There's simply no way to honestly deny that the OT condones genocide, slavery and misogyny. There are too many passage showing Yahweh commanding his people to wipe out this nation and that nation - women and innocent children included! The execution of innocent children is wholly inexcusable.
We also have passages showing Yahweh killing his own people - innocent people - for the sins of their king. There is an account of Yahweh killing Isaelites for David's sin. We also have the Achan account of Yahweh allowing his people to go off to battle the enemy without informing them that they lacked his divine protection and blessing because of the secret sin of someone in their midst - Achan. He only tells them of this after they go off to battle and some of them die! Such a god is not worthy of trust. Such a god allows the innocent to die for the sins of the guilty.
There is also an account in the OT where Yahweh kills some of his own people who were rejoicing at the returning of the Ark of the covenant from an enemy nation. Why did he kill them? Just because they happened to see the sacred chest on its route back to the tabernacle. And Jesus condemned the pharisees for being heartless sticklers for the law!
Apologists come up with all manner of mental gymnastics to ease their cognitive dissonance and defend the clear immorality of their god. They say we don't have all the details; that god's thoughts are higher than ours; that we have to look at the context; that he saw some other evil flaws in the hearts of those he killed and that aren't mentioned in the account - all manner of pitiable, stretched excuses are used to justify their continued worship of a clearly immoral being.
Well let's hypothetically grant the apologists some slack. Let's accept their BS excuses as being valid, just for the sake of argument. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with a god who wrote a book with instructions that seem very, very, very similar to misogyny, but actually aren't. It leaves with a god who who wrote a book that very, very, very much seems like it supports slavery, but it doesn't. It leaves us with a god who wrote a book that very, very, very much seems like it condones genocide, but it doesn't, etc.
What kind of god does that? What kind of god would write such a book that very strongly seems to be condoning immoral and cruel acts - but actually isn't? What kind of god will do that even while knowing that many immoral religionists will abuse such ambiguous texts to persuade their followers to be misogynists, genocidists and enslavers of their fellow man? You see because these texts are so ambiguous it makes it very easy for wicked men to abuse them to get large numbers of otherwise good people, to engage in wicked conduct. These men only have to cite these ambiguous texts together with other texts that say god's thoughts are higher than human thoughts; and trust in god and not your own understanding and boom! You have the perfect recipe to persuade many otherwise good people to commit evil acts while thinking its the right thing to do and suppressing the prodding of their conscience - their "imperfect", "sinful" conscience that must be ignored to obey the will of god as expressed through their evil religious leaders who can so easily and effortlessly cite these ambiguous texts that seem to condone evil acts.
Surely an all-wise and loving god would have foreseen that! Surely an all-wise and loving god would have been more responsible in his portrayal of himself and his standards of righteousness by making it unambiguously clear in both the OT and the NT that he detests slavery, misogyny and genocide. By doing so he would have made it far more difficult for wicked men to abuse the bible for evil ends, thus resulting in less suffering and needless deaths. There would still be wicked people doing wicked things. But clear unequivocal texts condemning such evils and an absence of ambiguous texts that seem to portray Yahweh as commanding and condoning such evils, would have made it extremely difficult for these wicked men to abuse the bible to get people to do evil deeds. The amount of suffering resulting from abuse of the bible would thus be drastically reduced.
In other words, even if we concede to the excuses of apologists, we are still not left with a good god. We are left with a god who has proven himself to be a grossly irresponsible author who has inspired ambiguous words ripe for abuse by wicked men for the oppression and enslavement of others. So apologists, if you're wrong, your god is an immoral god who commands and condones evil conduct. If you're right, your god is an unwise and grossly irresponsible author, whose irresponsibly ambiguous writings have inspired much suffering and injustice.
