Is God perfectly just and moral?

[marieelissa]

Exodus 34:17:
I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Take care, therefore, not to make a covenant with these inhabitants of the land that you are to enter; else they will become a snare among you. Tear down their altars; smash their sacred pillars, and cut down their sacred poles...
Ezekiel 8:16-18 and 9:1-6
Then he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and there at the door of the LORD'S temple, between the vestibule and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the LORD'S temple and their faces toward the east; they were bowing down to the sun.Do you see, son of man? he asked me. Is it such a trivial matter for the house of Judah to do the abominable things they have done here--for they have filled the land with violence, and again and again they have provoked me--that now they must also put the branch to my nose?Therefore I in turn will act furiously: I will not look upon them with pity nor will I show mercy.
Then he cried loud for me to hear: Come, you scourges of the city!With that I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate which faces the north, each with a destroying weapon in his hand. In their midst was a man dressed in linen, with a writer's case at his waist. They entered and stood beside the bronze altar.Then he called to the man dressed in linen with the writer's case at his waist,saying to him: Pass through the city (through Jerusalem) and mark an X on the foreheads of those who moan and groan over all the abominations that are practiced within it.To the others I heard him say: Pass through the city after him and strike! Do not look on them with pity nor show any mercy!Old men, youths and maidens, women and children--wipe them out! But do not touch any marked with the X; begin at my sanctuary. So they began with the men (the elders) who were in front of the temple.

These quotes are obvious displays of religious bigotry and injustice. In today's society, we do not accept the destruction of another culture simply because they don't agree with us.We do not accept the brutal murder of people for practicing a faith other than our own. What most people don't know is that the Bible demands that God's followers commit such atrocities. No perfectly just being would command that a culture be annihilated for the "crime" of worshipping their own gods and practicing their own beliefs, because everyone has the right to practice their religious beliefs however they wish, provided that their practices do not infringe on anyone else's rights.

Notice that these quotes occur after God passes down the Ten Commandments, one of which states quite explicity that the Israelites shall not kill. Also, notice how this commandment ceases to apply when God sees fit. Moral relativism of this sort is far from perfect. If President Bush told every American to beatany Arabs that they came across, would that make it alright and acceptable? No, of course not. So, why is God any different? Because he's "perfect"?