RE: Hitler was genocidal and evil. Yahweh’s genocides are good; say Christians, Muslims &
September 7, 2020 at 4:05 pm
(September 3, 2020 at 3:14 pm)Grandizer Wrote: Christians who take the OT events literally, you mean. There's a big ass variety of Christians out there, and many mainstream Christians don't take certain accounts/passages from the OT literally.
And even for Christians who take these accounts literally, they don't necessarily think much about them or have skewed and selected ideas of what the OT says (based on what they're told by pastors and such).
And for those who do (often lazily) approve of genocide as depicted, some will nevertheless say God would never do this again because <insert reasoning to do with New Covenant or whatever>.
As for Muslims and Jews, similar thing. Large variety out there.
Most Christians are not biblical literalists. Most Christians don't even know the evil that is in the OT.
My opinion is that the only valid way to read any holy text is to receive the writer's honest intent. If the intent was poetry, receive it as poetry. If it was meant as tribal history, take it as such. If it was meant to teach the nature of God and our relationship with It, then receive it as that.
Then, one can reject or accept what is in the text. But, it is invalid, IMO, to pick and choose what you like from a text, and ignore the bits you don't like. You either accept the God depicted or you don't. You either accept the commandments given, or you don't. You either agree that we are sinful fallen creatures created by God that need redemption of a God-Man through blood sacrifice in order to live forever, or you don't.
I believe that Christian fundamentalists are the most honest form of Christians. I also think they are bat-crap crazy. But, they are honest about their religion. They accept the whole stinking package, from the genocidal god who promised not to do it again, to the need for belief in Jesus to get saved.
