Atheist: “…have you forgotten that most of the “murder, rape, genocide, incest, babies being ripped from wombs, decapitations, and much more material for nightmares” were perpatrated by those people who were following God’s instructions? It was the Hebrews who did these things to people who just happened to live in a land that the Hebrews believed their God promised to them! Or, they did it to people who were simply raised to believe in other gods, never given the opportunity to hear the “good news”! That sounds absolutely NOTHING like a “morally perfect and utterly holy God” to me or any other sane person!”

Daniel:  You really need to sit down and separate out people’s wicked deeds and God’s righteous judgement.

God never told anyone to rape or rip babies from wombs. Justice is not murder.

God is the Creator and He can do what ever He wants to do with His creation. The Human heart is utterly and desperately wicked.

The Israelites were God’s sword of judgement against the evil people living in Canaan when He brought the Hebrew nation out of Egypt. Did God tell them to wipe out complete groups of people at times? Yes, He did. They were to be completely destroyed for their terrible evil. Their women were just as evil as the men. Their children were being taught to commit the same acts of evil as their parents. Plus, God exists outside time, knows all possible outcomes for every choice, and sees people’s entire lives. He is just to destroy people at any age because He knows the evil that they will commit if they were to live longer.

For example, if you had an infestation of Brown Recluse spiders (Fiddle Backs) in your house, you would call the exterminator to wipe them out including the males, females, and baby spiders. Same with roaches, flees, or mosquitoes etc. You know what would happen if you allowed the infestation to continue. I’m not comparing people to bugs, I want you to see that you commit genocide too.

God had prophets even before the time of the Israeli nation. Melchizedek was a High Priest in Jerusalem during the time of Abraham. Observing how God does things in the Bible, I’m sure that God had his prophets preaching repentance to the Canaanites before the nation of Israel came in as God’s judgement against them. God gave them over 400 years to turn away from their wickedness. After that time their iniquity was complete and God’s judgement fell upon them (Genesis 15:12-14).

As to incest, God declared laws prohibiting incest with immediate family during the time of Moses (Leviticus 18). Speculating, at that time the deteriorating human genome was probably at a point where it would introduce more and more genetic issues. But really, since genetics proves we are descended from one man and one woman, everyone is related.