Wednesday, September 13, 2006

God's Body Count

I have been pretty quiet on here lately. One reason is that whenever something comes up that I feel compelled to write about, I usually do a little web surfing to research the subject. Nearly every time I do that I find someone out there expressing a similar opinion far more succinctly and intelligently than I ever could. Not only that, but reading about it and mulling things over usually has a somewhat calming effect on me, so I am able to let it go.

My latest subject, however, I cannot let go, and would be number eleven on my list of why I could never again be a Christian: The biblical god murders an awful lot of his own creation. Just doesn’t make any sense to me. In trying to get a handle on just how many he has murdered, I ran across this blog: http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com. It is run by Steve Wells, the editor of one of my favorite sites, http://skepticsannotatedbible.com. One of his running posts right now is precisely this subject. Steve’s running total, constantly being updated with helpful input from concerned readers, is 2,270,365 human souls, including many innocent children. Keep in mind that this does not even count some real biggies (such as the flood) where the bible doesn’t happen to give a body count. It also does not count the billions of people, including myself, that will receive a fate even worse than death, eternal punishment in Hell.

To balance good vs. evil, Steve also counts the deaths credited to Satan. The grand total is 10, the sons and daughters of Job. Personally, I give god credit for them, as they were the result of a friendly wager between Satan and god. A nit for sure, especially since god made it all up to Job by giving him a new set of kids, even better looking than the first set.

In my book then it's:
God:2,270,375
Satan:0

If you are a Christian, I would love to hear how you justify in your mind the worship of such a loving, omnipotent, omniscient, perfect...
murderer.

7 comments:

Dave B said...

Thank you Rodney. I appreciate the encouraging words, and I will continue to blog here. Not at the pace I was before, but maybe the quality/quantity ratio will improve! Speaking of blogging, yours and Rowan's are bogging down too. We need to get fired up again!

Anonymous said...

Why does a Christian have to defend God? I haven't read comments by any knowledgeable Christian who says God is nothing but love, goodness and puppy dog tails. God punishes people for their wickedness. What's the problem? The fact we don't think it's "fair"?

Anonymous said...

I take it Tiny, that you do not have any problem with god murdering people. After all, they were wicked and deserved it, right? Those evil first-born Egyptian babies got just what they deserved, didn't they? And those of us that refuse to worship a god that murders innocent babies deserve to rot in hell for eternity too. Fair to you. Absurd to me.

Anonymous said...

That's exactly right. My idea of fairness and justice is irrelevant when it comes to God's judgments.

Secondly, I don't think anyone's going to rot in hell so let's not be pointing fingers until you have all the facts.

Rowan said...

tiny tim said...
Secondly, I don't think anyone's going to rot in hell so let's not be pointing fingers until you have all the facts.

Please do share. Apparently, I haven't been privy to all the "facts".

Anonymous said...

Rowan, what do you want me to share?

Anonymous said...

Rowan, you there? Don't leave me hangin'!