Dawkins on religion: Is religion good or evil? | Head to Head (youtube.com)
The l above is supposed to be the URL to an interview of Richard dawkins on the subject of his hatred for religions, in particular Christianity or the Old testament at least. Is religion evil he is asked and he says yes. The main example of this is as usual Islam whicfh certainly does do evil acts since its central aim is to take over the world for Allah and it teaches utter disdain and hatred for all those who do not believe in Allah.
However, Dawkins finds just as much to hate in the Old testament, and even in parts of the New Testament.
It occurred to me that the most direct, or at least shortest way of answering Dawkins might be to say that what he is criticizing is the Moral Law. the Moral Law is an inexorable judge of all violations of its tenets. You can't separate God from His Moral Law in some sense because He must operate according to it and it operates inexorably, therefore so does He when it comes to judging sin. but there is also a sense in which the Moral Law operates impersonally and automatically, as the Law would, although it is also very subtle which is why god hcan be said to repent or relent fom time to time or change His mind, but all this really means is that the Law is very refined and subtle and language is being used to make it easier for us to understand it by keeping us in touch with the personal God who in some sense embodies it.
I supposesomeone could come along who has studied all this for years and might denounce me as saying something heretical, in which case I'd have to withdraw it and rethink it but this is how it hits me at the moment.
What the Old Testament does is take us behind the scenes of world events which normally just happen to us without our understanding why. Why wars happen, why disasters happen, why horrific things happen nd so on. Violations hae bewen accumulating for generations in a particular people group for instance and hve finally come to the "fullness of time" when punishemnt is going to destroy them. Then a particular methjod of punishemnet will be seen to be decreed by god, such as perhaps the armies of the Israelites will be employed to punishe a particular tribe of people. Or later the armies of the Assyrians will be employed by God to punish Israel when they have accumjulated years of 8iviolations themselves.
the Old testament is to introduce us to the character of god both as judge and in all His other dispositions, but it seems to be His charctger a judge that most captures the attention of the unbelievers like Dawkins who put in so much energy denouncing Him for what they see as His mean and nasty character. Of course they minimize sin if they take it into account at all. You wouldn't kill your dog for digging up your flower bed would you? that level of thought about sin.
The fear of God is the beiginning of wisdom he are told here and there in scripture, mostly in the book of Proverbs. This fear is to teach us to recognize that sin brings punishment so that we can learn not to commit sin and therefore preserve our lives and remain in God's good graces.
We sin anyway even if we have at least some measure of that fear of God, and now we see His merciful and loving sinde as He sends us a redeemer to save us from the consequences of our sins. First he teaches us that sin brings punishemtns, that the wages of dsin is death, and then He offers us salvation from it. He cannot lifet the operations of the Moral Law, they are inexorable, but He can save us from their consequences by sending His own sinson to die in our place. "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" He says through the Prophet Hosea, and what He means is that they haven't learned to fear God and obey His law, they commit all the sins He forbade in the Ten Commandments for instance, they lie and steal and covet and murder and commit adultery and terefore they keep being subjected to punishemtns, and God laments this fact, blaming the leaders of isareal for not teaching the Ppeople prophery.
he gives the Law to Moses and accounces that through this Law He is setting before the people life and death and says they are oto choose life by obeying these laws. Well over the years through many good and bad kings and true and false prophets the people accumulate eough sins to be sent to babylon for seventy years and for their land to be laid waste by the armies of the Assyrians. but just as the Prophet Daniel is discovering that the time in babylon is about to expire so that the people may go home, he is also told of the time left before the Savior Messiah is to appear to save the world from sin.
Perhaps none of this would be of any interest to an unbeliever but I think it's about the best I can do at the moment.
I might also try to deal with the incident of god's calling Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac winc that tis the usjbect of much outgrage by the atheists. But I think I'll have to leave that for some other time.
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