Uncomfortable Truths | Reasons I Doubt

Introduction

The Bible contains numerous passages that present theological difficulties and ethical challenges. These verses and stories are often downplayed, rationalized, or simply ignored in religious settings, yet they represent significant obstacles to understanding the biblical God as consistently moral and benevolent.

This page examines several examples where biblical texts explicitly attribute disturbing actions to God, presenting them without theological filtering to allow honest assessment of their implications.

God Creates Disability

Exodus 4:11

Then the LORD said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?"

God claims responsibility for creating people with disabilities, directly stating that he is the one who "makes" people mute, deaf, or blind. This does not fit with the common position that disabilities are a result of the fallen world or sin.

God Creates Evil

Isaiah 45:7

"I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things."

The Hebrew word translated as "calamity" here is "ra" (רָע), which is the standard Hebrew word for "evil." Many translations soften this to "calamity" or "disaster," but the same word is used throughout the Old Testament to describe moral evil. Even if the word should not be translated as "evil", God still causes calamity and disaster.

God Commands Child Sacrifice

Ezekiel 20:25-26

"Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, and I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the LORD."

This passage states that God deliberately gave the Israelites bad laws, including laws requiring child sacrifice. This contradicts the usual explanation that child sacrifice was solely a pagan practice that God condemned.

God Sends Delusion

2 Thessalonians 2:11-12

"Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

This passage explicitly states that God actively sends delusion to people who have rejected the truth, causing them to believe falsehood so that they will be condemned. This implies that God deliberately prevents certain people from believing the truth, raising significant questions about free will and divine justice.

1 Kings 22:23

"Now therefore behold, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the LORD has declared disaster for you."

Here, God is portrayed as deliberately sending a "lying spirit" to deceive the prophets of King Ahab, leading him to his death. This passage shows God actively using deception as a tool of judgment.

God Creates People for Destruction

Romans 9:21-23

"Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory."

The potter analogy implies that humans have no more choice in their destiny than clay has in becoming a particular vessel.

Proverbs 16:4

"The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble."

This verse states that God created wicked people specifically for "the day of trouble" (judgment), suggesting that their wickedness and ultimate punishment were part of God's design from the beginning.

God Commands Genocide

1 Samuel 15:3

"Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

This command from God explicitly orders the killing of infants and children as part of a divinely-mandated genocide. The text presents no moral ambiguity or reluctance about this command; it is presented as a direct order from God.

Deuteronomy 20:16-17

"But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded."

This passage commands the complete annihilation of entire people groups, including non-combatants. The text presents this genocide as a divine command, not as hyperbole or as the misguided actions of zealous followers.

God Permits Cannibalism

Leviticus 26:29

"You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters."

This verse appears in a list of curses God promises to bring upon Israel if they disobey him. God explicitly states that he will cause conditions so severe that parents will be driven to cannibalize their own children.

Jeremiah 19:9

"And I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them."

This passage is even more direct, with God explicitly stating "I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters." This is not presented as merely allowing terrible circumstances, but as God actively causing parents to eat their children as punishment.

Conclusion

These passages raise serious questions about the idea of a good and fair God. While some try to explain these texts in a more comforting way, a straightforward reading shows a God whose actions can seem morally troubling.