Post by Arlon10 on Nov 19, 2020 13:27:46 GMT
The cruelty you found in the Bible and have decided was ordered by the god of the Bible was actually a human idea. The god of the Bible taught his people tricks to avoid getting involved in it.
If however by 'human idea' you just mean that, as it was an 'inspired' human who made the story up and so hence attributed these actions to the deity as part of a symbolic or metaphorical narrative, or just a good yarn, then I would agree with you. But this would seem to preclude a god to be 'teaching people tricks'.
There are several things you are failing to consider.
Some of their neighbors were extremely evil murderers and perverts of an unusually organized variety such that their destruction made more sense. It was a matter of survival. Infant sacrifice was even common in some of them and corroborated by the archaeological record.
In dealing with more civilized opponents such as Egypt, the god of the Bible took slaughter out of the hands of his people, making a "judgement" upon Egypt he denied his people to make.
The first five books of the Bible were not written by a prophet unless you count Moses who merely compiled the mostly oral traditions of the Hebrew people up to the time he became their leader and including some of his personal experiences toward the end. Do you know what I mean by "Bible Simon Says"?
If you were half as clever as you are biased against religion these things would have occurred to you.