For now, let me just say this: if you think that God (or "Almighty Yahweh" as you seem to prefer) doesn't change -- then I do not think you have understood what you've read in the only books we have that tell us anything about Him at all.
We can begin, for example, with Genesis 6:6 "
And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—every man and beast and crawling creature and bird of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.”…
Yes, according to
Genesis 6:6-7, God Almighty regretted creating not only mankind but also every animal, every creature that creeps on the ground, and the birds of the air. The Bible contains several other verses that mention God's regrets in addition to creating humanity, all animals, and birds (
1 Samuel 15:11;
2 Samuel 24:16;
Jeremiah 42:10). The Bible also mentions God changing his mind about bringing disasters down on his own people as punishment for their transgressions against him (
Jeremiah 26:13,
1 Chronicles 21:15,
Joel 2:13). For the record,
Jeremiah 26:13,
1 Chronicles 21:15, and
Joel 2:13 coincide with
Isaiah 45:7 (NIV), which says, "
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things." The New King James Version uses the word "
calamity" instead of "disaster," and the King James Version uses the word "
evil" and not "disaster" or "calamity."
It seems like God "Almighty Yahweh" didn't learn from his own mistake of creating man and then regretting it, because after he threw a temper tantrum and wiped out all of humanity (aside from Noah and his family), he then turned around and repopulated the world with the same kind of morally flawed people that he had just destroyed in a global flood. It appears that God is incapable of learning from his own mistakes, even after expressing regret for creating humanity, the animals, every creature that creeps on the ground, and the birds in the air. Shouldn't an all-knowing and all-powerful God know better than to make the same mistake twice? But God did commit the same mistake twice, which, in my opinion, was either extremely irresponsible in terms of morality, or he is a psychotic and sadistic monster who delights in cruelly punishing flawed humanity for acting precisely as he intended for humanity to behave.
You might recall, that only a few books earlier, "the Lord saw that it was good...." This, apparently, was a mistake. A mistake He decided to correct (through the simple expedient of killing pretty much everybody). This is, just so you know, the VERY DEFINITION OF A CHANGE -- of opinion, stance and intention.
There are scriptures which claim that God never changes, such as
Numbers 23:19, which says, "God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said it, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?" And
Malachi 3:6 says, "I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed." However, other verses imply that God changes his mind (
Jeremiah 18:5–10;
Joel 2:13;
Jonah 4:2), describe God changing his mind (
Exodus 32:14;
Amos 7:3,
6;
Jonah 3:10), or assume that God will change his mind (
Jeremiah 26:3;
Joel 2:14;
Jonah 3:9). It's clear that these verses contradict the first two.
Amos 7:3 "
The Lord changed His mind about this. "It shall not be," said the LORD.
Amos 7:6 "
The Lord changed His mind about this. "This too shall not be," said the Lord God.
Exodus 32:14 "So
the Lord changed His mind about the harm that He said He would do to His people."
Jonah 3:10 "When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways,
he relented on the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it."
Jeremiah 26:3 "Perhaps they will listen and each one will turn back from his evil way, and
I will change my mind concerning the calamity that I intend to bring on them because of their evil deeds."
As a former Christian, I don't think that anyone should look to the Bible to learn about morality. In my opinion, the following Bible stories aren't exemplary examples of upright moral behavior: forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist; smashing infants' heads against rocks; ordering the death of witches; God commanding his "chosen people" to kill an entire populace of foreign nations for their land in a conquest to possess a "promised land"; or God being irrationally angry and committing global genocide by killing every living creature and eradicating the entire human race (aside from Noah and his family) in a worldwide flood. Is that a loving God?
1 Samuel 15:3 states that God commanded the Israelites to attack and not spare the Amalekites (killing every man, woman, child, newborn, and animal and destroying everything that belonged to them). And
Psalm 137:9 states, "Happy is the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rocks." So much for the biblical commandment of "Thou shalt not kill." In my opinion, the God of the Bible has a sadistic mentality of "Do as I say, not as I do," making him the most hypocritical (detestable and barbarous) figure known to mankind. And this article, "
Violence in the Bible: Greatest Hits," has several other instances of severe violence in the Bible.
Despite my criticism of the Bible and assertion that it should not be relied on for moral guidance, I believe that what the Bible says should be taken with a grain of salt. As far as I'm concerned, there are a lot of contradictions in the Bible, as well as a few stories of Jesus that were copied and adapted from Greek mythology and other pagan religions, as I explained in other posts, such as this
one.
