How do Christians deal with the violence in the Bible?

I'm obviously not a literalist so my belief would be that it is pointing out again that the further away a nation moves from God's plan of love and service the more the people of the nation suffer including the innocents.It's a bit like the guy who goes out and gambles away the grocery money. It was the guy who sinned, (or screwed up if you like), but it is also his wife and kids who will pay the price.

GDR Then you admit freewill in the context of the bible is not universal?

I don't fully understand the question but I believe we all have free will that we exercise as individuals but in the exercising of our own free will we can negatively affect others in the same way that we can be negatively affected by someone else's poor choices.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Exactly. Blame the victims.

GDR This is the point.A freewill that is subject to others is not freewill is it?

This is exactly my point, Faith. If terrorists blow up a city becasue we are "heathen sinners," we would roundly denounce it as a horrible, immoral act. If God does it, suddenly you think it's justified.So you believe that God's Will justifies otherwise evil actions? God can kill millions and still be considered loving and good? A warning to "do what I say or I'll kill you?" How is that moral? How is that representative of a good and loving God? What can possibly justify willingly giving up your own children for rape?! How does this justify the murder of millions of children? If some group enslaved my hypothetical son, and I killed all of their sons to "avenge" it, I would be guilty of mass murder and sent to prison or executed. Why is it different for God? "Companion" to me suggests there may have been women as well, but it's irrelevant. If I went and killed every Hindu in my city for "worshipping idols and false Gods," that would be a reprehensibly immoral act. What gives God the right to kill thousands? How is it JUSTIFIED?! If I purposely have a child so that I can torture it for its entire existance, how is that NOT evil?! That's just the thing. I don't see the wanton murder of millions of children because of something they themselves didn't even do as justice. I don't see the murder of 3000 men for worshipping another god as justice.I see it as actions we would consider immoral today, and I want to know how anyone can justify them. Some of it was commanded by God.

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Exodus 32:27-28
And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.

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The fact that God sent His son to pay the price for us is irrelevant. According to the Bible He still committed heinous crimes. How is it justified? Oh, I see. Christians are supposed to help people escape murder by their evil God by threatening them into becoming Christians.That's not the God I worship. That's a monster.

Rahvin,Your just too imperfect to understand the Divine Justice of god. Gods Justice is so JUST, that it's impossible for us unjust sinners to interpret it as Justice. We just need to accept that it is right, good, and just and pray that when we get to heaven god will share his understanding with us.This message has been edited by Yaro, 07-30-2005 01:55 PM

Two things.One, some of the recorded incidents are not all that unbelieveable, slaughtering whole towns as an example, but reflect the actual culture at the time. Such acts, ones that we would call wanton violence, unfortunately did actually happen and are not much different than those found in other mythos.Second, extreme violence is not at all unusual in most morality tales. If you read the Pied Piper you find all the kids in the town being killed because the piper didn't get paid. Such tales were meant to impress and to hold the attention of the audience. It's not much different today if one watches much tv or movies.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I hesitate to put words in someone elses mouth, but I don't believe any of the events outlined in Exodus really happened. If you read the story it's classic Max Sennett. Lot's of cliff hangers to bring them back next week for the new installment. The character of Pharoah is certainly contrived. He gives in and says "Let them go" almost immediately. But that won't do for the story teller. So the storyteller contrives to have God harden Pharoah's heart. No free will there.But it's a fable, and in fables the author is free to play with the plotline to continue the story.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I don't see it as a case of it being subject to, but of being affected by. Back to my example of the gambling father who lost the grocery money. He exercised his free will and chose to gamble. His choice however affected his family.

The problem people have is distinguishing between murder of innocents and the execution of justice. God is God, all His acts are justice. Of course you are free to hate Him if you like and accuse Him of violating YOUR moral code, but this is His nature as revealed in His word, pure righteousness and perfect justice. Terrorists may in fact BE executing God's justice as prompted by God behind the scenes, but the Bible makes it very clear that they are committing murder as viewed from their point of view, and will be judged in their turn by God for that. Over and over in the Old Testament God brings one nation against another in judgment, many of the pagan nations such as Babylonia and Assyria and Persia against His own people for instance. He sent prophets well in advance to warn them of what was coming and then it came. It is all cast in terms of judgment for their violations of the covenant, and He also says that those who have been the instruments of their punishment will be punished in turn because their motives were evil and not good.You may not like any of this, and it is a hard thing to like I admit, but it is justice, it is not murder, according to the Bible, and that's what I believe. But when human beings do it to each other their motives are simply evil and they will be judged by God for that in their turn. It all started when sin and death entered the world, and it will play out like this to the end. But salvation from it all HAS been offered. Of course. The problem people have is the inability to appreciate just how bad sin is. God is good in his judgments, and He wants us to help people who suffer from His judgments, and He wants us to pray for mercy. It's exactly like a loving parent teaching a child what is good for him, that if he does what is right he will be rewarded and if he does what is wrong he will be punished in order to learn what is good and right. God gave us a ton of examples in His word, it's not as if we have been given no clue to what is required in His universe -- and this IS His universe, not ours. Doesn't sit well with me either but I have to think that in the context of the times Lot must have concluded that it was better than letting God's own messengers be sodomized. It raises a lot of questions of course. But this story is not put forward as any great righteous act, it is simply how Lot dealt with the situation and he may have been wrong in God's eyes. Prayer might have brought a better solution. Those were angels after all. There are many stories in the Bible of people doing wrong rather than right. I haven't studied this one but I may look up commentary on it if this conversation continues. First, the "firstborn" are not necessarily children. Why would you assume that? Whoever was the firstborn would have died, at whatever age he was. And again, God cannot commit murder, by definition. Because He's God, and all His acts are righteous perfect justice. We aren't in a position to judge Him, He has the right to judge us, and there is no doubt that what He does is good. There's nothing more to say. If you do it, it is murder, if God does it, it is justice because He knows exactly what each person deserves, you don't, and you would be acting from wrong motives. Look, God's judgments are beyond us, but that "child" is not going to be punished for no good reason but for the sins he commits in this life, and far from being tortured for its entire existence it may have a very happy life. The punishment will be quite just, only in relation to actual crimes/sins committed, and in this life God is kind to all his creatures, as He says, extending mercy to all who reject him, so that "child" may enjoy all kinds of happiness in this life while he rejects God. No, we don't grasp God's ways. To understand why God does what He does takes faith and meditation on the meaning of such things in the light of our knowledge that God is good. They aren't natural to us. But calling it "murder" misjudges it. It is justice, not murder.
You put yourself above God with judgments such as these. That's the fallen nature talking. This is not the place to start learning about God, by accusing him of injustice. His goodness is not going to be revealed to you this way. Of course if you want to ask Him about it, respectfully and sincerely, He answers such questions. You simply refuse to distinguish between justice and crime, and to acknowledge that God is God, and that God cannot commit anything but righteous acts.Well I've done my best to explain it. I understand why people have a problem with it, but the point is that we are sinners and we do deserve it, and there's really nothing more to say. Meanwhile we are to be good to each other because this supposedly bad God commanded that we be good to each other. And again, He did offer salvation but of course you are free to hate him and reject his offer too.

GDR And his family's choices{freewill} are limited by the gambling.

We did? Funny, I don't remember doing that....

Adam did it for you because he knew you would have wanted him to.

Faith, let me start by saying I don't hate God. A big part of the reason I am not a biblical literallist is because I don't believe the loving, merciful God that I believe in would commit such horrible acts. I don't have any problem distinguishing between murder and justice. The killing of the firstborn, for instance. Many of those slain wouldn't be yet old enough to have committed any sin. None of them were guilty of the sins of Pharoah himself. They were murdered as a punishment to Pharoah - but even worse, because Pharoah was at first willing to release the Isrealite slaves until God Himself "hardened Pharoah's heart."I don't believe the loving, merciful God who tells us to love our neighbors would do such a thing. Combined with the fact that there is no evidence to support the Exodus from ever happening (not in the grand way told in the Bible, anyway), I am led to believe that no such even happened. The point of the story was to say that God will help you if you are in need. Whether the story actually happened is unnecessary to make that point. Why? What gives God the right to set down commandments and then break them Himself? If God told you to kill someone, you would do it?I wouldn't, because I don't think the true God would do any such thing. You don't threaten to KILL a child to teach him. And I beleive that God wants us to be good becasue it is the right thing to do - not out of fear of Hell or hope of Heaven. I try to live a moral life because I want to be a moral person, and I think that kind of life honors God. Letting God's messengers be themselves raped is hardly a good idea, I agree. But I would rather be killed defending my family and God's messengers than let my daughter be raped. Why couldn't Lot trust that God would take care of His own? Wasn't that the point of the messengers being there in the first place, to save the one supposedly righteous man in the city? Not all of them, of course. The children are simply the most heinous of the crime.And you're right - I don't think God would commit murder, either. But killing every last firstborn in Egypt right down to the cattle because Pharoah did exactly what God forced him to do (by hardening his heart) would be mass murder. That's why I don't think God did it at all. And what gives God such special status? The fact that He has power, and can get away with it? The fact that He gave us all life, and somehow now has the right to take it away? So every firstborn in Egypt deserved to die? Even the children? But God creates the child in this example with the express purpose of creating a sinner. He supposedly puts evil people on the Earth on purpose, so that He can punish them later. That's sadistic.I don't think He does any such thing. I think, instead, He gives us free will, and we choose to be good or evil.And I don't believe in Hell. Same Bible, different conclusions.I have faith in God. I know Him to be a loving, merciful, forgiving God. I am not accusing God of injustice - I am saying that the horrible actions described in the Bible would have been injustice if they had been done by God. My faith that God is good and merciful tells me that He could not possibly have done such unspeakable things. My rational mind with the help of science sees no evidence that He did, and so I am left believing that the Bible is not literally true.Look at all of the people who, to this day, believe that we should "kill all the fags" because it is God's Will. Look at the Christians who murdered abortion doctors because they believed it to be God's Will. Look at the 9/11 hijackers who believed that theyer were doing God's Will when they killed 6000 people.I don't believe ANY of those things were the Will of God. But those people claimed they were. Hitler even claimed that the extermination of the Jews was God's Will. I have no trouble believing that the authors of the Bible would attribute actions to God that He had not part in, just as is done today. I alos have no trouble believing that the authors of the Bible would embellish the truth and outright make stories up to make a point, teaching through allegory and symbolism. Parables, if you will...just like Jesus did. I fully distinguish the difference, Faith. And I agree that God would never commit anything but righteous acts. Which is why I don't believe the evil actions in the Bible were the actions of God. First, Faith, please stop accusing me of hating God. There are very few people on this Earth, I think, who truly hate Him. They might not BELIEVE in Him, of course, but that's certainly not hate. You wouldn't "hate" a giant floating spaghetti monster, either, becasue you don't believe there is any such thing.I don't think anyone deserves Hell, Faith. I don't think anyone deserves to be murdered for not beleiveing in God, whether He is the true God or not. I don't think offering your daughters up to be raped is a moral act in any circumstance. I certainly don't believe an entire CITY deserves to be destroyed because its citizens really liked anal sex. I simply don't believe the God I believe in would do those things, and so I don't take the Bible literally. I just don't understand how biblical literallists like yourself can believe that God can simultaneously be the wrathful blood-god depicted by some Biblical passages, and also the God who tells us to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."