Ann, you must confess that this has now strayed way off of the original topic. Your original topic posed the question of whether or not Superman is good. Now we are on the topic of whether or not God is good. (Notice that I capitalize the word God. We're not just talking about any god, we're talking about the God of Abraham.)

Superman is just that; he is a super-man, with all of the failings of any man or woman. I don't personally believe that a superwoman would be any better. I know how fallible woman are, seeing how I am one.

Your criticism of God is entirely different, however. I know that you aren't just throwing this out there to cause a fight. I know you firmly believe that. I can always trust you, Ann, to tell us how you really feel.

I also know that you and I will have entirely different views on this. For one thing, please, do not confuse Lot or the Israelites with God. What Lot does is as flawed as what I do. What the Israelites did will be just as bad, if not worse.

Those who have read the account of Lot and Sodom and Gommorah will see just how badly Lot and his entire family behave. Lot throws his daughters at a mob of homosexual men trying to gang rape two visitors. God didn't ask him to do that. As a former virgin daughter, I would be horrified if my father did that, but the daughters take it in stride as if this were normal behavior. In fact, they don't want to leave before judgment arrives. The angels have to pull them along by the hand to get them to go. They leave their fiances, who think that the judgment of God is a big joke.

As for the book of Judges, I hate that part of the Bible. It's not because I hate God, but because the people of Israel keep doing worse and worse and worse. They muddle around without looking for direction. God kept calling them back and then they would behave badly again. It's a disgrace, but it wasn't ordered by God.

Your original example was your best example, Ann, because it lets God speak for himself. I agree that genocide is awful. However, please, don't treat those people like they're innocent farmers working the land and coming home to play the fiddle and dance a jig by candlelight at night. Instead, they worshipped fickle gods that had to be appeased. For those who worshipped Molech (the Ammonites, the incestuous descendants of Lot, whom God also asked to be wiped out), worship included throwing those suckling infants to be burnt alive in the hopes of appeasing Molech. For those who worshipped Baal (the Canaanites whom God also asked to be wiped out), worship included cutting themselves with swords and spears until their own blood flowed in the hopes of appeasing their Baal. I don't remember whom the Amelikites served, but I do remember that none of them were peace-talking people. Most of them treated women and children as property or, worse yet, prostitutes. God didn't just wipe them out on a fickle whim. He asked for justice to be served.

I know you aren't going to be swayed by all of this, Ann. I know that because you have witnessed too many times Christians who have not acted like Christ. You've told us, as much. However, I can't stand by and listen to you casually attack my God.

I also can't stand by and listen to you bring God down to Clark Kent's level. For one thing, Clark is fictional. I am highly offended that you would speak of God in the same way you would speak of a mere myth.

Elisabeth