Are Christians better than their God? (Jesus, ritual, reject, Torah)

[bartdanr]

Hi All,

Some people decided to reject Christianity because of what they perceived as hypocrisy in the Church. However, my questioning with Christianity was in spite of what I saw as a group of people who, for the most part, were good, honest and loving. (Sure, not perfect--who is? And hypocrisy is a common human failing; the greater the striving, the greater the apparent hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue--and how sad it is if we no longer believe in virtue at all!)

No, my questioning of Christianity was because of what I believed the pages of the Bible showed about the character of the God that was the center of worship.

One of the biggest--if not the biggest--problems I have with the Biblical God is commands like 1 Sam 15:3: "Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." Also, God testing a man to see if he was willing to kill his own child to prove he would follow God no matter what.

Here is the paradox: most Christians I have met (and I have met many, from many denominations) are very loving and are horrified at the death of any child. Most that I have met are strongly pro-life. And yet they worship a God who commanded people to kill children.

How do Christians deal with such a paradox? I, for one, could never follow--let alone worship--a God who orders the killing of children. To me, it is reviving Molech worship (what an image! God condemned the Canaanites for sacrificing their children to Molech, so his solution was to have the Israelites kill the Canaanite children!)

No temporary suffering by a member of the Trinity seems to be adequate to cover this astonishing nature. If the killing of children is not evil, then what could ever be evil?

Peace

[Halcyon]

Have you ever heard of the theory of demiurge? It constitutes one of the basic tenets of my belief system - Gnosticism.

Basically it suggests that the god of the old testament is not God, but mearly a flawed and arrogant being that believes it is God. For me it explains why the god of the Torah acts in the ways that he does.

[Terrywoodenpic]

Originally Posted by bartdanr

Hi All,

Some people decided to reject Christianity because of what they perceived as hypocrisy in the Church. However, my questioning with Christianity was in spite of what I saw as a group of people who, for the most part, were good, honest and loving. (Sure, not perfect--who is? And hypocrisy is a common human failing; the greater the striving, the greater the apparent hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue--and how sad it is if we no longer believe in virtue at all!)

No, my questioning of Christianity was because of what I believed the pages of the Bible showed about the character of the God that was the center of worship.

One of the biggest--if not the biggest--problems I have with the Biblical God is commands like 1 Sam 15:3: "Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." Also, God testing a man to see if he was willing to kill his own child to prove he would follow God no matter what.

Here is the paradox: most Christians I have met (and I have met many, from many denominations) are very loving and are horrified at the death of any child. Most that I have met are strongly pro-life. And yet they worship a God who commanded people to kill children.

How do Christians deal with such a paradox? I, for one, could never follow--let alone worship--a God who orders the killing of children. To me, it is reviving Molech worship (what an image! God condemned the Canaanites for sacrificing their children to Molech, so his solution was to have the Israelites kill the Canaanite children!)

No temporary suffering by a member of the Trinity seems to be adequate to cover this astonishing nature. If the killing of children is not evil, then what could ever be evil?

Peace

Quite simple for me.
The old testament got it wrong.
Jesus Gave Christians a new covernant and taught about a God of Love and Forgiveness. and how to live our lives.

Terry
_____________________________
Blessed are those who bring peace, they shall be children of God

[robtex]

Originally Posted by Terrywoodenpic

Quite simple for me.
The old testament got it wrong.
Jesus Gave Christians a new covernant and taught about a God of Love and Forgiveness. and how to live our lives.

Terry
_____________________________
Blessed are those who bring peace, they shall be children of God

Mohammad did the same thing 600 plus years after Jesus does that make the NT wrong?

[Mike182]

Originally Posted by Terrywoodenpic

Quite simple for me.
The old testament got it wrong.
Jesus Gave Christians a new covernant and taught about a God of Love and Forgiveness. and how to live our lives.

Terry
_____________________________
Blessed are those who bring peace, they shall be children of God

quite true

throughout the old testiment we see god doing unloving things either by the power of his spirit of through other people (my favourite verse being 2kings2:23-25)

but christ came to show us that god is all loving and not a violent and peeved off maniac with a lightning pointer!

C_P

[michel]

*Rushing past Rob's post (to which I cant think of an answer)* I agree with Terry and you, C.P . For me, this has been a very fast learning curve; I may have had some memories of Christiany from when I was in my early teenage years, but I knew very little - somehow my wierd schooling experience left a gaping hole in religious education.

[bartdanr]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Have you ever heard of the theory of demiurge? It constitutes one of the basic tenets of my belief system - Gnosticism.

Basically it suggests that the god of the old testament is not God, but mearly a flawed and arrogant being that believes it is God. For me it explains why the god of the Torah acts in the ways that he does.

Hi Halcyon, thanks for your post.

Actually, that's a lot in line with my current thought--that there are beings who consider themselves "gods", but are unworthy of the title. Yet we, as fallible and finite human beings are often easily swayed by spiritual special effects, and we worship something simply because it's stronger than us--and yet we often don't wonder...

"Why does God need a starship?" (Trekkies might get the reference)

Peace

[bartdanr]

Thanks to the Christians who posted.

I can see the appeal of such an approach (the OT was wrong, NT is right), and yet I'm troubled that Jesus seemed to always want to identify with the God of the Old Testament. Why didn't he simply say "that 'god' wasn't my Father--my Father is love!"?

Besides, the hellfire and damnation in the Bible (which is mostly absent from the Old Testament) often comes from Jesus' lips (or from the pen of John the Revelator). It seems to me that both testaments have some serious difficulties IMO.

Peace

[Sooperhotshiz]

Most fundamentalist Christians would never say the OT is wrong. In the NT, God did kill those who disobeyed him Acts 5:1-11, rev 9.. You could say the OT has no theological value in Christianity and its God, there are many types of reasons or "excuses" people give for the actions in the OT. Other times people say not to question it because it is God that defines what is good, and if you disagree with it then that is bad. I don't have an answer but I will tell you that any half-intellectual idiot is able to make things work out for what they want to believe. In my opinion, it is best if you make up your own reasons rather than reasons made up by somebody else.

[TashaN]

Originally Posted by Terrywoodenpic

Quite simple for me.
The old testament got it wrong.
Jesus Gave Christians a new covernant and taught about a God of Love and Forgiveness. and how to live our lives.

Terry

you must kidding me !!!!

are you saying that there are 2 different Gods in 2 different testament so we have the evil God in the OT and the love one in the NT ???

what are you talking about guys ?? please think before you answer in here blindly.

if he is the same God but the OT was corrupted then why you don't believe muslims when they say the NT too were corrupted bringing evidence for this claim.

Originally Posted by robtex

Mohammad did the same thing 600 plus years after Jesus does that make the NT wrong?

Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) said: Do not kill a child ( the first order ), do not kill an Old, do not kill a woman and do not cut a tree ( even a tree ).

So, now do you think islam is bad ?? ofcourse not

and also we can say that islam came to correct the NT as the NT came to correct the OT.

Peace