the so fallible Bible

[Drich]

Well, we quickly saw how the canon of scripture is determined: the Word of God consists of those writings which are used in your own church. Now I'd like to move along to my next question.

Why is the God of the Bible such an evil bastard?

Evil by who's standard?
Soceity has a standard of Good and evil and God has a different one. God's standard was first, and is well established. Soceity/man does not want to live as God has asked so they create 'morality' and seek to vilify what God has done making it nessary to discard God's standard and to adopt their own.

I'll give just three examples, but I could multiply them many times over.

What ever examples you give will only further my point. You have abandoned God's standard and subsitiuted your own.

You will note that the first two examples involve what today we would call war crimes and genocide.

Exactly! and because of this war crime it is possiable to deem God a war criminal, and if God is a war criminal then he is not worthy of being God correct? after all Hitler was a war criminal and he and God share similar acts... Or can their be circumstances that would warrant the death of an entire people? What if a people brought a plague into being that wiped out all life? or was responsiable for destroying the line of Christ that would deny the salvation of man? Remember every moment in man's history has brought use to this point in time this reality, which afford you the opportunity to judge everything you may find distasteful, but without all those things whos to say any of us would be here to make or defend those judgements?

All the women are killed and the children right down to nursing infants. In the first case from Numbers young women who are still virgins are spared to be used sexually by the Israelite warriors. Fundamentalists, please do not demean your own intelligence by telling us that they wanted virgins just to help their wives with the spinning and cooking. The third example is so horrible, so reminiscent of the Taliban, that it needs no comment.

No they were kept to supply Israel with breeding stock.

Since my deconversion the thought has often occurred to me that the ancient Israelites appear to have invented genocide. Such horrors are described among other ancient peoples. Homer, for instance, mentions infants being killed at the sack of Troy, but not nearly so often, and here is the big difference: Other ancient peoples certainly looted, raped and murdered in their wars, but so far as I know the Israelites were the only ones to present it as right and proper and pleasing to God. Today when a modern military commander orders what God is supposed to have ordered, he is arrested and brought before the International Criminal Court.

why is there a difference? Because only an omniscient God can discern who/which people would contribute to how He wanted the course of History to unfold and who could potentialy bring the world to a premature end. a 'general' could not do this.

The argument is easily countered by noting that the Americans gave no orders to kill everyone including even infants, so presumably if the ancient Israelites had had modern technology, they would have murdered far more. However, that does not go to the heart of the matter. The Old Testament represents God, supposedly the standard of all morality, as a genocidal monster.

Wow how soon we forget the past. What of the Native American who were hunted down to the last member of a people/tribe? Who do you think Hitler got his inspiration from with the Jews?

Those who do not know history are doomed....

Why do so many of the Old Testament writers present God as an evil bloodthirsty tyrant?

God is simply presented. The title of blood thirsty was awarded by you when you choose to adopt the morality of your society over your God.

I used to say the reason was that the Bible was written by barbarians, for barbarians, about barbarians. There's an element of truth there, but it is not the whole story.

wow. how many in your church?