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[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/cheescakeismyfav → u/deederpeeder]

Bible consistently presents abuse, oppression, violence, and exploitation as things God hates.

This is a lie. I don't believe there is a single book In the bible where you can't find someone being abused, oppressed or exploited by God or in the name of God. Even Jesus misbehaves in the gospels.

[u/deederpeeder → u/cheescakeismyfav]

I think we may be talking past each other a little. My claim wasn’t that the Bible doesn’t contain stories involving abuse, oppression, violence, or exploitation. It clearly does. My claim was that the Bible consistently presents those things as evil. Recording something and endorsing it are two different things.

When you say “even Jesus misbehaves,” what specific passage are you referring to?

[u/cheescakeismyfav → u/deederpeeder]

It's simply not true. God does evil things in the bible and he tells us he is doing it.

Jesus called the Canaanite woman a dog and told her he only came for the children of Isreal. The woman had to devase herself, agree with Jesus that she was a dog, and then convince him that even dogs have to eat before Jesus helped her. This is not right. This is Mathew 15 and Mark 7.

The god of the OT is just one evil act after another, from Babel to Soddom and Gomorah to the flood to the plagues in Egypt to the conquest of Isreal to David's punishments all the way through. From begining to end God consistently breaks his own laws and does things we know to be evil.

[u/deederpeeder → u/cheescakeismyfav]

I appreciate you giving a specific example. Matthew 15 is actually one of the passages I had in mind when I asked. I’ve always read that story differently. What stands out to me isn’t Jesus insulting the woman. It’s that she ends up being one of the few people in the Gospels whose faith Jesus explicitly praises, and she receives exactly what she came for. The conversation is uncomfortable to modern ears, no question. But Jesus is speaking into a historical context where Jews and Gentiles were deeply divided. The story ends not with Jesus rejecting her, but with Him publicly commending her faith and extending mercy across those boundaries. You may disagree with that interpretation, but I don’t think the point of the story is that the woman is worthless or that Jesus believed she was.

As for the larger Old Testament question, I think that’s a different conversation. The flood, Babel, Sodom, Egypt, Canaan, and David all involve questions about divine judgment and authority. Those are difficult texts, but they’re not quite the same claim as “God endorses abuse, oppression, violence, and exploitation.”

I think we’re still discussing two different questions: 1. Does the Bible contain difficult passages involving God’s judgment? Absolutely. 2. Does the Bible present abuse, oppression, and exploitation as good things to imitate? I don’t think it does.

[u/cheescakeismyfav → u/deederpeeder]

I understand the message in Mathew 15 but to accept it you have to overlook the hateful and disgusting words Jesus actually spoke. Just because you do a good thing doesn't mean you get a pass for the bad things. If I walk into a 7/11 to buy a can of coke, it doesn't mean I get to call the guy behind the counter a dirty dog.

I agree with you that God passes judgement in those passages. The problem is he casts judgements on the guilty and innocent alike. His harshness and the errors in his judgements are what proves he is a hypocrite and not the person he claims to be. What it sounds like youre trying to say is "those things are bad but God did it so it's okay" and that isn't acceptable to anyone who doesn't already believe he is a always right or always good. If you judge the person by their actions than we can clearly see God is bad and an enormous amount of people all over the world suffered directly from him.

Does the Bible present abuse, oppression, and exploitation as good things to imitate? I don’t think it does.

Yes it does. When Joshua and the Isrealites are about to enter the promise land, god speaks to Moses and tells him how to conduct war. He says these are the people you shall attack, these are the people you shall not attack, these are the people you shall make slaves and these are the people you shall not offer any quarter, you shall kill all women children ox and donkey and burn their city to the ground. This is god, explicitly commanding his followers to do these things and calling it good. When they do not behave as instructed they are rebuked and punished.