Excusing the god of the Old Testament comes with three distinct problems. First, he still did those awful things. I say this because the most common excuse is that all the laws and prohibitions and commands of the Old Testament were really only meant for the people of the time – specifically, the Jews. But so what? That doesn’t mean God didn’t commit genocide or destroy innocent families for nothing but his own sinful pride. Second, this common excuse (in fact, it seems to be the only excuse) makes God a moral relativist. This is in contradiction with the beliefs of most Christians that morality is absolute and objective. (These people aren’t even coherent.) Third, if the Old Testament or significant portions of the Old Testament are only relevant to an ancient culture, then why bother with it? Or why not at least exclude the parts that are irrelevant? I mean, I know Facebooking Christians do love to exclude the evil of Deuteronomy and Leviticus from their cherry-picked status updates, but why not just throw it away?
Filed under: Misc | Tagged: Old Testament, Thought of the day | 3 Comments »
For the Sake of Science 