michelle said- I don't have a fairy-tale view of OT God...far from it.
Ahhh, so you are aware of the brutality of YHWH, but I suppose Xians realized they cannot win many converts to Xianity by telling people, "Look, there's this powerful being who you REALLY don't want to piss off, so you'd better just play along and do as he says, or we're ALL going to be toast..." Instead, you've got to sell the message of the love of Jesus and joy of knowing that YOU are going to be saved, and thus are on the willing team. Screw the rest of humanity, since it's "survival of the fittest" (which ironically is NOT part of evolution: that's a common myth, often perpetuated by those who don't know jack about evolution).
Holy Hades, michelle: even if there were a shred of evidence for YHWH existing (and there is not), you really need to learn about Stolkholm Syndrome, a not-uncommon (per FBI, it develops in 27% of hostage-taking situations) psychological phenomemon where hostages perversely side with their kidnappers, perhaps out of a sense of avoidance of the horror they are experiencing; it's as if they cannot fathom that others would be so callous as to kill them, and they project their emotional reaction onto their kidnappers, in a form of traumatic bonding.
From the wikipedia:
One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual’s response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they cease to be a threat. [5] Battered-person syndrome is an example of activating the capture–bonding psychological mechanism, as are military basic training and fraternity bonding by hazing.
You've bought into the contradictory values of the aggressor God, who claims to be a "God of Love", yet orders the genocide of non-Hebrew Gentiles. You cannot resolve the discrepancy, but are simply too afraid to do anything about it.
michelle said- Based on the OT accounts of God I actually fear the LORD and that's WHY I'm thankful that Jesus took my punishment...
I don't think you realize just how ridiculous Xian theology sounds to modern people who don't understand the Hebraic history behind the development of such a policy. Unlike modern people, Hebrews accepted the idea of not only inherited familal wealth, but of inherited debts. Modern societies got rid of that concept, millenia ago.
They also used the practice of go'el, 'blood redemption', wherein the family had the duty to seek the killer of their kinsman in order to act as an agent of Jehovah. There was a limited concept of law enforcement: it was up to the family to seek justice, and vigilante law was allowed (but tightly regulation) in order to redeem their kin's spilled blood (which in Genesis, Abel's blood cried out to YHWH demanding vengeance).
The way it worked was that ALL killers, guilty of manslaughter (accidental) or murder (intentional), had to flee to the nearest 'city of refuge', and the victim's family member had to be appointed and chase after them in hot pursuit, allowed to avenge their death if they should catch the person on the way. If the accused person arrived, the city elders had a hearing; if the person was ruled guilty of murder, they were handed over to the waiting go'el to carry out their execution; if found innocent of murder but guilty of manslaughter, they were permitted to stay in the city as their "safe zone" (and the go'el was permitted to kill them without bloodguilt if he found the person outside of the city walls).
The person had to stay within the city of refuge UNTIL the death of the high priest, when he was allowed to return to his home city; the idea was that only the death of a holy person can atone for the sins of others: that's why Jesus was referred to as a 'high priest', and the redeemer.
Xianity has taken a Jewish concept and twisted it all about, since per Xian doctrine, Jesus' death was supposed to atone for the sin of the perfect man, repaying a debt owed to God. But wait: Isaiah often spoke of Jehovah as "the Divine go-el' who would redeem His chosen people when they were held captive in Babylon; how can God be BOTH the debtor and the payor of debts?
Think about it: God is supposedly assuming mortal form as Jesus in order to pay himself back a debt which he owned himself, due to Adam's sin (where Jewish doctrines hold that only the sinner can seek atonement for, after expressing repentence). Xian theology is busy-work, creating a problem for mankind that fortunately the Bible also offers a solution. It's worse than those infomercials that have to spend time inventing a problem only to offer you a solution to it (eg those rubber dimpled balls used in the laundry to prevent static cling, replace fabric softener, etc).
Anyone who truly understood Jewish thinking on the role of sacrifices and atonement of sins would see Xianity is a doctrinal hodge-podge, a logical mess of piece-meal "stuff"....
michelle said- When He ordered entire nations killed I can be sure that He is absolutely serious when He says that He is against sin and those who practice it and that He has every intention of routing it out regardless of how horrendous others might think HE is.
Yes, but do you have the moral courage to stand up and declare that God's genocidal campaign and endorsement of slavery is WRONG?
(I highly-doubt you do, as you still seem trapped in your fears; that partly explains why you ended up in the JWs, in the first-place.)
michelle said- the NT scripture says it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God...I have no reason to doubt that.
Well there's your problem, then: that's proof-positive of contagious toxic thinking on display.
A more skeptical approach is NOT to assume ANYTHING is true, but to wait until AFTER you have seen evidence on which to base the belief: that goes for fairies, UFOs, ghosts, Gods, etc. Give up the addiction to magical thinking, as there's much-more actual mystery in the World with REAL unknowns, without needing to resort to figments of the imagination, etc.
Do yourself a favor and strike those words from your vocabulary ("I have no reason to doubt that"), since you really should have a REASON to believe things in the form of evidence; anything else is a recipe for stress-filled life and being a victim of others, too fearful of the unknown boogy-men out there.
Adam
...OUTLAW