Verified answer

The only explanation you could ever give would just be an opinionated Rationalization. Nothing you could say could be backed up by fact.

I would suggest that Yahweh's instructions to the children of Israel when they went into the promised land to exterminate the pagan inhabitants conforms quite well to our modern concept of genocide. And that much of the rationale for ancient Israel's suffering is because they did not actually pursue this genocidal policy.

Saul was condemned by Samuel because he tried to spare at least some of his POWs' lives contrary to the instructions of God. Was Saul's motives pure as the driven snow? Probably not. But I have a hard time siding with Samuel (and God) simply because Saul did not slaughter all his POWs.

God is not a singular concept in the Old Testament. It does develop from a typical ancient near eastern tribal deity to a more universal god (but primarily still on Israel's side against all others).

I am afraid one has to buy into several very questionable concepts to see where Love comes into it unequivocally.

2 Kings 2:23-24

I have a good one:

Exodus 11:9-10 - The LORD had said to Moses, "Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you -- so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt." Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.

God prevents the Pharaoh from letting Moses go, specifically so he can visit plagues on the Egyptians and kill all their firstborns. He does it again at the Red Sea:

Exodus 14:2-4,15-18 (I'm not going to paste it all, but essentially God forces an army of Egyptians after the Israelites so they can all be killed).

Well, as you are obviously a christian, you must have read them all yourself. There is not one possible way you could rationalise all the rape, incest, infanticide, genocide, bigotry, murder, psychological assault and all the other perversions either commited by god or that he ordered his people commit.

This god of love flooded the whole earth, destroying the lives of how many people? An incomplete list of the abhorrent acts your god caused or ordered can be found at the link below.

Take a look at this article at:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/4/opedne_dennis_d...

"You Shall Not Kill Has No Meaning in the Real World of Religion"

It may answer your question.

just start with the skeptics annotated bible

there is plenty of bad stuff there already laid out.

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.htm...

just a sample:

# Because God liked Abel's animal sacrifice more than Cain's vegetables, Cain kills his brother Abel in a fit of religious jealousy. 4:8

# God is angry. He decides to destroy all humans, beasts, creeping things, fowls, and "all flesh wherein there is breath of life." He plans to drown them all. 6:7, 17

# God repeats his intention to kill "every living substance ... from off the face of the earth." But why does God kill all the innocent animals? What had they done to deserve his wrath? It seems God never gets his fill of tormenting animals. 7:4

# God drowns everything that breathes air. From newborn babies to koala bears -- all creatures great and small, the Lord God drowned them all. 7:21-23

# God tells Abram to kill some animals for him. The needless slaughter makes God feel better. 15:9-10

# Hagar conceives, making Sarai jealous. Abram tells Sarai to do to Hagar whatever she wants. "And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled." 16:6

# Lot refuses to give up his angels to the perverted mob, offering his two "virgin daughters" instead. He tells the bunch of angel rapers to "do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your eyes." This is the same man that is called "just" and "righteous" in 2 Peter 2:7-8. 19:7-8

# God kills everyone (men, women, children, infants, newborns) in Sodom and Gomorrah by raining "fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven." Well, almost everyone -- he spares the "just and righteous" Lot and his family. 19:24

# Lot's nameless wife looks back, and God turns her into a pillar of salt. 19:26

# God threatens to kill Abimelech and his people for believing Abe's lie. 20:3-7

# Sarai tells Abraham to "cast out this bondwoman and her son." God commands him to "hearken unto her voice." So Abraham abandons Hagar and Ishmael, casting them out into the wilderness to die. 21:10-14

# God orders Abraham to kill Isaac as a burnt offering. Abraham shows his love for God by his willingness to murder his son. But finally, just before Isaac's throat is slit, God provides a goat to kill instead. 22:2-13

# Abraham shows his willingness to kill his son for God. Only an evil God would ask a father to do that; only a bad father would be willing to do it. 22:10

# Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, is "defiled" by a man who seems to love her dearly. Her brothers trick all of the men of the town and kill them (after first having them all circumcised), and then take their wives and children captive. 34:1-31

# "The terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them." 35:5

# "And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him." What did Er do to elicit God's wrath? The Bible doesn't say. Maybe he picked up some sticks on Saturday. 38:7

In the Old Testament there is so much war and violence sanctioned by Yahweh. Is this the same loving God portrayed in the New Testament? Let's take this seriously by quoting a few verses that seem repugnant to us. For example, Deuteronomy 20 contains Yahweh's instructions about war. If a city does not accept Israel's offer of peace and open its gates, then "when the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it" (verse13). With regard to other cities, the command is (verse 16), "Do not leave anything that breathes."

You probably also recall that the walls of Jericho came tumbling down, and then the Israelites "destroyed with the sword every living thing in it - men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, and donkeys" (Joshua 6:21). This certainly seems brutal and vindictive, doesn't it? Or consider Joshua 11:20, "For it was the Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the Lord had commanded Moses." From our twenty-first century point of view, we ask, "What good was accomplished by all this annihilation?"

Yet there is clearly another side to Yahweh as well. While the prophet Ezekiel does not spare the wicked in his denunciations, he also records Yahweh's words of grace: "If a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die…Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?" (Ezekiel 18:21, 23). And he goes on in verse 32, "For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!" And there is this compelling verse recorded in 2 Chronicles 16:9, "For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."

All these descriptions of God depict him as unwavering in retribution on evil, though he takes no delight in it, and also unwavering in love and encouragement toward those hearts are turned toward him. God's obvious desire is that sinners should repent and live. But there comes a point where evil is finally intolerable and wiped from off the earth.

We must see these terrible retributions in their historical setting. The spread of wickedness was so pervasive that immorality, degradation, and barbarity invaded every facet of life. Children were sacrificed to pagan gods. Male and female prostitution took place right in the temple as part of the religious rites. Idol worship was rife and the society wholly contaminated. This evil was contagious and God's people were in danger of being infected as well. God's awesome judgement was finally unleashed.

Today we have lost that black and white distinction between good and evil. Tolerance is presented as the great religious value. Indeed, tolerance of diversity is a high Christian value, but often today tolerance is taken to mean the virtue of accepting nearly every behavior under the sun. Anything goes - in the name of tolerance! A sweeping moral relativism is the result, and children grow up with fewer and fewer moral absolutes to guide them. We seldom hear the term sin anymore, but instead a dozen much milder words are employed. Surely the Lord will not tolerate this abomination to his holiness forever.

Nor do we like to accept the fact that when evil spreads, the innocent as well as the guilty are hurt. When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the city died, both the innocent and the guilty. A few days later, as a direct result, the war came to an end. It was a terrible end, but it was the end, and greater carnage was avoided. Let's be clear about this stricter and more communal view of justice in the Bible. The Canaanite pagan communities would surely intermarry with the Israelites, and God's people were in danger of succumbing to their sexual perversions and religious degradation. Finally, the danger became just too much

The entire Bible from beginning to end never deviates from this standard of justice as well as grace. Jesus is crystal clear about the punishment of evildoers, for on the day of judgement God will say to the evildoers, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41). Our society does not much care to hear about pain and punishment, and prefers the meek and mild Jesus of some contemporary writers. But the God of the New Testament is the changeless God of the ages.

And in that affirmation lies our only hope. Clearly we have all missed the mark. Each of us stumbles, and wounds, and sins. Even the most godly affirm that over and over. In God's enduring justice, he never simply blinks casually at sin. But that is not the end of the story, nor even the overriding theme of the Bible. For as humanity spirals deeper into self-gratification, God intervenes. Indeed, the Old Testament is a record of God's intervening in the human situation with a new promise of hope. The New Testament is the record of grace applied to people lost in sin and rebellion. There was no compulsion placed on God to undertake this rescue operation. But the plan was and is indescribably marvelous. God did not forget about guilt and justice. Rather, Jesus Christ, the God-man, took on himself the punishment and so satisfied the grisly sentence. This is what Christians call grace. The Bible is mainly a record of grace, set against a backdrop of horror and misery.

This is an ageless and eternal story, persisting into this new millennium. The evil surrounding us seems to be growing and moral apathy seeps in everywhere. But still God's grace shines through. His love persists. He calls and calls until the very last moment. Have you discovered his grace? It's there - available for you to live in every day.

tell that to the Canaanites.

Why? So you can tell me that I'm wrong and such a horrible person for not believing what you do? No thanks!