Given the Bible, God is Morally Repugnant and Undeserving of Praise.

Your first point about using the bible as a basis of what God did has not fallen on deaf ears. However, even if this entity DID create the universe, humanity, sin, and the afterlife, the fact still remains that he has perpetrated heinous acts. Regardless of whatever benevolent intentions God may have had in creating, his clearly malevolent actions show that he cannot be the entity we idolize. My opponent has some very good responses to some of the quotes I have posted... I will go through his responses to them. Gn 27:29a is indeed a blessing of a father to his son - Issac to Jacob. However, if we look in the 26th Chapter of Genesis, at the beginning of the story of Issac's inheritance, we see that God has given the lands and peoples in question to Issac in fulfillment of his oath to Abraham. As we read in Gn 27, Issac blessed Jacob, giving him command of the lands and peoples there. In Gn 28:13-15, God appears to Jacob in a dream and endorses Issac's blessing. As you say, "Dt 7:1a, 2b is God telling the people of Israel to destroy the nations that have taken over their land." How can this be anything other than God endorsing genocide? This is exactly the same as if the Native Americans came rolling into Memphis and slaughtered every man, woman, and child because their spirits has instructed them to because the spirits thought the way of the Memphis-ans was evil. The unjust retribution in Dt. 28:58-59, 61b not simply Moses telling the people what he thinks God means. As we can see in Dt 28:69, "These are the words of the covenant which the Lord ordered Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which he made with them at Horeb." Sounds like an order from God to me. Lev. 20:13 is not homicide - correct. It is homOcide - HOMO-cide - killing of homosexuals. How can you argue that this is Moses' language when the 20th chapter of Leviticus begins "The Lord said to moses, "Tell the Israelites:..." The entire 20th chapter of Leviticus is Moses recounting what God told him. Sounds like more orders from God. The story in 2 Chronicles 15 is about Asa, who, according to 2 Ch 14:1 "Did what was good and pleasing to the Lord, his God..." When Asa heard the word of the prophet Oded, he acted on the words that the prophet recounted to him - and he did battle on the premise that God was on his side, and afterward, in reward, "the Lord gave them rest on every side" and "there was no war until the 35thyear of Asa's reign." Again, we see God endorsing and rewarding violent conduct on his behalf. My opponent is stating that 2 Kg 2:23-24 is a recording of what happened. I ask the reader then... can it be a coincidence that as soon as these poor children were cursed in the name of God, they were brutally massacred by she-bears? I think not... I'm not sure how my opponent can flippantly dismiss the words of Jesus. He is clearly NOT the model of a perfect human, given the words that CAME FROM HIS MOUTH according to the Bible! I ask him to address this issue, as it is clearly pertinent to the topic at hand. Did Jesus not encourage social unrest and familial strife? In the two passages from Genesis and Judges where someone makes an oath with god for the purposes of human sacrifice, there are two issues at stake here. One is the fact that god would deceive Abraham into thinking he was going to sacrifice his son. That is simply repugnant and clearly not the actions of a moral entity. Consider if I handed the reader what they thought to be a loaded gun and forced them to point it at their child and pull the trigger, even though it was empty. Forgive the element of coercion in my example, but the principle is the same - I was tricking them into believing they were going to kill their child. The second issue these passages raise is that while God considers human sacrifice to be a terrible practice according to Deuteronomy (as my opponent helpfully points out), he accepted two oaths that involve human sacrifice!! Clearly a hypocritical act in the least, and bordering on sadistic, if this omniscient deity knew that Jepthah would be forced by the terms of the oath to kill his own daughter!! ******************************** Now to address my opponent's closing points... >> "It is fairly clear from reading the REST of the passages, or even READING the passages that God is not morally repugnant and that not only is he worthy of praise for what he does in our lives, but for the way all of history has played out to bring us to him." I'm not sure what passages my opponent is reading, or what history he is remembering. The Church has historically been tyrannical, unjust, corrupt, retarding of science, and even murderous. The God of history that my opponent speaks of came to millions of South Americans on the tip of a sword. Ironic, then, that Jesus stated 2000 years ago that he has come not to bring peace, but with a sword. >> "The Bible is called "The Word of God" because it is the words God wanted written by man, not because God said every word that's in the Bible. People did many terrible things that are in the Bible, God just made sure their actions were written about." This passage from my opponent seems to suggest that if God appeared to me and said "You shall not boil a kid goat in its mother's milk," that if I said to someone else, "God said we should not boil a kid goat in its mother's milk," the two statements are separable and that the second is not the word of God. Also consider that, if, as he states, "God just made sure their actions were written about," that this implies that God endorses the actions done in his name. >> "All God gave Moses was the 10 Commandments. After that, the people began to elaborate heavily. The same thing happens in our culture today. The only "commandments" Jesus gave us was "Love the Lord your God with all your heart" and, "love they neighbor as thyself." We as humans have made all the extras since then." This is the last point of my opponent's. God gave Moses and the other biblical characters much more than the 10 commandments. If you read passages from Leviticus and Deuteronomy, you will see that there were several instances where God gave more than the 10 commandments to the people of Israel. Take the already-referenced Leviticus 20 for example - it begins "The Lord said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites:..." Clearly, there are more than 10 rules that God has handed down... I would be interested to know what definition of "Love thy neighbor as thyself" God endorses if he takes sides in these biblical wars...