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Morality in Bible stories that you don't understand

DBT said:
Being at war doesn't justify wholesale slaughter or genocide...
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I share this response with Bilby's post #788 as well (b/c I'm using phone which is tedious).

Am I to believe then, you are against the use and manufacture of atomic weaponry; drones and tanks, in which being in the possession of them, is considered to be for defense measures - which enables 'guaranteed retaliation'?

If the last world war that killed over 70 million people, more than all the wars put together in recorded history. Was there to you (plural), any justification at all, from any of the nations involved? Curiously when it comes to wars, through the lens you look through, do you see the 'act of murder' when the Allied West dropped bombs on German cities or when nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

Like James on the other end of the spectrum you (plural) have the same perspective:

If God did it ... to you "it's rape and murder".
 
Learner said:
DBT said:
Being at war doesn't justify wholesale slaughter or genocide...
Click to expand...
I share this response with Bilby's post #788 as well (b/c I'm using phone which is tedious).

Am I to believe then, you are against the use and manufacture of atomic weaponry; drones and tanks, in which being in the possession of them, is considered to be for defense measures - which enables 'guaranteed retaliation'?
Click to expand...
Yes. Why would you imagine that I would be in favour of these horrors?

They are, regrettably, sometimes necessary, but if they didn't exist I would be very happy about it.

Learner said:
If the last world war that killed over 70 million people, more than all the wars put together in recorded history. Was there to you (plural), any justification at all, from any of the nations involved?
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From any of the nations that initiated the use of violence? No. The allies had no option but to use force in their defence; Similarly, had anyone stood up against God in the story, they would have been justified and morally right to do so, even though it would have been a futile act.

Learner said:
Curiously when it comes to wars, through the lens you look through, do you see the 'act of murder' when the Allied West dropped bombs on German cities or when nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima?
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Absolutely. The "Strategic Bombing" campaigns, including the use of nuclear weapons against Japan, were a war crime. There were mitigating circumstances, but the deliberate targeting of civilians was deeply immoral (and likely counterproductive; bombing people makes them less inclined to ever surrender).
Learner said:
Like James on the other end of the spectrum you (plural) have the same perspective:

If God did it ... to you "it's rape and murder".
Click to expand...
Morality isn't dependent on the identities of the actors.

If rape or murder are wrong, they are wrong no matter who does them. Even if it's God.

It's wrong for the Luftwaffe to deliberately bomb civilians; It's therefore equally wrong for the USAAF or the RAF to deliberately bomb civilians.

It's wrong for Pol Pot to commit genocide; It's therefore equally wrong for Jehovah to commit genocide.

That you are apparently so blind to that last fact as to imagine that others would feel foolish when you point out that their position implies opposition to the wholesale slaughter of Japanese civilians in WWII, is an excellent example of how deeply immoral it is to hold sincere religious beliefs.

To paraphrase Voltaire, those who believe absurdities can be persuaded to commit atrocities. And even to believe that everyone would agree with them that atrocities are perfectly fine and completely justified.

I am astonished to have to spell this out to anyone. But here you go:

Genocide is always wrong, no matter who orders it, or why.
 
bilby said:
to imagine that others would feel foolish when you point out that their position implies opposition to the wholesale slaughter of Japanese civilians in WWII, is an excellent example of how deeply immoral it is to hold sincere religious beliefs.
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Nothing to add, just QFT
 
Learner said:
DBT said:
Being at war doesn't justify wholesale slaughter or genocide...
Click to expand...
I share this response with Bilby's post #788 as well (b/c I'm using phone which is tedious).

Am I to believe then, you are against the use and manufacture of atomic weaponry; drones and tanks, in which being in the possession of them, is considered to be for defense measures - which enables 'guaranteed retaliation'?

If the last world war that killed over 70 million people, more than all the wars put together in recorded history. Was there to you (plural), any justification at all, from any of the nations involved? Curiously when it comes to wars, through the lens you look through, do you see the 'act of murder' when the Allied West dropped bombs on German cities or when nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

Like James on the other end of the spectrum you (plural) have the same perspective:

If God did it ... to you "it's rape and murder".
Click to expand...

We have God, not man, ordering genocide as a means to an end. This is not collateral damage related to dropping bombs, but deliberate and targeted slaughter of women, children and animals.
 
DBT said:
Learner said:
DBT said:
Being at war doesn't justify wholesale slaughter or genocide...
Click to expand...
I share this response with Bilby's post #788 as well (b/c I'm using phone which is tedious).

Am I to believe then, you are against the use and manufacture of atomic weaponry; drones and tanks, in which being in the possession of them, is considered to be for defense measures - which enables 'guaranteed retaliation'?

If the last world war that killed over 70 million people, more than all the wars put together in recorded history. Was there to you (plural), any justification at all, from any of the nations involved? Curiously when it comes to wars, through the lens you look through, do you see the 'act of murder' when the Allied West dropped bombs on German cities or when nuclear bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

Like James on the other end of the spectrum you (plural) have the same perspective:

If God did it ... to you "it's rape and murder".
Click to expand...

We have God, not man, ordering genocide as a means to an end. This is not collateral damage related to dropping bombs, but deliberate and targeted slaughter of women, children and animals.
Click to expand...
One of the issues I'm having in this thread is the definition of whose "God" are we talking about!
Are we talking about a Sumerian god?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_religion

Canaanite god? Other? Who and what are we talking about?
 
Are we talking about Zeus maybe? Are we talking about mythology? Who is the real "god" who ordered the genocide?
 
Say what you will about his personal conduct, but I do not recall any story in which Zeus commands a genocide. There are some allusions in the Illiad and in Works and Days that he may be responsible for war in general, but not the targeted destruction of a people.
 
Politesse said:
Say what you will about his personal conduct, but I do not recall any story in which Zeus commands a genocide. There are some allusions in the Illiad and in Works and Days that he may be responsible for war in general, but not the targeted destruction of a people.
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So its not Zeus...

So who is the real god who ordered the genocides?
 
Thomas II said:
Politesse said:
Say what you will about his personal conduct, but I do not recall any story in which Zeus commands a genocide. There are some allusions in the Illiad and in Works and Days that he may be responsible for war in general, but not the targeted destruction of a people.
Click to expand...
So its not Zeus...

So who is the real god who ordered the genocides?
Click to expand...
YHWH, clearly. Shall we feign surprise that the inventor of mortality, who made it the price of all life, desires that we all should die?

"Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death."
 
That is a very ancient policy with an obvious source, but also a perpetual source of strife ever since the common people got access to the Scriptures.
 
Politesse said:
That is a very ancient policy with an obvious source, but also a perpetual source of strife ever since the common people got access to the Scriptures.
Click to expand...
I don't know...:shrug:
I refer to the Canaanite deity as YHWH.

"The instruction came in a June 29 (2008) letter to Catholic bishops conferences around the world from the Vatican's top liturgical body, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, by an explicit "directive" of Pope Benedict XVI. "In recent years, the practice has crept in of pronouncing the God of Israel's proper name," the letter noted, referring to the four-consonant Hebrew Tetragrammaton, YHWH.

That name is commonly pronounced as "Yahweh," though other versions include "Jaweh" and "Yehovah."

But such pronunciation violates long-standing Jewish tradition, the Vatican reminded bishops."
 
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