The Christian God is malevolent.

Let"s look at the six ways the Pro considers the Christian God to be malevolent. We shall see that nearly all of them are based entirely on his imagination and not on anything in the Bible. I will close by stating what the Bible actually says. 1. Slavery. I want to give Pro some credit here. This was the closest he came to an accurate statement about the Bible. Sure, he said that Jesus Christ permits and encourages slavery without actually siting anything that Jesus said. And Pro says that Jesus encourages slavery, which comes entirely from Pro"s imagination. In reality the Bible does not outlaw slavery, but it does discourage it [1][2]. But at least Pro is correct that the Bible does not outlaw slavery. This is Pro strongest point, partly because it is the only time he accurately stated what the Bible says, and partly because in our culture slavery is immoral. But it is important to understand that this is our society. We are dealing with a change in values, not a change in ethics. Values deal with what people or cultures think is important. Ethics deal with what is right and wrong. Post-enlightenment western society highly values individual self-determination. As such, slavery is one of the greatest evils since is removes self-determination. Pre-enlightenment Middle Eastern society valued the society over the individual and placed significantly lower value on self-determination. Self-determination was still valued in that culture, so being in slavery was a negative. However, people valued a functioning society over self-determination, even for themselves. Our society has changed. We value different things. This doesn"t make God evil. It just means that the people He was dealing with at that time valued things that are different than what we value. 2. Interracial marriages. Now we get into the much larger part, where Pro entirely misrepresents what the Bible says. Pro claims that the Bible is against interracial marriages. This is blatantly false. Consider Pro"s support for this. He cited Daniel 4:43, which is about the symbolic meaning of a statue made of clay and iron. The verse says, "And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay."[3] The passages is about how the people of a nation will be divided, and their lack of national unity will be detrimental to the nation. It has nothing to do with marriage. Then he cites the parable of the sheep and the goats [4], and says that this is about interracial marriages. I honestly have no idea how he came to the conclusion that this parables has anything to do with marriage. It obviously does not. The Bible is not opposed to interracial marriages. 3. Homophobia His third point (section IV in his argument) is that he accuses the Bible of Homophobia. It is true that the Bible includes sexual ethics, and calls homosexual actions a sin. That"s not what homophobia is. There is no aspect of fear or hatred, only a moral statement about sexual ethics. The existence of sexual ethics does not make the Bible homophobic, and a disagreement with Pro"s personal view does not make God malevolent. 4. Woman hating Next, Pro claimed that Jesus Christ hates women, which as far as I can tell is just something he made up. There is no evidence for it in the Bible, and since Jesus regularly interacted with women and showed them great kindness, the suggestion that Jesus is a misogynist runs counter to all evidence and reason. Pro"s only support for this claim a statement from Paul that women should not teach in a certain church. First, that itself is not hateful. Second, it seems be a specific command for a specific situation, since Paul support female teachers and leaders in other places. Both Pricilla and Phoebe were female teachers whom had Paul"s support. [5][6] 5. Anti-animal rights. Then Pro said that that Bible is anti-animal rights. He said that the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament would be illegal today. Stop for a moment and think about who Pro is suggesting here. Pro is attempting to say that today it is illegal to kill animals. Seriously. Perhaps Pro has made up some elaborate form of cruelty that was involved in the sacrifices, but again this is only Pro"s imagination at work. The sacrificed animals were slaughtered and eaten, which is common place today and generally seen as moral (with all due respect to any vegans out there). 6. Totalitarian Finally, Pro said that God is a totalitarian and promotes autocracy. First this is false because autocracy refers to a single human leader with complete authority. The term cannot be applied to God. More to the point, what God actually says is that anyone who follows Him cannot follow anyone else. If we are part of His kingdom then we cannot be part of any other spiritual kingdom. This is like America saying that anyone who wants to be an American citizen cannot be a citizen of another nation. The Christian God is a God who does not allow dual citizenship. We could argue the value of dual citizenship, but no sane person would say that this is totalitarian. 7. Reality Finally, in contrast to Pro"s fictional statements about the Bible, let me quote what the Bible actually says: Matthew 7:12, "Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets." Matthew 22:39, "Love your neighbor as yourself." This is as far from malevolent as one can possibly get. 1. https://www.biblegateway.com... 2. https://www.biblegateway.com... 3. https://www.biblegateway.com... 4. https://www.biblegateway.com... 5. https://www.biblegateway.com... 6. http://biblehub.com...