08/08/2026
Why do you really love God and what do you really benefit from it?
Nobody ‘loves’ God. They are just in love with an idea of God they have been fed by people who themselves claim to ‘know’ this God (usually men in a pulpit or on a platform, who make a living from telling you this).
The idea of God they love is a very sanitised and sugar-coated version. So, if it’s the Christian God we are talking about:
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” (Professor Steve Dawkins)
When asked in a US tv interview what he would say to God, Stephen Fry said:
“It's painfully apparent. He's utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever.”
Christopher Hitchens said that worship of “God amounts to a ‘celestial dictatorship’ and a totalitarian monster that demands perpetual servility”
These are not random, anti-theistic musings from rationalists, but based entirely upon the character of the God revealed in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament:
Instant and widespread death: People die immediately for minor or accidental disrespect toward holy things. In conquests, God tells his commanders such as Joshua, Moses & Saul to kill even non-combatants, such as women, children and animals
Harsh legal retribution and punishments : God sends plagues, floods, and fire to destroy large groups of people, including women & children. Punishments such as stonings for relatively minor misdemeanours are out of all proportion to natural justice
According to Numbers chapter 15, this man was stoned to death for doing this
Sustained anger: Texts often describe God as burning with fury against sin and rebellion.
Strict devotion: God demands exclusive worship and reacts with extreme jealously and rage to his people worshipping idols or other gods.
Enjoined slavery: God tell his people they buy slaves from the nations around them, own them as property, and use harsh punishments to keep them in line
Christian ‘apologists’ naturally will want to steer you away from this portrayal of God, and so will tell us that we need to look at the God of the New Testament. Sure, he is mostly portrayed in a very different way here - the loving, forgiving, merciful 'Father' who gave up his Son that we could enjoy a new 'relationship’ with him, and look forward to eternity in his presence.
Yet, when we analyse it, the problems start right there.
This is a Father that would have his own Son killed, just to satisfy his own anger and fury at sin. Not a great role-model of fatherhood is it? Try explaining that to a five-year-old.
And this is the Father who created human beings as his children to worship him. I often ask a parent, what would your child have to do, for you to pick up a flame-thrower, and incinerate them to death? Watching as your child screamed and writhed in the flames until they died?
Yet that is what this 'Father' will do to us, if we don’t do as he asks of us. (And continue burning us for eternity, according to the dominant versions of Christianity).
Not very appealing is it? Certainly not the kind of parenting recommended by self-help books on the subject.
Yet there are hundreds of millions of people who claim to 'love' this God. It makes you worried about the future of mankind, doesn’t it?
How bad would your child need to be for you to incinerate them?
Kindly read our article: Why Does God Appear to Have Human Attributes?
https://thefaithmirror.com/why-does-god-appear-to-have-human-attributes/
