Why don't the faithful hold God morally accountable?

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No, really. It sounds like a simple question, doesn't it? One that might admit an easy answer? But it doesn't. The best one I've gotten was from our very own Shrox, who (to paraphrase) said, "He came down to Earth to let us kill Him - sounds like moral accountability to me," (a note to Shrox and others: I'm paraphrasing because I'm too lazy to hunt for the exact quote in the archives. My apologies, and I'll hunt it down if you would like me to).

The essential question is this: why is God considered just, moral, and/or merciful when many of his supposed teachings, commandments and actions are unjust (eternal punishments for finite transgressions, slaughter in response to relatively small provocation, commanding his followers to murder gentiles in order to steal and/or rape their women), unmerciful (creation of suffering in response to original sin, death/hell in general) or just straight up immoral (go ahead, check out the OT's policies on rape. No, go on. I will wait while you read)? Starting from a standpoint that God exists and actually Does Stuff with His great omnipotence, why is it that those who choose to believe in Him fail to hold Him morally accountable for His own actions? Aside from Shrox's (rather refreshing) answer, the only one I've ever gotten boils down to, "Well, He works in mysterious ways," which sounds to me like a cop-out method of avoiding thought on one's own theology. Can anyone give me an answer on this? Anyone at all?

Their are a lot of diffrent religions in the world and they all have their views of God and his laws.

Which one do you want to be accountable for God?

Because it might make sense.

Well, as most of the Pagan ones admit that their gods are jerks (except Zoroastrianism), I'd have to go with the entirety of the Judeo-Christian religions (Jews, Christians, and Muslims).

Jews, Christians, and Muslims, both love and fear God the nature of God in a religous view is so complex you will find that yes human nature views the thing's God does as immoral. But all three faiths view God as a destroyer and mercifucl of many things the complex nature of God is so hard to explain Gods, children "when I say Gods, children I am speaking about Jews, Muslims, and Christians, we consider God, both a father who passes jugdement on the earth, Those who do not follow Gods, laws shouldn't worry about God because their is no reason for them to worship or believe in God because their is no evidence for them that God is real. All three of those religions have one thing that seperates them from the non believers in God and that is Faith Faith is a lot stronger then skepticism because we obey God and follow his laws and we do not need proof of his exsistance because of are Faith in him.

Keep in mind that I'm an atheist by way of a Pentecostal childhood, but this is what made sense to me finally. The Christian Gods of the Old and New Testiment are basically different Gods. I read somewhere (some gnostic gospel thing) about a belief system that in the beginning there were pairs of gods, consorts, who created worlds together. One half of our consort team (Yahweh) created the heavens and the earth but because it/he/she acted alone, our universe is a mishapen and unfortunate thing. Where the different Gods come into it is essentially Jesus. Jesus was sent (?) to clue us all in to the loving God (Sophia aka wisdom)
I don't know. The faith I grew up in, you basically accept that God is a bit of an SOB. He'll strike you down for touching his stuff. He'll make you lust after your sister, rape her and then make you suffer all the crushing guilt for what "you" did. When I switched churches in my teen years, I was totally confused by this Loving God they kept talking about. There are a lot of different traditions and a lot of different interpretations. I think it's basically spokes on a wheel for the faithful. You find the spoke that works for you and eventually it takes you to the center. I think Christ, Buddha, Allah, whatever the Sikhs pray to, all of them are spokes on the same wheel.

Joker, it's not a question of atheist/theist in this thread: it's asking why theists hold their God to be somehow morally correct or superior when He engages in the same kind of petty, overblown behavior towards humans (including and especially his own worshipers - ask Job) as Pagan gods do/did.

Why should one hold God accountable when the majority of our suffering are not natural, but rather, manmade...

If one is fair, then simply ask yourself that, does most of your suffering come from natural causes, like your autism, or the death of a relative due to cancer, or a tornado, or does it come from other human beings, who talk behind your back, who'll mistreat the ones you love, take your wealth, or rob you of your dignity, etc.

If God held humanity accountable since Cain, and despite a flood, we still act the way we do, then if we destroy this world or each other, we are responsible for that, and does not reflect on God.

If you put God on Trial, at least be fair in the way you do it.

Okay then, here's a fair trial:

Why did your god command so many atrocities? You know, human sacrifice, the murder of infants, the murder of entire towns or even nations, horrific punishments such as being burned alive, etc.

Because I'm not asking about human suffering in general. I'm asking about His explicit, written actions in the book that's essentially supposed to be His Greatest Hits collection. The presence or absence of human suffering is only relevant insofar as He commands an eternal punishment (death or Hell, pick your poison) for inherently finite transgressions - for sins that are, by their nature, limited and thus not capable of measuring up to an eternal anything. These and other injustices, acts of petty anger, terror, and capricious whimsy are my concern, not the nature and source of human misery from a theistic worldview.

I do not view God as always being morally correct in any way but it all goes back to what I said Faith keep in mind some whorshippers of God have their own ideas of his nature that is not in the old or new testement as for murdering innocents they where against Gods will so their for the followers of God did as he commanded.

Well, the reason put as simply as possible is that He's God. He is above morality. No created being is above morality, but the uncreated Creator is. Created beings are, as created beings, "under" certain requirements by their creator. But who puts the eternal, unmade God under anything? Seriously! It makes perfect sense to me that He is accountable to no one. Note the silliness of the following statement: "C'mon, God, if we have to follow the rules, so do you." A person that would utter that sentence needs his or her head examined if they think the sentence makes real sense.

Last edited by Ragtime on 12 Apr 2012, 10:32 pm, edited 5 times in total.

Which is another one of those cop-out 'avoiding thinking about my own theology' answers I talked about above. Please, elaborate.

I now have elaborated.

First, I appreciate you actually elaborating. Thanks ^_^

Secondly, how does this, in any way, make sense? Do we not condemn those that fail to practice what they preach, even if what they preach is a great idea? By commanding a paradigm of morality, God, as its source, makes Himself part of that paradigm - unless you're saying it's okay to decree, "Screw the rules, I make 'em!" (link)

Sorry, but I have elaborated more now.