How do Christians deal with the violence in the Bible?

How is this different from a man with a gun to your head saying "Do what I tell you or I'll shoot. Make me happy and I might let you go."?How is that morally justified?Faith, you continually say that "it's God's Justice, so it's justified." But my question is whether God's Justice as described in the Bible is justified at all. If I murder 12 people because I say they deserved it, and call it justice, is it not still murder? Why is God different?

So, in other words, your argument is circular."It's justified becuase God did it, and God is good, so anything He does is automagically justified. Since God's works are automagically justified, He is good."

Okay, so a circular premise. Same thing. God's acts are good becuase He is good, so even otherwise evil acts are justified if God did them.That doesn't make any sense at all to me.

Similar belief here.And how could a God who demands the sacrifice of your only son be good? Killing your child is justified if you do it for God?

"If you don't think like me then you can't disagree with me."What?!I am a Christian. I interpret the Bible non-literally, partially because I don;t believe God was as violent and horrible as some parts of the Bible say. I believe that I have a personal relationship with God - in fact, I base my entire faith on that, rather than a strict interpretation of the Bible. I place my faith in God, not in a book. My faith does not rest on the Bible being true in its entirety. I think God is very understandable. I think that even an atheist can get a basic picture of God if he reads the entire Bible and understands that it is not all literally true. So, you are saying that even otherwise evil actions, such as genocide, are justified if commanded by God, becuase those actions are then magically made good.I disagree. Did you know that Hitler used Christian rhetoric (including a book by Martin Luther - "The Jews and their Lies," if I recall) to justify the Holocaust? He claimed to be on a holy mission from God. IF he was (obviously not the case), would the Holocaust have been justified, since God would have told him to do it?In the same way, I think that most of the violence in the Bible was done by everyday monsters and misguided individuals, who then claimed that what they had done was God's Will. The same thing that still happens today.

Since this is getting a little off-topic (we have other threads going on about many of the things in your last post), I'm only going to respond to the relevant bits. So, in other words, you are saying that genocide isn't genocide if God does it. If God came and killed off an entire race, it would be a good and just thing, becuase God did it. But if anyone else does anything remotely like that, it would be considered evil. How do you make the jump to justifying everything that God supposedly did? That's exactly my point! I think that many of the people in the Bible attributed God with actions He did not do! If it's happened constantly for the past 2000 years, why could it not have happened 6000 years ago? Why could such things NOT wind up in the Bible? Not so. There is a difference between "inspired by God" and written directly by His hand. I believe the Bible was "inspired" by God - but the authors didn't always get it right, and the people they wrote about weren't always carrying out God's Will they way they claimed to be. God doesn't seem to mess with free will - He lets thing like the Holocaust happen, as well as all manner of "normal" murder, rape, etc. Regardless of which denomination of Christianity is "right" (assuming that Christianity is right at all), the others must be wrong - and God has not prevented them from writing down their beliefs, nor has He struck down their leaders. Why would we assume that He would do so to the Biblical authors, and those who determined which books would be included 1500 years ago? I don't think I am understanding this the way you meant...but yes. I think that the Bible still fulfills a purpose for God regardless of its translation, because it was never meant (by God, anyway) to be taken word-for-word literally. But this is getting a bit afield again. My position is simply that I don;t believe the violence and horrors attributed to God in the Bible were actually His actions. That's all. Anything further is appealing to consequence, really.

This answers my question. I strongly disagree with you (I don't think actions are right or wrong just because God says so), but that would be a topic for another thread. Whether God has the right or not doesn't mean it is right for Him to do so. We are sentient beings with free will, and I believe in the concept of human rights - not "humans have whatever rights God chooses to give them and nothing else." If we consider Hell to be simply "eternity outside the presence of God," then I have no problem with that. I think it could even be likely. Certainly He is under no obligation to spend time with those who don't want to spend time with Him. I don't think any atheist, should this be the correct view, would complain at spending eternity outside His presence either. After all, they still got an afterlife, and they don’t believe He even exists!As for the "lake of fire" version of Hell, I don't think it exists, no. Throwing an otherwise very good person into a fiery pit to burn and suffer for eternity for not believing in God is hardly a moral act, and I don't believe God would do such a thing. It would be sadistic. That may well be a problem, but I'm willing to let a little prayer and rational thought help me out. The Bible is what led me to God, after all...and I think that the good bits were certainly divinely inspired, or at least fit in with God's Will. I'm pretty sure that such parts as "thou shalt not kill," and "love thy neighbor as you love yourself," and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," are from God. I disagree. I'm not the one who determines if an action is moral or not - God already did that. The Bible speaks of forgiveness, love, and mercy. I think those are the true teachings of God. Believing in a God defined by those terms, it's easy to tell what I do and do not believe in concerning the Bible. I've also come to believe that, for much of the Bible, it simply doesn't MATTER one bit if the events really happened or not. The lessons they teach are no less valid, and I wouldn't live my life any differently.As to disease, death, and evil...well, science shows us, through the theory of evolution, how early life forms gradually evolved over time to eventually produce Humanity. In order for this process to occur, death and disease are necessary. For life to exist on this planet, certain Earth processes, which sometimes result in natural disasters, are necessary. These things are perfectly natural, and do not have to be the direct actions of God (simply consequences of the Earth being habitable and inhabited). Evil is an entirely human thing - without sentience, you cannot be evil. Evil is simply a product of free will - we all have the choice to be decent people or to wreck havoc on our fellow man.And we can’t hold God responsible for the actions of human beings. He gave us free will - what we do with it is our own fault. God didn't create Hitler to be a monster. Hitler became a monster all on his own. I don’t think it's so dodgy. Human reason has managed to figure out quite a bit about the universe. Combined with a little prayer and a good, independent moral compass, I've found that it's not so hard to differentiate. You assume that the authors were always the same as the people in the stories. They weren't. But yes, in some cases, I'm sure that people thought they had a mission from God when God had nothing to do with it. Look at some of the more radical fundamentalists.Here's a quote from one such rabid wrath-of-God fundy:

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"God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and he is going to destroy you and a lot of others."- Florida State Rep. Allen Trovillion, speaking to a group of gay Orlando-area high school students, as quoted in Newsweek Magazine (April 23, 2001 issue).

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And I wonder if you can guess who said these:

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"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ... We need believing people."

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"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

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"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe."

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I think it would be foolish to believe that people like these didn't exist in biblical times, and that even the authors couldn't have had their own biases, prejudices, and hatreds. Those last quotes, by the way, were made by Adolf Hitler. Who says it ever even happened? Or if it did, who says it happened exactly the way the Bible says? And besides, upon reading that verse, it looks like he dies of fright over the possibility of offending God. It never explicitly states that God killed him, and even if it did, such a death is perfectly explainable without invoking the supernatural.Here's the quote:

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Act 5
5:1 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,

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5:2 And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.

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5:3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?

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5:4 Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.

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5:5 And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.

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5:6 And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.

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He was terrified over lying to God, and became so afraid he likely had a heart attack. Doesn't mean God "struck him down." That's interpretation, similar to interpreting a natural disaster as God's Wrath. If natural disasters are God's Wrath, then God must be really angry at the Bible Belt - most of it lies right in Tornado Alley! But I'm not saying He doesn't have a plan. I'm saying that I don't believe He committed evil acts like genocide and mass murder as described in the Bible. I'm saying that God doesn't strike people down for offending Him, or committing "sins" (I don't think that everything fundamentalists consider to be sinful is a sin, but that's besides the point).

I agree that He is always right and always makes the right decision. That's why I don't think he ever DID those evil things. I'm not sayiong God ever did anything wrong, I'm just saying I believe the Bible mistakenly says He did things that WOULD have been wrong had He actually done them. Quite the contrary - the sacrifice of Jesus gives people who have performed horribly evil deeds a free ride to Heaven if they simply repent and accept His forgiveness. It's that "salvation by grace" thing, remember? That would be a hefty "no consequesnces," as long as you say you're sorry. COnsequences are only given to non-believers in the typical Christian view. I took the previous explanation of Hell to mean simply outside the presence of a loving God, to know He exists but to be kicked out forever. That doesn't necessarily mean that the atheist would be unable to find his own degree of happiness without God, as he has always done during his earthbound life. HEaven would be Heaven simply beacause we would be happiER in God's presence. That's all. If you give a free ride to muderers and rapists who later accept Jesus, but throw Ghandi into Hell because he wasn't a Christian, that's not justice and has nothing to do with "wicked" or not. The entire point of the Cross was the forgiveness of the wicked, and afterwards if you throw anyone who doesn't believe into Hell for no other reason despite anything else, Hell ceases to be a punishent for the "wicked" and begins being a scare tactic for faith. That's one of the reasons I don't believe it exists. The interpretation of the Bible, even in a literalist view, is still based on faith. Not all literallists even agree on everything.Basically, I don;t place my faith in the Bible. I found that would be too shaky a ground - science and observable evindence can prove a literally true Bible to be wrong. Instead, I base my faith on a personal relationship with God, with the Bible being only a book that CAN point the way to God. Yes, it doesn. And I only think that one of these aspects is the True God. But that's a matter of personal faith. FOrgive the semantics. I try to be sensitive to other peoples beliefs. I don't say things that mean "I'm right and everybody else is wrong!" I believe what I believe. I have faith that I am right. But I'll not be inflammatory and tell you that you are flat wrong. Faith and belief are a personal matter.Besides, in my view, you don't have to be "right" in terms of doctrine and dogma to have a relationship with God or to get into Heaven. God cares about our hearts and souls, not our intellectual dissection of the Bible. I strongly disagree with you, Faith, and many others here. But I don't believe that (assuming I'm right) you're going to Hell for not agreeing with me. Taking this into account, saying "I know this to be true" is just needlessly inflammatory. Not in the literal sense, no. I don't believe in some magic tree that gave us all a conscience, or that we were condemned from birth because our ancestor ate of it. I think Genesis is a basic allegorical origin story, and has no basis in reality. I do agree, though, that man's purpose was to have personal relationships with God. I think that was the point of the story - we were created to give God some company, in a manner of speaking. I think He DID ensure that what He wanted to be said was written. I just think that a lot of extra got in there too, becasue of free will and the iussues involved with having a human author. Remember, the Bible IS a guiding stone to God for even those who don't take it literally. I think that's all He wanted. Quite correct. But remember that a lot of these fundies take a literal interpretation of the Bible to reach their horrible conclusions. That's a question I can't answer. The Bible led me to God, and for me, I think that WAS its purpose. If you don't take the bible literally and base your faith on God instead of a book, then the mistranslations and interveining time and author's biases don't matter.Again - my personal view, and what I believe to be true. Not trying to "prove" my beliefs in any way, just stating them and my reasons.

This is the rest, in Genesis 9. I can certainly see a literal interpretation as conveying sorrow and regret.It sounds like God is saying "I promise, I'll never do it again. Look, I'll put this thing in the sky to remind you that you don't have to be afraid of me destroying all life ever again." Well...at least until Armageddon, when He's supposed to do it again, just without a Flood. Very similar to what wife batterers say to their abused wives so that they can come back. And then they do it again later, too.A literal interpretation could also, however, be God simply making a statement of fact, but this assumes that God could not feel sorrow at destroying everything He created in a fit of rage.

Well, gee, I'm sorry if I offended you. Perhaps you could simply replace "fit of rage" with "righteous anger?" In any case, a literal reading can take it either way. It really depends on how you're willing to see God.Like I said, it really DOES sound like an abusive spouse promising that it'll "never happen again." But that's only if you're willing to see God in such a human light in the first place - otherwise the passage is simply another divine edict, an emotionless statement of fact, which is also a perfectly valid literal interpretation. The amount of guilt for our mere existance, the thought that we all deserve a fiery Hell by default because of the actions of a single ancestor, is one of the things that I just can't stand about mainstream Christianity. I don't buy it - but that's just my belief.

Guys, this is getting a bit off-topic. We aren't here to discuss who is and isn't a Chistian, though I will say that I'm a bit offended that iano seems to think I'm not a "true Christian" just becuase I don't have the same interpretation of the Bible that he does.Thanks, though, GDR, for the defense. Your statements do indeed reflect my feelings on the matter, as well.The topic of this thread is justification of the violence in the Bible. iano has answered that he believes any actions performed by God are justified, because by his definition God can do no evil and therefore all of Gods acts are "good" automatically regardless of human opinion.I would answer this assertion by saying that human morality IS God's morality, if a literal interpretation of the Bible is used. Remember why Adam was sent out of the Garden of Eden? He ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and became "like God" in being able to understand right and wrong. It seems the serpent tempted with the truth - their eyes were opened, and they understood good and evil as God does. This seems to say that man can deem an act to be good or evil just as God can. If man sees that an act is evil, and man has the same moral compass as God, then how could an evil act like genocide be justified if God does it?

The fact that everyone has sinned at some point does not mean that human morality is "fallen." After all, if you didn't know it was wrong, you didn't really sin (otherwise the Tree would've been irrelevant - Adam and Eve became responsible for their sin only once they knew the difference by eating the fuit). You have to know that a thing is wrong and do it anyway in order to sin - and everybody does it. But the text fully spports my assertion that man knows good and evil just as God does. This doesn't seem to be supported by: Their eyes were opened, and they suddenly knew good from evil. They knew that they were naked. Are you saying that they somehow realized they were naked because they disobeyed God? The text seems to say that it was the fruit itself that gave them the knowledge.Unless you take the story allegorically. But you've never taken that view so far as I'm aware.

The best lies and temptation are shrouded in truth. Of course a literal interpretation shows that the serpent lied about death - but the serpent DIDN'T lie about knowing good from evil as God does. That's demonstrated by the fact that Adam and Eve, upon eating, suddenly realized that they were naked and ought to cover themselves. This shows that their conception of morality changed upon eating the fruit. Never does the Genesis text say "Lo, though Adam and Eve knew good from evil, they had a totally and different conception of morality that God's." It is perfectly reasonable to conclude that man's moral compass is the same as God's. No, it also shows that they brought knowledge of good and evil ito the world, which created guilt. Again, you can't be guilty if you don't understand the difference. We use the same concept in the Justice system - if you commit a crime but do not understand good from evil at the time, you are declared legally insane and not punished in the same way. Adam and Eve were sinful from the beginning (they were naked) but were not held accountable or "guilty" because they didn't yet know the difference. No. The rest of scripture, as well as the world around us, shows that man KNOWS good from evil, but does evil ANYWAY. The compass isn't faulty, it's the navigator. In other words, if God does something otherwise considered evil, it becomes good by default becuase God did it. I disagree - if we have the same moral compass as shown in Genesis, then actiaons are either good or evil regardless of who commits the act - God or man. I take the position that, since God is good, He simply did not commit the evil acts described in the Bible. ...or the problems inherant in the all-or-nothing approach to biblical literalism. If it all has to be true, you are forced to define good and evil in terms of God's will. Then, if God tells you to, for example, drown your baby, it becomes a "good" act to you, because God said to do it, and He can do no evil. Note that some mothers have done exactly this. We label them "crazy" abnd "murderers." By your thinking, if God really HAD told them to do it, they would suddenly be justified.I take the position most people take - God never told them to kill their children. They were just murderous nutjobs who need to be put in prison for a long time.Why would the rules be different when discussing the Bible than they are in the present day? People, as a whole, don't change a whole lot very often.I feel really odd using literalist interpretations in support of my argument.

Wow, you ARE taking the story allegorically and symbolically. I didn't see THAT coming. I have no disagreement. Suddenly they were aware of good and evil. Eating the fruit did it. Now they were guilty of any sins they committed, because they were aware that they WERE sins. That made them sad.This doesn't mean that their moral compass is somehow different from God's however. It seems to say that it was the same - they knew that they had sinned. God never told them it was wrong to be naked, but they clothed themselves anyway - because they now had the knowledge of good and evil. Allegory and symbolism. The text says "they saw that they were naked." Literally that means they didn't have any clothes. The text then says they made clothing for themselves out of fig leaves. This supports that they were literally naked.Which position do you take, Faith? Is it literally true, or is it symbology and allegory? You can't have it both ways.A literal reading shows that man has the same moral compass as God, if not the strength to actually follow it. We KNOW what is wrong, and we do it anyway - which is why sin is bad. If our moral compass is the same, then acts are good or evil regardless of whether God or man is the perpetrator. If man can recognize evil just as God does, and evil acts are depicted in the Bible, then either God IS capable of evil, or the biblical accounts are wrong in those instances and God did not do it.If you do NOT take the Bible literally, then we don't even get into this dilemma. It isn't necessary to believe that God actually committed evil acts if you don't believe the Bible to always be literally true.

Ah, if only I had read just a bit further. That's a MUCH better quote, jar, thanks.So either man has the same moral compass as God, or God lied. Which is it, Faith?