Atheists and Their Problem With the Killing of Children in the Old Testament

Atheists seem to have a problem with God having infants killed in the Old Testament.

The apostle Paul asked, “What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part?” He then answered, “By no means!” (Romans 9:14)

Skeptics seem to feel free to discredit the bible to try and disprove God’s existence and yet want to attack God’s judgments where it concerns the killing of children. They will use certain biblical texts to support the injustice of this God who they claim does not exist. Here are the most popular:

The Flood (Genesis 6-9):
Skeptics can’t see the justice of God killing men, women and children in the flood. What they don’t realize is that God gave these people 120 years to stop their evil practices. They refused to listen to the ‘preacher of righteousness’ (2 Peter 2:5). What the skeptics fail to realize is that giving mankind 120 years to repent showed God’s love, patience and mercy to lead them to repentance.

The Killing of the Firstborn in Egypt (Ex. 12:12):
Another area to discredit God is that fact that he had all the firstborn of Egypt, along with all the livestock, die. But the skeptics fail to recall is that there was at least 80 years of infanticide practiced by the Egyptian government against the Hebrew people (Ex. 1:15-16). It is estimated that there was at least 2.7 million babies killed during this time. Where is their outrage against them? Most likely there was less Egyptian firstborns killed than what they killed of the Hebrew children. The sin of rebellion is what resulted in the Egyptians final plague.

The Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:3):
Here God told Saul and the Jews to “smite Amalek,” killing “men, women, children and infants.” This is repulsive to the skeptic, but I imagine God would be viewed as a bigger sadistic monster if He had left the surviving “children” and “infants” to fend for themselves without their parents to take care of them and die a cruel, slow death of starvation? It's a no win situation. This is not to mention that the skeptics are not outraged about the cruelty of Amalekits’ earlier treatment of God’s people at Rephidim. They attacked God’s people while they were yet “faint” and “weary” from their travels from Egypt (Deuteronomy 25:17-19). The Amalekits attacked them from the rear who were easy targets - the aged, infirmed, and women and children. God’s punishment simply matched the Amalekites’ cruelty. (For those who know the scriptures, we do not need to worry about the destiny of infants and young children. Matt. 19:14 They are safe and will be resurrected as well since they have not sinned or reached the age of knowing the difference between good and evil - they will receive the gift of immortality and enter God's kingdom.)

Elisha and the 42 Lads (2 Kings 2:23-25):
Elisha was taunted by 42 “lads” and Elisha called upon them a curse from God. The result was that 2 female bears came from out of the woods and mauled them. Skeptics want to say these were just small children. This is not the case when looking at the context and the Hebrew word which can also mean “young men.” These young men operated as a 'gang', much like we have today. God punished them for their disrespect towards the prophet of God.

It’s interesting that skeptics or atheists like to accuse God of being a cruel, sadistic monster for killing infants when they have no problem walking into an abortion clinic to kill their own infants or give their approval of others who do.