The God of the OT was involved with happened to his creation (man) in a way that would have brought the wrath of APS (Adult Protection Services) on God.

God creates man with the ability to live forever, then leaves poison fruit for Adam and Eve to eat that poisons their bodies so they will die.

God wipes out (kills) entire towns with fire and kills a woman simply for looking backwards by turning her into salt.

God commands Abraham to kill his son on an alter.

God kills the entire population of the earth except 8 people.

God gives a man super strength so he kills until he gets drunk and his hair gets cut so the man becomes weak. The man now cannot kill. God needs to go to AA.

God drowns an entire army.

God kills all the first born sons.

God kills men for touching the outside of his house.

God approves virgin women being raped so male angels are not raped.

Adult Protective Services (APS) might be the wrong group to handle God since he is a serial killer and approves of rape.

I wonder how many women would write love letters to god if he was in prison for murder.

Sure is a lot of women that pray to god and want to live with him.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2014 02:28PM by themaster.

Trouble is.... There is no single OT God.

The bible is a library of ancient traditions and writings
spanning many centuries and a number of different cultures
which overlapped just enough to establish a readership
for the entire library in later centuries.

Which God shall we talk about? The Mosaic God? The Davidic
God? The post-exilic God?

Even if we narrow things down to the post-exilic period,
the scripture compilers of that era were working mostly
with ancient traditions -- trying to re-word them to fit
a much later form of religion.

The God of Isaiah is not the God of Ezekiel, even though
the two Jewish deities are superficially similar and come
from the same time.

I'd say that we could have a much more productive discussion
if we first of all recognized these facts.

On the other hand, the typical contemporary Mormon or
Southern Baptist doesn't make such distinctions. To them
the Hebrew Bible is a unified text, with every page
communicating equally perfect and non-contradictory truth.

So, maybe all that I just said can be ignored, considering
what the probable audience will be.

UD

That is incredibly interesting. And actually makes a lot of sense, but I've never really thought of it that way... the idea that even the "prophets" of the OT basically worshiped different God's. The evolution of the religion I suppose, I mean every culture/religion goes through that over time and the Bible covers such a large period, so of course that would happen.

This is right.

The 7th century BCE religious reforms under Josiah, which happened after Isaiah's ministry (who wrote about half of what we know to be the Book of Isaiah, the rest being later interpolations), and before Ezekiel's insane rantings, fundamentally changed the religion of Judah.

The myths and legends that we find in the Pentateuch were compiled around this time, as refugees from Israel fled to Jerusalem and brought their own religious traditions. They needed a new "universal" faith, and the priests, under the observance of King Josiah, created a temple-centered cult surrounding the one god Yahweh. The traditions of El, the former God of Israel were likely melded (awkwardly and inconsistently) into those of the newer god Yahweh.

The histories were heavily edited to add in pro-Judah propaganda and to assert the power of the One God over all the gods of the pagans.



But this is all beside the point. I agree with TheMaster the God worshiped today as the God of the Bible bears little resemblance to anything we find in the actual scriptures.

The allegories, myths and parables in the Bible depict a god or gods who are narcissistic, unbalanced and vengeful, with grace, healing, and sacred knowledge being selectively doled out to the select few.

This fits well with the character of ancient Near East gods, but it does not fit well with the omnibenevolent, even-tempered god of love that's worshiped by the vast majority of Christians today.

Remember, the ot god or Jehovah is the nt Jesus according to tscc. Sure, he was a bit brutal in the ot, but he mellowed out quite a bit once he gained a corporal body.

Only on the surface; after the Kingdom of God was to come to Earth, there's to be a reckoning, and Jesus seems almost giddy to mete out punishment to the disobedient and wicked when he comes to Earth again to pass final judgment on mankind.

En Sabah Nur Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Only on the surface; after the Kingdom of God was
> to come to Earth, there's to be a reckoning, and
> Jesus seems almost giddy to mete out punishment to
> the disobedient and wicked when he comes to Earth
> again to pass final judgment on mankind.


The Mormon Christ is the one depicted in the Book of
the Revelation -- mounted on a white horse, leading
the righteous troops at Armageddon, with a flaming
sword coming out of his mouth.

At the last judgement, he stands at the right hand
of Joe Smith, and approves Joe's condemnation of all
Gentiles and apostates to everlasting misery.

In some ways this overlaps with certain Divine depictions
in the Hebrew Bible and its later Pseudepigrapha.

However, I doubt we could find many contemporary rabbis
who would profess this sort of a God.

UD

Many, if not most, Jewish people have abandoned the belief in the Messiah that will come down with the hosts of heaven to liberate the Chosen people of God. The Messiah prophesied in Daniel and 1st Enoch didn't come, and thus they suffered under the hands of oppressors for thousands of years in the most horrific ways. I would certainly lose hope.

Actually, I DID lose faith in a savior, when I was traumatized as a child and promised that obedience and faith would save me from the PTSD horrors with which I was tortured, and no respite came, just more pain and more abuse.

My story is nothing compared to the violence, indignities and atrocities that the Jewish people have had to endure, but I think I can und understand in some small way.

They have had to fight their own battles to survive, both as a religion and as an ethnic group. They had to save themselves. There was no messiah for them, as there is no messiah for me.

We are alone with the rest of humanity. There is no divinity coming to save us from our failings or the cruelty of others. It's our responsibility to take care of one another.

The unanswered prayers of the hundreds of millions - or perhaps billions - who have suffered unjustly, whether by the hands of men, the violence of nature, famine or disease, stand together as proof against an omnibenevolent savior god.

The Anointed One will not save us, because he is a myth. No amount of faith will save us; it's what WE do that counts.

ABSOLUTELY. Excellent points! I have thought that acknowledging the weirdness of the OT god might be at least one point of agreement between me and TBMS, but the last couple times I tried that tack, I got answers like,
"Well, we just don't understand God's perspective."
"Well, it must be OK because he did it."

ARRRRGHGHGH!!! People, wake up!!!!

And don't forget, through various pogroms and the Holocaust, millions of his "chosen people" were killed, and many millions forced to leave their homes.

Don't forget the legendary gods created by the Annunaki (Sumerian clay tablet re)