How is Yahweh not immoral?

[Darkstar]

However, when I judge him as a character, I see that he is portrayed as a vengeful, petty psychopath, who on top of that is also a hypocrite.

Keep in mind that God is not human, and does not have the same motivations and emotions for his creation that a man would have for his equal. Do you see any reason why an all powerful creator would be vengeful?

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Exodus 20:4-5
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me

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Nope. So maybe you should ask him.

Do you see why an omniscient God would act without a moral code he instilled in his creation?

Hypocrisy? Oh, wait, he didn't instill a moral code in his creation.

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Genesis 2:15-17
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

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Genesis 3:5
“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

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Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

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Genesis 3:22
22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

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So...they didn't have knowledge of good and evil, and thus could not even grasp the concept of immorality.

What you propose is an illogical character.

Ding ding ding ding ding, we have a winner!

Even in analyzing fiction, the critic must always assume the author is keeping things consistent in order to understand the work (more so if the work is deep and hard to understand). If you followed the path of a novel critic, you would judge the book by its own principles. Do God's actions make sense given the Bible's description of him? Let's see, he is all-just and all-good. Nothing non-good can enter his presence. Any lives terminated had carried non-good and were unwilling to give the non-good up. God saw that no one could completely give non-good up, so he sent a sacrifice to take that non-good away from us. Like all gifts, we must consent or agree to it (lest free will becomes compulsion). Or here's an analogy: Martha's son Tim jumps in a mud puddle. Martha tells him, "You cannot come back in the house until you spray yourself off with that hose." Tim refuses. She walks outside and turns the hose on. The boy runs away across the street. In doing so, he is hit by a car and dies, because it was dark and the driver couldn't see him with all that mud on. Now who's the logical character in this story? If you say the mother, the Bible checks out just fine.

It's called reading between the lines. The bible is pretty bad literature in that regard, by the way. Also, god punishes people directly, so it would be more accurate that the mother shot the kid rather than him being hit by a car. Look at what happens after Adam and Eve eat the fruit - god. Genesis 3

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7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

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And now god adds in his two cents:

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16 To the woman he said,


“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’


“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

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