How can one believe in a God like this? I'm having doubts...sorry!

[Holly3278]

Hi everyone. How can anyone believe in a God like this? I am sorry but I am just having a lot of doubts.

Give them, O LORD–what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels. E’phraim is stricken, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Even though they bring forth, I will slay their beloved children. My God will cast them off, because they have not hearkened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations.
(Hosea 9:14-17 RSV)

I have three problems with the above passage of Scripture. First, why would God cause people to miscarry? Second, why would God hate people? I thought God loved everyone? And third, why would He slay their beloved children? Why would God not have mercy on children?

Sama’ria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.
(Hosea 13:16 RSV)

Why wold God want the little children to be dashed in to pieces and their pregnant women to be brutally murdered? I am sorry but this makes no sense to me.

Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manas’seh, and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, “If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD’s, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering.” So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the LORD gave them into his hand. And he smote them from Aro’er to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim, with a very great slaughter. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And when he saw her, he rent his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! you have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me; for I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow.” And she said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the LORD, do to me according to what has gone forth from your mouth, now that the LORD has avenged you on your enemies, on the Ammonites.” And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me; let me alone two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.” And he said, “Go.” And he sent her away for two months; and she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had made. She had never known a man. And it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.
(Judges 11:29-40 RSV)

Why would the Holy Spirit have anything to do with human sacrifice? Does this not go against the 5th Commandment?

I am sure that there are more passages in Scripture that are similar that I would have a problem with. I am sorry but it just doesn’t seem like a loving and merciful God would do such things. Please help me!

 

[StrawberryJam]

Hi everyone. How can anyone believe in a God like this? I am sorry but I am just having a lot of doubts.

Give them, O LORD–what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels. E’phraim is stricken, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Even though they bring forth, I will slay their beloved children. My God will cast them off, because they have not hearkened to him; they shall be wanderers among the nations.
(Hosea 9:14-17 RSV)

I have three problems with the above passage of Scripture. First, why would God cause people to miscarry? Second, why would God hate people? I thought God loved everyone? And third, why would He slay their beloved children? Why would God not have mercy on children?

Sama’ria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.
(Hosea 13:16 RSV)

Why wold God want the little children to be dashed in to pieces and their pregnant women to be brutally murdered? I am sorry but this makes no sense to me.

Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manas’seh, and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, “If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD’s, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering.” So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the LORD gave them into his hand. And he smote them from Aro’er to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty cities, and as far as Abel-keramim, with a very great slaughter. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel. Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And when he saw her, he rent his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! you have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me; for I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow.” And she said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the LORD, do to me according to what has gone forth from your mouth, now that the LORD has avenged you on your enemies, on the Ammonites.” And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me; let me alone two months, that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.” And he said, “Go.” And he sent her away for two months; and she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had made. She had never known a man. And it became a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went year by year to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.
(Judges 11:29-40 RSV)

Why would the Holy Spirit have anything to do with human sacrifice? Does this not go against the 5th Commandment?

I am sure that there are more passages in Scripture that are similar that I would have a problem with. I am sorry but it just doesn’t seem like a loving and merciful God would do such things. Please help me!

This must be your first real reading of the OT.
Don’t worry over this too much.
You have multiple situations in the bible you did not even post that are very shocking, and morally reprehensible in a non theist view.
I am sure many christians will basically tell you the same song and dance they have been tap dancing to with my questions that never got answered here too.
Don’t give up though.
I have been fortunate enough to meet a few of them that are caring and kind here. In real life, do not ignore those who may be quiet about their faith. I lost a freind to suicide recently, never saw it coming. Be happy for each day. That is all I can share, if I can share a single thing with anyone here.
Be happy for each day

 

[Holly3278]

This must be your first real reading of the OT.
Don’t worry over this too much.
You have multiple situations in the bible you did not even post that are very shocking, and morally reprehensible in a non theist view.
I am sure many christians will basically tell you the same song and dance they have been tap dancing to with my questions that never got answered here too.
Don’t give up though.
I have been fortunate enough to meet a few of them that are caring and kind here. In real life, do not ignore those who may be quiet about their faith. I lost a freind to suicide recently, never saw it coming. Be happy for each day. That is all I can share, if I can share a single thing with anyone here.
Be happy for each day

Thanks StrawberryJam. I really do want to believe in Catholicism but how am I supposed to if the God that we, as Catholics, worship approves of such disgusting things??? I mean, I know that we are not supposed to take every verse of the Bible literally but apparently this kind of stuff is rampant throughout the Old Testament!

 

[JM3]

Thanks StrawberryJam. I really do want to believe in Catholicism but how am I supposed to if the God that we, as Catholics, worship approves of such disgusting things??? I mean, I know that we are not supposed to take every verse of the Bible literally but apparently this kind of stuff is rampant throughout the Old Testament!

Do you believe that it is right for you to judge others by your standards? To judge God?

That is what you are doing.

 

[Holly3278]

Do you believe that it is right for you to judge others by your standards? To judge God?

That is what you are doing.

Ummm, if I am going to believe in a certain religion, I at least want to understand it. So no, I am not judging God, I am trying to understand God. Is there something so wrong with that?

But seriously, if you can’t do anything but bash me for asking an honest question then don’t even bother. I’m sorry but I said that as politely as I could.

 

[Willy_Jose]

Holly,
Here is a good essay on the matter by Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry.
Follow the link. God bless.

Is the God of the Old Testament a Merciless Monster?

carm.org/god-of-old-testament-a-monster

 

[MarianD]

Who is this that darkens My Counsel with words with knowledge? - Job 38:2

Would you discredit My Justice? Would you condemn Me to justify yourself?..Then I Myself will admit that your own right hand can save you" - Job 40:8;16

The fact is is that God knows the past, present, and future. He knows infinitely more than any of us know. Yes, many things in the Old Testament will shock you. However, if you have the Knowledge of God, then you’d understand why these things were done. Furthermore, the killing of children and other reprehensible things were done by the Irsaeli soldiers and allowed by God as punishment for other nation’s sins.

If you knew the sins they’d committed, and the punishments such sins warranted, then you may even think God was being too Merciful here.

 

[markomalley]

[bibledrb]Hosea 9:10-17[/bibledrb]
[bibledrb]Hosea 13:16[/bibledrb]
​

Try to consider historical context here. This was immediately prior to the Northern Kingdom being conquered by Assyria.

Also consider Israel’s actions: basically, the Northern Kingdom became completely apostate. The specific quotes that you cite are dealing with a reversal of the promise God gave to Joseph in Gen 49:25 (remember Ephraim is a tribe, not a woman)

[bibledrb]Gen 49:25-26[/bibledrb]
​

(remember that we are dealing with some figurative language here. Joseph was not a woman and did not have a womb; therefore, the language had to be figurative)

One other point of context: the devil knew that the Messiah was coming and that the Messiah would come from Israel. The devil, therefore, wanted nothing more than to destroy Israel. All God would have to do is to withhold His hand and the devil would strike. That’s one big reason why you see that constant pattern with Israel: they do good and are blessed; then they get tricked into idolatry and apostasy and get slammed…hard. It was a repetitive pattern with them.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

All of us want to make a difference … to be unique … to be special.

The fact is … uncomfortable as it may be … that each of us is merely a creation.

Kind of like that vase up on the shelf. But with free will. And the ability to “think”.

You and I are not “creators”.

God, and God alone, is The Creator.

God’s ways are not our ways.

Once in a rare while, somebody like St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas comes along with the rare ability to explain things well enough to yield one or two insights. But St. Augustine wrote around AD400 and St. Thomas Aquinas was around AD1300.

AND, they were so good, that they are still best sellers, even today.

God has a plan … for each of us. But He doesn’t tell us what that plan is.

Once a year, at Mass, they read the section of the New Testament about the … gonna get this wrong … going from memory … about the lineage of Jesus. From Abraham to the birth of Jesus … It’s a really long reading. And it names all of the people we know from the Old Testament who happen to be in the direct geneology from Abraham to Mary … and some of those people led lives of absolute misery.

The point is that we can see 2000 or 4000 years later … that there was a Divine Plan for the lives of those few specific people.

Each of us has a role to play in The Divine Plan. Sometimes, once in a rare while, we might get some little tiny insight … an experience when we were a teenager perhaps was something that gave us a resource that we were able to call upon decades later. Perhaps we witnessed an act of unbearable selflessness … and then one day something happens and that scene we witnessed or some sentence we read becomes very real to us and we can act on it.

I apologize for rambling.

The Jews were the Chosen People. Why? We don’t know. Perhaps because they were the weakest tribe? They knew they were the Chosen People and they had special graces and blessings. And they turned their backs on God. Time and Time again. And God chose to forgive them. Why? We don’t know. Why did God decide to use the weakest of the tribes for the lineage of Jesus? We don’t know. Why did Jesus choose the WEAKEST of the men to be His Apostles? We don’t know. And why did Jesus choose Peter, of all people, to be the head of the Apostles and the first Pope? We don’t know.

We just don’t know.

There was a reading this past Sunday. Or last Sunday. “Lord, Help my unbelief”.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

There is a kind of interesting book about the Old Testament. “The Prophets” by Norman Podhoretz.

Has a lot of insights.

 

[bingbang]

This is far from traditional, but I don’t pay much attention to what it says in the OT. I don’t really believe that God did those things. If Jesus is God then you can go back and describe Jesus with those passages. Doe these things seem like things that Jesus would do? There is something off about some of the passages in the OT and I just don’t buy them.

 

[Holly3278]

Holly,
Here is a good essay on the matter by Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry.
Follow the link. God bless.

Is the God of the Old Testament a Merciless Monster?

carm.org/god-of-old-testament-a-monster

I just scanned over the first article. If I am reading it right, it is saying that basically the only way to end the evils that these people were doing was to totally annihilate them? Wow. I guess I could accept that explanation. It is somewhat hard to accept though. I mean, what if we had a modern day nation that was completely and totally evil where not a single person did good but did evil. Would the Church justify annihilating that nation? I honestly don’t think the Church would approve unless it would constitute a Just War based upon these passages from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

III. TO CHOOSE IN ACCORD WITH CONSCIENCE

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

1788 To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

1789 Some rules apply in every case:

• One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
• the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."56
• charity always proceeds by way of respect for one’s neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ."57 Therefore "it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble."58

56 Mt 7:12; cf. Lk 6:31; Tob 4:15.
57 1 Cor 8:12.
58 Rom 14:21.

I mean it clearly says that we can never do evil so that good may result of it. So yeah, would it really be a good idea to wipe out an evil nation on this earth just so that the evil will no longer exist? That, I am not sure of.

 

[JM3]

Ummm,** if I am going to believe in a certain religion, I at least want to understand it. So no, I am not judging God**, I am trying to understand God. Is there something so wrong with that?

But seriously, if you can’t do anything but bash me for asking an honest question then don’t even bother. I’m sorry but I said that as politely as I could.

It is not ‘bashing’ to show someone the truth of what they are asking.

’if I am going to believe’?

Your faith is in your human reasoning and not in God.

** I am not judging God**

To say to God that you can not believe in Him because he did not stop some guy from sacrificing his daughter the way that He stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son is judging God and condemning Him by your understanding of what you think God should be.

 

[Holly3278]

It is not ‘bashing’ to show someone the truth of what they are asking.

’if I am going to believe’?

Your faith is in your human reasoning and not in God.

** I am not judging God**

To say to God that you can not believe in Him because he did not stop some guy from sacrificing his daughter the way that He stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son is judging God and condemning Him by your understanding of what you think God should be.

First of all, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using human reasoning and faith!

158 “Faith seeks understanding”:33 it is intrinsic to faith that a believer desires to know better the One in whom he has put his faith, and to understand better what He has revealed; a more penetrating knowledge will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love. The grace of faith opens "the eyes of your hearts"34 to a lively understanding of the contents of Revelation: that is, of the totality of God’s plan and the mysteries of faith, of their connection with each other and with Christ, the center of the revealed mystery. "The same Holy Spirit constantly perfects faith by his gifts, so that Revelation may be more and more profoundly understood."35 In the words of St. Augustine, "I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe."36

159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth."37 "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."38

33 St. Anselm, Prosl. prooem.L 153,225A.
34 Eph 1:18.
35 DV 5.
36 St. Augustine, Sermo 43,7,9L 38,257-258.
37 Dei Filius 4S 3017.
38 GS 36 § 1.

29. Why is there no contradiction between faith and science?

Though faith is above reason, there can never be a contradiction between faith and science because both originate in God. It is God himself who gives to us the light both of reason and of faith.

“I believe, in order to understand; and I understand, the better to believe.” (Saint Augustine)

And last, but not least, I did not say to God that I cannot believe in Him because of some stuff in the Bible that seems cruel. If I had done that, I would have listed Atheist as my religion and not Latin Rite Catholic as is listed!

 

[JM3]

And last, but not least, I did not say to God that I cannot believe in Him because of some stuff in the Bible that seems cruel. If I had done that, I would have listed Atheist as my religion and not Latin Rite Catholic as is listed!

The title of your thread: How can one believe in a God like this?

God’s love is unconditional. If your love cannot be unconditional, then God does not need it, nor will He put up with it.

 

[Holly3278]

The title of your thread: How can one believe in a God like this?

God’s love is unconditional. If your love cannot be unconditional, then God does not need it, nor will He put up with it.

Look, no offense but I came here to get answers, not to be berated by someone who thinks I don’t love God enough. I love God with all my heart. I just don’t understand Him sometimes and so I am seeking to understand Him more. Is there something so wrong with that???

 

[StrawberryJam]

Is there any theologian who explains the story as a metaphorical event and not a literal one?
If so, that could help. I wish I knew another way to console you about this.

 

[Holly3278]

Is there any theologian who explains the story as a metaphorical event and not a literal one?
If so, that could help. I wish I knew another way to console you about this.

Thanks StrawberryJam. I don’t know if any theologians explain the stories as metaphorical instead of literal or not. All I know is that when I read those stories, all I can think of is a barbaric ancient tribe or civilization and not a loving and merciful God.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Thanks StrawberryJam. I don’t know if any theologians explain the stories as metaphorical instead of literal or not. All I know is that when I read those stories, all I can think of is a barbaric ancient tribe or civilization and not a loving and merciful God.

Understood. I’ll try to google up what I can for you. I’m sure there has to be at least one catholic theologian out there that has a view that makes the medicine go down a bit better. It would actually be consoling to me as well if I did find one.

 

[Holly3278]

Understood. I’ll try to google up what I can for you. I’m sure there has to be at least one catholic theologian out there that has a view that makes the medicine go down a bit better. It would actually be consoling to me as well if I did find one.

Thanks StrawberryJam.