Why Worship a God that has killed thousands upon thousands of people?

by Rob Lundberg

Introduction.

It has been a few weeks since my last posting. Things have changed with my job. I am still a “tent maker apologist” working a full time job in car sales. But with the changes in ownership and the increase in time, and demands, I have been in a “battle” to find that precious commodity we all desire. . .TIME.

The increase in schedule has me scrambling to find time for my responsibilities as a speaker, a teacher and a Ratio Christi Chapter Director. The increase in time and getting home later has challenged my energy to post blogs here on The Real Issue and the Christian Apologetics Alliance. Please pray for a change as you can see where my passion really lies.

My job helps take care of the responsibilities of taking care of my family and feeding needy women and children. . . Mine!  A good thing to all of this, is that my commitment to not stay quiet in sharing the gospel and engaging peoples’ objections has not been squelched. Lately I have been involved in meeting other believers who are new to the employment where I work, and meeting folks open to discussing their views on life and values in light of the events of our culture and political arena.

I also have a boss who comes at life from a bankrupt worldview and is one who likes to see if he can stir things up and challenge my ethics and beliefs. One day he threw down, what he thought to be a tough question, but I was able to answer it. But the one about God being “a moral monster” reared its ugly head, with him, not too long ago. Some of us may have heard it put this way,

“God has killed more people than Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Sadam Hussein, Milosevic, Osama Bin Laden and Jim Jones combined. Why would you not follow them instead of God? Based on this kind of standard, these monsters are compassionate compared to God.”

Is this a tough question to answer? At face value it looks like a difficult challenge, but really it is not too hard when we seek to “defang” the question.

Let’s Begin the Response.

Before I delve into giving a multi faceted answer, let me say that those who have committed some of the most heinous atrocities under a banner of “religion,” and more specifically, “Christianity,” cannot be dismissed. Many point to the Crusades and all the evils that came with it.

While this is a black-eye to “Christianity” at large, let me say that it is not what we read in the New Testament concerning Jesus’ teachings. Jesus as the Founder, and Chief Cornerstone of the Christian Church also bore the title of “Prince of Peace.” Not all who marched under the banner of Christianity “bore” His Name or pursued His character with integrity. We cannot dismiss this, nor can we escape the reality of this evil.

However, this assertion that “God has killed more” than say a Hitler, a Mussolini, or any other dictator or potentate is not really an honest one. Let me defend this by looking at a couple of scenarios.

A Dishonest Standard of Evaluation.

Whenever someone makes such a claim as this one, we have to ask from what framework is the challenger coming from? Is the person using an absolute moral standard rooted in an absolute Moral Lawgiver? Or are they using a standard that they believe to be absolute but based upon their own standard presuppositions? I would posit the latter. Someone making a bold assertion is skeptical to the existence of God and the worthiness of Him being an object of worship.

Taking the latter as the question’s starting point, the skeptic must “smuggle” in Christian terms to make the objection. Since there is no absolute moral lawgiver, compassion for the atheist is merely grounded on random accidental cause and effect of chemicals and DNA dancing around to create an action of beneficence. But what stirs the conscience to do good or bad? This is a show stopper for the atheist.

But there is another point that needs to be made here about the charge against God. It is dishonest within the scope of historical facts.

Dishonest Under the Microscope of History.

The claim that “God has killed more people than Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Sadam Hussein, Milosevic, Osama Bin Laden and Jim Jones combined” is not an honest assertion in light of history. It is interesting that late atheist philosopher, Frederich Nietzsche made the claim that the twentieth century would be the bloodiest century due to the scientific and technological advances that made belief in God untenable. Considering God wishful thinking his atheism pushed him to reject the traditional moral values. Proclaiming that God was dead, moral and traditional values that dovetailed biblical values were considered. As a result he viewed existence as a struggle, and redefined “good” as a “will to power.” This pursuit to power became the new absolute.

Those under a similar banner of thinking pursued power over their own people and the people of other nations. What was the result? The following chart shows the amount of loss of life just in the last century under a banner of “unbelief”: