Cofty:
:Yes you're right, that is the standard response.1 - If god wanted to stop a wicked nation from practising wicked things like child sacrifice, how does it make sense to specifically murder all the children?
2 - Yes a deity would have the right to take life away on a whim. But, the question is how god's actions compare with the claim that he is love.
My answers:
1. Personally, I'm stumped. These are both head scratchers lol.
As a believer I may have answered it something along these lines: He was teaching his people Israel by showing them how they would end up if they engaged in similar behaviours and how they would be dealt with by him if so.
2. Again, I'm stumped.
Similarly I may have answered this in the past like: We just don't see everything the way god does, his ways are not our ways. We just have to trust him even when we don't understand why he does what he does.
Ignoranceisbliss:
My question would be Why didn't you make it obvious that you exist? If there is a creator than he has every right to demand worship. But it's up to hiM to make his presence known. You can't expect people to know that your there.
Good point. Just one peice of irrefutable evidence is all I would personally need.
I know the pat biblical answer: "No man may see God and yet live", "You shall not test the lord your God" etc.......
That's just begs more questions though when I think about it. If this is what God expects us to abide by, then why did he give us rational thinking minds geared towards curiosity, a desire to search for knowlege and so forth. It seems like this type of question really makes god angry.