Hey DarkProphet, I thought I might add my 2 cents...
Satan is ALSO God's creation, so you can't just pass blame because that's just a shell game. Ultimately an all powerful God is responsible for EVERYTHING.
Although, it might be that God can't make or not make someone on the basis of how they're going to choose. For reasons we don't know it could imply a logical paradox. Also, if there were 50 people who were going to like XYZ, and 20 who wouldn't like it, and God wants everyone to like XYZ, and so He only made the 50 people who like XYZ, then have the 50 lost some free will in this situation? My gut feeling is they do, and that free will might imply God having to create people who make undesirable choices.
That's the issue isn't it. When your God story was written up slavery was a prominent institution, an unjust one. A just God would oppose it even if it was popular because it was unjust, but your God doesn't.
I'm not defending slavery but I just want to point out that there are some 'ameliorating' factors here. One is that there was no social security system in Israel back then, apart from having a large family. So suppose someone was out of work for a while then they would probably starve, and may not get hired again. So if God allows people to sell themselves into slavery, then there is a kind of social security in that for people who can't get a job as long as the slaves have lots of rights securing their protection from harm etc.
Actually, there weren't supposed to be any poor people in Israel at all because of God's very generous welfare laws (Deu 15:4, Lev 25:35-7). But realistically that's not going to happen.
Slavery was supposed to be voluntary and they are supposed to be treated as "hired workers", i.e. like modern employees (Lev 25:39-42). They are supposed to work for a maximum of 7 years, and at the end of that time to be released with a generous supply of goods (Deu 15:12-14) and they could not be made to work more than 6 days a week (Ex 23:12). Moreover, in every 7th year slaves had the same right as wealthy people, free people, etc. to the harvest of that year (Lev 25:6).
If you killed a slave, then you yourself would be killed under the 'life for life' clause. If you inflicted any permanent marks or injuries on a slave, then the slave had to be set free to compensate (Ex 21:26-7). If you beat a slave leaving no marks in a way that left them bedridden for more than two days you were punished. Now, this is still not acceptable, but it's quite different to American slavery.
I think that slavery might have been allowed as a compromise between what God wanted and what the Israelites were prepared to do and accept. God tells us that He made compromises with the Israelites on divorce and polygamy (Matt 19:7-8), so He may have done so with slavery as well, if the Israelites wouldn't have it any other way, especially if it does have a real, actual social security value.
I think the 'compromise' theory may have some merit because 1 Tim 1:9-10 calls slavetraders evildoers...
But my favourite verse on this in the Bible comes from Eph 6:9, which inverts the slavery relationship. Slave owners are literally told to "obey your [slaves] with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men" when read in conjunction with Eph 6:5-7. This isn't just telling slave owners to be nice to slaves, but is telling them to serve their slaves like someone might serve God, or like a husband might put his wife above him (similar language is used regarding marriage). A slave owner who does this has no slaves, but has become a servant to his slaves...
God is supposed to be all powerful so by definition he has an unlimited set of solutions to any problem but he chooses the human solution of murder. In anycase, in defending God's position on the matter you passively defend genocide and slavery on the grounds that God's fine with it. Know that Christians before you have used that same justification to commit those acts.
Again, I find it hard to understand the invasion of Canaan, but there are a few ameliorating factors here as well.
The Canaanite culture was allegedly quite a warlike culture that threatened and occasionally destroyed neighbouring cultures, as well as suffering a lot of internal fights. They practiced, allegedly, sex slavery, child sacrifice and such things as that. This is something to keep in mind in terms of 'peacekeeping' considerations.
Another point is that God gave the Canaanites plenty of warnings about His disapproval and we can only assume that these warnings included a threat to punish if the Canaanites didn't change, like with Nineveh and Jonah. So the Canaanites could easily have averted the whole thing.
Thirdly, the Israelites were only supposed to attack a city after offering the opportunity for it to be peacefully incorporated into Israel, which included inhabitants acknowledging the authority of Israel, paying annual tribute, and being able to be called on to perform works of public service in times of need (e.g. repairing city walls). Deu 20:10-16 does not necessarily contradict this if we assume that God wanted to apply this to the central Canaanite cities and did not do so because He knew they would reject it.
Fourthly, the Canaanites are around for a long time after the conquest, as we read in later parts of the Bible, and the invasion happened very slowly over a period of maybe 20 years. Moreover, they are mainly commanded to drive out the Canaanites and much less frequently to kill people (in comparison to the 'drive out' verses). So what we can hope is that the Israelites gave the Canaanites plenty of time to escape when they attacked a city that refused peace, and so only combatants were killed. No verse, as far as I know, directly contradicts this.
So is there still a problem? I wish that God had teleported the Canaanites to Hawaii. But there are some ameliorating factors here.
