God, the author of the biggest holocaust

[Longhorn]

So killing infants is a-ok in the babble, but aborting a fetus is worse than genocide cos life is sacred. Got it.

[robvalue]

Nah, god gives instructions on how to abort a pregnancy in the bible. You have to do it in certain circumstances.

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_a...rtion.html

What the Bible says about Abortion

Abortion is not murder. A fetus is not considered a human life.

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. -- Exodus 21:22-23

The Bible places no value on fetuses or infants less than one month old.

And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. -- Leviticus 27:6

Fetuses and infants less than one month old are not considered persons.

Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them. And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD. -- Numbers 3:15-16

God sometimes approves of killing fetuses.

And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. -- Numbers 31:15-17
(Some of the non-virgin women must have been pregnant. They would have been killed along with their unborn fetuses.)
Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. -- Hosea 9:14
Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. -- Hosea 9:16
Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. -- Hosea 13:16

God sometimes kills newborn babies to punish their parents.

Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. -- 2 Samuel 12:14
God sometimes causes abortions by cursing unfaithful wives.
The priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell. And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. ...
And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. -- Numbers 5:21-21, 27-28

God's law sometimes requires the execution (by burning to death) of pregnant women.

Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. -- Genesis 38:24

I'm sure we can ignore all of that because of reasons.

[Randy Carson]

The 'holocaust of the children', as Greg Paul puts it, dwarfs any human caused holocaust by a wide margin. All of the mass slaughters of the 20th century combined pale by comparison. 

While I might agree that this is one of the tougher questions proposed by atheists, there are coherent responses.

I'll give you the condensed version, but I recommend you read the full version here:

Hard Sayings Of The Old Testament
by Jimmy Akin
http://jimmyakin.com/2007/02/hard_sayings_of.html

Akin explores this subject in some depth, so grab a cup of coffee and block out some time to get through it all.

Short version:

God has granted to each person an infinite life: x amount of years on earth and infinity hereafter. A person who lives to 100 has the same amount of life as the child who is slaughtered at the age of two: infinite years. Their lives would look like this:

Man dying at 100: 100 + infinity = infinity
Child murdered at two: 2 + infinity = infinity

Now, since God is more than capable of making sure that the child who dies at two has an infinite amount of joy and happiness of an infinite number of years, that child has not been cheated out of anything by not living to be 100. If anything, that child may have been spared 98 years of suffering and pain.

Consequently, God is equally fair and generous to all of His beloved children regardless of their circumstances in this life.

Akin provides a lot more than this, of course.

Hope this helps.

[Randy Carson]

The 'holocaust of the children', as Greg Paul puts it, dwarfs any human caused holocaust by a wide margin. All of the mass slaughters of the 20th century combined pale by comparison. 

So, this god created a universe with at least 100 billion galaxies, each with at least 100 billion stars, with an untold number of planets orbiting these stars (2000 extrasolar planets found thus far in our galactic neighborhood alone) only to pick one that is a literally a child killer. 

"But, but... The Fall of man!" i hear you exclaim. Sorry, but that does not let god off the hook. Being omniscient, he would have known the Earth was going to be a child killer, yet he let it happen anyway, 

"But, but... free will!" I hear you exclaim. Really? 

I have more thoughts on your post which accuses God of creating a "holocaust of the children". I'm going to begin by discussion the logical problem of evil as a backdrop to a more direct response to your post which has to do with the evidential problem of evil (which I have highlighted in blue below).

And yes, this is one of those cases when a short question requires a long answer. Sorry.

The Intellectual or Logical Problem of Evil

Those who argue the logical problem of evil are attempting to show that God is a contradiction. Typically, the argument follows a form such as:

P1. God must be all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good.
P2. An all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good being could eliminate evil.
P3. Evil exists.
C. Therefore, God does not exist.

However, for this argument to work, it must also prove an implicit fourth premise:

P4. God can have no good reason to allow evil to exist

Theist Response:

If God has morally sufficient reasons to allow even one act of evil, then the argument falls apart, because this would show that God and the existence of evil are not logically contradictory. God might allow evil in view of His overriding goals for mankind, such as the goal of giving human beings free will.

If God had made us like robots which did evil things, then God would be responsible for those evils since as robots, we would simply do as we were designed. However, we are not robots; we have free will, and we can choose to do good or evil. Consequently, God is not responsible for our choices.

Agnostic scholar Paul Draper acknowledges that “theists face no serious logical problem of evil” while J.L. Mackie, a staunch defender of the problem of evil argument reluctantly admits “We can concede that the problem of evil does not, after all, show that the central doctrines of theism are logically inconsistent with one another.”

The Evidential Problem of Evil

While the existence of evil may not be logically incompatible with God, the huge amount of suffering in the world seems more compatible with an absent God rather than a purposefully inactive one. This is known as the "evidential problem of evil", and the argument follows like this:

P1. If pointless evils exist, then God does not exist.
P2. Pointless evils exist.
C. Therefore, God does not exist.

Theist Response:

There are at least two possible responses to the evidential problem of evil argument: the "good reasons" approach and the "no-see-ums" approach.

A. The “good reasons” approach

The “good reasons” approach simply claims that God has good reasons for allowing both more and natural evils to exist—reasons that may be completely unknown to us. For example, courage and compassion are good things, and natural disasters provide opportunities for us to exhibit courage ourselves and to offer compassion to others.

At first glance, this may give the impression that God is just as malicious to the people He created as an abusive husband is to his battered wife. However, this fails because while no one would deny that the husband hurts his wife solely for the purpose of inflicting pain, God can use the suffering in our lives–no matter how profound–to strengthen us.

Another variation of this argument is:

P1. If someone could stop an evil X from happening but didn’t, that person would be immoral.
P2. God could have stopped evil X but didn’t.
B. Therefore, God is immoral. (And thus contradictory and therefore non-existent.)

The problem with this argument is that if God is obligated to stop a single act of rape, wouldn't He be obligated to stop all acts of rape? And murder? And burglary? At some point, God would have prevented every evil and severely limited man’s free will. Our remaining choices would be trivial as we lived out our lives in a programmed state of being.

The bottom line is that God may have good reasons to allow evil in the world, and the burden of proof is on the atheist to show that He doesn’t have any good reason to allow such evil.

B. The “no-see-um” approach

If a man looks out into his backyard and sees no elephants, he might exclaim, “I don’t see any elephants in my backyard.” But if he says, “I don’t see any fleas in my backyard”, would that justify him in also saying, “There are no fleas in my backyard?” The fact that he can’t see any fleas—because they are so small—does not mean that there are no fleas present. Similarly, when an atheist says, “I cannot see any good reason why God allows evil events to occur”, it does not follow that there are no good reasons.

[The Valkyrie]

Let's not forget god supposedly hardening pharaoh's heart just so he could slaughter all the first born of Egypt and inflict the plagues upon the innocent people and animals.

And that's supposed to be a "good" being?

Waiting now for the desperate excuses . . .

[Wyrd of Gawd]

The 'holocaust of the children', as Greg Paul puts it, dwarfs any human caused holocaust by a wide margin. All of the mass slaughters of the 20th century combined pale by comparison. 

While I might agree that this is one of the tougher questions proposed by atheists, there are coherent responses.

I'll give you the condensed version, but I recommend you read the full version here:

Hard Sayings Of The Old Testament
by Jimmy Akin
http://jimmyakin.com/2007/02/hard_sayings_of.html

Akin explores this subject in some depth, so grab a cup of coffee and block out some time to get through it all.

Short version:

God has granted to each person an infinite life: x amount of years on earth and infinity hereafter. A person who lives to 100 has the same amount of life as the child who is slaughtered at the age of two: infinite years. Their lives would look like this:

Man dying at 100: 100 + infinity = infinity
Child murdered at two: 2 + infinity = infinity

Now, since God is more than capable of making sure that the child who dies at two has an infinite amount of joy and happiness of an infinite number of years, that child has not been cheated out of anything by not living to be 100. If anything, that child may have been spared 98 years of suffering and pain.

Consequently, God is equally fair and generous to all of His beloved children regardless of their circumstances in this life.

Akin provides a lot more than this, of course.

Hope this helps.

But does a child of two get older in infinity or does he remain as he was when he was two?  If people age in infinity how will they look after 100 trillion years?  The Bible says that there are no marriages in heaven.  Everyone stands around singing God's praises.  Will you be energetic doing that after 500 trillion years?

[CapnAwesome]

I think a lot of people would rather believe that God had something to do with the death of all those children as part of a divine plan rather than face the truth: they died for no reason whatsoever.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The Problem of Evil doesn't conclude by asserting that God doesn't exist, just that the Christian conception of a god cannot exist.

Christians argue that there may be good reasons for evil, but this ignores two things:

1) an omnipotent being can achieve any end he wishes without using evil; and

2) that good reasons for things like cancer or a tsunami which kills over one quarter-million people in a day are scarce.

And none of this addresses the evils that their god is alleged to have inflicted himself.

This is simply more moral relativity buttressed by special pleading. *yawn*

[Jenny A]

God has granted to each person an infinite life: x amount of years on earth and infinity hereafter. A person who lives to 100 has the same amount of life as the child who is slaughtered at the age of two: infinite years. Their lives would look like this:

Man dying at 100: 100 + infinity = infinity
Child murdered at two: 2 + infinity = infinity

Now, since God is more than capable of making sure that the child who dies at two has an infinite amount of joy and happiness of an infinite number of years, that child has not been cheated out of anything by not living to be 100. If anything, that child may have been spared 98 years of suffering and pain.

Consequently, God is equally fair and generous to all of His beloved children regardless of their circumstances in this life.

Akin provides a lot more than this, of course.

Hope this helps.

So, murder is wrong because?   Seriously, if our life span on earth does not matter because we will live infinitely afterwards than why would murder be wrong?

It's a puzzle.  If we really will live in heaven forever, then we should all want to give up this mortal coil as soon as possible, or at least we shouldn't be bothered to prolong our time here.  Yet Christians in foxholes pray to live just a little longer.  And god prohibits sending them on a little sooner. Why?

You see we care about the two year old because we empathize with the two year old who doesn't want to die.  If you don't, there's something wrong with you. 

The humans who wrote the Bible knew murder was wrong.  They put "thou shalt not kill" is god's mouth.  But apparently it's okay if god does the killing or even just orders it.  Sorry.  That's wrong.

[robvalue]

He could just put people into heaven straight away. Then god saves everyone from all the pain in life on this crappy planet, and no one has to go to hell and be tortured or whatever. He gets his mates quicker, everyone wins! If life here is meant to "prepare" us or whatever, just make us already prepared for fucks sake and miss it out.

That is what anyone sensible would do in his position. But then, he doesn't get to torture anyone with this plan. So that's a no go.