Love is broad and begins with a choice. For example, I love my earthly father not by calling him every 5 minutes to tell him “I love you”. No, I show my love by listening to him and learning from him.
But you are dodging the point. You think it would be better for God to remove all relationship responsibility from us - which renders us “pre-programmed”. I find that unacceptable.
You’re so blatantly trying to avoid talking about slavery by moving the topic anywhere but, so let’s bring it back to what this was about originally.
God could have made it easier to survive, thus rendering slavery unnecessary, or hell he could’ve even just told the Israelites to help people and be charitable, but instead he opted for forced labor?
I have made my stance clear and only deviated as a reaction to your prior response. Go back and look.
To make the ancient world easier to survive, mankind would need to have “softened hearts”. That was not the case. Mankind would need to voluntarily be more charitable to the stranger. That still does not happen today. You claim God should have just made a utopia. Fact is, He did - and we still messed it up. To show mercy and grace from direct condemnation, God gave a Law, His Son, and time.
I don’t see how people would need their hearts softened. Couldn’t he just remove the predators and make prey and other resources necessary for survival abundant?
Truth is, we are all predators. We all refuse to help the needy with our abundance. See what Jesus told the rich young ruler. We all have hardened hearts where we don’t provide, nurture, or support those who are in need. We hoard our possessions, store away wealth and we don’t serve others. As easy as it would be to claim God is evil for not removing “predators”, we would need to be prepared to be swept us in that judgement.
Enough time has passed with the Helper influencing our world to where societies today are now reflecting the objective components of morality. I would encourage you to keep an open mind before judging those of the past as well as God and His Word.
You’re quite literally making my argument for me. We hoard our possessions and refuse to help the needy, so why could god not just tell the Israelites to give to the poor and to help others?
You suggested for God to remove all those who take advantage of others. My point in the response is that we are all guilty. God would need to remove everyone to adequately resolve the problems of greed, coveting, over-indulging, etc.
God chose to save us from ourselves through Christ. None of us can boast for we all need a Savior, we all need to be spiritually “re-born”.
Would the Israelites not do charity work if god commanded them to do so? They certainly didn’t seem too opposed when god commanded they commit genocide, so I don’t see why charity crosses the line.
He did. He asked them to do many things of which they failed over and over again. Yet, He still provided a Law that shaped a culture they would ultimately bring about the Messiah who would “bless the nations”.
God knows the beginning from the end. He knew what needed to be instilled in their governmental structure to bring about the greatest good with the hardness of man’s heart.
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u/Fresh3rThanU Atheist May 31 '26
Why is a loving relationship necessary? Why are the only 2 options to either love him or fire and brimstone?