A Quote by Richard Dawkins
The God of the Old testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.
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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.
I have been reading the Old Testament, a most bloodthirsty and perilous book for the young. Jehovah is beyond doubt the worst character in fiction.
You know, the New Testament is pretty old. I think they should call them the Old Testament and the Most Recent Testament.
Many who are convinced that God is non-violent simply dismiss the Old Testament accounts of God commanding or engaging in violence. I don't consider this to be a viable option, for Jesus treats the whole Old Testament as the inspired Word of God. My cross-centered interpretation of these violent portraits allows believers to affirm that God is non-violent while also affirming that all Scripture is "God-breathed.".
It's not as if the New Testament writers came along and said, "The culmination of Old Testament books is more books, New Testament books." In some ways they thought instead of the culmination of Old Testament books being Christ himself, the word incarnate as the opening verses of Hebrews 1 put it. In the past God spoke to the fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son and the son is revelation.
In the Old Testament, we are continually told that our good works are not enough, that God has made a provision. This provision is pointed to at every place in the Old Testament.
The early Church had nothing but the Old Testament. The New Testament lies hidden in the Old; the Old Testament lies open in the New.
It is fair to say the New Testament is the most ethically sophisticated of the great scriptures; the proper comparison for the Qur'an is with the Old Testament - against which it holds its own.
The Old Testament contains fabulous elements. The New Testament consists mostly of teaching, not of narrative at all: but where it is narrative, it is, in my opinion, historical. As to the fabulous element in the Old Testament, I very much doubt if you would be wise to chuck it out.
The New Testament rests itself for credulity and testimony on what are called prophecies in the Old Testament, of the person called Jesus Christ; and if there are no such things as prophecies of any such person in the Old Testament, the New Testament.
There is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is given to both men and women in the New Testament. This is what makes the New Testament a New Testament rather than the Old Testament, in which women did not have such privileges.
It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt... In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal... This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor.
The Old Testament teaches us that if we humble ourselves and pray, God will hear from heaven and heal our land. And the New Testament assures us that the fervent prayers of righteous men can make a difference.
There is no book which tells of a more infamous monster than the Old Testament, with its Jehovah of murder and cruelty and revenge, unless it be the New Testament, which arms its God with hell, and extends his outrages throughout all eternity!
Suffering is arguably God's choicest tool in shaping the character of Christ in us.
The New Testament writers I think conceive of their inspired Scripture writings as flushing out, bringing to articulation, expounding and so on the climactic revelation in the son, but this in self-conscious fulfillment of the promises and covenants that were already made to God's chosen people in Old Testament times.
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