Time to wrap up the debate on the Old Testament ethics. This has been one of the largest topics in this thread with it spanning almost 70 pages. And needless to say, it can go much longer. As noted, it is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for unbelievers and is continually brought up on this forum.
There are two main areas of attack from skeptics in this area:
A. the Old Testament (and God) is immoral
B. the Old Testament (and God) is illogical
The immoral argument says the actions in the OT are contrary to how things should be done. God should not have committed genocide, allowed slavery, killed the innocent, etc.
The illogical argument says God is omni-perfect, omni-benevolent, omni-fair, omni-justice, etc. And since God is not perfect, benevolent, fair, and just, then it’s contrary to his claimed nature.
In both of these cases, skeptics take passages from the Bible and judge God is acting immorally. Two major examples include the global flood and the Canaanite conquest.
In order to make a judgment on God’s actions, skeptics need to accept objective moral values and believe their moral values are objectively right and God’s is objectively wrong. Otherwise it’s just the subjective opinions from skeptics of God’s actions and it would be as irrelevant as debating what colors God should have made the flowers.
I spent time discussing the philosophy of morality and argued atheists have no justification for their belief in objective morality. I summarized it in Summary argument of atheism and morality. The only viable justification for a belief in objective morality is God as I summarized in Objective morality of Christianity.
So, fundamentally, it is the skeptics that are making a contradictory argument since they cannot justify the usage of objective moral claims against God. To make an objective moral judgment, God must exist. So, the moral arguments against God is not disproving the existence of God, but arguing they do not like God and how he operates.
The illogical argument (B) also requires a moral judgment on God since there are no explicit statements in the Bible God is immoral. It is the interpretations and judgments of skeptics of how God acts and then claiming God is immoral in his actions. So skeptics must employ objective moral judgments even in the illogical argument.
Further, many, if not all, of the omni characteristics of God are nebulous idealizations of God and not adequately defined and even supported by the Bible. They are straw man attacks on God.
So the issue is, though God does exist, people might not like how He acts and thus is not worthy of worship.
One major issue is God acting unjustly in the destruction of people in the flood. I addressed this in Flood and morality.
Another issue is God committing genocide in the Canaanite conquest. I summarized my arguments in Genocide summary argument.
Another major issue is slavery in the Bible. I summarized this in Slavery summary argument.
And finally is the issue of homosexuality. I summarized it in Summary argument on homosexuality.
Rather than God being a capricious and mean God and killing the foreigners, weak and innocent, God is the opposite. God is not xenophobic, but rather is xenophilic. God does not oppress the weak, but has a heart for the disadvantaged.
https://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1145038#p1145038