My honest review of Christianity

[Lek]

Do you think that Pharaoh in the Exodus account was really a nice guy and would have let the Israelites go if God would not have hardened his heart? God was allowing the evil in Pharaoh to harden him to the demands of Moses. We won't agree on the taking of the life of David's child either, since you don't believe that the baby went to an eternity of happiness, but that's the biblical outlook concerning that child and all the innocent children killed in the bible. Maybe it would be better if they had lived longer and died some other horrible, more painful death. Maybe by then they would have reached the age of reason and died rejecting God. If you don't believe that there is an afterlife, then you'll interpret the bible differently than if you do. If I believed we weren't guilty of turning against God and that there was no life after this one, then I might agree with you, but that's not the perspective of the scriptures.

Exodus is a little different . The Bible says god hardened pharaoh's heart. It does not say and god said I will harden pharaoh's heart because you Jews have been misbehaving. You do see the difference. One is a metaphor, the other a promise of punishment.

We could discuss the Jewish view of heaven all day, but fact remains that according to the Bible, god punished a man by killing a child.

I do see that one was a promise of punishment, but that doesn't have any effect on whether one is a metaphor or not. They're both examples of God using the actions of evil men for his purposes.