, the concept of life, as well as all concepts and forms of existence, stem forth from His grand creativity. As He is our maker, our designer, and our ruler, not to mention the source of our very life (Gen. 2:7 and many other places within Scripture) He alone holds the rights to our life and/or our death. He provides us with the gift of choice and what we chose then determines whether or not we keep the gift of life. In regard to the raping of the virgin women, it is important to see that the virgins were the only women worthy of being spared because they were the only women whose flesh had not become one with the sinful flesh of the men of the enemy nations. In keeping to the laws of the Israelites and becoming one flesh with men made holy by God these survivors could be spared. Holy Scripture does not specify whether the women saved were unwilling or not however, I would suspect that the women were given the choice of death, should they wish it. You must remember that they had already earned the judgment of death, as had their entire nation. In reality all humans have earned death and are only granted life through the mercy of God and the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, the only human who ever lived without sin and therefore, the only human who could die as a sin offering for the rest of us. Christ endured temtation, ridicule, unmerited torture and abuse, died our deaths, and went to hell in our place so that we might live. In regard to the eating of children, the passages that you have mentioned, when read in the greater context of the chapter or story, make it completely clear that this is not a command from God but a punishment for idolatry which would come upon the Israelites by their own choice because of the scarcity of food. The Bible tells us that those who know the truth and willfully turn from it are given over to a depraved mind, that sin has heart-hardening qualities, and that sin is by its nature decietful. It would not be on the Lord's command or from His soveriegn will that they would perform this heinous act, but out of desperation for food, while under seige, and under the influence of a sinful, decieved, and hardened heart. This was simply the Lord's omniscient prophecy at what would occur should they cut themselves of from Him willfully through sin and force the removal of His protection. As for your section on Biblical discrimination, some of your remarks make me wonder if you are actually looking for truth or if you are, for whatever reason, simply attacking the Bible... In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah it is not "simply because a few of the men were homosexual." Abraham's nephew Lot and his family were living in Sodom at the time and in his attempt to save them Abraham pleads with the Lord. He asks the Lord if he can find 50 righteous (men/women) if He will spare the city, and God complies. Abraham, knowing the Lord and therefore courageous enough to push his luck, then asks if God will spare it for 40, then 30, then 20, then 10. The Lord complied with all of these requests and yet not even 10 righteous people could be found within the entire city. In fact, ONLY Lot and his family were found to be righteous. Even still the Lord sent His angels to deliver Lot and his family from the place. As far as homosexuality is concerned, the Lord declares that it is an abomination to Him. Leviticus 18:22-23 and 20:13 show God's view of homosexuality. There are many other passages in the Bible that denounce this practice, but I would like to take a short moment to consider WHY homosexuality is wrong. The word pervert means to take something that is good and to make it bad. Homosexuality is a perversion of the Lord's plan for our sexual well being. When, in Gen. 2, the Lord creates for Adam a suitable partner He does not create for him another man. He takes from Adams own flesh a rib and creates what Adam names a "Woman". Women are complementing to men in many obvious ways, most easily noticed are those traits which are physical. The simple fact that God's secondary purpose for man, to procreate and fill the earth, cannot be fulfilled through a homosexual relationship is a testament to its invalidity. Something entirely wrong in your argument that Jesus Christ, God in the form of a man, hates Gentiles. MUCH of the preaching of Jesus was to the Gentiles and MUCH of the work of His apostles was performed amongst the Gentile populations. The New Testament largely focuses on the Gentile populations. The analogy of the Gentile woman and a dog was not to discriminate against the Gentiles, but to test the depths of her humility. Isaiah tells us that the one whom the Lord will look upon is the one with a humble heart and a contrite spirit. Being omniscient, Christ was already aware of the depths of her humility and therefore His remark was not for the purpose of testing the depths of her humility so much as it was really to DEMONSTRATE the reward of humility in her healing. Sexism in the Bible is a topic which could take endless amounts of time to unravel. Truly, any of the topics we've discussed today could take great amounts of time and research to understand in their entirety. I'm running short on time so I'm just going to say that there are many righteous women of God all throughout the Bible. The prophetess Deborah is such and example as is Mary who annointed the feet of Christ, Mary the mother of Christ, all four daughters of Phillip, and the many Biblical prophetesses mentioned within Scripture. I hope that this reply will shed some amount of light on the true character of God and will give the grace of Christ Jesus to those who hear. I will be glad to elaborate further on any topic or address new questions or qualms at another time. For now, I need to give my eyes a rest haha.

Filled with the Love of Christ for you and everyone else,
Kyle

03-27-2010, 02:08 PM

ChristyR
Denton, TX
Posts: 151

Hi Kyle,

I was reading your response to Monalisa Sweetheart and I must say… I think you may have actually helped prove his/her point, rather than disprove it. I have several questions about your post, if you wouldn’t mind clarifying?

I should start off by saying that I will be a tough person to convince. For example, telling me that the bible says that nothing in the bible is a lie isn’t proof in my eyes. If I were to hand you a book that wasn’t thousands of years old, and the first line of this book read “Nothing stated in this book is a lie.”, would that make you more likely to believe it’s contents without doubt? I doubt it.

Monalisa Sweetheart’s post seemed to center around the fact that god, as the bible portrays ‘him’, is anything but loving. He is constantly displaying acts of rage, violence, and hatred. You say that you don’t believe this is true, but your argument seems to justify god’s actions rather than refute them.

Let’s start with rape and adultery. I am not going to argue the wording of the bible. The bible can be taken in many different tones, so for the sake of this argument we can assume your interpretation is correct.

You say that Deuteronomy 22:21-24,28-29 is referring to a sexual act by two willing partners. And if the woman is married, both the man and woman shall be stoned to death. Your justification for this is that the bible says that the wages of sin is death.

I don’t see how a statement that warns that this is going to happen makes it any more merciful? As far as an eye for an eye is concerned, cheating on someone and being murdered for it aren’t exactly on the same level.

“In John 8:2-11 we see that this style of purging is no longer necessary when Christ Jesus spares the adulterous woman in front of the Pharisees.” Again the word “spare” implies that she deserved to die for her adulterous act. That alone seems violent and unjust to me.

You continue to justify more violence by saying “That their destruction was for their own sins is apparent from careful study of Scripture.”

… Because, of course, the wage of sin is death.

Your logic throughout your entire post is that god is compassionate because he gave fair warning that he was going to be evil.

Every example you give is another act of rage that is justified by scripture. You say the Israelites are going to be forced to eat the flesh of their sons and daughters as punishment for idolatry? What kind of punishment is that? How is that forgiving or merciful? It seems like the worse kind of evil to me.

Could you please tell me how you feel about this without trying to win me over with bible verses?

How do you think god is merciful and kind? If a person is nothing more than a summation of his/her actions over their lifetime, then how is god more than a combination of all of the discrimination and violence that he portrays?

Look forward to your response,

Christy

04-19-2010, 03:58 PM

Kim.rel100
Lincolnton, NC
Posts: 5

First of all Kyle is close to being right, if a man and a woman commit adultery then there punishment is death by stoning. I feel as though the first entry on Christy's part only looked at the bad and only read what she felt was necessary. If you read further as Kyle did one will see that there was more to the story. The word seized should not be taken literally either, in Deuteronomy 28:28 - 29. This is not literally rape. This would be like if two teenagers who are caught in the act and the boy pays the consequences for the act. Although back then it was with money and they would be considered married at that point. Now a days this kind of thing happens all the time and the boy and girl both have to pay for the act some way or another.

The bible is not a book that should be taken literally. Also, everyone has a different interpretation of every versus in the bible. For those who want to see evil will see evil and those who chose to see and understand the good, will.

In the OT the law were set by God on Mount Siani. Then in the NT Jesus revamped them. Alot of people have the opinion that their are contradictions in the bible. Alot of these come from the differences between the OT and the NT but what one must understand is that there are two different people that are being talked about here. The OT is all about God and what he says and in the NT it is more about what Jesus says. Murder is murder even if you say "You fool" to someone. Coventing is that even to lusting with your mind to someone else's wife. Bad deeds are always seen by God.

Now I do feel though, at least when I read the stories of the OT, people back then where very simple minded and the times were different. Even that by the time of Jesus it was all different.

I am not real sure of all the things in the bible. So I don't defend it nor do I disgrace it. I do like the fact that it gives our society a piece of morality and guidelines of such to live by. If for nothing more. that gives me hope in my own way.

04-19-2010, 06:51 PM

ChristyR
Denton, TX
Posts: 151

First entry on my part? The original post was made my another user.

My post was based off of Kyles justification of what he believes the scripture to mean.

I am not going to pretend to understand the bible more than the next person, because I don't.

But just the same, I don't understand how people who believe in the bible can justify some of the voilent actions protrayed in the bible because they are needed or because we were warned it would happen. (That is, of course, if you take out the arguement that the bible says so.)

04-28-2010, 07:00 AM

svdbygrc
Saylorsburg, PA
Posts: 4

Very well put Kyle. You are a wise man. Keep reading and studying the Bible and God will continue to show you more truths from His Word. God bless! You are reaching the world one post at a time with the truth.

04-28-2010, 12:45 PM

Zach F
Denton, TX
Posts: 80

The Bible has a lot of really good things in it, and it has a lot of really horriffic and horrible things in it. I feel it can't be taken literally or figurtively. There are some historical book in the Bible as well, Kings is one of them. But the bible shouldn't be anything you obsess over or let guide your life. Seriously, it was written in a time when people didn't know where the sun went at night.

04-28-2010, 01:26 PM

svdbygrc
Saylorsburg, PA
Posts: 4

Again, I say "well said Kyle." One day all will know the truth. Continue to grow in the Lord. Some will listen and some won't but don't stop sharing the Truth. God is the One who draws all people to Himself. Just keep doing your part one post at a time.
God bless!

05-05-2010, 11:18 AM

logos235
Englewood, FL
Posts: 11

I really enjoyed this thought provoking series of conjectures about the nature of the Bible and would like to throw my 2 cents in. First off what do we really know about the Bibles origins. This question is undoubtably complex but I think we can all agree that it was put together over thousands of years by many different hands. These disparate individuals ranged from Moses to Constantine and King James so how can we really be sure about anything contained within its pages. That being said there may be other clues about the Bibles origins. For instance, certain discoveries in Iraq, what was once Babylon, of some 250 stone tablets dated to the time of the Sumerian Civilization recount many of the stories in Genesis including the Creation and the Flood. Furthermore the charecter Abraham, the greatest of all the Hebrew Patriarchs, was most definitly from Sumer himself. Basicly the Hebrew nation bagan in Sumeria...
The discovery at the library in Iraq was basicly the story of the Sumerians and their Gods whom they refer to as the Anunaki, "those who from heaven to earth came." We have firstly the story of how and why these Gods came to earth and what they did when they got here. The Crazy thing is these stories seem to be the unedited version of much of the Old Testament. It provides the rosetta stone with which to interpret much of the hithertoo hard to believe parts, for believers anyway. Like how can God be all Good and still destroy Sodom and Gemorah or order the deaths of so many in so many pointless wars. Strangely and with plenty of cognitive disonance attached the answere is Aliens.
The old sci fi maxim, "any advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic," must be kept in mind here. SO...we have these Anunaki, from heaven to earth etc, and they are just like us so why would it be so surprizing to see so much war and cruelty mixed in with the most sublime spiritual revelation. Their dual nature is the key to unlocking who they are. I mean come on its been staring us in the face, from Greek and Egyptian Dieties all the way to Hindu devas and Mayan and Hopi Legends.

05-05-2010, 06:39 PM

Zach F
Denton, TX
Posts: 80

According most Biblical scholars, Abraham, if he is a real person, was born around the early second millennium B.C. in the Sumerian city of Ur. But he was the first man to have faith in Yahweh, or God, as the sole God. The first written record of Israel comes around the time of of the Egyptian King Merneptah (r. 1237-1226BCE) in the 19th Dynasty. After fending off an invasion be the Sea People, Merneptah had a victory stele carved that listed who he had conquered. Israel was listed on that steela as a nomadic, warrior tribe.

So while Abraham was almost definitely Sumerian, the origin of the nation of Israel is likely northern Africa. There is some 600 or 700 years between Abraham and the scribing of this tablet. Many cultures have distorted their history in order to lay roots for their society.

As for the alien theory, it has very little weight to it. Any alien culture that has the technology to travel faster than the speed of light and actually reach our planet would not likely want anything on it except the raw resources. If the aliens came to help our fledging species, there are no technological jumps to support that theory. For the alien theory to be seriously considered, you would need to find some evidence that supports it. Everything there is right now is baseless speculation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah_Stele

05-06-2010, 07:46 PM

MrWonder
Medium City, TX
Posts: 204

Hi Monalisa:

You might ought to read Judges again. God did not tell them to rape the women, etc. That was their own choice. I noticed you did not include verse 25 which condemns the people by saying every man what was right in his own eyes.

They weren't obedient to God. They followed their own sinful lusts, and the Bible faithfully RECORDS it but it does NOT APPROVE of it.

When God became a Man in the Person of Christ, He proved forevermore His willingness to forgive and save all who trust in Christ. I find love, forgiveness, mercy, and kindness in God. Maybe you're looking the wrong way?

It would take a while to answer your entire post so I won't even try today. If you wish to take a point at a time, I'll talk with you. If not, that's fine, too. Whatever suits you.

MrWonder

05-06-2010, 07:51 PM

MrWonder
Medium City, TX
Posts: 204

Regarding the Bible's origins, it is not ONE BOOK; it is 66 books, written by 40 different authors over 1500 years in three languages on three continents, yet its message is coherent and cohesive, a message of man's sin and God's love and redemption of man.

Try doing that with any other book. It will have no agreement. The Bible is authored of God but God never approves everything He records in His Book, but He faithfully records man's rebellion without approving it.

MrWonder

05-10-2010, 06:49 PM

MrWonder
Medium City, TX
Posts: 204

Hi,

I don't know if God loves you personally, individually, but speaking for myself, I know He loves me. He sent His Son to die for my sins and raised Him from the dead to show me I am forgiven.

I am very satisfied in the love of God, and I know many others who are also. I'm not arguing the fact that many people do not feel loved of God; I am just stating the fact that I am loved of God, and I am very happy with that.

MrWonder