Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God Quotes

“The atheist philosopher of science Michael Ruse says that Dawkins’s arguments are so bad that he’s embarrassed to call himself an atheist.10”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Notice how atheists who believe in real right and wrong make a massive intellectual leap of faith. They believe that somehow moral facts were eternally part of the “furniture” of reality but that from impersonal and valueless slime, human persons possessing rights, dignity, worth, and duties were eventually produced.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“On closer inspection, the hero status accorded to Abraham, Moses and David in the Old Testament (and echoed in the New Testament) is rooted not in their moral perfection but in their uncompromising dedication to the cause of Yahweh and their rugged trust in the promises of God rather than lapsing into the idolatry of many of their contemporaries.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Today, many American Christians seem to mix up church and state. They believe the community of genuine believers in America is the people of God— both in heaven and on earth. But the nation of America isn’t the people of God; we don’t live in a theocracy. The sooner Christians realize this, the sooner the church can make a deeper impact as salt and light in society.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Pride, we know, is an inflated view of ourselves—a false advertising campaign promoting ourselves because we suspect that others won’t accept who we really are.2 Pride is actually a lie about our own identity or achievements. To be proud is to live in a world propped up with falsehoods about ourselves, taking credit where credit isn’t due.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“In the words of human rights scholar Max Stackhouse, “Intellectual honesty demands recognition of the fact that what passes as ‘secular,’ ‘Western’ principles of basic human rights developed nowhere else than out of key strands of the biblically-rooted religion.”9”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Anger isn’t necessarily wrong (Eph. 4:26)—indeed, at times it is virtuous. The never-angered person is morally deficient. The slow-to-anger person is the virtuous one. He’s better able to calm disputes or listen well (Prov. 15:18; 16:32; 19:11; cf. James 1:19), but he also opposes injustice and tyranny.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“God doesn’t want humans to detach themselves from ultimate reality, which only ends up harming us. God’s calling for our worship isn’t a manifestation of pride—of false, overinflated views of himself. The call to worship means inclusion in the life of God. Worship expresses an awareness of God’s—and thus our—proper place in the order of things, and it also transforms us into what we were designed to be.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“S. Lewis had his own misconceptions about this notion of praise and wrote of the lesson he learned: But the most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. . . . The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their game. . . . I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is appointed consummation.7 Lewis realized that praise stems from doing what one can’t help doing—giving utterance to what we regard as supremely valuable: “It is good to sing praises to our God.” Why? “For it is pleasant and praise is becoming” (Ps. 147:1).”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Lewis, C. S. “The Weight of Glory.” In The Weight of Glory and Other”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“But the most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. . . . The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their game. . . . I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is appointed consummation”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“True humility doesn’t deny abilities but rather acknowledges God as the source of these gifts, for which we can’t take credit.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Several years ago my atheist colleague Quentin Smith unceremoniously crowned Stephen Hawking’s argument against God in A Brief History of Time as “the worst atheistic argument in the history of Western thought.”12 With the advent of The God Delusion the time has come, I think, to relieve Hawking of this weighty crown and to recognize Richard Dawkins’ accession to the throne.13 Third, the New Atheists aren’t willing to own up to atrocities committed in the name of atheism by Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mao Zedong, yet they expect Christians to own up to all barbarous acts performed in Jesus’s name. In one debate, Dennett refused to connect Stalin’s brutality and inhumanity with his hard-core atheism. In fact, he claimed that Stalin was a kind of “religious” figure!”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“William Lane Craig, he wrote an essay titled “Dawkins’s Delusion,” which responds to Dawkins’s book The God Delusion. Craig does his best to piece together Dawkins’s argument against God’s existence, which is really “embarrassingly weak.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“He considers them to be both out of their depth and misrepresenters of the Christian faith: “they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“The atheist philosopher of science Michael Ruse says that Dawkins’s arguments are so bad that he’s embarrassed to call himself an atheist.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Rodney Stark puts it this way: “To expect to learn anything about important theological problems from Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett is like expecting to learn about medieval history from someone who had only read Robin Hood.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“chauvinism,”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“a quick check of Dawkins’s documentation reveals a lot more time spent on Google than at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“arguments are a collage of rhetorical barbs that don’t really form a coherent argument.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“The Christian takes strength and comfort in the fact that God suffers with us and even enters into our suffering—particularly in the person of Jesus of Nazareth on the shameful, humiliating cross. Indeed, a God who doesn’t suffer “would make God a demon.” An indifferent God would condemn human beings to indifference as well.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Most Americans are familiar with Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ painting. This picture is commonly found on nursing home walls or memorial cards given out at funeral homes. Sallman’s portrayal is one of an easily caricatured “meek and mild” Jesus. Though perhaps depicting his approachability and kindness toward children, such pictures can often leave us with a lopsided, sentimental impression of Jesus. No, the real Jesus was not only a friend of sinners and a welcomer of children; he was also a radical, a controversialist, a convicting and even frightening character. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5). The Head of Christ is a far cry from the temple-clearing, storm-calming Jesus, who evokes sometimes troubled, sometimes terrified responses: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” (Mark 4:41).7”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“You've probably heard the complaint, “Jesus never said anything about the wrongness of slavery." Not so! Jesus explicitly opposed every form of oppression. Citing Isaiah 61:1, Jesus clearly described his mission: "to proclaim release to the captives, ... to set free those who are oppressed" (Luke 4:18). This, then, would mean Rome's oppression and its institutionalizing slavery. Now, Jesus didn't create an economic reform plan for Israel, but he addressed Life in the Ancient Near East and in Israel heart attitudes of greed, envy, contentment, and generosity to undermine oppressive economic social structures. Likewise, New Testament writers often addressed the underlying attitudes regarding slavery. How? By commanding Christian masters to call their slaves “brother" or "sister" and to show them compassion, justice, and patience. No longer did being a master mean privilege and status but rather responsibility and service. By doing so, the worm was already in the wood for altering the social structures.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Israel’s story involves a number of stages or contexts.13
Stage #1: Ancestral wandering clan (mishpachah): Genesis 10:31–32 Stage #2: Theocratic people/nation (‘am, goy): Genesis 12:2; Exodus 1:9; 3:7; Judges”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Divine jealousy should be seen as God’s willing the best for his creatures. C. S. Lewis’s insightful perspective puts divine jealousy and human idolatry into proper perspective: If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.11”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“This important theme of Abraham’s deep trust in God’s promise and faithfulness helped shape Israel’s own self-understanding and identity. So it’s not surprising to hear Moses’s words to Israel at Sinai: “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test [the Hebrew verb is nasah] you, and in order that the fear [yir’ah] of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin” (Exod. 20:20). These two key verbs link back to Genesis 22. Abraham was tested by God (Gen. 22:1) and through this ordeal demonstrated his fear of God (v. 12). Abraham’s obedience is intended to serve as a model for Israel and to inspire Israel’s obedience and solidify their relationship with (“fear of”) God.5”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Old Testament ethics is one hot topic, and it creates all kinds of reactions— from bewilderment and confusion to anger and outpourings of hostility. I’ve sensed the need for an accessible, less-lengthy book on this topic. Though I’ve done scattered writing on Old Testament ethics in various books and articles, I wanted not only to expand on these themes but also to add a good deal of new material. In this case, I’m killing two birds with one stone—not only tackling a tough subject but also using the New Atheism movement as a springboard for discussion.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“need”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Tackling Old Testament ethics is a challenge. Besides a lot of territory to cover, the ancient Near East seems so strange and even otherworldly! We need a good bit of background discussion to help make better sense of this world and of certain Old Testament texts.”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God

“Shall”
― Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God