Why was God in the Old Testament such a Nutcase?

[Big Orange]

Why is the God in the Bible a abusive and power mad psychotic? In many of the Bible stories His behaviour is much more like a sociopathic tyrant misusing his authority rather than some benign father figure watching over creation.

He seems to be, by far, the most evil character in the Bible - a vengeful deity who exterminates whole tribes over trivial matters of faith and other silly reasons. Often said exterminated tribes were simply just there.

He forces His human minions, the Isralites, to spread His so-called love and forgiveness to other hapless tribes; often by the sword. He often sanctioned the punishment of those who refused to carry out the senseless killing of innocents in His name.

And in the Garden of Eden He clearly sets up a situation that encouraged Adam and Eve to break His unfair rules, giving God a feeble excuse to kick out Adam and Eve into the mortal world, thus condemning the rest of humanity to suffer a mortal life. God was even belligerent enough to flood the entire world over the grounds of humanity being "wicked" for merely living it's own life.

Humanity did nothing truly wrong as such, they were just breeding with angels. Of course God would have none of it and He exterminated billions when He purged the world in a great flood, only sparing a limited cadre of loyalist (Noah's family).

And Satan is supposed to be the bad guy?!

[Darth Raptor]

I would attribute it to the harsh and barbaric culture of the people who created him.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I would respond, as someone who knows it, that the Old Testiment was largerly a collection of Ancient Hebrew Stories of their "god" before the Religion as a whole became organized. It's a mix of tales from wildly different Hebrew tribes, many stories suffering from "Telephone Game" syndrome before they where eventually put down on paper.

If it where not a part of a powerful Modren Religion, much of the Old Testiment would be regarded today as a Colleciton of ancient mythos the same way as Greek and Babaylon stories are.

[Dooey Jo]

It could be because what would otherwise be attributed to acts of nature (the Deluge for instance) or luck (hooray we defeated that there other tribe) was attributed to their god. Since both nature and luck has tendencies to be cruel, that was reflected in "YHWH". As for why he ordered the Hebrews to attack others, well maybe it was actually the tribal cheif that said that he had been told to have them do so by God.

Also, it could be because he was evil and actually is the bad guy in the story (OMFG plot twist!!).

Mind you, the fundie answer would be "What? What evil? God's not evil. If God does it, it cannot be evil. GOD IS GOOD ALWAYS WE ARE SINNERS!!1!"

[speaker-to-trolls]

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as they do say.

That and the fact that all gods are a pre-scientific attempt to explain how the universe works, and if you, as a bronze age peasant, are assuming that the world you live in, frought as it is with famine, war, disease, toil and general suffering, is controlled by a human like being, then the logical conclusion would be that said being is a tyrant of the worst kind.

[Sans_Deity]

While I definitely agree that the Old Testament depicts a terrible God, it makes sense. These are precisely the sort of invented explanations we'd expect for a primative and unenlightened civilization facing a cruel reality.

For my money, the New Testament view of God is far worse. The doctrine of infinite punishment for a finite crime represents an infinite injustice. The idea that a blind-faith belief in an unsupported claim is preferred over living an ethical life without this belief is absurd.

While the Old Testament God is portrayed as vengeful, egocentric and childish, the New Testament God is two-faced...delivering a devisive doctrine of eternal torment obscured by pointless platitudes and warm fuzzies.

-Matt

[Wicked Pilot]

This got me wondering, as we're all aware the Old Testament is violent, brutal, bigoted, and in many places down right absurd. You can point this out to Christians and most will generally say that when Jesus came along this all changed. That is debatable but assuming their interpretation is theologically accurate it amounts to God in effect changing his mind between say the writings of Leviticus and the Gospel. What's to say then that God hasn't changed his mind again? We haven't heard from him in close to 2000 years, who knows what opinions he carries now. You're probably saying to yourself "well if he needed to update us on his new divine outlook then he'd send us a prophet old school style, and obviously that hasn't happened. Or has it? There was Mohammad, Smith, and some other wacky, yet possibly godly men with divine messages sent from above. If you can believe in JC then why not one of the other so called messangers?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Why is the God in the Bible a abusive and power mad psychotic? In many of the Bible stories His behaviour is much more like a sociopathic tyrant misusing his authority rather than some benign father figure watching over creation.

The Old Testament were the collected writings of a tribe of desert nomads. The people of that particular time built defensive walls around most any town with more than a couple thousand inhabitants, and frequently fought over access to desirable territories jealously guarded by other tribes of desert nomads. When you think of Yahweh in that context, you can see that he's a product of his culture and times. Benevolence is something reserved for your kin and tribesmen. Everyone else is to be treated with suspicion, up to and including your own kinsmen, since you never know which family member is going to take what you say as a grave insult and attempt to maneuver you out of power and/or out of life.

Not to mention that, to Bronze Age primitives, the world was a cruel, capricious place, containing many things they couldn't have understood . . . lacking the time and inclination to develop a dispassionate rational view of the world. As spirits controlled nature, and since nature seemed every bit as cruel as their fellow human beings; it was only natural to assign both good and evil human attributes to Yahweh, especially as he likely started out as a god of creation and so, technically, was responsible for both good and evil.

[Solauren]

Simple

Fear.


Look what our god does to his own followers! Convert! Or imagine what he'll do, TO YOU

[Drooling Iguana]

The question isn't why the God of the Old Testament was such a nutcase. Most dieties were depicted as vain and cruel, just look at the Greek pantheon for example. However, the gods of the Greeks were never held up as paragons of morality the way the God of the Hebrews was, which is the key difference. What I'd like to know is why the God of the Old Testament is described as "good" when few to none of his contemporaries were.

[Zero]

Is it possible that the origin of the term "God" was originally the name for king, and a series of brutal monarchs designed a system of faith worshipping themselves as all-powerful, and the creators of the universe, and then the myth shifted when the monarchy ended, but maintained the same central theme with this "God" as a great being? I dunno, I don't see how it could change that way, but... it just seems so wierd that the judeo-christian god is seen as a moral leader instead of a ruthless sociopathic nutjob..

[Big Phil]

This got me wondering, as we're all aware the Old Testament is violent, brutal, bigoted, and in many places down right absurd. You can point this out to Christians and most will generally say that when Jesus came along this all changed. That is debatable but assuming their interpretation is theologically accurate it amounts to God in effect changing his mind between say the writings of Leviticus and the Gospel. What's to say then that God hasn't changed his mind again? We haven't heard from him in close to 2000 years, who knows what opinions he carries now. You're probably saying to yourself "well if he needed to update us on his new divine outlook then he'd send us a prophet old school style, and obviously that hasn't happened. Or has it? There was Mohammad, Smith, and some other wacky, yet possibly godly men with divine messages sent from above. If you can believe in JC then why not one of the other so called messangers?

Dumbass... he gave an updated set of rules to the Muslims, then changed his mind again in the Middle Ages and went with the Protestants, then again changed his mind and was high on the Mormons. Only recently did god become a Republican...

[Cos Dashit]

Practice makes perfect?

I agree with the whole "fear" idea, Christians are supposed to fear their God. It's balance, fear God, revere Jesus. Would you pray and ask for protection from a God who is a pansy? Hell, no.

[Trogdor]

The question isn't why the God of the Old Testament was such a nutcase. Most dieties were depicted as vain and cruel, just look at the Greek pantheon for example. However, the gods of the Greeks were never held up as paragons of morality the way the God of the Hebrews was, which is the key difference. What I'd like to know is why the God of the Old Testament is described as "good" when few to none of his contemporaries were.

Perhaps God was referred to as good for the same reason that the Greek godess of discord was, that being that people called her good because they were afraid of what she'd do to them if they said what they really thought about her?

[Stark]

Most of the cultures around the writers either had similar capricous gods or a backgorund in them. It's the middle east, after all - the area is full of genocidal gods, changing-minds, floods, wise men, etc etc.

[Rye]

Is it possible that the origin of the term "God" was originally the name for king, and a series of brutal monarchs designed a system of faith worshipping themselves as all-powerful, and the creators of the universe, and then the myth shifted when the monarchy ended, but maintained the same central theme with this "God" as a great being? I dunno, I don't see how it could change that way, but... it just seems so wierd that the judeo-christian god is seen as a moral leader instead of a ruthless sociopathic nutjob..

....No?

In my opinion, the god of the OT is such an arsehole because those sorts of stories worked for the target audience, I would imagine. Remember, these things continue by the chords they strike with the followers. Be some downtrodden ancient jews with an inferiority complex, you get stories of underdogs overthrowing and then setting up enormous empires. Start noticing that the world is incongruent with the story? Well, that must've been because some people shortly after the original story fucked it up, due to lack of faith/obedience/whatever!

So get the moral of the story, follow what the priest is telling you, or you might get smote, like what happened to Hazhakahakia, or with the flood last year. Do what he says, be faithful and we should see a new golden age of the holy [x]Jewish [ ]Roman [ ]Islamic empire!

[Pablo Sanchez]

I would attribute it to the harsh and barbaric culture of the people who created him.

"Yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds."

--Xenophanes of Colophon

[Adrian Laguna]

If it where not a part of a powerful Modren Religion, much of the Old Testiment would be regarded today as a Colleciton of ancient mythos the same way as Greek and Babaylon stories are.

Actually, the Greek stories would be held in higher reguard. They're more self-consistent, not to mention much more entertaining.