I apologize for the abrasive title in this guy's article but I took it as an opportunity to research and confirm God's word as righteous. Anti-Christians love to post/send these kinds of articles. When one digs deeper, they will find that these are usually "out of context" which is known as "twisted scripture".
Part 2 can be seen here
Item 1 - Sending Bears to Murder Children
So a guy named Eliseus was traveling to Bethel when a bunch of kids popped up and made fun of him for being bald. That had to suck, and you can't blame Eliseus for being pissed and cursing them to God. But God had Eliseus' back, by which I mean he sent two bears to maul 42 of these kids to death. For making fun of a bald dude. I have to think Eliseus was looking for something along the lines of a spanking, or maybe the poetic justice of having the kids go bald, but nope, God went straight for the bear murder. But on the plus side, that pile of 40+ children's corpses never made fun of anybody again. (4 Kings 2:23-24)My response: It's actually 2 Kings 2:23-24
First of all, Elijah pronounced the curse. Not God.
The prophets are often praying for God to listen to them as in the case of the woman with the child that Elijah met (where God supplied them with a daily ration of flour/water) and where God raised the child from the dead.
First of all, this was no minor offense, for these young men held God’s prophet in contempt. Since the prophet was God’s mouthpiece to His people, God Himself was being most wickedly insulted in the person of His prophet.
Second, these were not small, innocent children. They were wicked young men, comparable to a modern street gang. Hence, the life of the prophet was endangered by their number, the nature of their sin, and their obvious disrespect for authority.
Third, Elisha’s action was designed to strike fear in the hearts of any other such gang members. If these young gang members were not afraid to mock a venerable man of God such as Elisha, then they would have been a threat to the lives of all God’s people.
Fourth, some commentators note that their statements were designed to challenge Elisha’s claim to be a prophet. They were essentially saying, “If you are a man of God, why don’t you go on up to heaven like Elijah did?” The term “baldhead” might be a reference to the fact that lepers shaved their heads. Such a comment would indicate that these young men looked upon Elisha as a detestable outcast.
Fifth, it was not Elijah who took their lives, but God who alone could have providentially directed the bears to attack them. It is evident that by mocking this man of God, these young men were revealing their true attitudes toward God Himself. Such contempt for the Lord was punishable by death.Item 2 - Turning Lot's Wife to Salt
Most folks know about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities of sin God decided to kill everyone in instead of, you know, making them not full of sin. But this was a town that, when two angels were staying at Lot's place, gathered en masse and asked if they could rape them. I repeat: They wanted to rape angels. So they kind of had their destruction coming. Lot and his family were sent from the city before things went down, and Lot's wife looked back, and God turned her into a pillar of salt. It's generally understood that Lot's wife was looking back in a wistful kind of way at her angel-raping hometown, but the fact is there's nothing in the Bible to suggest this. Nor was Lot's family warned about looking back. Maybe Lot's wife wanted to see Sodom and Gomorrah get what was coming to it. Maybe she was thinking wistfully of the things she had to leave behind. Maybe she wondered if she left the oven on. We'll never know, because God turned her into seasoning for breaking a rule she didn't know existed. (Genesis 19:26)My Response:
Sodom and Gomorrah were 2 very disgusting sin filled cities after the fall of man in Genesis. Lot, his wife and daughters were "warned" by God's angels.
Lot ran, his daughters close behind. “But his wife, from behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:26). She lagged behind. She turned and watched the flaming sulfur fall from the sky, consuming everything she valued. Then it consumed her. The Hebrew for “looked back” means more than to glance over one’s shoulder. It means “to regard, to consider, to pay attention to.” The Scriptures don’t say whether her death was a punishment for valuing her old life so much that she hesitated in obeying, or if it was a simple consequence of her reluctance to leave her life quickly. Either she identified too much with the city—and joined it—or she neglected to fully obey God’s warning, and she died. it is interesting that she is described as a “pillar.” The Hebrew for “pillar” refers to a garrison or a deputy, that is, something set to watch over something else. The image of Lot’s wife standing watch over the Dead Sea area—where to this day no life can exist—is a poignant reminder to us not to look back or turn back from the profession of faith we have made, but to follow Christ without hesitation and abide in His love (Luke 17:32). She disobeyed the warnings of the angels. God is just/righteous in anything he does.
We'll never know, because God turned her into seasoning for breaking a rule she didn't know existedClearly wrong. She was warned not to look back. She heard the warning.
Item 3 - Hating Ugly People
In what should be good news for intolerant religious conservatives, God really does hate people who are different from the norm. Of course, God isn't as worried about skin color or sexual orientation as he is about whether you're ugly or not. Because if you're ugly, you can just go worship some other god, okay? (Even though God will punish you if you do and also they don't exist.) Here's the people God does not want coming into his churches: People with blemishes, blind people, the lame, those with flat noses, dwarves, people with scurvy, people with bad eyes, people with bad skin, and those that "hath their stones broken." Given that God is technically responsible for giving people all of these afflictions in the first place, this is an enormous dick move. (Leviticus 21:17-24)A bit biased towards conservatives by an atheist who wants to justify his atheism but I'll go on. First of all, the author (not God) is making the assumption that people with defects are "Ugly". I know handicapped people who are beautiful in looks and in the heart. One has to put this into the context of the early days and the laws of the Torah for God's ministry.
Leviticus 21:17. Of thy seed — Whether the high-priest, or the inferior ones. That hath — In all successive ages, any defect or excess of parts, any notorious deformity or imperfection in his body. The reason hereof is partly typical, that he might more fully represent Christ, the great High-Priest, who was typified both by the priest and sacrifice, and therefore both were to be without blemish; partly moral, to teach all Christians, and especially ministers of holy things, what purity and perfection of heart and life they should labour after, and that notorious blemishes in the mind or conversation render a man unfit for the ministry of the gospel; and partly prudential, because such blemishes were apt to breed contempt of the person; and consequently of his function, and of the holy things wherein he ministered. For which reason, such persons as have notorious defects or deformities, are still unfit for the ministry, except where there are eminent gifts and graces, which vindicate a man from the contemptibleness of his bodily presence.
Many a healthful, beautiful soul is lodged in a feeble, deformed body. And those who may not be suited for the work of the ministry, may serve God with comfort in other duties in his churchWould a Subway Restaurant have a continually obese person promoting their sandwhiches? Of course not. They're going to show slim healthy people going into subway. Would a beer or wine commercial have a drunkard in an alley -or- a drunkard beating up his/her spouse while drinking their product? Of course not. They're going to use cowboys in the mountains controlling their cattle on horseback or show a bunch of young athletic actors pretending to hang glide or bungy jump off a mountainess cliff.. The old cigarette commercials with the classy women and cowboys in "Marlboro Country" instead of showing a chain smoker in their death bed with lung cancer requesting another cigarette. The key above is this:
because such blemishes were apt to breed contempt of the person; and consequently of his function, and of the holy things wherein he ministered.
Many a healthful, beautiful soul is lodged in a feeble, deformed body. And those who may not be suited for the work of the ministry, may serve God with comfort in other duties in his churchI would challenge the author to show me examples where God said "You're ugly in the flesh so I hate you". Good luck. That's just propaganda.
Item 4 - Trying to Kill Moses
In terms of people who God likes, you'd think Moses would be pretty high up on the list, right? I mean, God appointed him to lead the Jews out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea for him, and even picked him to receive the 10 Commandments, right? Yet this didn't stop God from trying to kill Moses when he ran into him at "a lodging place." There is literally no explanation given in the Bible for God's decision to murder one of his chief supporters. The line is "At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him." The only sensible explanation for this is that God was drunk out of his mind and looking for a bar fight, and you better hope that's correct because the alternative is that God's a psychopath. How was God stopped from murdering his #1 fan? "But [Moses' wife] Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it ... So the Lord let him alone." Either the sight of a very unexpected circumcision sobered God up quickly, or he didn't want to touch a dude who just touched a severed foreskin. Still, it's Moses' son who's the real victim here. (Exodus 4:24-26)My Response:
First of all, God never has to "try". He does if chooses.
So, as far as we can tell, God was threatening to kill Moses because Moses had not circumcised his son. The question then is, why was that particular sin being judged so harshly? Surely there were other sins that Moses was guilty of, yet God chose to pursue the death penalty over a lack of circumcision. The answer probably goes back to the time of Abraham.
When God called Abram and established a covenant with him, He changed his name to Abraham and gave him a sign of the covenant: circumcision. Moses later wrote this account: “Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you’” (Genesis 17:9–11). God was clear that, among Abraham’s descendants, every male in every household was to be circumcised. No exceptions: “My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant” (Genesis 17:13–14).
Moses, as a descendant of Abraham, had been circumcised. But, for some reason, he had not circumcised his own son. It could be that Moses, as a shepherd in Midian for forty years, had given up living like a Hebrew. Or perhaps he assumed he was already “cut off from his people,” so why bother with the sign of the covenant?
The problem was that Moses was going to Egypt to rescue the circumcised people of God from the uncircumcised Egyptians. There was a sharp distinction between the slaves and the oppressors, but Moses, the leader of God’s people, was blurring the distinction in his own family. Further, Moses was to be the lawgiver for Israel, and it would not do for the giver of the law to be a lawbreaker. Part of the law would require circumcision (Leviticus 12:3). For Moses to have an uncircumcised son would be blatantly hypocritical—and hypocrisy is never good in a national leader.
Breaking man's laws is bad enough BUT breaking GOD'S laws is a total abomination.
In the end, however, God did not "kill" Moses. No (as the author says) ---- move was made.
Item 5 - Committing So Much Genocide
God has killed so many people, you guys. Okay, I mean technically, God has killed everyone if you subscribe to Judeo-Christian thought, but I'm not talking about indirect methods, I'm talking about God murdering countless people in horrible ways simply because he's pissed off. God drowning every single person on the planet besides Noah and his family is pretty well known, but he also helped the Israelites murder everyone in Jericho, Heshbon, Bashan and many more, usually killing women, children and animals at the same time. Hell, God once helped some Israelites kill 500,000 other Israelites. God's crazy.My Response:
One needs to look at the history of these places and what their people were like.
After the fall of man (Adam and Eve disobeying God), God sent them out and they had free will to do as they pleased. The amount of sin/lawlessness in places like Sodom & Gomorrah, Jerhico, Heshbon, etc.. were places/people who activity sinned (worshipped false gods and sacrificed/tortured children) and broke God's laws. They were exercising their free will and chose to rebel against God. Eventually God decided that he needed to start over and picked Noah to be the one to carry out his mission as Noah was the most faithful. The one's that God destroyed also posed a big time threat to God's chosen people (whom he promised them the promised land) and God stepped in numerous times to protect them as it was clear that they would not turn to/honor God's laws. Before I became a true believer, I used to question this very same thing. Not anymore once I understood the context in which these actions took place. God anger is righteous. I will never believe otherwise or question him anymore. We may not always understand it (his understanding surpasses all of ours by magnitudes (perhaps even infinite) but I have faith that it's a righteous anger. It's time to remind atheists (who write articles like this) that atheists like Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, etc.. were not Christians and they committed genocide beyond belief in the many millions. I will question and argue things that man does but I will not argue with what God does.
Lastly, let's also not forget this genocide which goes against God's commandment of "Thou shalt not kill".
Item 6 - Ordering His Underlings to Kill Their Own Children
God is obviously good at big picture dickishness, but he also took the time to be a dick on a more personal level. Abraham was another devout man who God decided to fuck with, apparently because he knew he could. God ordered him to sacrifice his son to God (God was a fan of human sacrifice at the time). We know Abraham loved his son, so he was probably kind of upset with this, but hey, God's God, right? So Abraham tricked his unsuspecting son up a mountain onto a sacrificial altar and prepared to murder him. This story actually has a happy ending, in that right before Abraham drove a knife into his son's throat, God yelled "Psyche!" and told him it was only a test. And then Abraham received some blessings after that for being willing to kill his own child at God's whim. And all it took was the dread of being forced to kill his own child on behalf of his angry deity and, presumably, a shit-ton of awkward family dinners for the rest of his life. Abraham got off better than Jephthah, who had to follow through with murdering his daughter (burning her alive, specifically) in order to get on God's good side before battling the Ammonites. (Genesis 22:1-12)
My Response
This was already addressed in a prior blog of mine. No need for the atheist author to ad lib the above with his own biased interpretation. In the case of Abraham, God was only testing Abraham's faith and commitment to God by asking him to sacrifice his son. Reading the whole story, God never had any intent to allow Abraham to go and do it. In-fact, God stopped Abraham from doing it once Abraham was in the process of delivering the fatal blow.
In the case of Jephthah, He was the one who promised to God that he would sacrifice the first living thing he saw upon return for God answering his prayer in war. It is a very sad story but I firmly believe God allowed her not to suffer and took her soul from her body at the time of sacrifice. God took Enoch and Elijah up to heaven as they never died. God has no bounds and can do anything. Jephthah was not forced to carry thru on his promise. He could have broken his promise to God like many of his chosen people did once the exile from Egypt happened.
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