Five Epically Violent Biblical Atrocities

It's often joked that the God of the New Testament is decidedly mellower than the God of the Old Testament and that surely fatherhood must have mellowed him. Not many people are familiar with the Old Testament in any detail, but if you were, you'd know what the phrase "the fear of God" really meant.

Here are five researched arguments that suggest that the Old Testament God took no smack from anyone and definitely wasn't subtle about it. You would do well to fear this entity:

1. He's got no qualms about killing babies to punish their parents: He lets the people of Samaria know that their "little ones will be dashed to the ground" for their insolence (Hosea 13:16), the same for the children of whoever is "captured in Babylon...Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes" (Isiah 13:15-16). And let's not forget what happened in Egypt to all the firstborns -- including livestock! (Exodus 12:29).

2. He doesn't appreciate anyone even simply making fun of his bald followers: In 2 Kings 2:23-24 a group of youths accost Elisha on his way to Bethel and started making fun of him and his baldness. Elisha cursed them in the name of God and then two bears came out of the woods and shredded all of the youths to pieces.

3. He doesn't like whiners or complainers much, either: In Numbers 11:1, God becomes so angry about the people complaining in the camp that his anger literally becomes a fire that burns them up. And in Numbers 21:5-6 when the people complained to Moses about bringing them out of Egypt to die in the desert with no water and food, God sends "fiery serpents" that slithered among the people and bit them causing many to die from the venom.

4. He is no stranger to genocide: There are many examples of how the God of the Old Testament wiped out entire populations in seconds including many who were presumably innocent, such as when he has his angel kill 185,000 men in an Assyrian camp in just one night (2 Kings 19:35). He also delivers up Sihon and his land and people for the slaughter and no one was spared -- not even children. In fact, he makes a point of saying that the only things spared were cattle -- because they could use cattle (Deuteronomy 2:31-35)

5. He has rather unpleasant reactions to male and female sex organs: For women, he pretty much always suggests rape as a form of punishment. Moses, in Numbers 31:17-18, relays God's commands to the people to kill all the boys and all women who have slept with a man but "save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." This sort of advice is found all over the Old Testament. For men, he preferred tumors and boils on their genitals (1 Samuel 5:8 -9), and let's not forget David's tally of two hundred foreskins of Philistines in order to marry Saul's daughter (1 Samuel 18:27).