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Wow! Talk about misrepresenting Christianity! I'm not going to try and answers all these claims you made because you've set up strawman arguments - sort of like "Have you quit beating your wife?" The claim is often made that more people have died at the hands of religious people than non-religious. Statistically, this is wrong. Let's look at atheists. Cambodia's Pol Pot killed 1.5 million - 2 million (Los Angeles Times, July 31, 2005, Book Review section, Part R, Page 8) Russia's Joseph Stalin: At least 20 million (Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1005, Book Review section, Part R, Page 3) China's Mao Tse Tung: 75 million (London Daily Mail, July 14, 2005, and Time magazine, June 13, 2005, page 48)

If by "strawman argument' you mean that I quoted biblical passages wherein God explicitly commits or commissions acts of torture, rape and murder in a blog post about a guy who believes God did this to him...sure. Strawman. Gotcha.

But the argument you're trying to start with me isn't really about the post. I'm not arguing that religion causes violence, whatever the evidence for or against. I'm asking a very real question: if your religion teaches you that God does talk to humans and sometimes asks them to kill people, what do you do if you believe you're one of those people?

Your "statistical" argument about atheists being more homicidal --- I'm not sure where to begin with that one.

But here's where your argument becomes sort of apples and oranges: when religious people kill other people in the name of their God, they're doing it in the name of their religion and they believe they've been inspired by scripture. When the atheists you've cited killed people, they didn't do it BECAUSE they were atheists -- they did it because they were sick, evil bastards with dangerous political ideas.

Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao didn't off people because they were called to do it by atheism -- which, because it has no tenets as an absence of belief can't call you to do anything. They did it for totalitarian political reasons.

Further, putting those three particular men under the heading "atheist" in an argument about violence, murder and its causes is sort of ridiculous.

First, their religious ideas, whatever their private cosmologies, weren't at all uniform -- Stalin attended a Russian Orthodox seminary as a young man. Had he embraced rather than rejected Orthodox Christianity and then killed as many people in its name, he would have been in good historical company and you'd be calling me a wily, fact-twisting debater for saying his Christianity made him kill people. Which I wouldn't do, by the way, unless he stated that it had. He was explicit about why he killed - and it wasn't religion or the lack of it.

In addition to being sociopaths, the three men you're talking about were also communists and dictators. These things unite them and explain their killings far more than does their disparate lack of religious motivation -- especially since they explicitly justified their killing through their politics and not their religious world view.

But back to the point of the post: if you think God talks to you, how do you know if you're right?

"The claim is often made that more people have died at the hands of religious people than non-religious. Statistically, this is wrong. Let's look at atheists."

Trying to change the subject is a common method of trying to avoid difficult questions. How about let's stick to the subject and answer Joe's initial question?

If you believed that God had decided to talk to you and order you to kill someone, what would be your response? Would that response be "biblically correct"?

Joe: Please see Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling for a detailed examination of your question.

Thanks for the link, Jeff. I know what Kierkegaard thought, though. I'm wondering what average modern people think.

Well then it seems to me you just want to hear people say Chrisitans are nutz, because that is what "modern" people think.

And thus the problem vis a vis Christianity. Christianity came about in an ancient context and sprouted wings in a medieval context. It teaches a slave mentality that was perfect for the rulers and later barons and lords and landowners to use to keep everybody in line.

Now that we are all free to chase our every whim and have it codified by the state as acceptable to the status quo, Christianity with its quaint notions of fealty to a distant father figure who set our moral compass seems nutz. With our sacrificing of our human freedoms of thought and desire to the dictates of markets and clocks and profits, Christianity does well to feed the masses who lead quiet lives of desperation with the promise of a heavenly reward.

Of course, those are broad strokes and their are millions of golden hearted people giving of themselves to alleviate the suffering of others and they are to be commended.

Obviously any person who says God told him to do violence is off his rocker.

And thus we have a teleological suspension of the ethical.

I just love sayin' that.

I think it gets a little more complicated than "Christians are nutz."

But being someone who grew up Catholic, went to Catholic school, practiced as a Catholic and then decided against it, I'm always interested in how people balance their faith -- what they believe in their hearts, guided by their religious traditions -- with what they actually think.

I've met plenty of sane, healthy, productive members of modern society who believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. Which makes me wonder...if you honestly believe that God can and does speak to people and your religious tradition teaches you that he sometimes asks humans to murder each other for offenses against him or for various other complicated reasons, then what do you do if, as this man in New Zealand claims, you believe you've been chosen by God to carry out an act like this?

I've heard plenty of modern Christians tell me that God's laws supersede the laws of man -- this is a line that used for everything from the fairly harmless refusal to fill prescriptions for the morning after pill because though legal it violates God's law to justification for killing doctors and bombing clinics.

I guess what I wonder is -- among modern Christians who are not by nature homicidal, how far do God's laws and God's will really supersede man's laws?

And if you begin to hear voices or see signs -- do you obey them as a good Christian or seek psychiatric help and chance burning in Hell for all eternity?* Joe

Listen Brother Joe! I enough problems right now, and I don't need you running around in Greensboro telling those good Christian folks that Stalin was a unpentence former crossdressing communist priest. And who in the hell is this dude Bob Hunter? Is he that funny Appeals Court Republican candiate that said he was contacted by the Internet God directly to run for office.

Now shape it up or I am reporting you to the Atheist leaque of the Knight's Templars to stop another Holy War for the Pope.

The barely-coherent blog stylings of Connie Mack, folks!

Be sure to come back for the 11 o'clock show - it's completely different from the 8 o'clock.

I guess if you are firmly convinced that the bible is literally true in its entirety, and that this was God's voice, you would have no choice by to act. The basic problem is with a literal belief in the totality of the bible. It doesn't take a very deep reading to find internal conflicts in the book. It simply can't all be true because there are multiple, mutually exclusive, versions of the same stories.

It seems to me that a Christian trying to live their life by old testament rules is sort of missing a very large point. The old testament is the scripture of the jewish people. It was the bible Jesus had to study. It seems that a large part of his message was "those are the old rules, I'm bringing you new ones".

I guess I've strayed from the original point, but it seems to me the question as put is a simple one to answer. If you came into this thinking you believed completely in the whole bible, but this question makes you take a serious pause, then you need to revisit your beliefs. I've tried to present what I think can be an appropriate framework for old vs new testament questions in terms of a Christian point of view.

"how far do God's laws and God's will really supersede man's laws"

Well if that's all you wanted to know I can tell you that for modern Christians, God's law is in effect from about 9:45 a.m. until noon, 12:15 at the latest, on Sunday.

On the opposite sides of that time slot, we are mostly slaves to marketing, clocks, stop lights and our intrinsic need to be accepted by those around us.

Unless of course you're into a teleological suspension of the ethical.

There, I said it again!

When I first saw it in a theatre, I thought "Frailty" (directed by Bill Paxton) was the most disturbing horror movie I'd ever seen. My memory may be faulty, but as I recall, the movie addressed your very question. Making it all the more disturbing, a father (played by Paxton) tells his own two relatively young children that he's had visions from God telling him to kill certain demons who've taken on human appearances but are doing things that justify their lives being taken. The younger son accepts his father's visions, while the older son doesn't. In front of his sons, the father carries out the murders in ways that would otherwise qualify for "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or some other horror flick.

In real life, we generally approve of our government carrying out executions as long as they're done in cleaner fashion. Less blood on our hands, I suppose, allows us to accept captial punishment instead of trying to carry out such punishments more directly on our own. People might not say that God has told them that such killing is acceptable, but they obviously believe that God supports those executions.

I thought the movie was provocative, but it also scared me because I know that there are some people who still use their religion to justify taking other people's lives. Coming not too long after the September 11th attacks, the movie made me consider that perhaps the terrorists felt their God had spoken to them too. Frightnening as fiction, and more so in real life.

"how far do God's laws and God's will really supersede man's laws"

As far as he wants until we are able to kick HIS ass at will...

Seymour -- I haven't seen that movie, but it's now on my list. Thanks for the recommendation.

FRAILTY is a good movie, but the theological twist at the end is kind of a Shyamalanesque gimmick that arguably cheapens it. I actually think that THE RAPTURE handles these questions more cogently and provacatively. Plus, it not only contains Mimi Rogers' best peformance (and a surprisingly good one by David Duchovny), but she gets quite nekkid in it, and in the early 90s, that was a sight to behold (I almost typed "those were a sight to behold"). Prurient interest aside (and iirc, you also see David's duchovny), it's the only film I've ever seen by a non-fundamentalist that took the concept of the Rapture and all its implications seriously, and you've got to admire the cojones of a serious film that dares to put at least one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on screen. The ending, which might be described as C. S. Lewis's worst nightmare, is particularly disturbing.

That was Connie Mack? Interesting, now I have a context for the old "batshit crazy" meme.

As for your original question, I think the answer is that, if he or she is BSC enough to really believe that God Has Spoken, then he or she does whatever he or she thinks God has commanded her or him to do. I'm an atheist, but I'm not sure that it's a theologically complex question, and it strikes me as no different from asking "if you're really crazy enough to believe that Joe Killian is an evil android from the future sent back in time to bring out the robot apocalypse, do you attempt to destroy him even though it may mean your own life, or at least imprisonment?" Yes, if you truly believe that, and you truly want to avoid the robot apocalypse, you get a rocket launcher and aim it at poor unsuspecting Joe.

off track, but..."iirc, you also see David's duchovny."
Holy Guacamole!!! YES, I WILL be renting that DVD.
Mmmmmulder.

Ian:

Here is some visual context for BSC.

"As far as he wants until we are able to kick HIS ass at will..."

So now we've heard from the "might makes right" lobby. Beautiful.

Oh and it won't be much longer before we can, you know. All we have to do is figure out how to fire our nukes at right angles to reality.

5 points will be awarded to those who can understand the literary allusion here.

:)

Well - it's hard to imagine how this mélange of hard-core unbelief and interpretive jibber-jabber got on this site; but it is VERY interesting to see just how far we have slipped in our culture from anything resembling intelligent, educated, and responsible biblical exegesis. Joe, I’ve never seen such blatant anti-Christianism on this site before. If this were anti-Semitism it would be all over the news. Although you do give the OT Scriptures a hard time.

Any first-year theology student knows that the OT is not just a doctrinal exposition, but is a collection of stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly of humanity, including believing Israelites struggling in their faith and relationship with God. The truth/doctrine that this ongoing struggle presents, prophetic and divine commentary, and later NT interpretations must be studied with faith, balance, insight and inspiration if it is to yield the lessons it has for us. The NT tells us explicitly that these things were written for our instruction – what NOT to do, as well as what TO do. If all you do is use these human stories to bash God and His Word, you show your complete ignorance of the narrative as a whole and your spiritual denseness. I stand amazed at the vitriolic jibes flung about so carelessly on this subject line.

The OT is the story, by various inspired writers, of God’s plan to deal with sin and redeem his human creation. It begins with the fact that all mankind is worthy of death (as Adam and Eve were), and it is merely God’s mercy and divine plan of salvation that prevented instant extermination of the race when sin first entered the picture. One must have an inspired vision of the utter destructiveness and horror of sin. God did not choose Abraham and the Israelites because they were smart, special, or good. As the Scripture reveals, it was grace and mercy alone. They were to be the channel of cosmic redemption, and any who sought to destroy them were worthy of death, not only because of their own sinfulness and unbelief, but because they hindered the ultimate coming of Messiah and cosmic renewal and personal salvation. John 3:18 says:

“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned ALREADY, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

So “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” and are under the sentence of death; but God has provided a Lamb, as He did for Abraham regarding Isaac. Not understanding the typology and ultimate RAMifications of this narrative leads to the myopic view that this was potential murder, and that ordinary human ethical parameters apply.

Again, those have become hardened in their antipathy towards God and His Law/Word, and who spew the presumptuous bravado of the cynic, seem to relish the opportunity to show their ignorance of biblical interpretation and spiritual insight in blog lines such as this. It is disturbing to think that this culture has descended into such a tawdry cesspool of superficial diatribe and blasphemous nonsense.

If you don’t study and seek to understand the context of biblical narratives and their teleological significance you will forever wallow in cheap-shot animosity toward God and His gracious offer of saving grace in His Messiah. I pray you will do more balanced study and less prejudiced diatribe.

Nutjobs such as this New Zealander are only the “religious” flipside of the MANY unbelieving (atheist, humanist) who do crazy and criminal things. God’s call in the Gospel is to sanity, balance, love and faith. You guys seem driven to use the straw men mentioned so perceptively earlier to bash God’s glorious model of loving service and enlightened faith.
That you don’t like or understand God’s Law and ways is simply the result of your need for the light of the Spirit which comes through true faith in the atonement.

I'm not sure how it's anti-Christian to pose questions about the religion.

All right -- I take that back. I went to Catholic school. I did get the "questioning the religion bad, very bad" thing.

I just don't agree with it.

I don't have beef with Christians specifically. I have a healthy skepticism about all religion -- and that's not necessarily a bad point of view to have represented on...you know...a religion blog.

My reading the Bible, participating in the religion, studying the religion on my own, in school and with clergy and coming away with an opinion of it that's different from yours doesn't make me theologically lazy or definicient in my understanding. There may be room for only one interpretation of the scripture in your estimation -- but hey, what a great country, we can still discuss these things from a pluralist perspective.

I think the passages I cited -- most of which involve the religion's central diety commiting, sanctioning or commisioning murder (and worse) and not characters providing a "what not to do" example -- speak for themselves in relation to this post and the question it poses.

Joe Killian said:
The barely-coherent blog stylings of Connie Mack, folks!

"No doubt you are coherent enough to understand Obama God which is a good spiritual sign that you do not hear voices"

Be sure to come back for the 11 o'clock show - it's completely different from the 8 o'clock.*Joe Killian

Let's see! The 11 o'clock show for today, shows 5 more bank runs with hack off mob customers that can't get their paper currency. And your main concern at the moment is that God does not talk to you? Surely unreality for you is not the sudden jump in gas prices along with food prices.

That was Connie Mack? Interesting, now I have a context for the old "batshit crazy" meme*Ian McDowell said:

You have got to stop using Ed Cone terms when it applys to you! Does Ed talk to you directly or does he use a middle man with a deep voice that sounds like a depress Republican Moses?

"For the story and message of the cross is sheer absurdity and folly to those who are perishing and on their way to perdition, but to us who are being saved, it is the manifestation of the power of God. For it is written, I will baffle and render useless and destroy the learning of the learned and the philosophy of the philosophers and the cleverness of the clever and the discernment of the discerning. I will frustrate and nullify them and bring them to nothing. Where is the wise man, the philosopher? Where is the scribe, the scholar? Where is the investigator, the logician, the debater of this present time and age? Has not God shown up the nonsense and the folly of this world's wisdom? For when the world with all its earthly wisdom failed to perceive and recognize and know God by means of its own philosophy, God in His wisdom was pleased through the foolishness of preaching of salvation, procured by Christ and to be had through Him, to save those who BELIEVED, who clung to and trusted in and relied on Him." (I Corinthians 1:18-21)

"God is a spiritual Being and those who worship Him must worship Him in SPIRIT and in TRUTH." (John 4:24)

For hundreds of years men like you have been sitting around arguing and debating the things of God and trying to figure God out with their heads. But God cannot be understood with the mind/intellect. God is not about RELIGION; He is about RELATIONSHIP. He is a God of LOVE who has had a plan for mankind from the very beginning. But men, in their great pride and sinful nature, would rather sit around a debate Him with their intelligence instead of simply accepting His ways and obeying Him.

When Lucifer was in Heaven with God, he thought he could be as good as God or even better than God. And we all know what happened to him! Adam and Eve followed suit in the Garden of Eden: they decided they could eat the fruit and live, and then they rationalized, they blamed someone else for their problems and they tried to hide from God.

From the beginning of time (as we humans understand time) -- and long before -- God has been working out HIS STORY and religious leaders and zealots have sat around discussing and debating and trying to understand it all with their intellects and their educated ways.

To answer your original question, God would not in this day and age ever tell anyone to KILL someone else. Anyone who thinks they hear God telling them to kill someone else is NOT hearing from God. The Bible says that Satan, the thief, roams the earth seeking whom he can to steal, kill and destroy. God is a giver of good gifts and every good thing comes from Him. If you know your Bible history, you know that the Muslims and those RELIGIOUS zealots who believe God tells them to kill others are not exactly on God's team!

Whatever God did or didn't do in the Old Testament, whether you believe it's true history or simply stories given for example, was put there as an example and to teach us. Much of what happened in the OT happened because of sinful, wicked men and their own depravity and disobedience to God's ways. God basically was painting a picture of SIN and what would happen to those who live in SIN. There are equally as many stories in the OT about men who loved God, who walked according to His ways and who were righteous and the many blessings that came upon them.

But when God Himself took on the form of a human being and came to earth as Jesus, He took on the sin of all mankind so that all might live. In the New Testament church, we are to follow Jesus' example...live as He lived, not sit around and debate religious questions. Jesus walked among mankind and never spoke an unkind word EXCEPT TO THE RELIGIOUS PEOPLE IN THE TEMPLE. He opened not his mouth when He was reviled and He could have called 10,000 angels to prevent His death. But He gave his life willingly so that those who would believe in Him and in His death, burial and resurrection might live eternally.

God is saddened that intelligent human beings, whom He created only a little lower than the angels, would prefer to sit around and debate such silly questions rather than spend their time responding to His love and trying to show that love to those around them. You would all do God and yourselves a far greater service by spending your time showing the same LOVE with which God has loved you to those around you. Satan loves it when men sit around and debate because it keeps their hearts and minds off of God's truth and he will do anything he can to keep men from coming to know God.

Whether you believe it or not doesn't make it any less real. God has a plan and a purpose and HISTORY is moving along just as He planned it. It will all come to an end one day and those who sat around and debated foolish questions will wish they had only believed. OPen up your HEARTS and ask God to reveal Himself to you in the way He intended from the very beginning. God bless you all because I'm sure you are all very nice people who mean well, but are just greatly missing the boat! Get out of the boat you are in and learn to walk on the water!! :o)

Nikos, please, please please tell me that when you wrote the word "jibber-jabber," you said it aloud in a Mr. T. voice!

It's probably my fault, but I'm having trouble reconciling your impressive sounding description of the Old Testament with those bits of it that I've actually read, to which I reacted not unlike Randolph Churchill. Why, in your opinion, did God send those pesky she-bears to tear asunder the 42 children who mocked Elisha for his baldness? And as for saying "whether you believe it or not doesn't make it any less real," that statement is just as true of the Koran or the Book of Mormon or Dianetics: the Evolution of a Science as it is of the Tanakh. I hardly need add that it doesn't make it any more real, either.

No, Connie, Ed Cone didn't speak to me from a burning George W. Bush. But I had idly wondered why he (Ed, not George) called you BSC and whether or not it was a fair cop. Now I know.

Alice, I may be conflating Duchovny in THE RAPTURE with his full-frontal scene in Henry Jaglom's awful 1988 NEW YEAR'S DAY (in which, even though he's extremely young, the future Mulder gives by far the best performance), but he definitely has sex scenes in the later and much better film. My memory of how much he reveals is obscured by my much stronger ones of the stunning Ms. Rogers. Her babeosity may be the only thing on which I've ever agreed with Rush Limbaugh.

Mickie, who are the sinners in Second Kings 2:23-24? Elisha? The forty-two boys who are torn to pieces? The she-bears that tear them into those pieces? Those who take the story literally? Those who think it's a metaphor?

Seems to me that ANY time one hears voices it's a sign that something's amiss in the brain department. Could be a tumor, could be schizophrenia, but definitely something that needs to be checked out by a professional--even a religious professional--before acting upon.

Well, I'm glad you explain that you were raised Catholic, because they are well known for threatening people who ask questions. My wife left the Catholic church after being threatened with excommunication for asking about the New Age movement.
Mickie did a great job, but let me address a couple of the objections in your article. To begin with, people of the Old Testament days were under a theocracy and as such heard directly from God. That isn't the case today, so Christians aren't to listen to voices telling them to kill people. The Mosaic Law describes how to deal with a disobedient son. You can read Deut. 21:19-21 to see what that was. The son in question should not be thought of as an adolescent guilty of nothing more than slamming doors or stubbornly asserting his independence. The son described here is old enough to be morally culpable of extravagantly wicked behavior that threatens the health and safety of the entire community. So the prescribed punishment is for adult degeneracy, not adolescent decadence. The parent's desire to spare their own son serves as a built-in buffer against an unwarranted or frivolous enforcement of the law. Likewise, ratification by the elders precludes a precipitous judgment on the part of the parents. Thus, the standard of evidence prescribed by the Mosaic Law exceeds that of modern jurisprudence. Skeptics shouldn't try to claim the moral high ground over the Scriptures. Rather than the civility of the Mosaic Law, our culture reflects the carnality of Israel's neighbors who sacrificed their sons and daughters. For over 30 years Western society has sanctioned the systematic slaughter of children, guilty of nothing more than being unloved (abortion).
On to the next objection. The idea that God would command the obliteration of entire nations is abhorrent to skeptics, but in context His commands are perfectly consistent with His justice and mercy. Let's take God's command to destroy the nations inhabiting the promised land of Canaan. The command to "destroy them totally" (Deut. 7:2) is contextualized by the words "Do not intermarry with them...for they will turn your sons and daughters away from following me to serve other gods...This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire" (vv. 3-5) As such, the aim of God's command was not the obliteration of the wicked but the obliteration of wickedness.
Furthermore, God's instructions are qualified by His moral intentions to spare the repentant. Hebrews talks about this: "By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient." (Heb. 11:31). God's desire to spare the pagan city of Nineveh further illustrates the extent of his mercy for the repentant. (Jonah)
God also commanded Israel to treat the aliens living among them with respect and equality. Foreigners living among the Israelites were allowed to celebrate Passover (Numbers 9:14; 15:15), benefited from an agrarian system of welfare (Lev. 19:9) and enjoyed full legal protection (Deut. 1:16-17). Even descendents of Israel's enemies, the Edomites and Egyptians, were allowed to enter the assembly of the Lord (Deut. 23:7-8). In fact, God condemned oppression of aliens harshly. "Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless, or the widow." (Deut. 27:19) This shows that mercy was to be shown to those who by faith repented of their idolatry.
FInally, Joe, if God were to treat us as our sins deserve, you would be dead and so would I, but He is a merciful God. That is why He sent us Jesus.

Ian:

As a bald man I always sort of liked the story with the bears tearing the children limb from limb.

But as...you know...humor. Not revelation from God.

JK

Bob, I wish I was as eloquent with words as you are. You do a great job of explaining things and I loved what you said. Do you have a blog or any other place to read your writings or thoughts? Great job!

Ian, to answer your question, the Bible says that "ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God" and that "there is none righteous, no not one." So that means that every person on the face of the earth, whether living in OT or NT times, is a sinner. God dealt with sin in the OT differently than He does in the NT because of Jesus's sacrifice on the cross.

To answer your question about II Kings 2:23-24, technically everyone was a sinner. The Bible doesn't give us all the details of what was going on in that passage, just that one verse about the 42 boys. In the OT, God's often did supernatural things to reveal Himself to the people. Also, in the OT blessings/life and curses/death were given according to the faith/sin of those involved. The boys in verse 23 most likely numbered far greater than the 42 who died. They were young boys, most likely full of themselves and thinking themselves invincible and beyond reproach. The Bible says they were "maturing and accountable," so they had moved from not being held accountable for their actions to being held accountable. They were taunting, teasing and mocking a man that God had chosen to be His spokesperson at that time, which means they were taunting, teasing and mocking God. The Bible is full of examples of times when God decided to annihilate people who were disobeying His instructions and ways -- Lot's wife comes to mind! God told them what to do, she decided she'd do her own thing instead, and she was turned into a pillar of salt as an example to others of what happened when you didn't listen and obey God. Were it not for the Blood of Jesus that covers us today, who knows what would be happening because God cannot be in the presence of sin. It's only because of the Blood of Jesus and the price He paid that our sins are dealt with by grace and mercy.

But rather than debate, I pray you will open up your heart and ask God to show you His truths. He always answers those who call upon Him. Be blessed!

Mickie, yes, just click on my name. However, I will soon quit posting for a couple of years as I'm about to enter Concordia Theological Seminary. The blog will remain but posts will be rare for that period while I devote all my time to studying.

"They were taunting, teasing and mocking a man that God had chosen to be His spokesperson at that time, which means they were taunting, teasing and mocking God."

Mickey, I'm not trying to be glib or going for the cheap shot when I say that sounds rather Islamic.

It seems odd to say people are/were "worthy of death". A) We all die, thus, being "worthy" is nonsensical...unless perhaps one means the MANNER of death; and B) if a god somehow communicated to his followers that certain classes of other people, or specific individuals were "worthy of death", isn't that an invitation to help them along? If such a god sees a life as less worthy of being lived out naturally, one can assume someone could justify homicide as sanctioned against that particular sinner.

The same "logic", extended to all "sinners" would seem to beg for mass suicide. "We are not worthy".

If any god is read as saying, or heard in one's own ear/mind/"heart", convincingly, to call for atrocities and murders, that god must be rejected on the basis of going against the moral/ethical compass of the human race, which MOST atheists recognize quite well. (Not all are utterly relativistic postmodernist deconstructionists, etc.)Such a god is constrained by humanly understood strictures in order to remain at all "good". We can and do judge the worth of gods according to almost-universal codes of conduct. The fact we can't imagine "our god" demanding horrendous behaviours shows we already have a working knowledge of the code.

A "bad" or evil act, called for by any god, would disqualify that entity as all-loving or good. Hence, clearly not the Christian god, as advertised. Maybe Kali?

Additionally, if any god is supposedly all-powerful, then he/she/it could not be constrained. And it would be incumbent on any believer to commit any (humanly understood) evil act commanded by him/her/it.

BUT, if the then-believer came to his/her own right mind, to reject both command and god...the very existence, in fact, of this so-called god. Better to be "worthy of death" in a world where all things die, than unworthy of reality, a completely non-existent fable.

It seems odd to say people are/were "worthy of death". A) We all die, thus, being "worthy" is nonsensical...unless perhaps one means the MANNER of death; and B) if a god somehow communicated to his followers that certain classes of other people, or specific individuals were "worthy of death", isn't that an invitation to help them along? If such a god sees a life as less worthy of being lived out naturally, one can assume someone could justify homicide as sanctioned against that particular sinner.

The same "logic", extended to all "sinners" would seem to beg for mass suicide. "We are not worthy".

If any god is read as saying, or heard in one's own ear/mind/"heart", convincingly, to call for atrocities and murders, that god must be rejected on the basis of going against the moral/ethical compass of the human race, which MOST atheists recognize quite well. (Not all are utterly relativistic postmodernist deconstructionists, etc.)Such a god is constrained by humanly understood strictures in order to remain at all "good". We can and do judge the worth of gods according to almost-universal codes of conduct. The fact we can't imagine "our god" demanding horrendous behaviours shows we already have a working knowledge of the code.

A "bad" or evil act, called for by any god, would disqualify that entity as all-loving or good. Hence, clearly not the Christian god, as advertised. Maybe Kali?

Additionally, if any god is supposedly all-powerful, then he/she/it could not be constrained. And it would be incumbent on any believer to commit any (humanly understood) evil act commanded by him/her/it.

BUT, if the then-believer came to his/her own right mind, to reject both command and god...the very existence, in fact, of this so-called god. Better to be "worthy of death" in a world where all things die, than unworthy of reality, a completely non-existent fable.