Richard Dawkins refers to the God of the Old Testament as a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser. Many people use similar such statement as excuses and reasons for their disbelief and often their hate of God. In my opinion this view can only lead to hate of God which overflows on too those who believe as I personally witness through people who have demonstrated it here on my profile. The most common verse people like to use deals with the destruction of the Canaanites. Im not going to get into “His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He (Deuteronomy 32:4) except to say that people who use the genocidal God excuse are usually abundantly aware of original sin since that is the foundation for their circular arguments they make against God. It goes like this: God created man in sin to kill man for sinning. That is the most basic foundation for all arguments about God being a killer and the argument that would be brought against the upright and just is He verse quoted. Lets take the argument and apply it to Dawkins. Dawkins is going to die. Dawkins thinks he is a good man. He probably can list all the things in life that he has never done which in his mind means he is a good man. Dawkins would argue that his life is not sinful and if it was it is unjust that God let him be born in such a state. He would say, God created me to punish me, kill me, and burn me hell. What kind of God is that?. We become responsible for original sin when we choose to accept, and act according to, our sinful nature. There comes a point in our lives when we become aware of our own sinfulness. At that point we should reject the sinful nature and repent of it. Instead, we all “approve” that sinful nature, in effect saying that it is good. CS Lewis addresses this in Mere Christianity. I hope you will not misunderstand what I am going to say. I am not preaching, and Heaven knows I do not pretend to be better than anyone else. I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behavior we expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us. That time you were so unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money--the one you have almost forgotten-came when you were very hard up. And what you promised to do for old So-and-so and have never done--well, you never would have promised if you had known how frightfully busy you were going to be. And as for your behavior to your wife (or husband) or sister (or brother) if I knew how irritating they could be, I would not wonder at it--and who the dickens am I, anyway? I am just the same. That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behavior, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much--we feel the Rule of Law pressing on us so--that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behavior that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves. These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in. People do not practice what they preach and people do not like that reality at all so they reject it and puff themselves up. This is called pride. God is sovereign over all of life and can take it whenever He sees fit. God, and God alone, can give life and God alone has the right to take it whenever He so chooses. In fact, He ultimately takes every persons life at death. All have sinned (Romans 3:23), and the penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23a). God has “just cause” to wipe us all out; the fact that He does not is proof of His mercy. Dawkins in his pride refutes the law of human nature saying that in his own strength of mind, heart, and body he will overcome sinful nature. Every religious text ever written teaches this basic doctrine. That man through his own intelligence, will power, and strength can achieve enlightenment, evolve, progress, immortality, etc. ...... except the Bible. The Bible says its impossible and this is why it comes under such furious attack with arguments such as the one being discussed in this post. Its an attempt to bring God down to mans level and make Him not God. By calling God a murder people are able to justify their sinful nature within themselves just as CS Lewis discusses in the quote above. People make excuses for bad behavior and take credit for good. When we make excuses about the wrongs we know we do we become responsible for original sin. We choose to accept, and act according to, our sinful nature. At this point we become aware of our own sinfulness. We should reject the sinful nature and repent of it. Instead, we all “approve”. Everyone does this. All have sinned (Romans 3:23), and the penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23a). God has “just cause” to wipe us all out; the fact that He does not is proof of His mercy. Its pretty easy to see this play out through out the entire Bible and in the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. Israel rejects God, they suffer the consequences, they repent, repeat. Thats the entire old testament. Rejection, consequence, repent, repeat. It turns people off. They dont like the Bible showing them they turn away. They choose to ignore God. They choose to not listen. They choose to not understand. So they make excuses and find verses such as the genocide of the Canaanites as Dawkins would phrase it to bring God down and feel better about the excuses they use to justify what the law of human nature written on their hearts exposes. This is called hardening the heart. Every time we justify an act it become easier to commit that act. The Bible is not a man made fairy tale. Man would never write a book about repeated and constant failure of his nation, himself, and his own thinking. That is not how man is! Thats exactly why people do not accept the Bible. Look how people reject it. Just stop and think about how the world rejects. The Bible exposes human failure. Peoples complete inability to love one another and that sucks. Its a bitter pill to swallow. There is nothing fairy tail about the Bible. Every single part of it exposes people as violent, self centered, unloving, uncaring, selfish, full of pride, stubborn, and fully capable of eating their own children in the worst cases. No, the Bible isnt a fairy tale at all. Its a complete expose on the human condition and when people pick it up they do not like what they see about themselves. All other religious books and teachings and everything else says You can do it, Your the person who matters most. You with your own will power and strength and thinking can do it. The Bible says you cant. And thats the difference between the Bible and any other religious text. And thats why its not a man made fairy tale. Man is unable to admit they cant be God. But Michael, you still didnt address why God killed the children? How convenient for you to just pass over the actual murderous rampage of God I can hear a scoffer saying. Im assuming the vast majority of scoffers didnt make it this far anyways but if your a hater who is still reading along, Children are not innocent (Psalm 51:5; 58:3). The children would have likely grown up as adherents to the evil religions and practices of their parents. By ending their lives as children, God enabled them to have entrance into Heaven. We strongly believe that all children who die are accepted into Heaven by the grace and mercy of God (2 Samuel 12:22-23; Mark 10:14-15; Matthew 18:2-4). For the believer our focus should be on trusting God even when we do not understand His ways. We also have to remember that God looks at things from an eternal perspective, and that His ways are higher than our ways. God is just, righteous, holy, loving, merciful, and gracious. How His attributes work together can be a mystery to us – but that does not mean that He is not who the Bible proclaims Him to be. For the unbelieving scoffer such as Dawkins. No answer would be or ever will be satisfactory. Pride will always be in the way of Truth. It is your pride that even now is making excuses.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 10:27:21 +0000
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