Genocide in the Old Testament

[Beta Ray Bill]

Let's examine "free will."

God knows everything that ever was, is and will be. He knows what every human in existence has ever done or ever will do. But to believe "free will," God let's us do what we want so that we can make our own choices, learn and eventually be judged. That doesn't fit together. God knows every atrocity that will ever happen, who will do them and how they will be judged. So, God just lets bad things happen so that we can have "free will" even though he knows whether we're going to Heaven or Hell the moment we're created?

Now, how important is "free will" to the world? Don't you believe that there are millions and/or billions of people in this world that would give up their "free will" and go live in a cage for the rest of their lives if it meant that God would stop a serial killer from slaughtering two-dozen innocent children, or militaristic tyrants in Africa from massacring hundreds of helpless people?

You might say that God wants us to learn how to take care of ourselves, you know, the old "teach a man to fish" thing. But life is a vicious circle. Mankind just keeps making the same mistakes over and over.

Examples? (Note that they are not all Christian)
The Crusades, where uncountable millions of people died.
The Aztec sacrifices of the 1300s where 20,000 people were killed every year.
The Thuggee Murders in India from the 1500s to the 1800s, where 2 million people were killed.
The Holocaust of WW2, where 11 million people were killed, not just 6 million Jews.

Look at those atrocious numbers. If God truly existed, and truly loved us, he would know other ways to teach us than simply letting us massacre ourselves in droves, many of whom died because of Christians trying to please their god. Genocide just keeps happening again-and-again, from everywhere in the world. You can't just say that the Indians and Aztecs did what they did because they weren't Christian. Believers in Jesus Christ are just as guilty as everyone else.

God, and later Jesus, did nothing to improve the nature of mankind. I know I would give up all my "free will" if God would just stop letting these things happen. But he won't. Do you know why? Because it's just not plausible that an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-LOVING god could even exist. It's "self-defeating," to quote Johnny-Five.

And to say that God is allowed to do these things just because he's God, is dimwitted. Christians say that he can do whatever he wants, and we aren't supposed to ask why, but why can't he practice what he preaches? Why does he and Jesus teach us these rules, then totally ignore them themselves? It's illogical. If God tells us "Thou shalt not kill" then just lets us wipe out ten million people, his rules and lessons are totally irrelevant. A teacher has to follow his own rules, or else give his students a damn good reason why his rules don't apply to him.

And please, don't just say "because he's God." That's a simple-minded defense, and one that cannot be rationally defended.