God is Love?? Really?

According to 1 John 4:8, god literally IS love. Here's the verse from the good old King James.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.


There is another instance in the New Testament where the Paul gives a description of what love is.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

According to the author of 1 John, god IS love, so we should be able to substitute the word god in every time love occurs in that passage. Let's give it a try.


God is patient, god is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. He is not rude, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, he keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I replaced 'it' with 'he' just to stick with the misogyny of the bible.

I don't know about you, but reading it that way, with god replacing love, it doesn't sit right with me. I feel uneasy reading that about the god of the bible. Let's see if we can find some instances of god being patient, kind, etc.

God is patient.
In Genesis 18, god vows he will not destroy Sodom if he finds 10 non-evil people. He obviously did not look too hard, and obviously doesn't give a damn about children and babies, because according to Genesis 19, he destroyed the whole city.

God is kind. 
2 Kings 2:23-24 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. 

Sending bears to murder 42 teenagers for something so pathetic as calling someone a 'baldy-head' has to be about the kindest thing I've ever heard of. NOT.

God does not envy.
Exodus 34:14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

The non-existent god of the bible is so scared of his people worshipping other non-existent gods that he calls himself jealous and threatens them with damnation if they do.

God does not boast.
Receiving endless amounts of worship doesn't count as boasting does it? God is oh so humble, that 24/7/365 praise and worship isn't supposed to inflate your ego is it.

God is not proud.
Psalm 31:23 The Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.

Pride is obviously a valued trait of the god of the bible.

God is not rude.
Malachi 2:3 "I'm going to punish your descendants. I'm going to spread excrement on your faces, the excrement from your festival sacrifices. You will be discarded with it.

Divine shit-slinging, how un-rude.

God is not self-seeking.
For what purpose did god create mankind if not to serve his own 'desires'?

God is not easily angered.
The entire saga of cursing mankind with the toils of physical labour and cursing women with the pain of childbirth, for simply eating a fruit. Talk about over reacting man!

2 Kings 2:23-24 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

God keeps no record of wrongs.
No, he intends to judge people. If he kept no record of wrongs he would not be able to do this. There are plenty of verses especially in the new testament about judgement. I'm sure most Christians already know this though.

God does not delight in evil.
According to a common christian definition, evil is simply whatever god says it is. With this in mind though, most if not all of the acts attributed to god in the old testament would be considered evil by many christians if it wasn't god who did it.

Judges 11
30 And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD : "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."

32 Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. 33 He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.

34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break."

36 "My father," she replied, "you have given your word to the LORD. Do to me just as you promised, now that the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the Ammonites. 37 But grant me this one request," she said. "Give me two months to roam the hills and weep with my friends, because I will never marry."

38 "You may go," he said. And he let her go for two months. She and the girls went into the hills and wept because she would never marry. 39 After the two months, she returned to her father and he did to her as he had vowed.

God rejoices in the truth.
1 Kings 22:23
Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.
Jeremiah 20:7
O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.
 
God delights so much in the truth that he intentionally deceives people and sends lying spirits to prophets. It is worth mentioning that the punishment in the old testament for a prophet giving a false prophecy was death by stoning. So if god was sending lying spirits into prophets, they would naturally gives false prophecies, and thus be stoned to death. I'm pretty sure this violates nearly every single characteristic on this list.

God always protects.
Leviticus 26:17
I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.

This is the kind of deity I want on my side, the one that protects me... Oh wait....

God always trusts.
God didn't trust Sodom and Gomorrah to change, he just annihilated them.
Genesis 19
23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

God always hopes.
Omniscient beings cannot hope, since they know what is going to happen, therefore god cannot "always hope".

God always perseveres.
According to Genesis, god was fed up with his lousy creation, so he flooded the world. So much for persevering.