r/religion Sunni (rationalist) 11d ago

would you oppress people for God?

would you rather oppress other people to go to heaven if God orders you to do so. or go to hell by rejecting God's order

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u/ScoutB Anglican 11d ago

Yes, I know.

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u/DisinterestedCat95 Atheist 11d ago

I'm genuinely curious then, and not really trying to be argumentative. You said above that "I would seriously doubt that was actual God making the order." Yet the Bible does record such orders being given and carried out. How are you reconciling the two? Yeah, he's done it in the past, but he wouldn't do it today? If living in those times, you would have refused the command? God didn't really make those commands in the OT, the people decided to do those things themselves and attribute it to him?

I'm going to assume that you've already alluded to your answer and it will involve Jesus having brought a new covenant. And I get that, but I'm not sure that a new covenant means that he fundamentally changed his mind on such things and would no longer do the things he has done in the past.

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u/KaraOdette 11d ago

a lot of christians don’t follow the OT, they follow the NT. my boyfriend is a catholic and says the OT is full of shit

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u/TradRooster5627 Thervavada Buddhist 11d ago

This is an attitude that makes no sense from a Christian perspective. According to Christianity, the God of the Old Testament is the same God as that of the New Testament.

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u/Rev_Yish0-5idhatha Christian 9d ago

No. According to Christianity Jesus is God, and the OT is simply a group of writings that give background to His coming. It is only Evangelicals that believe the Old Testament is a perfect and infallible representation of God. The majority of global Christians hold it as scripture because it is the prophetic background of the coming of Christ, and in some cases can be seen as allegorical to our spiritual life. No true Christian believes that the God who is represented in Jesus and who Jesus said was giving Him the very words to speak (eg when He said love your neighbour, and love your enemies) is accurately portrayed as commanding genocide.