Does your God
deserve your worship ?
"Love the Lord your God
with all your heart, soul, and mind."
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Does your God |
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Jesus of Nazareth urged his followers to live by two great commandments, which he said superseded all of the other commandments promoted in the bible, and the first of these was, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind." |
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| [ http://WhatkindofGod.org ] [ this page was viewed 11,438 times in 2008 ]
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What kind of "Christian" would interpret Jesus' words
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a) the kind of god who was mean to children ?
b) the kind of god who was mean to women ?
c) the kind of god who was mean to the handicapped?
d) the kind of god who was mean to the enslaved ?
e) the kind of god who went against his own teaching NOT to kill ?
kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." -The French atheist philosopher Voltaire f) the kind of god who recommended and/or tolerated cannibalism ?
g) the kind of god who couldn't control his temper ?
h) the kind of god who had many other character flaws :
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Christians who don't know that there are serious problems with the way their Bible describes GOD, simply don't know their Bible. The following are more references for the above problems: |
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If many "bible-believing" people find this list of atrocious behavior attributed to "God" in the bible surprising, perhaps even unbelievable, it is probably because their clergy don't even read the bible themselves and if they do, they don't take the bible as a whole as seriously as they claim. Consider the following, for example, Despite the fact, that conservative clergy claim to believe that the bible is "the Word of God" and that the bible emphasizes that the penalty for breaking Commandment IV is death, no such clergy in living memory has demanded that people failing to observe the sabbath be killed. Yet, that is what the "God's Word" clearly requires, (as I spell out in great detail at sabbathobservance.html). | ||
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Although one of his principal commandments is "Thou shalt not kill," this God does an awful lot of killing himself, and often directs m any human beings to kill many other human beings :
If this verse is taken seriously (which Conservatives must do, if they take the scriptures as seriously as they claim), then these are the inevitable consequences :
This also has serious ramifications going BACKWARDS, i.e. ,
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As the great French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist Voltaire wrote long ago (1694 - 1778) "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." If the God that I believe in exists, then he or she may well have more respect for atheists who use their God-given intelligence than for "believers" who don't.
One of the favorite sayings of Albino Luciani, the future Pope John Paul the First, (whom I argue at http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/murderedpope certainly didn't die as the Catholic Church claims from "natural causes") was | ||
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How can a clergyman badmouth God so ? If I may, I would like to call upon the services of a very good lawyer, named Thomas Jefferson, who had some pretty serious reservations about "God's Word" and expressed them well in a famous work of his:The Jefferson Bible - Jefferson didn't trust any of the Christian churches of his day, but that didn't prevent him from appreciating the genius of Jesus himself. His introduction reads: "Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern,
which have come under my observation, none
appear to me so pure as that of Jesus. . . A more
beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen." "The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind." Like Jefferson, I have the highest appreciation for much that is wonderful in the bible, but rather than allow the baby to be thrown out with the dirty bath water, so to speak, I think it behooves those who want to save and promote what is good and noble in the bible to agree with those who recognize what is not good and noble in that same bible and do what we all do with dirty bath water once we are through with it, i.e. get rid of it.
The study of the bible called Evolution of God argues that some parts of the bible which were created when the Hebrews were in dire straits are harsh and bitter, while parts which were created in better times are much more optimistic and mellow. |
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Uses to which the Bible's God has been put : Just a few, but very noteworthy, examples:
If this teaching of Paul's is true, then any Christian who has founds fault with any ruler, including Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Min, Castro, Milosovich, or more recently, Saddam Hussein, has gone against God's Word. And far from being heroes, those who fought and died to remove these dictators and mass-murderers, are sinners that we be ashamed of. Paul doesn't allow for the slightest bit of "interpretation". He makes the same point over and over again, that we should treat any and all rulers as God's very own appointees to whatever office they hold, be it governor, king, emperor, president, prime minister, secretary general, or Führer. Ultra-Conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia doesn't question the inspiration of this passage. In fact, he uses it in an article ( in 2002) in defense of the death penalty.) He sees submission (to one's government) as desirable - and possibly the very definition of faith. He quotes St. Paul, "For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God." |
Is the Bible Hate Literature ? "The Canadian parliament is due to discuss bill C-250 ( in 2004 ) which outlaws hate speech, and includes a provision protecting gay people from hate speech. This has resulted in a burst of sudden and furious activity by the religious in Canada, who are alarmed that perhaps reading hateful passages from the Bible might suddenly be outlawed, this in spite of the fact that the framers of the law have offered to make an exemption allowing anyone to speak hatefully, such as a minister or priest or preacher, provided that they can back up that hateful remark with a choice verse from the Bible. Making an exemption for the hatred of the Bible and giving ministers the free right to promote hatred and inequality seems like a giant loop hole and a real generous offer, but this has not been enough to satisfy the religious types in Canada, who are now lobbying hard to defeat the whole hate speech law, since apparently they are worried that some judge might decide that perhaps a Bible quote is not a sufficient fig leaf and try to nail some 'sincere Christian'. Biblical problems with Sex :
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On the other hand, there are all kinds of normally reprehensive behaviors which are recommended, if not mandated by the so-called "Word of GOD", including theft, war crimes, and genocide, based on racism and slavery: Racism : "You must drive all the natives of the land before you. If you do not drive the natives of the country before you then those who remain will become disgusting to your eyes and a thorn in your side. They will harass you in the land where you live, and I will deal with you as I meant to deal with them." "Devour the nations the lord your God delivers over to you. Show them no pity." (Numbers 33:51 ) Anyone familiar with the Bible would already know that the Bible endorses the practice of racism, and of colonial conquest and exploitation, neither or which are sins, according to the Bible, but are to be encouraged "The land you are invading is foul because of the filthiness of the natives. Their land is filled with filth from end to end because of the foulness of the natives. So you must not marry them or be concerned with their prosperity, so that yourselves may grow strong and eat the best of what the country produces yourself, and leave it as an inheritance to your sons forever. . . Are we to marry the natives? Would you not be provoked into destroying us so that none survived? This is our sin. None can survive in your presence." (Ezra 9:10 - 13 ) "You must not marry them or give a daughter or son of yours to them in marriage, for the anger of the lord your God would then blaze out against you, and quickly destroy you. It is you the lord your God has chosen to be his very own people out of all these other peoples of the earth." (Deuteronomy 6 ) "You must keep all the commandments I give you so that you will have the strength to conquer the land you are to enter and make your own."(Deut. 12:29 ) "Annihilate the nations you are dispossessing and make your home in their country." (Deut. 11:8 ) "Put the inhabitants to the slaughter without giving any quarter and burn their town down. In this way the lord might turn from his fierce anger and show you compassion." ( Deut. 13:15) "God, you gave over these nations and these peoples and allotted these as our regions. They occupied the land. You multiplied their sons and daughters and led them to the land you had told them to possess. Their sons invaded and conquered the land and humbled the natives when you gave into their hands the natives of the land to be treated just as they pleased." (Nehemiah 9 ) Slavery : In addition to committing theft and genocide and raping virgins, the Bible also allows the keeping of slaves, just as long as you capture them in foreign countries, or make slaves out of the natives of the lands you are conquering and colonizing, all of whom you can beat to death should it prove necessary, and, here's the great part, it's not a sin because "God's Word" says it's O K ! "Slaves you may possess, but make sure they are foreigners. You may also make slaves of the natives who dwell among you and from their children who are born and reared in your land. You may own them as chattels and leave them to your sons as their hereditary property, making them slaves forever. But you should not lord it over your own countryman, your own kinsmen." (Lev. 25:44 ) "Mere words will not keep a slave in order. He may understand, but he will not respond. Pamper a slave and he will be ungrateful. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of a fool." Proverbs "When a man beats a slave so hard that he dies in a day or two, he shall not be punished, for the slave is his property." (Exodus 21:20 ) Isaiah 45:7: "I form the light, and create darkness. I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." See also Deut. 15:17, & Titus 2:9. Why is it that Conservative Christian preachers who want to perpetuate the oppression of their homosexual brothers and sisters can never get worked up over the great prophet Isaiah whom Jesus quoted more than any other: |
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When is "Christianity" going to reject THIS "Apostle" ? Problems with Paul's God Although Christians all believe that Jesus of Nazareth is history's best representation of God, for many his only divine Son, and that he fulfilled a special divine mission in this world, many Christian preachers also appear to believe that Jesus left some serious unfinished business that was only taken care of when he decided to knock Saul of Tarsus off his horse and make him the one last great prophet, "the Apostle of the Gentiles". By dint of writing more, travelling more, and doing more church-building than Jesus and all original twelve of the apostles combined, Paul of Tarsus was much more deserving of the title of the "rock upon whom his church was founded" than was Peter (except that, unlike the name Peter, Paul doesn't mean "rock"). Paul of Tarsus had been as available as any of the twelve men whom Jesus enlisted into his apostolic training program, the first Christian seminary, if you will. Given the abilities that Paul was to manifest so soon after Jesus had left the scene, it's puzzling that Jesus appears not to have recognized Paul's potential until after his death and resurrection.
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In late 2014 I discovered a site which starts where I do with many passages of the bible that portray a god which decent moral people should deplore and denounce. But that site - which I would rather not publicize - goes off the deep end and condemns everything about the Jewish bible and the Jewish people! I invite the readers of my site to explore Godvsgreed, where I lift up parts of the "Old Testament" that I find thoroughly uplifting and inspiring, |
| What kind of God do you love? |
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One of the distinctive features of the Nazi armed services' uniform was this belt buckle :