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

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Whoa there Mboo I’m not quite sure what you’re saying specifically about the Catholic Church but there is such a thing as Justified killing and unjustified killing. An example of unjustified killing would be abortion by choice, capital punishment or euthenasia. An example of justified killing would be like World War II. In order to stop the terror reign of the Hitlers army we were brought to arms. War is a horrible thing but sometimes it’s necessary.
 
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Mboo said:
Human rights have poisoned Christianity with its humanism.
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Your mind is poisoned by a false image of God, derived from a misreading of the bloody, murderous stories of the Old Testament. Murderers in those writings prefer to refer to God to cover up their murder. This does not mean their murder is justified. Just the contrary. It means they use the name of God for their own purposes to commit murder.
 
Murder is the unlawful taking of life. If it is unlawful, then to me, it suggests that there are under certain circumstances a lawful taking of life - such as in self-defense against the threat of death or in the interests of national security. Using the name of God has been demonstrated all too often in our present day in some circles to spark fear & control around the globe, but I don’t agree that this is the case in Canaan.

To the best of my observation, it has not yet been established that their actions were unjustified. And, in fairness to the times, I think we have to examine the past through the lens of the past for an accurate understanding. Modern thought adds to emotion & unfortunately to a distorted view of the past, & it does not help to understand the past in its cultural & historical context.

By today’s standards wiping out a people is certainly horrible, but I would try to view the people themselves who were destroyed - their culture - their religious practices - & see the impact that their lives & practices had around them. There had to be a reason why God ordered what He did. If their actions set off other evil actions & demonstrated that things would only worsen over time, then it’s highly probable that it could’ve set the tone for their imminent destruction.

From Wikipedia - “Canaan (Son of Ham)”:


From Wikipedia - “Canaan”:


From Wikipedia - “Ancient Canaanite Religion”:


Biblically speaking evil actions pollute the life around them - even the land. Sin impacts society as a whole - even if only perceived as involving an individual or other person. Think of when Cain killed Abel, tried to hide it & lie about it, & God said to him:

“What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!”

The life is in the blood. There are references in the Bible of the land vomiting out the inhabitants for the practices - the sins - committed in it.

Leviticus 18 (BibleHub):

24 “ ‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.
25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.
26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things,
27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled.
28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.
29 “ ‘Everyone who does any of these detestable things—such persons must be cut off from their people.
30 Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the Lord your God.’ ”

The Israelites accepted the terms of the Covenant with God. They were bound to follow Him.
 
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kainosktisis said:
There had to be a reason why God ordered what He did.
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No. Men ordered God to approve their murder. Thus, they defrocked God into a idol, a figment of their own cultural limitations and murderous desires. We needed a Savior to free us from the false image of God. That is what we call Christianity.
 
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Change your username, because you are not a Catholic. You deny the divine inspiration of the Scriptures and slander the saints with accusations of the most grievous sins. You deny that God is just in destroying sinners.
 
Men ordered God…? Were they atheists to believe that they could order Him about… ? They defrocked God?

Please show evidence for any of these.

Leviticus 18 (BibleHub):

1 The Lord said to Moses,
2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God.
3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices.
4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am the Lord your God.
5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

The Israelites were a covenant people. They agreed to obey the laws of the covenant. Blessings came for obedience to it, & curses came for disobedience to it:

Deuteronomy 28 (BibleHub):

http://biblehub.com/niv/deuteronomy/28.htm

1 If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.
2 All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:

It continues with this:

15 However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

The covenant was taken with an oath sealed with the blood of an animal. It symbolized that the people taking the oath were bound to it, & disobeying it resulted in forfeiture of their lives. Covenants & oaths were serious business in the past. We in the present day have lost the significance of this. Nowadays we say to get it in writing, & even that’s not good enough. A person’s word back then was binding - & before God especially so. Israel was chosen by God to be a holy people - His possession - a kingdom of priest & prophets. No other nation had that calling.
 
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kainosktisis said:
Were they atheists to believe that they could order Him about… ?
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Nol, they had a tribal understanding of a universal God. A wrong image of God that killed Jesus on the cross. Angry men executed our Lord for blasphemy. Just imagine this: killing God for blasphemy against God!? Something does not add up here. Why? Because a tribal god is never the same as our loving Farther in Heaven.
kainosktisis said:
The covenant was taken with an oath sealed with the blood of an animal.
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Lol! You see, this must have been very serious… with the blood of an animal. Typical tribal ritual.
 
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“A wrong image of God that killed Jesus on the cross. Angry men executed our Lord for blasphemy. Just imagine this: killing God for blasphemy against God!? Something does not add up here. Why? Because a tribal god is never the same as our loving Farther in Heaven.”

And yet, it was through them that Jesus came into the world for it was prophesied that Our Messiah & our salvation would come through the Jews. So image or not, the prophesies were fulfilled through them. And they are still loved by Him. Romans 9-11 attest to this.
 
The New Covenant was made with the blood of Christ to seal it. Christ was our Paschal Lamb, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.
 
God made a covenant with Abraham as well that was made with the blood of animals as evidenced in Genesis 15 (BibleHub):

7 He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
8 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
9 So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.
11 Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.
13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.
14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.
16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.
18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadie of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—
19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,
20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,
21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

God had His reasons.
 
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kainosktisis said:
“Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram"
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What many people completely misunderstand is that God is vegetarian! He says:

11"What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?" Says the LORD. "I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats. 12"When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this trampling of My courts? (Isaiah 1:11-12)

God takes no pleasure in animal blood, flesh and meat. He does not eat cattle, bulls, lambs or goats. Why would He do that? Is He a lion? No, He is not. God is not eating meat, He is vegetarian. God has His reasons.
 
Uh…you do realize that Jesus kept kosher law, Scripture does inform that He did eat fish.
 
kainosktisis said:
Scripture does inform that He did eat fish.
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Do you really compare the fact that Jesus ate fish with God’s need of animal sacrifices? Hmm… This is odd to say the least.

Jesus ate fish as a human being who needed calories to sustain himself. God does not need bloody animal flesh and meat to sustain himself. He is pure spirit. He is not eating His creation. He is not an idol and not a tribal god with bloody hands. He is the loving Father of our Savior.
 
  • kill as part of self defense is not murder
  • killing in application of the just death sentence is not murder
  • killing in fights during a war is not a murder
  • kill when God ordered to do it is not a murder
That’s basically what the Catholic Church has always taught
 
What you misunderstand is that God ordered those sacrifices to be a lesson unto Israel. However, their performing them with guilty consciences rendered them worthless at best.
 
Jesus Christ is Lord, God the Son, the Word made flesh as attested to in the Gospel of St. John. Jesus Christ is the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity, & He has 2 natures: Divine & Human.

He said He came to fulfill the Law - not to abolish it, therefore He kept kosher:

Leviticus 11 (BibleHub) - Clean & Unclean Animals:
http://biblehub.com/niv/leviticus/11.htm

Why do you think God regulated which animals the Israelites could eat as well as which ones they could sacrifice if He had prohibited the consumption of meat?

Please note that the distinction between clean & unclean animals is noted at least as far back as Noah, & that God was pleased with Abel’s sacrifice (an animal sacrifice) - not with Cain’s (harvest).

Also of note, God clothed Adam & Eve with skins to cover them after the Fall.

But…The Council of Jerusalem made a sweeping change - see Acts 15 for more on that.

Also, St. Paul stated the following in Romans 14 (BibleHub):

http://biblehub.com/niv/romans/14.htm

1 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.
2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables.
3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them.
4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

See also Colossians 2:16-23 (USCCB - NABRE):


We’re going off topic here…
 
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I’ve never understood the argument leveled against Christians that they made up a Deity Who lets them then live in an ideal fashion. My observation & experience have been quite the opposite: man wants to live his own way that brings harm & destruction to himself & others all in an attempt to display how free he is. The reality is actually that man chooses to use his freedom to take away his own freedom - even to the point of killing himself.

God’s revealed Humself to humanity from the beginning. His ways appear restrictive to outsiders looking in, but we know it as loving God & loving others. His ways teach us to respect & love Him & to do likewise to our fellow man. We use our freedom to keep it & to do likewise for others.

Part 1: The Profession of Faith (CCC):
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c1.htm

Part 1: (Con’t. - CCC):
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a1.htm
 
It’s no different than the idea of the ideal self that we keep in our minds. Like the pianist that first starts to practice imagining themselves playing for family and friends one day. That’s really all it appears to be. Just another idea we try to hold ourselves accountable to and feel shame when we fail at that standard we picked for ourselves. So the imagined ideal version of ourselves does not allow us to live life by our impulses anymore than your idea of a deity does. This cultural idea of imagining something to hold ourselves accountable to for the development of ourselves is not anything new or original. It is universal to all cultures of humanity.
 
How do you account then for people stating that sin doesn’t exist so that we should be shameless then?

Shame has a purpose in life.
 
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