Would it be possible, through a strictly logical and consistent thinking, to define God as being absolutely perfect, possessing infinite love and mercy, and at the same time to attribute to Him terrible atrocities, such as having ordered to murder innocent beings as animals, to rape women and to slay children still in the maternal womb? Obviously, through logic not!

As we have seen in the chapter "Logic basics", the Law of non-contradiction demonstrates that something cannot "BE" and "NOT BE" at the same time. Therefore, God could not be "infinitely good" and at the same time have any degree of evil, because the infinity of a quality completely excludes the possibility of the existence of a contrary quality that would diminish or annul it.

However, fundamentalists are not guided by logic, but by the literal interpretation of a book considered sacred that should never be questioned. Yet the Christian holy book itself, the Bible, is contradictory about Divine Evil. In some passages, the biblical text confirms the goodness of God:

• The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. (Psalm 145:9) 

• It is unthinkable that God would do wrong,  that the Almighty would pervert justice. (Job 34:12)

• “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy” (James 5:11) 

But in other passages, The Bible attributes to God actions of the highest degree of wickedness, which totally contradicts the vision of an infinitely Perfect God, full of mercy and compassion:

• God gives orders to kill men, women, children and even animals: “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” (1 Samuel 15:3) 

• God threatens to crush children in front of parents and rape women in front of husbands:  “Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, in the day of his burning anger. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives violated. (Isaías 13:16) 

• God gives orders to kill even infants and pregnant women:“Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants, nor will they look with compassion on children.” (Isaiah 13, 18),  “They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.” (Hosea 13:16)

•  God gives orders for each one to kill his brother, his friend and his neighbor: Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” (Exodus 32, 27)

• Moses, following direct instructions from God, gives orders to his soldiers to kill men and children, but to reserve for them the virgin girls. In this case God would then be encouraging the rape of girls who would become slaves to those soldiers who killed their parents: “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man..” (Numbers 31, 17-18)

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The great question that arises is: How can an infinitely Merciful God order the atrocities and carnage described in such Biblical passages? If God did this, we could surely compare him to the greatest bloodthirsty tyrants in history, such as Hitler and Stalin. Indeed He would be even worse than them, because God was supposed to give the greatest example of mercy and love.

In Part II of this work, in the chapter "The Danger of Fundamentalism," we discussed how political leaders used religion and imposed themselves as an authority directly named by God, in order to be able to control a violent people in a time when there were absolutely no laws. Then orders were given to massacre and completely exterminate a neighboring people, including women, children and animals, and these orders could not be contested because they would have come from God himself.

When a religious leader imposes himself as a direct representative of God, his power is total and absolute and everyone is afraid to question him because of the fear of the "Wrath" of a violent and vindictive God.

However, in modern times, we need to have coherence and discernment to study the history of mankind independently and not dogmatically, without fear of questioning concepts that, for anyone with a basic knowledge of logic, are absurdly contradictory.

So, once again, we point out the dangers of accepting a text written in the Bible or any other book considered "sacred", as "absolute truth", without exposing it to the light of logic and reason.

 Logical argument analysis: