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

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I disagree completely that your deity deserves anything more than an acknowledgment of what it did, if it did this. The rest of the baggage you are attempting to add on like respect, honor, love, etc. No, again I repeat, no it does not deserve this by default. These are all earned through personal relationship and works towards bettering the world. Just like I have never met Steve Irwin, I still love and respect the man for what he exposed me to and how he enriched my life. If your deity has done this for you, then fine. You have a justification for having those values for it, only after it has demonstrated that it has done this for you. Not a moment before. I am indifferent to your deity just like I would be indifferent to Steve Irwin before his works came into my life. I believe this is the difference between religious and everyone else. They grant love, respect, honor, etc. to someone before they have a relationship with them. The rest of us withhold those judgement until we actually see the person’s affect on our lives and others. I do judge this deity based on the textual character that has been recorded about it though and until that record is corrected, that is the bar of its character.
I like how you implied my response before I actually responded to your point about the ants. 😉 You should stop showing your bias before someone actually responds. Please don’t ever be a jury member on a trial since you already seem to judge people by title and association than by the actual responses they give.
 
I can acknowledge the work that someone has done, but the extra baggage of love, respect, honor, devotion, these are all developed from a relationship. Without the relationship, I am indifferent to the person. I can acknowledge they exist and work on making the world a safer place for them and everyone else since I am a higher functioning primate with the evolved mental capacity of acting morally. The entities that have earned my love, devotion, respected, etc. all come from the evidence of our relationship together. They don’t get this just by existing alone. If someone opens a door for me, I can say thank you out of politeness. Why do you keep giving absurd examples like opening the door? Do you really think that opening the door for someone means that we should love, honor, worship, or devote our lives to them? Do you not understand the proper range of emotional connection between these two events? Give an example that actually makes since.
Gift of life - I have no choice but to exist. I can be thankful to the people that made my life worth living, safe, enjoyable, etc. Just existing is not something to be thankful for. It’s the quality of that existence that makes you thankful since you see all the other lives that are not as safe as yours is. The alternative to existing is to not exist and I wouldn’t know that I was not existing because I would not exist. It’s like being thankful that you have brown hair. It’s a banality to me since I believe in the current scientific understanding of biological existence to be evolution, not a genie popping me into existence.
 
Of course they would love the people in their lives that they interact with in a positive way. They are human after all. So based on your response, I am showing love to your deity by loving the people in my life. Fine with that. If that’s all it needs to feel loved, ok. Makes no difference in my world. It’s like I’m making some random stranger in Australia happy. Good to know they’re having a good day.
 
Bill Maher is a tool, he is not the spokesman for atheists. That is the thing about atheists, we don’t have leaders, tenants, codes, communal laws, etc. It’s just a single response to a single question. Do you believe or have been convinced that the supernatural is real? No. You can not get anything else about who that person is after that. You have to ask them. That’s why organizing atheists is like herding cats. You can be a nihilist, democrat, republican, hippy, vegan, pro gun, probirth, etc.
Ask a different atheist and you can get a completely different response than mine. These are my positions and mine alone to shoulder.
 
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Yes your father’s love does depend on how you understand how you should feel loved. That is soo basic to me that I don’t know why we have to point this out. If a father abandons you to be raised by your gay father, do you love him for that? If your father ignores you when he comes home and does not interact with you at all, is that love to you? According to the points presented, the default is yes you owe love to your father. Sorry but that’s not a mentally stable person that responds like that. This terrible father could also hold loving feeling to this child they are abusing as well. But the child is not at all being loved as the child understands it. It’s emotional needs are in no way being met by this person. The child is not acting spoiled when it wants it’s father to actually emotionally connect with the child. It’s not upset about not getting a shiny toy. It’s upset that it’s father appears to not want anything to do with this child at all after he brought it home from the hospital. Your examples of shiny toys are the equivalent of emotional bonding is insultingly absurd to me and the intelligence of the readers. Why do I have to point this out? Fair minded readers, did I miss something here? This line of conversation is soo absurd to me that I don’t know why I had to write this.
 
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Russell_SA said:
Why do you keep giving absurd examples like opening the door? Do you really think that opening the door for someone means that we should love, honor, worship, or devote our lives to them?
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Because you were making the incredible statement that you have no response to a being who gives you life. I was hoping you’d see the absurdity when I pointed to someone who does some miniscule gratuitous act for you. You agree that you would acknowledge that gratuitous act. See… absurdity does work, when someone is otherwise making absurd claims! 😉
Russell_SA said:
Just existing is not something to be thankful for.
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Without existence, there’s no discussion of ‘quality of life’. So, if there’s any gratitude for ‘quality of life’, it proceeds from the gift of life itself. Thanks for acknowledging my point – even in a roundabout and backhanded way. 😉
Russell_SA said:
It’s a banality to me since I believe in the current scientific understanding of biological existence to be evolution
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Non sequitur. “Evolution” did not create you. Your parents – and, for one who believes in God – and God created you.
Russell_SA said:
It’s like being thankful that you have brown hair.
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Red herring. I’m not talking about any particular characteristic you have – I’m talking about the fact that you have characteristics, due to the fact that you have life.
Russell_SA said:
I can acknowledge the work that someone has done
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There we go, then. Someone has “done work” in order for you to exist. Therefore, it is incumbent upon you to acknowledge that work (positively, since existence is a positive thing – even without addressing the question of quality of life).

And now, we’re back to my original question, posed four days ago. Although you assert that ‘love’ is not the appropriate response for the being who brought you into existence, you do admit that acknowledging that gratuitous act is appropriate. (I’ll have to remember that line, come Mother’s day: “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I acknowledge you!” :roll_eyes: )

Nevertheless, my work is done here. After a considerably long dance, you’ve admitted that it’s false that no response to the gratuitous gift of “giving life” is appropriate. Have a nice day. I acknowledge you. 😉
 
But how about if he is not a terrible father? A father who wants to give his child good things? But the child is not patient and wants things he should not have, which the father will not give yet. Does that mean the father does not love the child?
 
Writer_for_God said:
I have seen videos of Bill Maher where he essentially says the God of the Old Testament is a psychopathic mass murdered who enjoys killing people. I don’t know how to respond to people like this
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How about not responding to those who are disingenuous?

Bill Maher believes he is funny. Whatever he says, he wants to be taken both as a joke and as some kind of Gospel.

I cannot track down the original source, but this is an example attributed to Maher:
“I’m for the death penalty, I’m pro-abortion, I’m pro-assisted suicide, I’m pro-regular suicide. Anything that’ll get the traffic moving.”

I don’t know if he said it, but it is the sort of flippant thing he would say.

My response to your original problem would be: If Bill Maher wanted to be taken seriously, he would stop making being outrageous his number one priority. The man does not deserve a serious answer.

What if someone were to ask you this kind of question seriously?

Well, you could start by asking who has the authority and the actual capacity to know who deserves to live and who deserves to die. People do not exist for a millisecond except by the Will of God. The Author of All Reality and All Life cannot be a psychopath.

Secondly, I’d ask for the passage where God acts like a psychopath who enjoys killing people. Does he mean the scenes where the command is to put an entire city to the sword, down to the animals? The idea is that no slaves are carried away. This isn’t a war of self-enrichment.

God is more likely, however, to spare those who turn from evil, which is God’s preference: "For I find no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies… Turn back and live! (Ez 18:32)
 
All killing is unlawful. God would not violate his own commandment by killing because then He would become a sinner, which is absurd! Who would save God if God becomes a sinner?
 
All killing is unlawful for humans to one degree or another.

God is not a big super human. God is the author of life, God gives life and takes it away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

We are told not to fear that which kills the body, but to fear that which kills the soul.
 
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Jesus overrode the Old Testament, an eclectic book of fear, death, awe and violence. He gave it a different meaning. He rewrote all religious teaching by His own blood, the most precious ink of all!
 
Even if God created life, He is not free to take it back. When you bring something into life, you become responsible for that. Just like for a fetus. You cannot just kill without becoming a sinner!
 
Life comes from God, He gives and He takes away.

We are not God and therefore not givers of life, which is God’s prerogative. We cannot take away life.

God has greater perspective instead of just seeing things only on the visible earth.
 
I have always hated the prophet Elijah because he executed 450 priests of Baal by his own hand. This was a mass murder. He acted as if God allowed him to do so. So it was Elijah who took YHWH as an instigator of mass murder that he performed. Ouch, is this a real prophet?!

“Then Elijah said, “Capture the prophets of Baal! Don’t let any of them run away!” The people captured all the prophets. Then Elijah led them down to the Kishon Valley, where he killed them.”

(1 Kings 18:40)
 
A war between two sides, and God’s side prevailed.

Christian history might not be what it is today had Jezebel’s side won.
 
If he is not a terrible father, then that is from feedback from the children he is parenting. Good/bad/terrible/etc, are labels from the people we interact with. We don’t give ourselves these titles. These are earned from feedback of others. Based on my experience with this entity, it’s interactions are indistinguishable from not being there, so an absent father is a bad father when they are choosing to not be around. A father can want to give their child things, but it’s the father that follows through that gets the credit. No, I’m not talking about shiny toys here. The readers know this, I know this, you know this, so stop bringing up your favorite absurd example. I’ve always and only referenced the things that attribute to the mental well-being and emotional connective development between parent and child. The child that is impatient for a father to hold it, talk to it, do all the things that a present parent does verse a non-present parent, that child is in the right for despising this father for failing at being a parent.
The direct implication of your world view is that any guy with a broken condom that leaves his one-night stand qualifies as a father because he is paying child support. Sorry we are just not going to agree on this. But let me know if you think this is unfair comparison.
You believe a father causing a broken home and emotionally abandoning their children but still paying child support deserves to be called “father” and is deserving of love, respect, and worship. Without him, the child would not exist after all.
I believe that my existence does not factor into these labels of love, respect, honor, etc. That has to be earned by the level of emotional support and meaningful relationship we have together regardless if the bills are paid.
I believe this is the fundamental difference between our world views on this issue.
Acknowledgement of someone’s actions is a benign thing. Its neither a positive or negative observation on the moral character of the person. Love, honor, respect, worship, adoration, these are all observations on the moral character of that person in relation to others. I guess that’s another difference in world views. You believe just “acknowledging” someone’s actions means it’s a good thing. I don’t.
 
There are two types of fathers: good father and evil father.

We are talking about the good father. He definitely knows more than a small child in what is good for that child. He has the perspective that the child does not.
 
Acknowledging someone’s actions is neither a positive or negative statement about their moral character based on that observation. Assigning labels like love, honor, respect, adoration, worship, etc are statements about the person’s moral character in relation to other people. I can acknowledge that you can build a boat. So what. But if you use that boat to feed your family, you earn some positive points to the title “father” in my book. If you use that boat to leave behind your social obligations towards your family and friends, then you loose points towards the title “father” in my book. My world view is different from yours in this sense it seems. You believe creating people earns your points towards being loved, worshiped, adored, etc. But to me you earn points on the life you give your creation and your involvement in their lives. Or do you see this as an unfair summary of our two differing points?
Evolution “non sequitor” - don’t care. just adding a side point to the conversation but still addressing your point.
Brown Hair “red herring” - don’t believe so since my existence is a banality like having brown hair. It’s just my current state of being. The quality of life is what I value and give thanks, love, etc to the people in my life that bring about the betterment of my life. Your world view would give love, worship, devotion, etc to the people for only creating you and not being involved in your life ever after that. I don’t. That is the difference. Or do you see this as unfair summary?
I acknowledge people’s actions, you are the one that is implying that it is a “gratuitous act”. I am saying that it is neither good or bad since, again by evolution, that is how I came to be. Not by some entity choosing to make me. Yes my parents choose to make me, but again, that is benign to me. It’s the quality of my life that I give them respect, love, honor, etc for. Not just for the fact that I exist.
 
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I agree that a good father is good. But I do not agree that the religious deity is a good father based on everything that I have provided as to why I do not give it this title. The deity is not good by default. It must be assessed to be good or not. I have offered my reasons for why I do not agree that it deserves the title “good”. What are yours? We discussed the issue of creation, so don’t need to go back over that. What else makes it good to you? You know what I have listed off. What makes that assessment wrong to you?
 
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