God Loves to Smite!

I’m sorry God, but you are exceptionally cruel if the bible is to be relied upon. God, Yahweh, I Am, or whatever the name is, killed many innocent men, women, and children. Reading the bible, without confirmation bias, provides consistent examples of God’s merciless behaviour. The bible describes a deity of cruelty and not one of love as purported by modern Christianity. It is unsurprising, therefore, that we are experiencing the rise of Christian groups that spout hatred and intolerance. These God-followers are modelling the intolerance of their worshipped god.

Most parents would do anything to protect their children and save them from death. Not the god of the bible, however. God takes out his family members with nary a thought. Yes, yes, we all know the story of Jesus being a sacrifice. When Jesus was up on his wooden stake having been crucified his words weren’t those of gratitude to God. No, definitely not. Jesus’ words were those of despair at God’s abandonment of him, “My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?”[1] God had murderous form, though. Jesus wasn’t the first son of God that was murdered. God also committed filicide/prolicide, infanticide, and nepoticide. In other words, God murdered his sons, his daughters-in-law, and grandchildren because he decided they were wicked.[2] Smite! In fact, God took it one step further and killed everyone on the planet[3] with a flood because he didn’t like how his sons, grandkids, and humanity had turned out.[4] Smite! God didn’t have anyone else to blame but himself; they were all of his own creation. Smite! God could not have modelled anything more cruel or unforgiving by this massacre. There were no time-outs, reward charts, naughty corners, or even smacks on the bottom. Straight to omnicide for the God of the bible. Smite!

God is regularly recorded in the bible as having killed towns, cities, and entire nations. Any manner of people living in these places were murdered regardless of their innocence. Smite! Some occasionally survived but they were generally kept as slaves by the conquerors. There are far too many places to list but here are a few: Sodom, Gomorrah[5], Jericho[6], the Canaanites of Arad (Hormah)[7], numerous towns attributed to Midianites[8], all the cities of the Amorites[9], Bashan and surrounds[10], Cushites[11], Ekron with immediate deaths and ongoing tumours for those who survived[12], and instructed the destruction of Girgashites, Hittites, Perizzites, etc.[13] Smite! All first born sons to Egyptians were killed in one deadly night; kids put to death by a plague sent by God[14]. Smite! There were many innocent people who become casualties of God’s extreme favour towards Israelites and their descendants. Not a depiction of a loving god but a warring and bloodthirsty deity. Smite!

The Israelites were God’s favoured people in the Old Testament. They were rescued from slavery in Egypt by God/Moses but they weren’t altogether spared God’s wrath. There were a few people that complained at wandering endlessly around the desert without bread or water[15]. Smite! God sent snakes down to bite the people complaining and many Israelites died. Smite! There were 250 community leaders within the Israelites that challenged the leadership of Moses and Aaron because of the years spent wandering aimlessly[16]. Smite! The ground opened and swallowed the 250 leaders and all their families. Smite! A few other people then complained about their community leaders being killed. Smite! God killed 14,700 of them with the plague[17]. Smite! There were some random battles where God simply chose not to support the Israelites. Smite! 30,000 soldiers dead[18]. Smite! God showed his deadly response to people challenging him or merely born in a nation unfavoured by God. Smite!

It's impossible to allocate an accurate number of the people destroyed by God in the bible because we can’t be entirely certain of the population. Excluding omnicide due to the world flood, unqualified internet users count God’s kill number as likely to be between 2.5 and 3 million people. That seems high for a deity sold as a loving God by Western Judeo-Christian theology. For some context, I guess the obvious comparison is to measure the kill rate with God’s biblical foe, Lucifer/Devil/Satan. How many did the Devil kill in the bible? 10. Wait…what? Ten! The evil villain of the bible killed only ten people. Ten! Ten versus God’s millions dead plus the human population at the time of the flood. That’s unfathomable! Additionally, the ten people killed by the Devil were approved by God in the book of Job[19]. Well, even those ten deaths could technically be attributed to God which takes Satan’s death count to 0. Zero! Nought! That goes a long way to explain why Christians’ behaviour can be so belligerent and intolerant of people not quite to their liking. Their chosen deity loves a good smite! Christians worship a bloodthirsty God who has killed millions while believing God’s adversary is evil and dangerous despite him being barely credited with a single biblical death. That is confusingly topsy turvy and an extremely alarming turn of events. A prominent Western religion worships a deity who has chosen smiting as his godly hobby. Now that just poses more questions than it presents answers.

[1] Matthew 27:46, taken from Psalm 22 when King David wrote a song about God’s abandonment

[2] Genesis 6:1-5

[3] Genesis 7:7, there was the exception of eight people: Noah’s family

[4] Genesis 6:7

[5] Genesis 19:24-25

[6] Joshua 6:20-21

[7] Numbers- 21:1-3

[8] Numbers 31:10

[9] Numbers 21:24-26

[10] Deuteronomy 3:3-6

[11] 2 Chronicles 14:12-15

[12] 1 Samuel 5:11-12

[13] Deuteronomy 7:1-3

[14] Exodus 11:4-6

[15] Numbers 21:4-6

[16] Numbers 16:31-35

[17] Numbers 16:46-50

[18] 1 Samuel 4:10

[19] Job 1:1-19