What RELIGION are you?

[worrywort]

There's that site Skeptic's Annotated Bible that highlights God's cruelty, injustice, etc as described in Bible. There's a lot of it in the Bible. I wouldn't myself trust such a superior being to set morality standards if he by himself cannot stand to those standards.
I think people choose to act good because it pays off. If you are good to others the chances are high that they will pay you back alike. I do it and the good I sent usually comes back to me . It's not needed to put a god between the human and the good. But that's just my personal view.

Yea, that stuff does my head in! there are definitely some difficult verses in the bible....like the stuff about abraham sacrificing his own son etc....obviously this seems totally immoral to me and it always weakens my faith a little when I read these difficult verses. But here's the way I see it. Without God there are no absolute moral truths. Only subjective, changeable morals....imagine, hypothetically, that you were given absolute moral authority over the entire world, and every moral issue was presented to you for you to decide whether it is right or wrong [hypothetical logistics aside!]. Do you believe that you would be able to make the right choice on every desicion? You seem like a nice person so I'm sure you'd get a lot right, but nobody's perfect right? Sometimes humans get their morals wrong. I think this is the first important point that we should realise; That sometimes things we think are wrong are actually right, simply because we're imperfect fallible human beings prone to moral misjudgements. We don't always see the full picture. So I don't think we should discount the bible because there are some morals we personally don't agree with. We should first find out if it's true or not using other tests, then, once it's found to be trustworthy, then we can start to tackle the difficult verses.

I liked your point you made that people choose to act good because it pays off. I reckon I'd agree with that. I like to try and be a good person because it works. It makes me feel good and makes others feel good too! But my question would be, what is "good"? Why is there even such a thing as "good"? I'm paraphrasing Ravi Zacharias here but, if we assume there is such a thing as "good" then we must assume there is such a thing as "evil", right? But if there's such a thing as "good" and "evil" then there must be some kind of moral law of which to differentiate between the two. But if there's a moral law then there must be a moral law giver, but that's who you're trying to disprove. If there's no moral law giver, there's no moral law. If there's no moral law there's no evil. If there's no evil there's no good. So what is it exactly that we're doing everyday trying to be "good" people?!!...

.....Without God, things we generally consider immoral, such as rape for instance, aren't neccesarily evil but are just results of our evolutionary past. In the past maybe rape wasn't neccesary for our survival, and so has now become taboo, but could a person say, without God, that the rapist had done anything "wrong". Without God you would have to deny the existence of evil altogether, as Richard Dawkins has done in his book, "Out of Eden";

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won't find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music."

I worry a lot about the effect a belief like this would have on the world. If there is no God, then there are no absolute, objective moral values.

 

[worrywort]

1. I think you just invalidated the Bible yourself. No 100%, no God.

are you not even curious from a purely scientific point of view that we appear to have a book amoungst our species that is full of predictions that have an abnormally high accuracy rate? [70% was just a personal rough figure, based on the 30% I hadn't fully checked out the facts for....many people believe it to be 100% accurate].

2. I only watched 30 seconds of the video, but it's making some huge claims, and I'm just assuming that it doesn't actually contain any evidence for it. It's saying that God exists outside of the Universe and that God can exist without it, but not the other way around...it's really assuming a lot and stinks of bs.

The Universe does not need an intelligent being to exist. The Universe didn't come out of nothing and it's just the little thing that there is no evidence for God at all, so how can you jump in and say that he created the Universe when we don't even know that he existed in the first place?

Extraordinary claims extraordinary proof.

What would you consider evidence? Tests that are done in the science lab are not the only way to arrive at truth. Logical deductions are just as dependable, if not more so imo.

3. Evolution has been empirically studied and shown in the lab, it's fact. Intelligent design isn't scientific and has no evidence to support it.

I beg you to educate yourself and actually looked at the evidence yourself. Because you actually didn't provide any evidence, you haven't actually looked it it yourself. I suggest you actually look for yourself.

Here's a well known case of evolution being observed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution

No I agree, I believe in natural selection and a 14 billion year old universe. I just don't believe that it was an unguided journey. My evidence for this lies in the fact that the odds that life could have evolved to the stage we're at today are so insanely collosal it'd be like breaking a wristwatch up into a million little pieces and sticking them in a barrel and then shaking it and expecting that the watch would form itself back into perfect working order. Even if you shook that barrel for 14 billion years it's not gonna happen.

4. Personal experiences prove nothing.

they prove something to me. If I told you my stories and you trusted me they'd prove something to you to. Unfortunately it's hard to trust anyone these days, so I'd agree that you shouldn't take other peoples experiential stories to the bank. But if you trust yourself, personal experiences can be a great way to discover fantastic truths about our universe.

5. Morals don't need God. Our morals partly come from our evolution and the majority come from the society we live in. There's no real mystery here, our beliefs have been studied to death.

check my above reply to ptah who raised a similar objection to yours.

6. Some of the Bible is totally rooted in historical fact, but that doesn't provide evidence that the Bible is written by God. A text that was written 2000 years ago and says that in that day there is a city at x location, that's just well known knowledge at that time.

no but it does help to build up trust in the bible. If, time after time, the historical accuracy of the bible is proven true, you can feel more assured that the next time there's a queory it will also most likely turn out to be true too.

 

[ptah]

Hi worrywort and thanks for reply

As I see it, morality is mainly imprinted in us during the growing up process by the environment, our parents, church, etc. Also I believe that everyone has its own genetic compass to show what's good or bad (the feelings, "this feels good", "that feels bad"). Sometimes those two sources of morality are in accordance and sometimes not. I believe that the latter is more perfect, but that's only my personal view...

So, in my opinion to define "good" and "bad" we need to set the point of view, the being in relation to which something is "good" or "bad". What's "good" for me doesn't need to be alike for you and vice versa. That's my definition of "good" and "bad". Starting with that we can go further and define "greater good" as "good" that is "good" for all that are concerned. But still no need for any superior divine being to be a "moral giver". And thus concept of "good" somehow is the part of the human nature and therefore I'm not afraid that entire human race will go astray if we lose "god concept" somewhere along our future evolution road.

 

[Doomed2Die]

The bible describes our current predicament is due to morale independence, the adam and eve story, lied into eating from the tree to know "of the knowledge of good and bad". Something which is considered to be personal to Jehovah God himself, rightfully.

The family set up is designed as for the Father of the house to answer to Jesus and God, and is in charge of teaching and looking after his family, as it is he to answer for them. As such morales taught by God is taught to children and so on. At least, that's the ideal of it.

I don't think anyone can argue "Godly morales" (love, compassion, loyalty ect.) are negative things. You could say the warlike and cruel nature of the world and mankind can be argued is simply caused by the lack of said morales and principles. Which would support the bible in that mankind has attempted morale independance, and considering the alternative is paradise... is not doing too well.

 

[Thelema]

Yea, that stuff does my head in! there are definitely some difficult verses in the bible....like the stuff about abraham sacrificing his own son etc....obviously this seems totally immoral to me and it always weakens my faith a little when I read these difficult verses. But here's the way I see it. Without God there are no absolute moral truths. Only subjective, changeable morals....imagine, hypothetically, that you were given absolute moral authority over the entire world, and every moral issue was presented to you for you to decide whether it is right or wrong [hypothetical logistics aside!]. Do you believe that you would be able to make the right choice on every desicion? You seem like a nice person so I'm sure you'd get a lot right, but nobody's perfect right? Sometimes humans get their morals wrong. I think this is the first important point that we should realise; That sometimes things we think are wrong are actually right, simply because we're imperfect fallible human beings prone to moral misjudgements. We don't always see the full picture. So I don't think we should discount the bible because there are some morals we personally don't agree with. We should first find out if it's true or not using other tests, then, once it's found to be trustworthy, then we can start to tackle the difficult verses.

I liked your point you made that people choose to act good because it pays off. I reckon I'd agree with that. I like to try and be a good person because it works. It makes me feel good and makes others feel good too! But my question would be, what is "good"? Why is there even such a thing as "good"? I'm paraphrasing Ravi Zacharias here but, if we assume there is such a thing as "good" then we must assume there is such a thing as "evil", right? But if there's such a thing as "good" and "evil" then there must be some kind of moral law of which to differentiate between the two. But if there's a moral law then there must be a moral law giver, but that's who you're trying to disprove. If there's no moral law giver, there's no moral law. If there's no moral law there's no evil. If there's no evil there's no good. So what is it exactly that we're doing everyday trying to be "good" people?!!...

.....Without God, things we generally consider immoral, such as rape for instance, aren't neccesarily evil but are just results of our evolutionary past. In the past maybe rape wasn't neccesary for our survival, and so has now become taboo, but could a person say, without God, that the rapist had done anything "wrong". Without God you would have to deny the existence of evil altogether, as Richard Dawkins has done in his book, "Out of Eden";

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won't find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music."

I worry a lot about the effect a belief like this would have on the world. If there is no God, then there are no absolute, objective moral values.

God kills little children, he slaughters cities, he condones rape. It's all in the Bible and I'll pull up every instance if you want. You absolutely cannot explain genocide in a nice way and blow it off. Not even God is beyond morals-the morals you believe he created.

Lets say that logical phalacy you brought up is true; does that mean the law giver is free to violate his own law?

 

[Thelema]

The bible describes our current predicament is due to morale independence, the adam and eve story, lied into eating from the tree to know "of the knowledge of good and bad". Something which is considered to be personal to Jehovah God himself, rightfully.

The family set up is designed as for the Father of the house to answer to Jesus and God, and is in charge of teaching and looking after his family, as it is he to answer for them. As such morales taught by God is taught to children and so on. At least, that's the ideal of it.

I don't think anyone can argue "Godly morales" (love, compassion, loyalty ect.) are negative things. You could say the warlike and cruel nature of the world and mankind can be argued is simply caused by the lack of said morales and principles. Which would support the bible in that mankind has attempted morale independance, and considering the alternative is paradise... is not doing too well.

God wants you to stone to death people that encourage you to worship another deity. Is that moral?

 

[Thelema]

are you not even curious from a purely scientific point of view that we appear to have a book amoungst our species that is full of predictions that have an abnormally high accuracy rate? [70% was just a personal rough figure, based on the 30% I hadn't fully checked out the facts for....many people believe it to be 100% accurate].

I'll stop you right now. What if I can show you conclusively that one of the Bible's predictions was totally wrong. Will you say that since God would not make an imperfect book, the Bible isn't the work of God?

 

[Doomed2Die]

God wants you to stone to death people that encourage you to worship another deity. Is that moral?

Uh, no he does not. There has been events in the bible where God has commanded his followers to act out his wrath though yes.

Regardless, if the circumstances was the same? I think the point is, who are we to judge what is morale? Considering especially if my values was gleaned from God's teaching in itself, it would be he I were to follow. Again, it cycles back to Adam and Eve.

Tell me, what can a child learn without a parent? Or anyone else to learn from? If I recall correctly, people are not born with this knowledge of good and bad, or morales. Which says a fair thing about our designed intentions and origin I would say.

 

[Thelema]

Uh, no he does not. There has been events in the bible where God has commanded his followers to act out his wrath though yes.

Regardless, if the circumstances was the same? I think the point is, who are we to judge what is morale? Considering especially if my values was gleaned from God's teaching in itself, it would be he I were to follow. Again, it cycles back to Adam and Eve.

Tell me, what can a child learn without a parent? Or anyone else to learn from? If I recall correctly, people are not born with this knowledge of good and bad, or morales. Which says a fair thing about our designed intentions and origin I would say.

Dammit, think for yourself! We are the judges of what is moral and we're good at it. Obviously you would never condone killing babies because you know it is wrong. Just because God says it's moral doesn't make it moral.

How can genocide EVER be moral?

You are moral, I am moral, we're all freakin moral. We've never killed anyone and we didn't need anyone to tell that it's wrong; we've never done anything horrible to another human being.

A sociology class would do a lot to clear up your ideas of where a lot of our morals and beliefs come from. You can't play both sides; you can't say God imbues our morals at birth and then say that we need the Bible to be moral.

 

[Thelema]

Uh, no he does not.

24:10 And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp;

24:11 And the Israelitish woman's son blasphemed the name of the Lord, and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses: (and his mother's name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan

24:12 And they put him in ward, that the mind of the LORD might be shewed them.

24:13 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

24:14 Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.

24:15 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin.

24:16 And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him
as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/lev/24.html

I think this was what I was referring to, I can't remember exactly

 

[LostViking]

Could just have gone for Sodom and Gomorrah, y'know, then he even did the dirty work himself.

 

[FOR REAL]

there is no god and there is no devil! if there was i would be striken down by one of them right now for saying this

know what i mean!

 

[Thelema]

there is no god and there is no devil! if there was i would be striken down by one of them right now for saying this

know what i mean!

You obviously don't know how it works...God can't just show himself and say "here I am", he need to write a book that conflicts reality and itself, then he needs lots of conflicting religions that all claim to know his will, then he needs you to forget science and ration thought. What does this all mean? God is the bad guy and Satan is the good one. Obviously.

When was the last time a Satanist knocked on your door, or needed some money, or wrote a book that made no sense that just led to conflict?

 

[Thelema]

Could just have gone for Sodom and Gomorrah, y'know, then he even did the dirty work himself.

Or the mythical Flood...God only killed every human-including every baby, in the entire World. What sins did the babies commit?

 

[worrywort]

As I see it, morality is mainly imprinted in us during the growing up process by the environment, our parents, church, etc.

......yea I wondered about this once too but I think there's a problem with it. I definitely agree that we learn a lot of our morals from our parents and teachers etc but that doesn't mean morality is merely a human invention. We also learned the multiplication table from our parents and teachers, but does that mean that mathematical truths can change from culture to culture?
the question is, like maths, is the moral law universal throughout all civiliazations and history? and I believe it is. I think peripheral conventions and personal preferences may change but at the core of human nature the moral law stays the same. For instance, one culture may think it more polite to give gifts at the start of an evening, while another may think it best to save gifts until the end, but could you imagine a culture where people were admired for running away in a battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him?

Also I believe that everyone has its own genetic compass to show what's good or bad (the feelings, "this feels good", "that feels bad"). Sometimes those two sources of morality are in accordance and sometimes not. I believe that the latter is more perfect, but that's only my personal view...
So, in my opinion to define "good" and "bad" we need to set the point of view, the being in relation to which something is "good" or "bad". What's "good" for me doesn't need to be alike for you and vice versa. That's my definition of "good" and "bad".

...but what if you were to come across a man who didn't seem to have the same genetic compass as you? What if this man felt it "good" to humiliate and torture all your loved ones? Surely you would think that this man was morally "wrong"? But immediately you would be referring to a standard outside of yourselves. Otherwise it's just his opinion verses your opinion. Who's to say who's right and who's wrong? What is "good" for him doesn't need to be alike for you....So there must be an absolute right and an absolute wrong that is true for both of you. For example, we may both have an idea of what London is like, but one of our idea's must be truer than the other because London is a real place existing outside of ourselves. If, when we said "London" we each merely meant "the town I am imagining in my own head" how could one of us have truer ideas than the other?

Starting with that we can go further and define "greater good" as "good" that is "good" for all that are concerned. But still no need for any superior divine being to be a "moral giver". And thus concept of "good" somehow is the part of the human nature and therefore I'm not afraid that entire human race will go astray if we lose "god concept" somewhere along our future evolution road.

...I think the same principles I mentioned above would apply to the "greater good" aswell. Whether two men are in disagreement over a moral issue or two nations, both will still be turning to a standard outside of themselves to decide who is right and who is wrong.

p.s. my thoughts on all this stuff aren't totally clear yet so please feel free to pick holes in my logic if you see any!....or ignore me all together!! ;p....I'm just babbling!

 

[worrywort]

Lets say that logical phalacy you brought up is true; does that mean the law giver is free to violate his own law?

...I'm not sure to be honest...I mean I'd have to ask God! lol!.....but I would imagine not...I would imagine that the moral law is born out of Gods essential nature and so it would be impossible for God to do anything immoral.....the bible talks about God being totally pure and righteous so yea, I'd doubt God would or could ever violate the moral law, anymore than he could make a square circle. But I know what you're gonna say. You're gonna say what about all the times in the bible when God DID break the moral law?! and I think there'd be two responses to that ["think", being the operative word throughout all my posts!!!].....either a] God has acted with total moral purity and we must have misread or misunderstood something somewhere along the line.....or b] the bible is a fraud and God does not exist.

Or the mythical Flood...God only killed every human-including every baby, in the entire World. What sins did the babies commit?

I think the flood is a good example of how we can misunderstand the full picture. I feel like you're assuming that the people wiped out by the flood were these delightul, walton-esque, people who were totally innocent and minding their own business etc, then along comes grumpy old God and slaughters the lot of them for no reason! Whereas the bible says that these people were so corrupt "that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" [gen 6:5] The entire earth had become corrupt and was "filled with violence" [gen 6:11]. As for the children, firstly it wasn't uncommon for corrupt societies in those days to "burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods" [deut 12:31], so who knows what torture these children were being put through. Secondly children learn from their parents. The corruption of the parents would have been passed down to the children. This can still be seen happening today [Puppet masters twist young minds to hate]. So to completely purge a corrupt society God would have to take the children too so that the corruption does not get passed on. Thirdly if God is infinite and has the keys to the afterlife, we don't know where God took these children after they died. He may have just rescued them from the hands of an evil corrupt society and placed them in heaven. If God is just he will do what is right.

I'll stop you right now. What if I can show you conclusively that one of the Bible's predictions was totally wrong. Will you say that since God would not make an imperfect book, the Bible isn't the work of God?

...hmm....well yea I think I would. It says in the bible somewhere that the test of a true prophet is 100% accuracy, so if you could show me a prophecy that definitely did not come true then I'd have to re-examine my beliefs quite a lot! BUT.....the problem is, can you really categorically prove to me that a prophecy did not come true? Because I've been seeking the truth long enough now to know that when you think you've reached a dead end there's usually a piece of the puzzle you've missed and you find that what you thought was a dead end is actually a new road leading to brand new areas. I'm sure you've experienced the same.

but I think this is all beside the point, because I don't think this is the right way to go about discovering the truth. If I wanted to find out if the Koran was true or not, I wouldn't jump onto one or two difficult passages and immediately conclude it's all rubbish and save myself some time. I'd come at it from all angles, and I'd look for supernatural reasons that prove its authority. If a large majority of the text contained remarkable prophecies that had all been proven to have come true, I would assume that the minority of cases when a prophecy has its skeptics, it would probably just be a case of misunderstanding somewhere along the line. If you want to study the prophecies I think you should look at the full picture and not just pick out one or two of the dubious predictions.

 

[Thelema]

...I'm not sure to be honest...I mean I'd have to ask God! lol!.....but I would imagine not...I would imagine that the moral law is born out of Gods essential nature and so it would be impossible for God to do anything immoral.....the bible talks about God being totally pure and righteous so yea, I'd doubt God would or could ever violate the moral law, anymore than he could make a square circle. But I know what you're gonna say. You're gonna say what about all the times in the bible when God DID break the moral law?! and I think there'd be two responses to that ["think", being the operative word throughout all my posts!!!].....either a] God has acted with total moral purity and we must have misread or misunderstood something somewhere along the line.....or b] the bible is a fraud and God does not exist.



I think the flood is a good example of how we can misunderstand the full picture. I feel like you're assuming that the people wiped out by the flood were these delightul, walton-esque, people who were totally innocent and minding their own business etc, then along comes grumpy old God and slaughters the lot of them for no reason! Whereas the bible says that these people were so corrupt "that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" [gen 6:5] The entire earth had become corrupt and was "filled with violence" [gen 6:11]. As for the children, firstly it wasn't uncommon for corrupt societies in those days to "burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods" [deut 12:31], so who knows what torture these children were being put through. Secondly children learn from their parents. The corruption of the parents would have been passed down to the children. This can still be seen happening today [Puppet masters twist young minds to hate]. So to completely purge a corrupt society God would have to take the children too so that the corruption does not get passed on. Thirdly if God is infinite and has the keys to the afterlife, we don't know where God took these children after they died. He may have just rescued them from the hands of an evil corrupt society and placed them in heaven. If God is just he will do what is right.



...hmm....well yea I think I would. It says in the bible somewhere that the test of a true prophet is 100% accuracy, so if you could show me a prophecy that definitely did not come true then I'd have to re-examine my beliefs quite a lot! BUT.....the problem is, can you really categorically prove to me that a prophecy did not come true? Because I've been seeking the truth long enough now to know that when you think you've reached a dead end there's usually a piece of the puzzle you've missed and you find that what you thought was a dead end is actually a new road leading to brand new areas. I'm sure you've experienced the same.

but I think this is all beside the point, because I don't think this is the right way to go about discovering the truth. If I wanted to find out if the Koran was true or not, I wouldn't jump onto one or two difficult passages and immediately conclude it's all rubbish and save myself some time. I'd come at it from all angles, and I'd look for supernatural reasons that prove its authority. If a large majority of the text contained remarkable prophecies that had all been proven to have come true, I would assume that the minority of cases when a prophecy has its skeptics, it would probably just be a case of misunderstanding somewhere along the line. If you want to study the prophecies I think you should look at the full picture and not just pick out one or two of the dubious predictions.

If God's nature is moral, then genocide is moral-I assert that genocide is never moral. Since God has committed genocide, the argument that you have to make is that might is right and I'm guessing you don't believe that. You're left with God isn't moral or that him being the guy with the gun makes him right.

Noah saved every creature on Earth, but let all the 100% innocent children drown? God is all powerful, but he couldn't change the society without drowning all the toddlers? The Noah story is really messed up and you're really fighting an uphill battle trying to justify killing a single baby, much less thousands or millions.

You made it a point to include that people would sacrifice babies to their God and you include this because you morally object to babies being killed for God, but only the Mayan (or any other) God? For yours, it's alright? If God told you to kill a baby, would you? Is it moral to kill a baby when God says so because God's nature is moral?

I promised....

Amos 9:15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.

Jews have been pulled out of Israel many times since that was written.

The Bible isn't a book that is right all the time and I'm just misinterpreting it. Noah never happened, nobody ever lived in a fish, God didn't create the Earth in 6 days, you already agree that the Earth is billions, not thousands of years old. The Bible is so wrong that it's laughable that this bronze age book that knew nothing about...germs. A simple idea to use was never even part of their understanding, they thought that evil spirits were the cause of our sickness. It's pretty funny that God wants you to believe evil spirits and witches need to be feared, but never mentions something real like germs.

You be a skeptic and tell me parts of the Bible that you are questioning yourself, besides the fact I just showed you a Bible prophecy that is wrong.

 

[ptah]

If I wanted to find out if the Koran was true or not, I wouldn't jump onto one or two difficult passages and immediately conclude it's all rubbish and save myself some time.

The problem with the Bible is that there are not only one or two difficult passage. There are plenty of them. And since you mentioned Koran, there are many holy books claiming to be written/inspired by god. Which of them is the real one? How do you deal with the fact that Jesus is in the Koran only one of the prophets and not messiah nor son of god?

If a large majority of the text contained remarkable prophecies that had all been proven to have come true...

What kind of prophecies do you mean? Could you please give one example?

 

[Doomed2Die]

...
I think this was what I was referring to, I can't remember exactly

And where exactly is God telling me to do this? This is an event, a recording of when the israelites were crossing the wilderness, a time where God was demanding full attention and devotion from them.

What I should do personally is what Jesus did and teached.

"28 Now one of the scribes that had come up and heard them disputing, knowing that he had answered them in a fine way, asked him: “Which commandment is first of all?” 29 Jesus answered: “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah, 30 and you must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind and with your whole strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

This page is kinda aimed at what you are saying also.

The “Old Testament”: “Written for Our Instruction” - Jehovah's Witnesses Official Web Site

The answer is that different aspects of God’s personality are revealed in different parts of the Bible. In the book of Genesis alone, he is described as feeling “hurt at his heart,” as the “Producer of heaven and earth,” and as “the Judge of all the earth.” (Genesis 6:6; 14:22; 18:25) Do these differing descriptions refer to the same God? They certainly do.

To illustrate: A local judge may be best known by those who have faced him in court as a firm enforcer of the law. His children, on the other hand, may view him as the loving, generous father that he is. His close friends may find that he is an approachable man with a good sense of humor. The judge, the father, and the friend are all the same person. It is just that various aspects of his personality become apparent under different circumstances.

 

[LostViking]

So the all powerful god could conjure a flood that killed everyone, but not come up with a less violent way to make the world a better place? How does that fit in with mercy, forgiveness and turning the other cheek? If he was unable to come up with something better, then he's not god. If he could have come up with something that caused less drowning accidents, but didn't, well then he's just got issues.

And besides, as it has been mentioned, god is on several occasions a vengeful piss-ant with more suppressed rage than all the teenagers in the world. Which fails to combine with the idea of god being the very essence of all that is pure and good, unless of course wrath and revenge are part of what's considered "good".