In the Old Testament, he is known as a raging tribal deity—and is not much improved in the New Testament: Jesus speaks of fiery hell and suffering worse than at the time of Noah when the Kingdom arrives. The idea that God loves his enemies is a pretty hard sell.
So what gets? Does this show that God's advice to love your enemies is just bad?
So what gets? Does this show that God's advice to love your enemies is just bad?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
