When I first read the question, I thought the answer most people would give would be 'hell no!' but a few in the video said they would. The person who asked the question for a film (In God we Trust) said that almost everyone, including Christians, Mormons, and Muslims said they would. He said a few answered that they would not.
One thing I never understood is that if God is all-powerful and came to me and asked me to kill my son, why would he need me to kill anything? Could he not kill those people himself? Why would he need my hand to kill something?
The only answers that occur to me right off the hop are that either God doesn't exist, which explains the requirement for me to do his killing for him OR those people in the Bible who were ordered to kill people by God were suffering from a mental health issue.
Watch the below video. It features the commentary of an ex-Catholic priest (Edward Tarte) and clips from a few religious people answering the question, as well as clips of Dawkins and Hitchens.
Edward Tarte is 78, a chess player, a cancer survivor, a former Catholic priest (1963-68), and now an atheist.
Considering the superstitious nature and lack of medical knowledge in biblical times, could many of the key players in the Bible have actually been suffering from mental health issues?
Take this clip from a sermon written by the Church of England:
It even asks followers to consider accusations made in the New Testament that Jesus "had lost his mind".
It reads: "Many of the people we read about in Bible stories might today be considered as having mental health issues.
"For example, ‘Would Jesus’ family maybe on occasion have said, ‘Cousin John is a bit odd, bless him!’ when John the Baptist took to his eccentric style of life?
"It has long been thought that King Saul, in the books of Samuel, was displaying mood swings that suggest he had bi-polar disorder and some think that St Paul’s Damascus Road experience was the result of some sort of breakdown or psychotic episode.
"Even Jesus was not immune to accusations about his mental health: there is a story in the gospel that tells of his mother and siblings attempting to take him home because they are afraid that he has lost his mind.
"Many of the stories of the Saints, too, have led people to discuss their mental health. "For example was St Francis suffering from a mental health title?"
The sermon then goes on to say that God can work through people who are mentally ill.
Granted, if such a being existed, that would certainly be true. However, what sort of a benevolent, all-powerful, all-loving God would ask its followers to kill people to either show their faith or to advance its cause?