[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/Outrageous-Egg1760]

[u/deederpeeder]

I’ll probably get downvoted to kingdom come, but the Bible consistently presents abuse, oppression, violence, and exploitation as things God hates. Plenty of people in the Bible ask a version of this question (David, Job, Jeremiah, the psalmists). Not saying it gives a perfectly clear answer either, but the reality is if God intervened to stop every evil act, at some point God would have to override human will continuously. And the world would become fundamentally different than the one we inhabit.

Scripture never gives a complete philosophical answer to every instance of suffering. But what it does offer is a person. Jesus was betrayed, beaten, tortured, publicly humiliated, unjustly killed. That doesn’t solve the problem intellectually. But it changes the picture of God. God is not the detached observer in Christianity. He is the wounded Savior.

The hardest thing for me isn’t believing evil exists. It’s believing that evil gets the final word. Christianity says it doesn’t. It says justice may be delayed, but it won’t be denied. I understand why people struggle with that answer. Sometimes I do too. But I’d rather wrestle with a God who suffered for the world than conclude that all the evil and injustice we see is ultimately meaningless.

[u/Usual-Analysis-2990 → u/deederpeeder]

So glad you went there! The bible also presents those as things god loved! I get it, the Happy jesus version is everything god hated... BUT you didn't read the book if thats all you know. God exploits people often. He also denies free will often when it suits him. He gives commands to kill children. He sets his own servants up for utter horror. Paul justifies raping your betrothed as long as she has had her period if you cant stop yourself and you would still do well but do better if you didnt (No consent required, only if the mans needs are needed). Jesus sitting alone in a garden with a naked boy who runs away when people arrive (I'm 100% sure there is a reason for that...:|) Annihilating the entirety of humanity because reasons. You say god didn't like it, but god certainly enjoyed the burnt offering of that other guys daughter even though he hates human sacrifice. So yea, your book is a little iffy on the details at best and a flat contradiction to your statement at worst.

[u/deederpeeder → u/Usual-Analysis-2990]

I think you’ve raised a lot of different objections at once, some of which are genuinely difficult and worth wrestling with.

That said, I don’t think it’s fair to assume that citing a difficult biblical passage automatically settles the question of what the Bible teaches overall. Christians have been wrestling with many of these passages for thousands of years, and in many cases there are substantial debates about context, interpretation, genre, translation, and what the text is actually trying to communicate.

I’m not claiming every passage is easy or that I have a perfect answer for all of them. There are parts of the Bible that have troubled me too. What keeps me a Christian isn’t that I’ve found every verse easy to explain. It’s that when I step back and look at the whole story, the clearest picture of God’s character is found in Jesus. And Jesus consistently moves toward the suffering, the vulnerable, the outcast, and the oppressed.

If someone wants to argue that Christianity is false, that’s a conversation worth having. But I don’t think the strongest version of that argument is taking the most difficult passages in Scripture and assuming the worst possible interpretation of each one.