Kwayera said:
A plan that included the murder of millions of people? Sucky plan, if you ask me.
i spose your referring to times god commanded the israelites to conquer other lands and kill all the inhabitants etc,
i guess when thinking about this, one should know that god is omniscient, and therefore should never be questioned anyway.
but, in an attempt to satisfy your rebuttal, that yes god did instruct those things to be carried out.
The Bible’s descriptions of God are not at variance between Old and New Testaments.
For example in the Old Testament we find God saying,
“The soul who sins is the one who will die.” (Ezek 18:5)
In the New Testament, we find the apostle, Paul, writing
“the wages of sin is death” (Rom
6:23).
However, in the Old Testament we also find God declaring,
“I take no pleasure in the death of anyone” (Ezek
18:32).
Similarly in the New Testament, we find the apostle, Peter, writing about God,
“He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish.” (2 Peter 3:9)
Now in both testaments, the way to avoid death was quite clear:
“Repent and live!” (Ezek 18:32) and “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
therefore,
- sin will be punished by death
- God doesn’t want death to come to man
- death is avoided by repentance, turning away from the sin.
thats what needs to be recognised before we can really comprehend this properly
if you want to know more about the people who were killed in relation to these factors you can look at this site
http://sowhatgod.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/why-did-god-order-israel-to-kill-men-women-and-children/
if your just trying to rebut things, which i partially suspect but may be wrong, then you won't understand the answer to your question unless its explained in context.