How to respond to those who call God a mass murderer?

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But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is moulded say to its moulder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honourable use and another for dishonourable use?
 
Agathon said:
But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is moulded say to its moulder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honourable use and another for dishonourable use?
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And? Are you directing that to yourself as a reflection on pride?
?
What?

Do you want to address specific material or do you not? (I think that question answers itself)
 
Some good reference material from opinions that really matter:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bishop+barron+violence+in+the+bible

http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedi...ts/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini.html
The “dark” passages of the Bible
  1. In discussing the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments, the Synod also considered those passages in the Bible which, due to the violence and immorality they occasionally contain, prove obscure and difficult. Here it must be remembered first and foremost that biblical revelation is deeply rooted in history. God’s plan is manifested progressively and it is accomplished slowly, in successive stages and despite human resistance. God chose a people and patiently worked to guide and educate them. Revelation is suited to the cultural and moral level of distant times and thus describes facts and customs, such as cheating and trickery, and acts of violence and massacre, without explicitly denouncing the immorality of such things. This can be explained by the historical context, yet it can cause the modern reader to be taken aback, especially if he or she fails to take account of the many “dark” deeds carried out down the centuries, and also in our own day. In the Old Testament, the preaching of the prophets vigorously challenged every kind of injustice and violence, whether collective or individual, and thus became God’s way of training his people in preparation for the Gospel. So it would be a mistake to neglect those passages of Scripture that strike us as problematic. Rather, we should be aware that the correct interpretation of these passages requires a degree of expertise, acquired through a training that interprets the texts in their historical-literary context and within the Christian perspective which has as its ultimate hermeneutical key “the Gospel and the new commandment of Jesus Christ brought about in the paschal mystery”.[140] I encourage scholars and pastors to help all the faithful to approach these passages through an interpretation which enables their meaning to emerge in the light of the mystery of Christ.
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I actually have. You on the other hand, haven’t used Scripture to support your claims that I am being a “literalist.”
 
You’ve just invoked one Feenyite source.
And the others do not support an actively violent God as you might think.
Did you read the articles?

I’ll take the Magisterium of the Catholic Church thank you.
Do You Have Any Comments on Pope Benedicts thoughts? How about Bp Barron’s thoughts? This is mainstream and orthodox Catholic thought.

Bottom line is, God does not actively will violence between people. Christ is the personification of God’s activity and will for human beings.
These passages have a deep spiritual truth to convey in regard to sin.

Stick with the Church, abandon modern fundamentalism. You can’t go wrong with the Church.
 
goout said:
You’ve just invoked one Feenyite source.
And the others do not support an actively violent God as you might think.
Did you read the articles?

I’ll take the Magisterium of the Catholic Church thank you.
Do You Have Any Comments on Pope Benedicts thoughts? How about Bp Barron’s thoughts? This is mainstream and orthodox Catholic thought.

Bottom line is, God does not actively will violence between people. Christ is the personification of God’s activity and will for human beings.
These passages have a deep spiritual truth to convey in regard to sin.

Stick with the Church, abandon modern fundamentalism. You can’t go wrong with the Church.
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I am sticking with the Magisterium. You’re just trying to morph God into the way YOUR morals work and you’re also running the risk of denying the innerancy of Sacred Scripture.
 
goout said:
You admit that writers of scripture do not have perfection tuned to the divine mind and will. Do you believe that or do you not?
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I said I do not. But I also specified in what way they can and can’t be imperfect. They are imperfect in the sense that they are incomplete, not that they are wrong. What’s so unclear about this?
goout said:
You are confusing inspiration with a sort of dicatatorial factuality, as if the ancient writer was literally attuned to the divine will
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I have never assumed anything about how inspiration happens. Where did I promote a dictatorial view of inspiration? Dictatorial theories of inspiration specify the method of inspiration, not the kind of inspiration.
goout said:
Yes, you really did, and still are. Read your own words. You are asserting a narrow use of the literal sense of scripture.
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Where am I doing this? Can you give me a specific instance? I do indeed distinguish, but I do not separate.
No, I specifically did not. Read the words. Please don’t misrepresent what I specifically said to try and prove a point. I was the one who pointed to the Church’s whole and integrated view of the senses of scripture. Read the words.
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I said it sounded like it, not that it actually was your position. In my eyes, your promotion of your integrated view of the scriptures seemed to contradict how you think inspiration works with respect to the literal sense. If that’s not your view, then ok, but you really need to lay out how what the authors were intending to write was itself protected through inspiration.
You might notice the phrase “without explicitly denouncing the immorality of such things.” (that you left off the end of the cherry pick)
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That doesn’t go against anything I said. Also I quoted the small part only to bring up the definition. Remember also that we have a word limit, and I have been consistently going beyond it so I’m cutting quotes short.
 
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This is the point in question: Is it in God’s nature to command mano a mano killing. That is the OP’s question and the consistent question of atheists and those scandalized by Christian fundamentalism.
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Let me put it this way, since looking more closely at Deuteronomy, my view slightly changed. In short, no. This isn’t quite what God is doing, because when you look carefully, Deuteronomy mostly consists of Moses giving the commands to Israel, whereas in the rest of the Pentateuch, we see the commands as stated by God to Moses. However, what he did do was give Moses an authority to command his people, and what Moses commanded, with God’s blessing, was Deuteronomy. This does remove God from the commands a bit, but it still is a hard passage. Modulo this slight tweak, I see my interpretation as consistent with what the Church teaches.

If this still does not satisfy you, go to Deuteronomy 20, which lays out the stipulations of Harem warfare, and give me a proper interpretation, one which manages to do the job of 1) getting accurately what the author was trying to convey, 2) is consistent with God’s goodness, and 3) does not attribute error to what the author was trying to convey. You cannot brush aside the uglier details of these commands, because these details are relevant to the whole passage. So far you have condemned every attempt to interpret this passage, but have not yourself provided something that works. You are afraid of scandalizing the non-believer, but sloppy attempts at interpretation only indicate to him that you are simply in denial about the hard passages. Go ahead, have at it. Get your hands dirty with the text and see what you can muster.
 
You are implying that there is nothing your deity could do that you would not be able to get behind as long as it gave you a reason. Is there nothing too far for you? If that is the case, how could you tell the difference between your deity and the devil if you can allow your deity to do anything it wants without you breaking away from the relationship. And the moral character of the deity in the bible clearly indicates that this deity is willing to and has executed the worst crimes against humanity that trumps anything every psycho has ever dreamed of.

For example: lets say your son’s boyfriend hit your son. Is that a line too far? That if anyone they loved ever put a hand on them, they are in an abusive relationship. However, according to your proclaimed morality, as long as the abuser explained themselves, you would still be okay with your son continuing to stay in that abusive relationship. How about your daughter with her girlfriend? If you don’t have a line that will cause you to walk away from the relationship, regardless of the actions of the person, then you are not a morally serious person.

Your position also implies that you know your deity has it in its character to be the most vile and morally bankrupt entity we’ve ever encountered and you already know this is part of its character. This begs the question: are you worshiping it out a need to keep it happy so that it’s wrath does not harm the innocent? Like the mother who appeases the abusive father so that he doesn’t beat her or the the kids.
 
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I am fasting from this kind of thing so this will be short, and it should be.

There is a very simple problem here: you are debating with fundamentalist interpretations of scripture as a fundamentalist.
I take it you do not want to claim fundamentalism? Good, neither does the Catholic Church.
You are right to point out the moral contradictions fundamentalism proposes when it justifiies the literalist interpretations of these passages. The Church allows Catholics freedom to interpret scripture in many ways, but it clings to Christ as the “opener of these scrolls”. And Christ is “the lamb standing as though slain”.
Christ personifies God’s non-violent love.
And Christ is God’s final and fullest revelation. Scripture interpretation cannot be at odds with Christ.

In Christianity, morality is personified. God is not confined to literalist passages in the bible.

The bible accomplishes God’s will. It is inspired and inerrant. But you have to know what those terms mean. We are not talking about modern journalism or science, or literalist history.

You bring up good points about moral contradictions, but you simply do not have a beef with Catholicism, rather with fundamentalism.
Back to my fast so I will not be able to respond.
 
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The so called “militant atheists” are not so much atheists as they are misotheists.

Atheist literally means “no god” or “without god.”

Misotheist means “hater of God.”

I would consider most true atheists to be apatheists (meaning “unconcerned [with the question of] gods”) or agnostic atheists (“without knowing or having a god”).

The “new atheist” types - like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens (RIP), Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Bill Maher are not agnostic atheists or apatheists - these men are misotheists. They do not just claim to have no knowledge or belief, nor do they claim to just not be concerned with the question of God.

No, on the contrary, these men have a fierce and burning hatred for the very concept of a God. They despise God. They pridefully boast of blasphemy.

They are not atheists, they are misotheists.
 
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goout said:
Christ personifies God’s non-violent love.

And Christ is God’s final and fullest revelation. Scripture interpretation cannot be at odds with Christ.
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As Christians we believe Christ is going to come to judge the living and the dead. When I read Joshua, I see that side of Christ. Don’t you?
 
I would prefer the greek deities then. At least they are not hiding the fact that they are slaves to their emotions and appetites. The deity you seem to be presenting does not match up with the reading of the bible’s record on it’s actions. If these are not it’s character, then it’s on it for not correcting the record of it’s character. I can only go on what the record indicates about it.
 
Agathon said:
When I read Joshua, I see that side of Christ. Don’t you?
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Absolutely.

Christ came as an innocent Lamb,

He will return as a conquering King.

Christ came for salvation,

He will return to Judge.

Christ came as a harmless babe,

He will return ruling with an iron rod
 
I believe they are anti-theists as they describe themselves. They do not appear to find the redeeming factors of organized religion in balance for their understood problems the religion brings. Just like the robber on trial bemoaning that the prosecution brings up a long laundry list of bank robberies but never mentions that the robber bought her mother a birthday card.
Atheists are people who are not convinced of someone else’s claims for why they believe a deity exists.
Theist claims are about belief. Gnostic is about what you claim to know.
So an agnostic atheist is someone who does not know a deity exists and is also not convinced that the arguments to believe a god works.
There still could actually be a deity out there, but no one actually knows that. The theist is convinced based on the arguments presented, and the atheist is not convinced yet.
So the idea that atheists are mad at a deity that they are not convinced actually exists is absurd to make. Atheists, like myself, can be outraged at people that tie their morality to the worst literary character ever written about. It would be like a group of people coming to you and saying they tie their morality to Voldemort after reading the Harry Potter series. We are also outraged about the bigotry of these people backing up their positions with the writings that match up with the character of Voldemort.
Want to play with Voldemort, fine. But you are not to have governing legal policy in place based on the appeasing of Voldemort as your justification. You are not to teach Voldemort to my children in science class. You are not going to use the clerical bullying of the followers of Voldemort to isolate children from the current justified reality of their world.
 
I don’t care so much what atheists think thus seldom participate in this type of thread. But why atheists have so much against believers?
 
Just accept the fact that the God of the Old Testament is not the same God of the New Testament.

God did kill directly or indirectly in the Old Testament. God makes us. We are his possession. If HE wants to kill us, that is HIS prerogative.

I am sure on this thread there are numerous attempts to try and sugar coat the truth of the Old Testament.

And to note: God was quiet for 400 years. Maybe this was God’s own time of repentance.

Other than that, I would not buy into the hype that God actually enjoyed it.

But on the other hand, by his own words God is a “Jealous” God. But for us Jealousy is a sin. Sort of screwed up, isn’t it? I don’t see Jealousy as a trait of a Perfect God. Maybe I am way too human. And no doubt, there will be an attempt to sugar coat or circumvent God’s Jealousy issue.
 
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