How could a loving God approve?

Great Debates
#1

I’ve been researching a lot lately into the Muslim extremist movement. As I’ve been reading, a question has come into my mind:

How can anyone think that their God, who is supposed to be a merciful, loving, and caring God, would sanction killing innocent men, women, and especially children to prove a point?

I really just don’t get it. Some of the descriptions of terrorist attacks disgust me, especially since these terrorists believe that they will receive some sort of divine reward for their actions. How could any man in his right mind think this was ok?

And I specifically said God rather than Allah because I know there are Christian/Catholic extremists too who commit acts just like that, or even worse (such as the 11th-13th century Crusades), and religious wars and persecutions constantly raging around the globe. I really just don’t get it.

#2

Just following in Big Daddy’s footsteps. Remember the Flood?

#3

True.

But I think the many inconsistencies, discrepancies, and outright contradictions in the Bible are a topic for another thread/message board. And perhaps under a different name. There are some crazy people out there!

#4

It’s easy enough; if you buy the worldview of Islam (or Christianity for that matter) then it really makes little sense to value human life. Bodies are just temporary residences, and when dead our souls go to either paradise or hell as we deserve. Killing innocent people is a positively noble act if you actually buy that - they are going to paradise! And the more people you kill, the more who go to paradise. Yes, officially there’s rules against killing, but they make no sense in context with the rest of their beliefs, and are obviously just a concession to practicality, and secular power.

A tendency towards murder and general indifference to human death and suffering is a natural consequence of the Islamic/Christian view of the afterlife, and of their god. We certainly get people on this very board arguing that suffering doesn’t matter because we all go live forever in heaven, and that if it was bad God wouldn’t allow it so it can’t be a bad thing. Civilized behavior requires a level of hypocrisy on the part of those who believe in those religions; an example where hypocrisy is a virtue of sorts.

#5

Uh, but the point is that this isn’t an inconsistency. Killing innocent people is perfectly consistent with God’s behavior.

#6

Don’t bother with the fake names now, Chupacabras. I know you think the Bible has many inconsistencies, discrepancies, and outright contradictions. And I’m not gonna stand for that!

#7

Gotta love humanity.

#8

Yeah, you heard Dr. Crap - cut it out with the fake names!

Personally, the sooner religion gets pushed firmly aside if not flat-out discarded, the better.

#9

Yes it is OK to kill for God, to defend the faith. Our Western culture with it’s pornography and feminism are an attack on the faith of Islam hence an attack on God. It is the duty of the faithful to defend against an attack on God.

#10

God can’t defend himself?

#11

Too late!

#12

Dammit, that made me laugh!

#13

Maybe God is taking the long view. Us mortals naturally think more short term. IMO it is best if we don’t take the word of any mortal on what God is up to or why.

I’m not sure that your assumption that any God is “loving”, in whatever sense you mean, is universal.

#14

Trouble with that is humans have been pondering the Judeochristian God (which I assume is being assumed as the “right” God) for only 3500 years or so, while evidence suggests the universe itself is about 4 million times that old, so there’s long view, and then there’s just dicking around wasting time.

#15

These hypothetical ‘innocent’ men, women, and children may be descended from the Amelekites.

And God has decreed the Amelekites are on the Holy ‘feces’ list FOREVER.

#16

Have you ever seen movies where children are taken from a loving home and forced to fight for some rebel cause. They are told lies, after a certain amount of abuse they see the evil they are in as good and right, and the good they were from as evil and wrong. At this point they are conscripted into Satan’s army, where they think Satan is God and they think they are doing God’s work.

A very sad situation, because these are God’s own children who are fighting the Lord’s angels who are trying to win them back and Love them and are their true parents. This is the reason for God not coming down hard, He is trying to rescue, not destroy them. These children even when surrounded by God/s Love will usually reject it. It is a long process to get them back.

#17

For a large portion of people, the reasoning isn’t “Reading my holy book I see that God wants me to do XYZ therefore I will do XYZ because it is right”. Rather it is “I feel it is right to do XYZ, therefore God must want me to do it” followed by searching through a rather ambiguous holy book for justification.

#18

Basically it’s ok if it’s conceptualized as some kind of self-defense. It’s the same way America and Israel rationalize it when they do it.

#19

Wait, let’s get back to the root of the problem, here. What makes you think that God does approve of these acts?

#20

Better yet, what makes you think God is loving?