As the Bible describes God, He is inconsistent in His nature

============================================ Unjustified and Inconsistency of the Christian God's Murders ============================================ The point was not whether God would have to waive His hand to fix the problem. The point was that Pro stated that God should always be able to peacefully reconcile any situation if He were truly good and would thus never have to kill. I'm sure that my opponent will agree that in general it is okay to punish wrong actions. We are trying to determine whether God was inconsistent in His nature by examining His actions and the circumstances provided and comparing them to God's laws and standards. THE FLOOD Pro's argument on thought crime is misguided and not applicable. Even if the text had stated "every intent of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually, although he never actually DID anything wrong", Pro STILL would not have a point here. I am reminded of Jesus' teachings of harboring sinful desires being a sin in one's heart. Jesus taught that if an action is sinful, so is the desire to commit that action. According to the Bible, "thinking only evil continually" is also "constant sin", so Pro's argument is void. If any of God's judgments were warranted, the Flood is first on the list as it was to punish CONSTANT sin by all humans. And as I have already stated, if every intention of men was continually evil, we can only imagine the atrocious acts they were committing. My opponent's belief that God was only punishing the evil intentions and not any evil actions is incredibly naï¿½ve. Thinking nothing but evil for even a short period of time will lead to committing evil, and the people of earth had been thinking nothing but evil for approximately 100 years before the Flood began (Genesis 5:32, 7:6). The issue of "innocent infants" being killed in the Flood is a bit more troubling on the surface. However, we should remind ourselves that we are looking only at the circumstances presented in the Bible to determine if any of God's recorded actions were inconsistent with His nature. Given the statement that the intentions of the people of earth were constantly evil, it is entirely possible that abortions and child sacrifices were extremely common. This means that it is entirely possible that there weren't any infants on earth at all at the time of the Flood. Am I claiming that we can determine from the Bible that without a doubt there were not infants on earth at the time of the Flood? No. I am simply pointing out that from the circumstances described in the Bible, we CANNOT say that infants were killed. The Bible does not give enough details to determine this, which means God's judgment in this case cannot be said to be inconsistent with His nature. I will grant to my opponent the assumption that there were more than just two of every kind of animal on earth at the time of the Flood, so what are we to think of all those "innocent animals" that died? The answer comes from God's command to Adam and Eve to "fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1:28). God placed humans at the top of all Creation and gave it to them to rule over. As such, when sin entered the world through man's sin (Genesis 3:6-7), ALL of Creation (even the animals) began to suffer (Romans 8:22). Clearly, God did nothing inconsistent in the Flood judgment. He punished all of Creation at the first sin of man, and He punished all of Creation again for the constant sin of man. KILLING 3000 FOR DANCING I am well aware of Exodus 32:19 that describes the Israelites dancing around a golden calf idol that they made, as Pro should be well aware that this is NOT the verse he cited when he claimed God killed 3000 people for dancing! The verses Pro listed said nothing of the dancing. That was the first mistake and it deserved to be pointed out. Pro's second mistake, the major one, which was repeated in R3, is that the REASON for the killing was dancing. I reproduced Exodus 32:27-28 in its entirety in R3, which readers can now refer to. If the reason for the killing was simply the dancing that was already done (verse 19), why did Moses ask who was on God's side and who was opposed? Of ALL those who danced around the idol, ONLY those who did not come stand by Moses when he asked who was on God's side were the ones that were killed. UNJUSTIFIED KILLING Pro is cleverly trying to confuse the topic by his statement that he is putting God on trial and that because God has already admitted murder, He is guilty until proven innocent. This is false. Rather, God was acting as the judge and executioner, not the defendant. According to the sins committed, God decided on punishments and carried them out, and Pro is claiming that the punishments were too harsh. This can be likened to a person claiming that a criminal who was given the death penalty did not deserve such a severe punishment. Every time someone claims that a punishment was too harsh, do we expect the judge to remind that person of all the evidence and defend his ruling? Of course not. If someone believes a punishment was unwarranted, they have to bring the evidence to prove it in an appeal. As such, Pro does in fact have the burden of proof to demonstrate that any of God's actions were unwarranted by the circumstances the Bible describes in accordance to the standard by which the people were being judged (God's laws, not our opinions). "THOUGHT CRIMES AND WORKING ON THE SABBATH ARE NOT CRIMES PUNISHABLE BY DEATH. BOTTOM LINE." My opponent has now gotten completely off topic. What Pro professes above is his OPINION of what does not warrant the death penalty, and he accuses God of being too harsh or unfair. However, we are not debating whether any of God's actions were fair by our individual opinions, but whether they were INCONSISTENT with His nature. God set forth guidelines and laws for what constitutes the death penalty, and He then carried out these judgments. The resolution is not affirmed unless the circumstances described in the Bible make it clear that God punished someone too harshly according to the guidelines and laws He has instituted (NOT according to our opinions of what the punishment should have been). ============ CONCLUSION ============ My opponent has been repeatedly using phrases in his arguments such as "These are just more reasons why Yahweh is in unjust God" and "This is an unjust killing, bottom line", and tries to cleverly summarize his arguments with the statement "In conclusion, I have contended all of my opponents contentions in favor of the resolution that the Biblical God is inconsistent in nature." A fair assessment of the arguments presented and the resolution at hand will show conclusively that Pro has been airing his distaste for the Christian God by calling Him "unjust" without actually addressing God's CONSISTENCY in the least. A perfect example is the killing of animals in the Flood, as my opponent called this unjust and ignored that God was being completely consistent because He also punished the animals when Adam and Eve sinned. I have entertained some of my opponent's accusations about God being unfair by pointing out the false statements of his sources and explaining how the actions were consistent with God's laws and God's nature to punish evil, even though my opponent never attempted to explain in the first place how they were contrary to God's laws or God's nature. I regret that this debate did not turn out to be what I hoped it would, and I hope to pick it up again in the future. I thank the audience for their attention to this debate and for the comments (both for and against me), and I politely request a vote in favor of the instigator of this debate. Thank you.