L Denise, let me first apologize. Somehow your comment slipped by without my noticing it.

I respectfully disagree that God’s plan involves so much killing and destruction as you describe. I believe that there are flawed humans who try to justify a lot of bad acts as being part of God’s plan. Just because people do evil things in God’s name it does not mean God is evil.

I believe the story of The Garden of Eden to be a symbolic story that illustrates how God gives us everything wonderful (the Garden) but does not stop us if we chose evil instead. It is the story that shows how God gave us free will.

As far as the story of Noah and the Ark and the flood, I don’t have an answer to your critique. As I said in my original story, I am not a Biblical scholar. I simply have my beliefs and I am content to agree to disagree with reasonable people.

I don’t discount the Old Testament. But as a Christian I am going to pay more attention to the words of Jesus.

Love. Forgiveness. Gentle judgement.

I hope you and yours are safe and healthy.