(Pro) The Christian God is malevolent vs benevolent (Con).

I will begin by thanking my opponent for his response and am now going to refute his arguments. 1)Killing in the Old Testament My opponent says this: "Did you know, for example, that God: 1) Forced friends and family to kill each other for dancing naked around Aaron's golden calf? 2)Burned Aaron's sons to death for offering him strange fire? 3)Burned complainers to death, forced the survivors to eat quail until it literally came out their noses, sent "fiery serpents" to bite people for complaining about the lack of food and water, and killed 14,700 for complaining about his killings? 4)Buried alive those that opposed Moses (along with their families)? 5)Burned 250 men to death for burning incense? " I am now going to address these in chronological order: 1) My opponent must understand the gravity of idol worship. If an infinite God exists then to worship a false god is evidently a sin worthy of infinite punishment. However there is a huge problem with 1). Namely that it never happened. There is absolutely no evidence for this at all. If you read exodus 32 and 33 the only punishement given to the children of Israel is that they have to drink the gold that the calf was made of( a punishement given by Moses alone). 2) Again my opponent needs to understand the gravity of the situation. Arons so did something extremely disrespectful in the presence of the infinite almighty perfect God. They had been warned about what disrespecting God would bring. What they did is arguably a sin of infinite proportions. 3) Once again my opponent fails to see the gravity of the sins committed. While they were by no means mortal sins they became mortal sins because they were committed in the presence of the almighty where a virtues such as humbleness and humility must be respected. The Israelites where also by no means saints. They where a very cruel and pagan peoples and God was quite patient with them. 4) First of all God didn't bury them alive for simply disagreeing with Moses. He buried them for attempting to start a revolution. The leader(Koran) had been planning to take over the whole tribe. According to Bible study tools: "Presently after new laws given follows the story of a new rebellion, as if sin took occasion from the commandment to become more exceedingly sinful. Here is, I. A daring and dangerous rebellion raised against Moses and Aaron, by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (v. 1-15). Korah and his accomplices contend for the priesthood against Aaron (v. 3). Moses reasons with them, and appeals to God for a decision of the controversy (v. 4-11). Dathan and Abiram quarrel with Moses, and refuse to obey his summons, which greatly grieves him (v. 12-15). II. A solemn appearance of the pretenders to the priesthood before God, according to order, and a public appearance of the glory of the Lord, which would have consumed the whole congregation if Moses and Aaron had not interceded (v. 16-22)" God also told everyone to evacuate every where around the rebels tents too save the lives of everyone innocent. 5) This point is related to the last one. The people burned where in fact rebels who would have tried to take over the community as documented in numbers16. 2)Incest My opponent sites the example of how Noah's children must have practised incest. Well of course they did,they had to. But it was only for a few generations and once it was no longer necessary for the population of the world it was made illegal in the law of Moses in the book of exodus. My opponent then makes this argument:"Did God really have to kill everybody except Noah and his wife and children? Don't you love it when your loving god kills all the little laughing children to satisfy his genocidal lust? "First of all the bible teaches that once children of five and under die they go straight to heaven. But also these people who died in the flood where pagans who practised child sacrifices so it was good that that was stopped. 3)Slavery Something must be said here in relation to slavery. When we read about slavery in the Old Testament we tend to think about it in modern terms like how blacks were enslaved during the age of exploration. However slavery in ancient Israel is to be understood as indentured servitude. It is a contracted higher for a period of about seven years. If someone was in dept or needed a loan they would go into servitude of the person whom they are in dept to and work off their loan. They tended to work for about seven years as I said. The theologian Dr.Paul Copan said: "When the bible talks about people being bought or sold into servitude we tend to the no of this as degrading,as if the bible is just treating these people as property,however this is a wrong understanding of the text. It is referring to buying and selling in the same way we say that football players are bought and sold to different teams. The text does not support the proposition that poorer people are somehow worth less". The type of slavery condoned in the Bible is the Sam as maid servants work. Surlely God is justified in allowing maid servants? 4) Eternal damnation. Once again my opponent fails to see the gravity of the situation. Just imagine for a minute that God exists. It is evidently a sin of eternal and infinite proportions to reject him. Also he'll is like the inside of a volcano. According to the gospels and epistles it is actually a place of eternal shame not eternal pain and torture.