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Many argue, particularly atheists, that God comes across as a kind of tyrant…

• Tyrant: A cruel and oppressive ruler. Oxford Dictionary
• If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. Robert Green Ingersoll
• If there is a God, he is a malign thug. Mark Twain
• If there is a god, he sure hates people. Kurt Vonnegut
• The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth. Mikhail Bakunin
• What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted. Oliver Cromwell
• You can cite a hundred references to show that the biblical God is a bloodthirsty tyrant, but if they can dig up two or three verses that say “God is love” they will claim that you are taking things out of context! Dan Barker
• A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was a tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect, he becomes a being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all‐knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who make everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism that rejects such a God is amply justified. Karen Armstrong

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…particularly the God of the old testament

• The God of the Old Testament is the depiction of evil. Joni Mitchell
• Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy. Joseph Campbell
• I read the book of Job last night, I don’t think God comes out well in it. Virginia Woolf
• God, so atrocious in the Old Testament, so attractive in the New–the Jekyl and Hyde of sacred romance. Mark Twain
• Burn? Smite? Punish? Why is your god so intolerant? So jealous? Why must there be only one god? Why is there not room for many? Brom
• Both God’s love and God’s wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new, from the Old Testament to the New. A. Carson
• The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization. Robert Anton Wilson
• There is not the slightest question but that the God of the Old Testament is a jealous, vengeful God, inflicting not only on the sinful pagans but even on his Chosen People fire, lighting, hideous plagues and diseases, brimstone, and other curses. Steve Allen
• There is no book which tells of a more infamous monster than the Old Testament, with its Jehovah of murder and cruelty and revenge, unless it be the New Testament, which arms its God with hell, and extends his outrages throughout all eternity! Helen H. Gardener
• The misfortunes which God is represented in the book of Job as allowing Satan to inflict on Job, merely to test his faith, are indications, if not of positive malevolence, at least of a suspicious and ruthless insecurity, which is characteristic more of a tyrant than of a wholly powerful and benevolent deity. J. Ayer
• Old Testament, is really one of the most wickedest books you’ll ever come across. God is an insecure, rage-filled hybrid of Bobby Knight and Suge Knight. He’s got these anger issues that you can’t believe. He’s like John McCain if McCain could fart hail. He’s pro-slavery, he’s pro-polygamy, he’s homophobic, he’ll kill you for masturbating. Bill Maher
• I think our mental picture of God is the most important fact about our life. All other things being equal, the beauty of our life won’t outrun the beauty of our vision of God. Unfortunately, the God that many Christians envision is not completely Christ-like, but is rather influenced by the violent depictions of God in the Old Testament. Gregory A. Boyd
• The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Richard Dawkins
• Many who are convinced that God is non-violent simply dismiss the Old Testament accounts of God commanding or engaging in violence. I don’t consider this to be a viable option, for Jesus treats the whole Old Testament as the inspired Word of God. My cross-centered interpretation of these violent portraits allows believers to affirm that God is non-violent while also affirming that all Scripture is “God-breathed.”. Gregory A. Boyd
• I don’t expect Christians to see God as a metaphor, but that’s what he is. Perhaps it might be clearer to call him a character in fiction, and a very interesting one too: one of the greatest and most complex villains of all – savage, petty, boastful and jealous, and yet capable of moments of tenderness and extremes of arbitrary affection – for David, for example. But he’s not real, any more than Hamlet or Mr Pickwick are real. They are real in the context of their stories, but you won’t find them in the phone book. ~ Philip Pullman
• Theologians and philosophers, who make God the creator of Nature and the architect of the Universe, reveal Him to us as an illogical and unbalanced Being. They declare He is benevolent because they are afraid of Him, but they are forced to admit the truth that His ways are vicious and beyond understanding. They attribute a malignity to Him seldom to be found in any human being. And that is how they get human beings to worship Him. For our miserable species would never lavish worship on a just and benevolent God from whom they had nothing to fear. Anatole France
• Initially, the God of the Old Testament might seem overwhelming and domineering to you, or tyrannical, or perhaps even evil, which is good. It is the first telling that God is indeed God, by sheer definition, and not some ear-tickling fairy by which one in his depravity is guaranteed to find another form of stale romanticism or love at first sight. For such a first impression as the latter would be problematic to the essence of Christianity. Therefore the Christians are right in saying that the nature of imperfect men cannot ultimately co-exist with the nature of a perfect God; and that the hope of each man is now desperately found in God’s sending of Christ. Criss Jami
• The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the omnipotent father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god’s purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family home. Gore Vidal

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God comes across as cruel and unjust at times

• When someone like myself points out the rather obvious and compelling evidence that God is cruel and unjust, because he visits suffering on innocent people of a scope and scale that would embarrass the most ambitious psychopath, we’re told that? God is mysterious. Sam Harris
• God works in mysterious, inefficient, and breathtakingly cruel ways. Penn Jillette
• The Christian god is a being of terrific character – cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust. Thomas Jefferson
• God is either cruel or incompetent. Woody Allen
• God has to be temporarily cruel in order to be permanently kind. Meher Baba
• The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster cruel vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging three headed beast like god one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes fools and hypocrites. Thomas Jefferson
• Come to think of it, maybe God is a He after all, because only a cruel force would create something this beautiful and make it inaccessible to most people. Raquel Cepeda
• Suppose the hellfire of the orthodox really existed! We have no assurance that it does not! It seems incredible, but many incredible things are true. We do not know that God is not as cruel as a Spanish inquisitor. Suppose, then, He is! If, after Death, we wicked ones were shovelled into a furnace of fire- we should have to burn. There would be no redress. It would simply be the Divine Order of things. It is outrageous that we should be so helpless and so dependent on any one- even God. N.P. Barbellion
• God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live. Stephen King
• You said ‘God is cruel’ the way a person who’s lived his whole life on Tahiti might say ‘Snow is cold’. You knew, but you didn’t understand.” He stepped close to David and put his palms on the boy’s cold cheeks. “Do you know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel? Stephen King
• It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. Thomas Paine
• Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant. Edward Gibbon
• The gods are cruel not because they make us work. They are cruel because they allow us to hope. Robert Jackson Bennett
• I rejected the God that was portrayed as masculine and judgmental and cruel at times. The concept of us bring not worthy to receive him is something I used to say every Sunday in church, and eventually I just couldn’t say it with any conviction. Alanis Morissette
• Throw away thy rod, throw away thy wrath; O my God, take the gentle path. George Herbert

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God comes across as immoral at times

• The God of the Bible is a moral monstrosity. Henry Ward Beecher
• The idea that there is a God who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality. Robert Green Ingersoll

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God comes across as judgemental…

• Every drop of sweat and every breath we take in life, if not taken for the sake of Allah, will lead to regret and sorrow on the Day of Judgment Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya
• God’s judgement begins to fall on the Earth. Greg Laurie
• We might say God’s wrath is His justice in action, rendering to everyone his just due, which, because of our sin is always judgment. Jerry Bridges

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…and punitive…

• God is the creditor of that punishment which is due upon Sin; and He has the right of abating, as well as the right of exacting. Benjamin Whichcote
• God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. Because God hates sin, He has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that’s not an appealing standard. But to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards. Francis Chan
• The magnitude of the punishment matches the magnitude of the sin. Thomas Aquinas
• God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. Because God hates sin, He has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that’s not an appealing standard. But to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards. Francis Chan
• God shows us in Christ what he would have to do if he were to punish us for our sins. Oliver D. Crisp
• God will certainly reward virtue and punish vice, either here or hereafter. Benjamin Franklin
• Hell is not evil; it’s a place where evil gets punished. Hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. But Hell is morally good, because a good God must punish evil. Randy Alcorn
• I imagine the whole universe moving into hell because of licking God’s candy. Michael Bassey
• When the anger of the gods is incurred, wealth or power only bring more devastating punishment. Euripides
• I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him. Albert Einstein
• If God has nothing better to do than punish schoolgirls for a bit of tomfoolery, then I’ve no use for God. Libba Bray
• The gods loves to punish whatever is greater than the rest. Herodotus
• Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God. Victor Hugo
• God does not punish directly. His ways are inscrutable. Mahatma Gandhi
• God always punishes us for what we can’t imagine. Stephen King

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…and full of vengeance

• Vengeance: Punishment inflicted or retribution exacted for an injury or wrong. Oxford Dictionary
• Every study of the gods, of everyone’s gods, is a revelation of vengeance towards the innocent. John Irving
• And now, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude… I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked. Alexandre Dumas
• In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance and even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant. Pope John Paul II

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God comes across as possessive and jealous at times

• The Spirit of God is jealous over us; He doesn’t want superficial fellowship, but genuine intimacy. John Bevere
• Every god is a jealous god after the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Julian Jaynes
• God is called jealous, angered, repentant, merciful, and foreknowing. These simply mean that, because He guards the chastity of every soul, He can, in human fashion, be called jealous, although He is not subject to any mental torment. Pope Gregory I
• God is indeed a jealous God. He cannot bear to see, that we had rather not with him, but with each other play. Emily Dickinson
• The Bible says that the the Lord thy God is a jealous God. But if you are omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, and the creator of all that exists, of whom could you possibly be jealous? Charles Templeton
• There’s a great expression that says, “God is a jealous lover,” and it’s a very accurate expression that has nothing to do with whatever you see god or nature as. Ben Lee
• Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Moses
• The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath. Denis Diderot
• Burn? Smite? Punish? Why is your god so intolerant? So jealous? Why must there be only one god? Why is there not room for many? Brom
• Indeed, intolerance is essential only to monotheism; an only God is by nature a jealous God who will not allow another to live. On the other hand, polytheistic gods are naturally tolerant, they live and let live. Arthur Schopenhauer
• The attempt is to kill the false “I”, so that the real “I”, the Lord, will reign. “I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” say the Hebrew scriptures. Swami Vivekananda
• Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image. Arthur Schopenhauer
• You asked for a loving God: you have one… jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes. How this should be, I do not know: it passes reason to explain why any creatures, not to say creatures such as we, should have a value so prodigious in their Creator’s eyes. C. S. Lewis
• I am the Lord your God … you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol.… You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exod. 20:2–5)
• God created us, He created us for His glory, and He created us to have a relationship with Him, and He created us to be all that He desires us to be and He’s jealous of that because He does not want to share that with others. Josh McDowell
• God is called jealous, angered, repentant, merciful, and foreknowing. These simply mean that, because He guards the chastity of every soul, He can, in human fashion, be called jealous, although He is not subject to any mental torment. Pope Gregory I
• Indeed, intolerance is essential only to monotheism; an only God is by nature a jealous God who will not allow another to live. On the other hand, polytheistic gods are naturally tolerant, they live and let live. Arthur Schopenhauer
• Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image. Arthur Schopenhauer
• The Bible says that the the Lord thy God is a jealous God. But if you are omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, and the creator of all that exists, of whom could you possibly be jealous? Charles Templeton
• The god of the church is a jealous god; he cannot live in peace with other gods. Rudolfo Anaya

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Even amongst believers in God, many insist that God should be feared

• Fear God and work hard. David Livingstone
• The fear of God kills all other fears. Hugh Black
• He who fears God fears no man. Leonard Ravenhill
• I fear only God, all praises to Him. Muqtada al Sadr
• I only fear God, and my wife – sometimes. Lech Walesa
• I fear God and respect God and love God. Brett Ratner
• When you fear God you fear nothing else! Oswald Chambers
• The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Solomon
• The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. C. Sproul
• Fear God, yes, but don’t be afraid of Him. A. Spender
• Because I fear God, I have no man to fear. Oliver Cromwell
• He who fears God has nothing else to fear. Charles Spurgeon
• Fear God and you need not fear anyone else. Woodrow Wilson
• All fear is but the notion that God’s love ends. Ann Voskamp
• Fear God, and your enemies will fear you. Benjamin Franklin
• Fear God. Love your neighbor. And shoot ducks. Phil Robertson
• Let us fear God and we shall cease to fear man. Mahatma Gandhi
• I believe in God. I don’t fear man, I fear God. Denzel Washington
• We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. William Gurnall
• We fear circumstances so much because we fear God so little. LeCrae
• We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world. Otto von Bismarck
• I do not believe in God, but I am afraid of Him. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• I fear God and next to God I mostly fear them that fear him not. Saadi
• If a person fears God, she has no reason to fear anything else. Beth Moore
• I fear God the most, but after Him, I fear those who don’t fear Him. Saadi
• As we fear God more completely, we love Him more perfectly. David A. Bednar
• Men love everything but righteousness and fear everything but God. Vance Havner
• The man who fears man falls from the estate of man. Fear God alone. Mahatma Gandhi
• I have learned that if you fear God, you have no one else to fear. Oliver Cromwell
• When we fear God, then we shall fear no man, however high-placed he may be. Mahatma Gandhi
• TO fear God, is one of the first and greatest Duties of his rational Creatures. Charles Inglis
• Henceforth the majesty of God revere; Fear Him, and you have nothing else to fear. Jean Racine
• If you do not fear God, then fear your dreams, because they’re how He talks to you. Tim Lebbon
• Fear God, and where you go men shall think they walk in hallowed cathedrals. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Anything you love more, fear more, serve more, or value more than God is your idol. Adrian Rogers
• It is man’s duty to love and to fear God, even without hope of reward or fear of punishment. Maimonides
• Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith. Benjamin Franklin
• To fear the Lord is to be overwhelmed with wonder before the greatness of God and his love. Timothy Keller
• If we love God, do His will, and fear His judgment more than men’s, we will have self-esteem. Ezra Taft Benson
• You will fear something or someone. The Bible says the wisest way to go about your life is to fear God. Kevin DeYoung
• It is God’s omnipotence, His consuming holiness, and His right to judge that make Him worthy to be feared. David Jeremiah
• There is no sin so prevalent, so insidious, and so deep as the sin of fearing people more than we fear God. Kevin DeYoung
• The fear of God is the death of every other fear; like a mighty lion, it chases all other fears before it. Charles Spurgeon
• It is one thing to fear God as threatening, with a holy reverence, and another to be afraid of the evil threatened. John Owen
• Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. Solomon
• The only God-ordained fear is the fear of God, and if we fear Him, we don’t have to fear anyone or anything else. Mark Batterson
• This fear of the Lord is indeed the beginning of wisdom. This consciousness of sin is the straight pathway to heaven. Joseph Barber Lightfoot
• With fear and trembling we must rely upon God for guidance in the inner depths. This is the sole way to walk according to the spirit. Watchman Nee
• The carnal person fears man, not God. The strong Christian fears God, not man. The weak Christian fears man too much, and God too little. John Flavel
• Wherever the fear of God rules in the heart, it will appear both in works of charity and piety, and neither will excuse us from the other. Matthew Henry
• The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else. Oswald Chambers
• Always have the fear of God in your heart, and remember that God is always with you, everywhere, whether you are walking or sitting. Gennadius of Constantinople
• The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch. Herman Melville
• The person who fears God seeks to live all of life to the glory of God… All the activities of life should be pursued with the aim of glorifying God. Jerry Bridges
• We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man’s terror scares you, turn your thoughts to the wrath of God. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• Children, Fear God; that is to say, have an holy awe upon your minds to avoid that which is evil, and a strict care to embrace and do that which is good. William Penn
• We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man’s terror scares you, turn your thoughts to the wrath of God. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• There will be no true freedom without virtue, no true science without religion, no true industry without the fear of God and love to your fellow citizens. Charles Kingsley
• When you talk about God, the first thing that comes along is not love, it’s fear. You have to fear, and be in awe. You have to be scared. Any religion, it’s like first thing. Ang Lee
• He who bridles the fury of the billows knows also to put a stop to the secret plans of the wicked. Submitting with respect to His holy will, I fear God, and have no other fear. Jean Racine
• The religion I have to love and fear God, believe in Jesus Christ, do all the good to my neighbor, and myself that I can, do as little harm as I can help, and trust on God’s mercy for the rest. Daniel Boone
• When God’s hand is bent to strike, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God ; but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination. John Donne
• It is amazing that we hesitate to talk about the wrath of God, for fear of making sinners feel fearful. The fear they feel this side of the grave will be nothing compared to the fear they feel when they stand before Almighty God. Ray Comfort
• In all thy actions think God sees thee; and in all His actions labor to see Him; that will make thee fear Him; this will move thee to love Him; the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, and the knowledge of God is the perfection of love. Francis Quarles
• Whoever with fear of God corrects and directs a sinner gains virtue for himself, that of opposition to sin. But whoever insults a sinner with rancor and without good will falls, according to a spiritual law, into the same passion with the sinner. Marcus Eremita
• The fear of God illumines the soul, annihilates evil, weakens the passions, drives darkness from the soul and makes it pure. The fear of God is the summit of wisdom. Where it is not you will find nothing good. Whoever does not have the fear of God is open to diabolical falls. Ephrem the Syrian
• God as judge evokes our fear. We obey him out of fear. We live our lives in anticipation of the moment of judgment to come. Just as a mother’s threat-wait until your father gets home-is meant to frighten children into behaving better, the prospect of a final judgment casts it shadow upon our behavior throughout our lives. Flora A. Keshgegian
• When a man walks in the fear of God he knows no fear, even if he were to be surrounded by wicked men. He has the fear of God within him and wears the invincible armor of faith. This makes him strong and able to take on anything, even things which seem difficult or impossible to most people. Such a man is like a giant surrounded by monkeys, or a roaring lion among dogs and foxes. He goes forward trusting in the Lord and the constancy of his will to strike and paralyze his foes. He wields the blazing club of the Word in wisdom. Symeon the New Theologian
• In order to the attaining of all useful knowledge this is most necessary, that we fear God; we are not qualified to profit by the instructions that are given us unless our minds be possessed with a holy reverence of God, and every thought within us be brought into obedience to Him…. As all our knowledge must take rise from the fear of God, so it must tend to it as its perfection and centre. Those know enough who know how to fear God, who are careful in every thing to please Him and fearful of offending Him in any thing; this is the Alpha and Omega of knowledge. Matthew Henry

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Even many believers insist that God is a God of wrath…

• God is so angry. All that power, and so mean with it. Quentin Crisp
• God is not nice. God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake. Abraham Joshua Heschel
• God’s anger is kindled not because we have harmed him but because we have harmed ourselves. Neal A. Maxwell
• A god who is all love, all grace, all mercy, no sovereignty, no justice, no holiness, and no wrath is an idol. C. Sproul
• Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just. Such a God is an idol of your own. J. C. Ryle
• A loving God who has no wrath is no God. He is an idol of our own making as much as if we carved Him out of stone. C. Sproul
• The wrath of God lies sleeping. It was hid a million years before men were and only men have the power to wake it. Cormac McCarthy
• A God without wrath brought human beings without sin into a kingdom without judgment through ministrations of a Christ without a cross. H. Richard Niebuhr
• Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin; he is bound to destroy sin. The only vengeance worth having on sin is to make the sinner himself its executioner. George MacDonald
• The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. Jonathan Edwards
• Anger and the like are attributed to God on account of a similitude of effect. Thus, because to punish is properly the act of an angry man, God’s punishment is metaphorically spoken of as His anger. Thomas Aquinas
• The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider… abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire. Jonathan Edwards
• There is in St. Paul’s definite, soul-stirring assertion of the wrath of God and the reality of the judgment at hand, a truth more profound than any that underlies our somewhat enfeebled ideas of universal benevolence and the determined progress of the race. Roland Allen
• The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and His arrows made ready upon the string. Justice points the arrow at your heart and strings the bow. It is nothing but the mere pleasure of God (and that of an angry God without any promise or obligation at all) that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Jonathan Edwards
• The cliché, God hates the sin but love the sinner, is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty Psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, His wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin (Romans 1:18ff) and on the sinner (John 3:36). D. A. Carson
• The cliché, God hates the sin but love the sinner, is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty Psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, His wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin (Romans 1:18ff) and on the sinner (John 3:36). A. Carson
• You may say, ‘God doesn’t hate anybody. God is love.’ No, my friend. You need to understand something. Jesus Christ taught, the prophets taught, the apostles taught this: that apart from the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord the only thing left for you is the wrath, the fierce anger of God because of your rebellion and your sin. Paul Washer
• Like Muslims we assume that God will judge us on balance.” If our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds, we will arrive safely in heaven. But, alas, if our evil deeds outweigh our good ones, we will suffer the wrath of God in hell. We may be “marred” by sin but in no wise devastated by it. We still have the ability to balance our sins with our own righteousness. This is the most monstrous lie of all. R. C. Sproul

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…that God has an almost psychotic hatred of wrong-doing (sin)…

• God hates sin, He has to punish those guilty of sin. Maybe that’s not an appealing standard. But to put it bluntly, when you get your own universe, you can make your own standards. Francis Chan
• Sin! Sin! Thou art a hateful and horrible thing, that abominable thing which God hates. Charles Spurgeon
• Even though God loves us, we still have a problem: sin. It’s important for us to learn how to confront sin and overcome it, because while God loves sinners, He hates sin. And He hates it because of what it does to us and how it keeps us from the abundant life Jesus died to give us. Joyce Meyer
• “Sin! Sin! Thou art a hateful and horrible thing, that abominable thing which God hates. Thomas Guthrie
• God never excuses sin. And He is always consistent with that ethic. Whenever we start to question whether God really hates sin, we have only to think of the cross, where His Son was tortured, mocked, and beaten because of sin. Our sin. Francis Chan
• To be a Christian is to realize that in your sin, you were separated from God’s presence, and you deserved nothing but God’s wrath. David Platt

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…that sinners get what they deserve

• If there be a man before me who says that the wrath of God is too heavy a punishment for his little sin, I ask him, if the sin be little, why does he not give it up? Charles Spurgeon
• He who loveth God with all his heart feareth not death, nor punishment, nor judgment, nor hell, because perfect love giveth sure access to God. But he who still delighteth in sin, no marvel if he is afraid of death and judgment. Thomas a Kempis
• Sin and death and suffering and war and poverty are not natural—they are the devastating results of our rebellion against God. We long for a return to Paradise—a perfect world, without the corruption of sin, where God walks with us and talks with us in the cool of the day. Randy Alcorn
• The essence of God’s action in wrath is to give people what they choose, in all its implications. I. Packer
• Men are not in hell because God is angry with them. They are in wrath and darkness because they have done to the light , which infinitely flows forth from God , as that man does to the light who puts out his own eyes . William Law
• You regard it as impossible that a sinner should be struck down by the wrath of God! I do not! Agatha Christie

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God mellows a bit in the new testament

• One of the interesting things to me is that God grows throughout the Old Testament. He evolves, sort of matures, and becomes kinder. A. J. Jacobs
• The violent portraits of God in Scripture have become one of the biggest obstacles to believers coming to faith. When we can show how these portraits bear witness not to a violent God, but to the non-violent loving God revealed on Calvary, these obstacles to believing in the inspiration of Scripture become one of the most compelling reasons for believing in the inspiration of Scripture. Gregory A. Boyd
• Which God is the forgiving one, exactly? Old Testament, where He got His rocks off by smiting? Or New Testament, once Our Heavenly Father got Prozac? Thomm Quackenbush

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Still, even in the new testament, God’s wrath required the sacrifice of his innocent son…

• Jesus did not die just to give us peace and a purpose in life; he died to save us from the wrath of God. Jerry Bridges
• It’s a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom and knowledge, power, couldn’t think of a better way to forgive us our sins than to come down to Earth in his alter ego as his son and have himself hideously tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself. Richard Dawkins
• And this is why Jesus came: to endure the holy wrath of God due us. David Platt
• People say the cross is a sign of how much man is worth. That’s not true. The cross is a sign of how depraved we really are, that it took the death of God’s own Son. The only thing that could save a people like us was the death of God’s own Son under the wrath of His own Father paying the price, rising again from the dead. Powerful to say, this is the Gospel of Jesus. Paul Washer
• Your greatest need is not a spouse. Your greatest need is to be delivered from the wrath of God – and that has already been accomplished for you through the death and resurrection of Christ. So why doubt that God will provide a much, much lesser need? Trust His sovereignty, trust His wisdom, trust His love. C. J. Mahaney
• Christ exhausted the cup of God’s wrath. For all who trust in Him there is nothing more in the cup. It is empty. Jerry Bridges
• Christ exposed Himself not only to the unbridled hostility of angry men, but, more significantly, to the unmitigated wrath of God. R. C. Sproul
• Christmas: the Son of God expressing the love of God to save us from the wrath of God so we could enjoy the presence of God. John Piper
• God pours out love upon all with a lavish hand — but He reserves vengeance for His very own. Mark Twain
• If I was told to sacrifice something to prove my devotion to God, if I was told to do what all monotheists are told to do and admire the man who said ‘Yes I’ll gut my kid to show my love of God.’ Christopher Hitchens
• The most violent expression of God’s wrath and justice is seen in the Cross. If ever a person had room to complain for injustice, it was Jesus. He was the only innocent man ever to be punished by God. If we stagger at the wrath of God, let us stagger at the Cross. Here is where our astonishment should be focused. C. Sproul
• The willingness of God to sacrifice his Son to reconcile us to himself is a demonstration of his love for us. Robert Jeffress
• The wisdom of God devised a way for the love of God to deliver sinners from the wrath of God while not compromising the righteousness of God. John Piper

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…requiring the spilling of innocent blood to placate his wrath and thus become approachable

• God needs blood to fix the universe, but only his own blood had enough magical power to do it, so he gave himself a body and then killed it. Richard Carrier
• The blood of Christ stands not simply for the sting of sin on God but the scourge of God on sin, not simply for God’s sorrow over sin, but for God’s wrath on sin. Peter Forsyth
• The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, Me too. Rob Bell
• The god who exacts the last drop of blood from his Son so that his just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased, is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ. And if he is not the God of Jesus, he does not exist. Brennan Manning
• The god who exacts the last drop of blood from his Son so that his just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased, is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ. And if he is not the God of Jesus, he does not exist. Brennan Manning
• All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood. Zora Neale Hurston
• As God is propitiated by the blood of a hundred bulls, so also is he by the smallest offering of incense. Ovid
• I am definitely questioning the atonement and trying to discover how we can see it in a different way. We’ve got this image of God who needs some sort of flesh, some sort of blood, that needs some sort of vengeance to pay for sin. Jay Bakker

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Some believers argue God creates intentional suffering at time

• God uses suffering to purge sin from our lives, strengthen our commitment to Him, force us to depend on grace, bind us together with other believers, produce discernment, foster sensitivity, discipline our minds, spend our time wisely, stretch our hope, cause us to know Christ better, make us long for truth, lead us to repentance of sin, teach us to give thanks in time of sorrow, increase faith, and strengthen character. Joni Eareckson Tada

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Some believers argue for a kind of two-faced God, half love and half wrath…

• God, so atrocious in the Old Testament, so attractive in the New–the Jekyl and Hyde of sacred romance. Mark Twain
• Strange a God who mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness, then invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none Himself; who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon Himself; and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship Him! Mark Twain
• Eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions god’s infinite love. Bill Hicks
• God is cruel and not cruel. He is all being and not being at the same time. Hence He is all contradictions. Nature also is nothing but a mass of contradictions. Swami Vivekananda

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…arguing that a God of wrath is compatible with a God of love

• Fear of God and love for God coexist happily in the heart of people who are rightly related to Him. Max Anders
• Godly fear is loving and trusting in Him. As we fear God more completely, we love Him more perfectly. And perfect love casteth out all fear. David A. Bednar
• Let God’s distinguishing love to you be a motive to you to fear Him greatly. John Bunyan
• To know God is to fear Him. And this fear is to love Him as He deserves to be loved. Aiden Wilson Tozer
• We must fear God out of love, not love Him out of fear. Saint Francis de Sales
• A god of less wrath than the God of the Bible is necessarily a god of less love. His anger is a product of his love. Timothy Keller
• God is ever before my eyes. I realize his omnipotence and I fear His anger; but I also recognize his compassion, and His tenderness towards His creatures. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Hosea 2:1–13, which describes God as a dominating and abusive, yet always forgiving and romancing God. Carolyn Jane Bohler
• If by any effort of reason I could conceive how God, Who shows so much anger and iniquity, could be merciful and just, there would be no need of faith. Martin Luther
• We deserve punishment and get forgiveness; we deserve God’s wrath and get God’s love. Philip Yancey
• Do you wish to see God’s love? Look at the cross. Do you wish to see God’s wrath? Look at the cross. A. Carson

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Many believers argue God’s wrath is entirely reasonable

• We might say God’s wrath is His justice in action, rendering to everyone his just due, which, because of our sin is always judgment. Jerry Bridges
• The wrath of God is a way of saying that I have been living in a way that is contrary to the love that is God. Anyone who begins to live and grow away from God, who lives away from what is good, is turning his life toward wrath. Pope Benedict XVI
• The wrath of God pales beside that of man. Félix J. Palma
• We speak, indeed, of the wrath of God. We do not, however, assert that it indicates any passion on His part, but that it is something which is assumed in order to discipline by stern means those sinners who have committed many and grievous sins. Origen
• God’s blessing is not always to be distinguished from His wrath. Joyce Carol Oates
• God’s love is so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His commandments because He knows that only through obedience to His laws can we become perfect, as He is. For this reason, God’s anger and His wrath are not a contradiction of His love but an evidence of His love. Every parent knows that you can love a child totally and completely while still being creatively angry and disappointed at that child’s self-defeating behavior. Dallin H. Oaks
• God’s wrath is not an implacable, blind rage. However emotional it may be, it is an entirely reasonable and willed response to offenses against his holiness. But his love . . . wells up amidst his perfections and is not generated by the loveliness of the loved. Thus there is nothing intrinsically impossible about wrath and love being directed toward the same individual or people at the same time. God in his perfections must be wrathful against his rebel image-bearers, for they have offended him; God in his perfections must be loving toward his rebel image-bearers, for he is that kind of God A. Carson
• God’s wrath is his righteousness reacting against unrighteousness. J. I. Packer
• It is no strain of metaphor to say that the love of God and the wrath of God are the same thing, described from opposite points of view. How we shall experience it depends upon the way we shall come up against it: God does not change; it is man’s moral state that changes. The wrath of God is a figure of speech to denote God’s unchanging opposition to sin; it is His righteous love operating to destroy evil. It is not evil that will have the last word, but good; not sorrow, but joy; not hate, but love. Reginald John Campbell
• That which is called God’s wrath, and anger, is a means of discipline. Origen
• The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men – Rom. 1:18
• When you and I realize that we are morally evil, dead in sin and deserving of God’s wrath with no way out on our own, we begin to discover our desperation for Christ. David Platt
• Hell is the wrath of God–His hate of sin. Philip James Bailey

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…that God’s wrath is an extension of God’s holiness

• Wrath, unlike love, is not one of the intrinsic perfections of God. Rather, it is a function of God’s holiness against sin. Where there is no sin, there is no wrath-but there will always be love in God. Where God in His holiness confronts His image-bearers in their rebellion, there must be wrath, or God is not the jealous God He claims to be, and His holiness is impugned. The price of diluting God’s wrath is diminishing God’s holiness. A. Carson
• Scripture does not say that God is ‘love, love, love’ or that He is ‘wrath, wrath, wrath,’ but that He is ‘holy, holy, holy.’ C. Sproul

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Many believers argue a fear of God is good because it keeps us on the straight and narrow

• I think Gods wrath and purgatory are the only things keeping me on the straight and narrow. I like the idea of purgatory. Its like a cosmic do-over. Katee Sackhoff
• We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man’s terror scares you, turn your thoughts to the wrath of God. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• When men don’t fear god, they give themselves to evil Ray Comfort
• When men no longer fear God, they transgress His laws without hesitation. The fear of consequences is no deterrent when the fear of God is gone. Aiden Wilson Tozer
• I think Gods wrath and purgatory are the only things keeping me on the straight and narrow. I like the idea of purgatory. Its like a cosmic do-over. Katee Sackhoff
• When men don’t fear god, they give themselves to evil Ray Comfort

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Some argue a God of wrath and a God of love are not compatible

• I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being. Dan Barker
• I had always been told the bible was a book about love, but I couldn’t find enough love in it to fill a salt shaker. God is not love in the bible; God is vengeance. There is no other book between whose covers life is so cheap. Ruth Hurmence Green

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Some also argue that fear and love are not compatible

• Everything that’s love can’t be fear, and everything that’s fear can’t be love. You’re either in one or the other. Almost every time you turn on the television set, you’re in fear. You get aligned with fear. When you’re aligned with fear, instead of with God-consciousness, you just keep attracting more fear-more stuff to be afraid of, more shortages, revenge, anger, wars, killing, and disease. Wayne Dyer
• Fear corrodes our confidence in God’s goodness. Max Lucado
• Free men freely work: Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man … living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money. George Carlin
• There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear. Fear is a painful emotion that arises at the thought that we may be harmed or made to suffer. As long as we must trust for survival to our ability to out look or out maneuver the enemy, we have every good reason to be afraid. Fear is torment. To know that love is of God and to enter into the secret place leaning upon the arm of the Beloved, this and only this can cast out fear. Aiden Wilson Tozer

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The portrayal of God as tyrant causes many to dislike the very idea of God

• He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him. George Orwell
• I have a sense that God is unfair and preferentially punishes his weak, his dumb, his fat, his lazy. I believe he takes more pleasure in his perfect creatures, and cheers them on like a brainless dad as they run roughshod over the rest of us. He gives us a need for love, and no way to get any. He gives us a desire to be liked, and personal attributes that make us utterly unlikable. Having placed his flawed and needy children in a world of exacting specifications, he deducts the difference between what we have and what we need from our hearts and our self-esteem and our mental health. George Saunders
• If God kills, lies, cheats, discriminates, and otherwise behaves in a manner that puts the Mafia to shame, that’s okay, he’s God. He can do whatever he wants. Anyone who adheres to this philosophy has had his sense of morality, decency, justice and humaneness warped beyond recognition by the very book that is supposedly preaching the opposite. Dennis McKinsey
• It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship, or respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and contempt… In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal… This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor. Robert Green Ingersoll
• Look, I don’t know whether God exists. I don’t know that. And I tell you one thing, I am not frightened of my beliefs. If there is a God who is threatening me with damnation because I don’t believe in Him, so be it. I’ve lived my life in conscience, and I will suffer damnation willingly in conscience against a tyrannical God who would damn me because, on the basis of the intelligence He gave me, I have come to a conclusion doubting His existence, and I will continue to be a skeptic all of my life. Alan Dershowitz
• God himself has no right to be a tyrant. William Godwin
• I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, I hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. Thomas Nagel

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Belief in a God as tyrant can be used to justify tyranny

• The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God. Stendhal
• The law is an expression of God ‘s holy will and as such must be honored and loved,” said the preacher piously. “Rubbish,” said the Master. “The law is a necessary evil and as such must be cut down to the barest minimum. Show me a lover of the law and I will show you a muttonheaded tyrant . Anthony de Mello
• There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. Robert Green Ingersoll

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Belief in God as tyrant stops us knowing God

• A fear-stricken person can never know God. Mahatma Gandhi
• It is important to realize that that which is of God brings peace, and that which is not of God brings fear. David R. Hawkins

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Belief in God as tyrant has done great harm as we become like the God we worship

• If a man really believes that God once upheld slavery; that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that he believed in polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion’s sake; that he will punish forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the effect in my judgment will be bad. It always has been bad. This belief built the dungeons of the Inquisition. This belief made the Puritan murder the Quaker. Robert Green Ingersoll
• It is of course evident that everything in one’s religious life depends upon the sort of God one worships. The character of the worshiper must necessarily be molded by the character of the object worshipped. If it is a cruel and revengeful God, or a selfish and unjust God, the worshiper will be cruel, and revengeful, and selfish, and unjust, also.  If it is a loving, tender, forgiving, unselfish God, the worshiper will be loving, and tender, and forgiving, and unselfish, as well.  Hannah Whitall Smith
• It is of course evident that everything in one’s religious life depends upon the sort of God one worships. The character of the worshiper must necessarily be molded by the character of the object worshipped. If it is a cruel and revengeful God, or a selfish and unjust God, the worshiper will be cruel, and revengeful, and selfish, and unjust, also. If it is a loving, tender, forgiving, unselfish God, the worshiper will be loving, and tender, and forgiving, and unselfish, as well. Hannah Whitall Smith
• Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man. Thomas Paine
• If a man really believes that God once upheld slavery; that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that he believed in polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion’s sake; that he will punish forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the effect in my judgment will be bad. It always has been bad. This belief built the dungeons of the Inquisition. This belief made the Puritan murder the Quaker. Robert Green Ingersoll

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Belief in a cruel God can make us cruel

• Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man. Thomas Paine
• The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath. Denis Diderot
• What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God. Somerset Maugham
• Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case. Bertrand Russell
• The Christian religion teaches us to imitate a God that is cruel, insidious, jealous, and implacable in his wrath. Denis Diderot
• The twin conceptions of sin and vindictive punishment seem to be at the root of much that is most vigorous, both in religion and politics. I cannot believe, as some psycho-analysts do, that the feeling of sin is innate, though I believe it to be a product of very early infancy. I think that, if this feeling could be eradicated, the amount of cruelty in the world would be very greatly diminished. Bertrand Russell
• It is of course evident that everything in one’s religious life depends upon the sort of God one worships. The character of the worshiper must necessarily be molded by the character of the object worshipped. If it is a cruel and revengeful God, or a selfish and unjust God, the worshiper will be cruel, and revengeful, and selfish, and unjust, also. If it is a loving, tender, forgiving, unselfish God, the worshiper will be loving, and tender, and forgiving, and unselfish, as well.  Hannah Whitall Smith

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Belief in a punitive God can make us punitive

• We are often harsher judges than God himself. Judah Smith
• God will punish the wicked. And before He does, we will. John Green
• God doesn’t really need to punish us, Miss Barton. We’re so busy punishing ourselves. Agatha Christie
• If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you. Genghis Khan
• God is not necessary to create culpability, or to punish. Our fellow men are enough for that, helped by ourselves. Albert Camus
• Punishing gods make it more likely that we will punish one another, and create a quid-pro-quo world. If you do justly by me, I’ll do justly by you. Wrong me, however, and like my God, I’ll punish you. Doug Hammack
• With a great deal of effort, many have been able to alter negative habits, often for extended periods of time. However, this approach carries with it some really awful side effects. When our approach to ourselves is a punitive one, it isn’t long before we begin to feel and act punitively toward one another. Ours becomes a brittle and dogmatic intolerance of one another’s failures. A sin-centric religion, a sin-centric spirituality, makes our focus the battle with our own sin, but extends to battling one another’s sin. Doug Hammack
• God will punish the wicked. And before He does, we will. John Green
• If, it was natural to reason, God punishes men with eternal torment, it is surely lawful for men to use doses of it in a good cause. Joseph McCabe (on the history of torture)

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Belief in God as tyrant hardens us

• I am certain that to preach the wrath of God with a hard heart, a cold lip, a tearless eye, and an unfeeling spirit is to harden men, not benefit them. Charles Spurgeon
• If a man wishes to have God recognized in the constitution of our country, let him read the history of the Inquisition, and let him remember that hundreds of millions of men, women, and children have been sacrificed to placate the wrath, or win the approbation of this god. Robert Green Ingersoll
• Some people need a theology of an angry God to justify their anger against sinners. Bill Johnson
• The most tremendous judgment of God in this world is the hardening of the hearts of men. John Owen

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Belief in God as tyrant is bad theology

• If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God’s name, it was bad theology. Karen Armstrong
• A fanatical imagination cannot regard God as just unless he is represented as infinitely cruel. George Santayana

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We should do right, not because of fear of retribution, but because it is right and good

• God! if I worship Thee in fear of Hell, burn me in Hell; and if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise; but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not thine everlasting beauty. Rabia Basri
• It is perfectly possible to live a very moral life without a belief in God, and I think it’s perfectly possible to live a life peppered with ill-doing and believe in God. K. Rowling
• Irrespective of whether we are believers or agnostics, whether we believe in God or karma, moral ethics is a code which everyone is able to pursue. Dalai Lama
• Morality is of the highest importance – but for us, not for God. Albert Einstein
• The use of God in moral debate is so problematic as to be almost worthless. Richard Holloway
• A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death. It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. Albert Einstein
• Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. Albert Einstein

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Many argue that any belief in God as a tyrant is clearly false…

• But God is never cruel. Joseph Girzone
• God is not pleased by blood. Manuel II Palaiologos
• It is important to realize that that which is of God brings peace, and that which is not of God brings fear. David R. Hawkins
• Whitehead reacted strongly against the idea of God as a cosmic tyrant, one who brings about everything. John Polkinghorne
• Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant. Edward Gibbon
• God is not necessary to create culpability, or to punish. Our fellow men are enough for that, helped by ourselves. Albert Camus
• The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator. Richard Rohr
• Believe me, religions are on the wrong track the moment they moralize and fulminate commandments. God is not needed to create guilt or to punish. Our fellow men suffice, aided by ourselves. Albert Camus
• For you all think God is one who rewards good and punishes evil, but I say to you that God is one who loves you and has compassion for everyone. You just have to pray to Him and believe in Him. He will always be your guiding light. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• I put away that stuffed God I had all stitched up with my human understandings and fears. God is less formulaic and quantifiable as he once used to be, but experiencing the reality of his love is infinitely better than dragging that other one around. Jim Palmer
• God is not some remote, inaccessible, and implacable being who demands instant perfection from His creatures and of whose love we must make ourselves worthy. He is not a tyrant to be obeyed out of terror, nor a policeman who is ever on the watch, nor a harsh judge ever ready to apply the verdict of guilty. We should relate to Him less and less in terms of reward and punishment and more and more on the basis of the gratuity–or the play of divine love. Thomas Merton
• The rule of God is not tyranny, for it does not partake of a political or governmental character — it is not a rule of authority. God is not a governor of the universe, for a governor rules over those of a like nature with himself, and exercises a political and judicial power, while God exercises a creative, a preserving, and a determinative power of an altogether different kind. If I am a servant of God, I am under no tyranny; for God does not govern, but supports, sustains, and directs me. William Batchelder Greene

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…that such a God is a projection of our own anger, fear and guilt

• Because we are angry and judgmental, we have projected those characteristics onto Him. But God remains who He is and always will be: He is the energy, the thought of unconditional love.  He cannot think with anger or judgment.  He is mercy and compassion and total acceptance.   Marianne Williamson
• A more benign view of Divinity replaces the lower levels’ anthropologic, projected images of God as prone to extreme human weaknesses, such as pride, harshness, judgmentalism, vengeance, anger, partiality, and jealousy of seeming ethnic and geographical favoritism. David R. Hawkins
• What men deny is not God, but some preposterous idol of the imagination. George Tyrrell
• Man created God in his image: intolerant, sexist, homophobic and violent. Marie de France
• Mankind’s fantasies are projections from the unconscious of an anthropomorphic god who is vengeful, jealous, wrathful, and the alleged ‘cause’ of disasters. David R. Hawkins
• The love of God is no human projection, but the wrath of God is. In fact, what we call the wrath of God is really the love of God experienced by a fool. Peter Kreeft
• To think that God is compassionate is a terrible mistake. To think that God is wrathful is equally stupid. God isn’t emotional. You are. To superimpose your emotions on infinity is typically human. Frederick Lenz
• Some people need a theology of an angry God to justify their anger against sinners. Bill Johnson
• How we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. If God brings to mind mostly fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see God as full of love and compassion, so are we. Elif Safak

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God is a God of boundless mercy, not a God of wrath

• Isaiah 55 provides an entirely different framework for thinking about God’s justice, because it suggests that we have it backward – the mystery lies not in God’s unfathomable wrath but in his unfathomable mercy. God’s ways are higher than our ways because his capacity to love is infinitely greater than our own. Despite all that we do to alienate ourselves from God, all that we do to insult and disobey, God abundantly pardons again and again. Rachel Held Evans
• It is altogether as worthy of God and as much becoming Him to pardon and show mercy, in case of repentance and submission and reformation, as to punish, in case of impenitency and obstinacy. Benjamin Whichcote
• Mercy is “stronger and more God-like than vengeance”. Helen Prejean
• There is a difference between grace and mercy. Mercy is the decision of God not to punish us. But grace is the decision of God to save and bless us. Max Lucado
• You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Jonah

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God is not punitive

• I do not believe that God has imposed suffering upon anyone to punish them or to teach them a lesson. Ernest Holmes
• I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws. Albert Einstein
• I don’t think ultimately God punishes. I think we bring about our own destruction or our own creation. Madonna Ciccone
• I have to come to realize that God does not want to punish us, but rather, to fulfill our lives. God created us, loves us and wants to help us to realize our potential so that we can be useful to others. Benjamin Carson
• God never punishes his children in the sense of avenging justice. He chastens as a father does his child, but he never punishes his redeemed as a judge does a criminal. It is unjust to exact punishment from redeemed souls since Christ has been punished in their place. How shall the Lord punish twice for one offense? Charles Spurgeon
• God will not punish the man Who makes return for an injury. Sophocles
• What does God hate or punish except self-will? Let self-will cease, and there will be no hell. On what does that fire feed except on self-will? Bernard of Clairvaux
• The purpose of God’s discipline is not to punish us but to transform us. Jerry Bridges

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Far from being fearful, God saves us from fear

• Fear not because God is with you. Pio of Pietrelcina
• Fear is a self imposed prison that will keep you from becoming what God intends for you to be. You must move against it with the weapons of faith and love. Rick Warren
• Fear is a wet blanket that smothers the fiery passion God deposited in your heart when he formed you. Fear freezes us into inaction. Frozen ideas, frozen souls, frozen bodies can’t move, can’t dream, can’t risk, can’t love, and can’t live. Fear chains us. Stasi Eldredge
• I fear nothing for God is with me! Joan of Arc
• God is good, there is no devil but fear. Elbert Hubbard
• Let’s dare to enter into an intimate relationship with God without fear, trusting that we will receive love and always more love. Henri Nouwen
• People are taught to fear god. They are taught to fear everything. It has become such a natural state that no one questions it. Frederick Lenz
• Whoever fears God stands above all manner of fear. He has become a stranger to all the fear of this world and placed it far from himself, and no manner of trembling comes near him. Ephrem the Syrian
• With such thoughts in your mind, now that you have resolved to love Him and please Him with all your strength, your only fear should be to fear God too much and to place too little confidence in Him. Alphonsus Liguori
• The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom. Clarence Darrow
• What you fear reveals where you trust God the least. Craig Groeschel
• The sorrow of God lies in our fear of Him, our fear of life, and our fear of ourselves. He anguishes over our self-absorption and self-sufficiency… God’s sorrow lies in our refusal to approach Him when we sinned and failed. Brennan Manning
• There is a virtuous fear, which is the effect of faith; and there is a vicious fear, which is the product of doubt. The former leads to hope, as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying on God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to lose God; persons of the other character fear to find Him. Blaise Pascal
• There is in superstition a senseless fear of God; religion consists in the pious worship of Him. Marcus Tullius Cicero
• We need not fear life, because God is the Ruler of all and we need not fear death, because He shares immortality with us. Ann Landers

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Far from being a tyrant, God prevents tyranny

• In a world without the law of God, you have chaos, oppression, tyranny, and everyone doing what is right in their own eyes. Randall Terry
• It is when a people forget God, that tyrants forge their chains. Patrick Henry
• Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants. Benjamin Franklin
• Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants. William Penn
• Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God. Thomas Jefferson
• Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual… Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us. John Hancock
• Resistance to tyranny is service to God. James Madison
• As William Penn put it: “Those people who are not governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.” Remember… that those tyrants are often self-imposed roadblocks of your lower self at work. Wayne Dyer

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We need to focus on a God of goodness and unconditional love – not a God of judgement and wrath

• God is love so all God does is loving. Scot McKnight
• My God is love and sweetly suffers all. Sri Aurobindo
• God is the author and God is love. Jennifer Rothschild
• The greatest attribute of God is Love. Baird T. Spalding
• If it isn’t about love, it isn’t about God. Susan Jeffers
• We must always remember that God is Love. Swami Vivekananda
• God is love and if you are ready, he always is. Lenny Kravitz
• We need to return to the simplicity that God is love. Rob Bell
• God is Love, my friends- nothing more, nothing less. Sylvia Browne
• Where else would God’s love be than right here, now? Michael Jeffreys
• God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us. St Augustine
• God is love and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. Bible
• Our deeds will not cause God to love us more; our sins will not cause God to love us less. Dillon Burroughs
• God is love, generosity and forgiveness; If we believe in this, we will never allow our weaknesses to paralyze us. Paulo Coelho
• God loves us despite our shortcomings and sins, and his love gives meaning to our lives and to the life of the world. Pope Benedict XVI
• Love creates new form, changes matter, and holds the cosmos together beyond time and space. It’s in every one of us. It’s what God is. Wayne Dyer
• God is love. There is no judgement and there is no separateness. And the only ‘hell’ is the one we create for ourselves here on Earth. Neale Donald Walsch
• Our first experience of God is so important, we either experience Him as the police guard that wants to punish or as Creative Love that awaits. Pope Benedict XVI
• If we want to do more than just better ourselves, we need new images of God. We need to transcend our reactionary fear of divine punishment. We need a deepened experience of Divine Love. Doug Hammack
• If we live in our oneness-heart, we will feel the essence of all religions which is the love of God. Forgiveness, compassion, tolerance, brotherhood and the feeling of oneness are the signs of a true religion. Sri Chinmoy
• For you all think God is one who rewards good and punishes evil, but I say to you that God is one who loves you and has compassion for everyone. You just have to pray to Him and believe in Him. He will always be your guiding light. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• God is love. God accepts you as you are. God expects nothing of you. God does not judge. Nothing makes God unhappy. God would never condemn anyone. You do not need to change anything or “get better” to be seen as perfect and beautiful in God’s eyes. Neale Donald Walsch
• God is not some remote, inaccessible, and implacable being who demands instant perfection from His creatures and of whose love we must make ourselves worthy. He is not a tyrant to be obeyed out of terror, nor a policeman who is ever on the watch, nor a harsh judge ever ready to apply the verdict of guilty. We should relate to Him less and less in terms of reward and punishment and more and more on the basis of the gratuity–or the play of divine love. Thomas Merton
• The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer’s outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even of life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God. Albert Einstein
• We’re seeking — imperfectly at every turn, no doubt — an incarnational theology, a theology that brings radical good news of great joy for all the people, good news that God loves the world and didn’t send Jesus to condemn it but to save it, good news that God’s wrath is not merely punitive but restorative, good news that the fire of God’s holiness is not bent on eternal torment but always works to purify and refine, good news that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Brian D. McLaren
• You do not understand who you are. You do not understand who God is. You do not understand how the world works. You do not understand that love is the basis of all life, nor can you comprehend a love that is unconditional. You imagine that God is a small, petty, jealous deity who says to people bowed in prayer, “Sorry, it’s my way or the highway. Your prayer I hear. Your prayer I don’t, because you didn’t do it right. You did not please me.” In this you turn me into a replica of the worst of humanity. You claim that you are striving to be God- like in your lives… and if this is the God you are striving to be like, you have succeeded brilliantly. You may thank organized religion for teaching you how.  Neale Donald Walsch

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We need metaphors for God that bring peace to ourselves and the world, not judgement and fear

• It is important to realize that that which is of God brings peace, and that which is not of God brings fear. David R. Hawkins
• Think of God not as a word, or a stranger, or as someone on high, waiting to judge and punish you. Think of Him as you would want to be thought of if you were God. Daya Mata