When people talk about "god" they are talking about themselves.

[Learner]

"But when you capture cities in the land that the LORD your God is giving you, kill everyone. Completely destroy all the people: the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD ordered you to do."

...but God always has the Israelites first send envoys to other nations in peaceful terms. The nations you mention above are the nations who wanted something else. That's always the case - these nations always want to attack the Israelites. God as it's written only reacts, never starts these wars.

"Moses became angry with the officers...who had returned from the war. He asked them, "Why have you kept all the women alive?...So now, kill every boy and every woman who has had sexual intercourse, but keep alive for yourselves all the girls and all the women who are virgins."
Can everyone smell all the love in the room?

As mentioned above...there were options for these warring nations. These nations, would continue generational wars..that for many generations, would be an ever continuation of reprobates, like the example of the Egyptian pharaoh reprobate who was even given Ten chances to let the Israelites go, who continued to challenge God and hold the Israelites captive. Another angle from this is the future 'potential' for the damnation of so many nations of people (the descendants of the mentioned tribes/nations) going against God. As harsh it it sounds in harsh times. God halts it there and then with those mentioned above nations.

Do you even hear yourself? You're justifying genocide, because that's what destroying a complete ethnic group is. You're justifying infanticide.

As in... justifying murder? Sorry, we have two different perspectives here. I am talking from the view that God is what a Creator is capable to do...create and give life and raises the dead etc..&etc.

And you're accepting the justifications written by the priesthood of the group that prided itself on conquering these peoples (not that its historicity is proven anywhere.) This stuff is primitive, plain and simple.

There's a lot I still need to understand but I accept what is written of Jesus. You see.. that is the key.

The "simple stuff" for the simple church goer only needs to know like the example below:

IF Jesus has never rebuked or denounced, corrected any of scriptures of the OT that you're highlighting.. then it means the "interpretive" views like yours about God of the Old Testament is incorrect or false.

BTW, how should a "peaceful envoy" be received, when the message is, 'you're living on land that our God has given to us'? 'If you give in, you can do forced labor for us.

It shouldn't...but is that exactly what the OT says? And if they're reprobates i.e. anti- God?

If you resist, we kill all of you, except for your virgins.' If being a Bible believer means that you think genocide is sometimes the solution that God presses you to carry out, then it's seriously time to rethink.

As mentioned..Jesus doesn't seem to me to indicate that your reading of the scriptures is in the same perspective. No refutations or corrections by any author. What seems to be contradictions; and I have no doubt the church fathers also see it, imo just makes it more true to the original just by leaving these "contradictions' in!

 

[ideologyhunter]

As in... justifying murder? Sorry, we have two different perspectives here. I am talking from the view that God is what a Creator is capable to do...create and give life and raises the dead etc..&etc.

As mentioned..Jesus doesn't seem to me to indicate that your reading of the scriptures is in the same perspective. No refutations or corrections by any author.

This is as unsatisfying an answer as can be.
So now, Jesus would also justify the genocide depicted in the OT? Okay, good, and for me, not really a hot issue, because it is in the realm of make believe. When a battle is decided in Exodus 17 by Moses holding a wooden staff in the air, that isn't an historical chronicle, it's a wonky folktale. The events in Joshua are written in folktale form.
But, if you're going to square killing off entire cities and ethnic groups as coming from the mind of an infinitely resourceful deity (and one you advertised as being all for loving your enemies), then you are proclaiming the kinds of verses that make freethinkers and atheists of the folks who post here. It is primitive and it is ludicrous. You'd need some Bible writer to tell you that, before you'd know it instantaneously?
Please also consider the weaponry of OT times -- it was all in the form of blades. Arrows, daggers, spears, swords, axes. If you can truly imagine that God's favorite people could inflict fatal puncture and slashing wounds on a city full of captives -- the infants, the children, the adults, the ill, the elderly -- killing them all off in a bloody mess, cutting throats and stabbing torsos -- and not become the most morally debauched people that ever walked the earth -- then you have a strong imagination. Would you be able to kill unarmed captives with a sword or an axe? Could you do it to a hundred or a thousand people? Would you be a 'normal' person after you did this? And if no NT figure tells you this is crazy, you won't accept that it's crazy?
Again, I don't accept the Bible chronicles that claim these things happened. And no one should accept that they are morally justified events.

 

[southernhybrid]

As in... justifying murder? Sorry, we have two different perspectives here. I am talking from the view that God is what a Creator is capable to do...create and give life and raises the dead etc..&etc.

As mentioned..Jesus doesn't seem to me to indicate that your reading of the scriptures is in the same perspective. No refutations or corrections by any author.

This is as unsatisfying an answer as can be.
So now, Jesus would also justify the genocide depicted in the OT? Okay, good, and for me, not really a hot issue, because it is in the realm of make believe. When a battle is decided in Exodus 17 by Moses holding a wooden staff in the air, that isn't an historical chronicle, it's a wonky folktale. The events in Joshua are written in folktale form.
But, if you're going to square killing off entire cities and ethnic groups as coming from the mind of an infinitely resourceful deity (and one you advertised as being all for loving your enemies), then you are proclaiming the kinds of verses that make freethinkers and atheists of the folks who post here. It is primitive and it is ludicrous. You'd need some Bible writer to tell you that, before you'd know it instantaneously?
Please also consider the weaponry of OT times -- it was all in the form of blades. Arrows, daggers, spears, swords, axes. If you can truly imagine that God's favorite people could inflict fatal puncture and slashing wounds on a city full of captives -- the infants, the children, the adults, the ill, the elderly -- killing them all off in a bloody mess, cutting throats and stabbing torsos -- and not become the most morally debauched people that ever walked the earth -- then you have a strong imagination. Would you be able to kill unarmed captives with a sword or an axe? Could you do it to a hundred or a thousand people? Would you be a 'normal' person after you did this? And if no NT figure tells you this is crazy, you won't accept that it's crazy?
Again, I don't accept the Bible chronicles that claim these things happened. And no one should accept that they are morally justified events.

Out of morbid curiosity, I looked up some Christina sites to see how they justified the evil OT god's actions. Let's just say that anything god did to protect the chosen people, was find and dandy. They see it as justice. I think that's really fucked up. Genecide is okay as long as their god does it and why did god choose one special people. Damn. They even mentioned that atheists see their OT god as evil. Damn right we do. There mythological character is a very bad boy!

 

[ideologyhunter]

Out of morbid curiosity, I looked up some Christina sites to see how they justified the evil OT god's actions. Let's just say that anything god did to protect the chosen people, was find and dandy. They see it as justice. I think that's really fucked up. Genecide is okay as long as their god does it and why did god choose one special people. Damn. They even mentioned that atheists see their OT god as evil. Damn right we do. There mythological character is a very bad boy!

Years ago I had a religious door knocker (actually an older lady and a younger lady, in training, I guess.) I quickly tell all such people that I'm an atheist. The older lady, who did all the talking, wanted to know how this could be. As a quick f'rinstance, I mentioned the execution of infants and children in the OT. This fazed her not an instant. "Don't you know that if they were innocent children, but children of pagans, that God would take them up into heaven? And they could never get to heaven if they grew up in a pagan religion?" I should have asked her right away if she believed that all non-Christian youngsters should be killed right away, to get them their visas to Paradise. I'm sure I didn't. I probably just said that I found those parts of the Bible too brutal to be anything but manmade fantasies. She wasn't on my doorstep more than 90 seconds, because that's the house rule where I live. But what a weird, contorted morality was going on in her cranium. And I'd guess she slit very few children's throats in her lifetime.

 

[Learner]

As in... justifying murder? Sorry, we have two different perspectives here. I am talking from the view that God is what a Creator is capable to do...create and give life and raises the dead etc..&etc.

As mentioned..Jesus doesn't seem to me to indicate that your reading of the scriptures is in the same perspective. No refutations or corrections by any author.

This is as unsatisfying an answer as can be.

I would expect answers from Theists to be unsatisfactory to you... as the norm.

So now, Jesus would also justify the genocide depicted in the OT?

I dunno, in what particular context are you saying? Are you looking through the lens that illustrates these nations who warred with the Israelites were merely "peasant farmers or friendly villagers," who have "never" killed Israelites first or sacrificed children to baal, molek or any other name, depending on the language location?

Okay, good, and for me, not really a hot issue, because it is in the realm of make believe.

Yes good, then in the context of "make believe" we can get a little gist of the plot...as you mention the death of children.

In the story...children would go straight to a heavenly paradise - and, it doesn't matter which side of the warring nations they would be from. God forgives even killers (not so much murderers) and God is powerful in the realm of the story.

When a battle is decided in Exodus 17 by Moses holding a wooden staff in the air, that isn't an historical chronicle, it's a wonky folktale. The events in Joshua are written in folktale form.

Well I say: Folktales are written in biblical form. Lots of the popular folktales from the middle ages and there on after.

But, if you're going to square killing off entire cities and ethnic groups as coming from the mind of an infinitely resourceful deity (and one you advertised as being all for loving your enemies), then you are proclaiming the kinds of verses that make freethinkers and atheists of the folks who post here.

Sorry, if I don't take to the notion of "squaring off entire cities and ethnic groups etc." by this view the "murder and racism" undertone you seem to be portraying.

It is primitive and it is ludicrous. You'd need some Bible writer to tell you that, before you'd know it instantaneously?

What I DO need is to read the bible more (if only) checking merits of the accusations against the God of the Bible.

Please also consider the weaponry of OT times -- it was all in the form of blades. Arrows, daggers, spears, swords, axes. If you can truly imagine that God's favorite people could inflict fatal puncture and slashing wounds on a city full of captives -- the infants, the children, the adults, the ill, the elderly -- killing them all off in a bloody mess, cutting throats and stabbing torsos -- and not become the most morally debauched people that ever walked the earth -- then you have a strong imagination.

As irony would have it...

...We can see from the last century up to today...not much has changed in a world without God, although there is the advanced sophistication of modern weaponry. More proficient than mere swords...a single person today can kill many people in one go.
Not many listening to the love your neighbour, love your enemies'. Would it even be effective if people abided by those verses and if so, in what way? One could give a good guess.

Would you be able to kill unarmed captives with a sword or an axe? Could you do it to a hundred or a thousand people? Would you be a 'normal' person after you did this? And if no NT figure tells you this is crazy, you won't accept that it's crazy?

Even in terms of the Old Testament...

...would it be an advantage to the societies of a violent world, if people today were influenced by the consequences of the 10 Commandments (if we are to consider we follow them today)?

Again, I don't accept the Bible chronicles that claim these things happened. And no one should accept that they are morally justified events.

Sure, depending on what you're reading into it.

 

[ideologyhunter]

So -- people of God, people of the word, could, in your estimation, kill off multitudes of unarmed captives of all ages, stabbing them to death, as portrayed in the Bible, and not become morally debauched? Could you do that?

 

[bilby]

like the example of the Egyptian pharaoh reprobate who was even given Ten chances to let the Israelites go, who continued to challenge God and hold the Israelites captive

It's a great example. If only it wasn't a total pack of lies.

The entire Exodus story is just a story. Fiction.

We know this, because the Egyptians were pretty good record keepers, and didn't once seem to notice that they had captured the Israelites*, nor that those wily Israelite slaves had taken time out of their busy day of being oppressed by Pharaoh, to remove every single archaeological trace of their existence from Egypt (knowing, as they did, that Egypt would be the focus of intense archaeological scrutiny a few thousand years later).

The Exodus never happened. The Israelites were never held captive in Egypt. It's just fiction. A myth. There is just as much evidence of the Israeli escape from Pharaoh as there is of Jack's escape from the giant that lives atop the beanstalk.

Indeed, the evidence against Exodus is better, because Egyptologists and Archaeologists haven't spent a couple of centuries picking over the bean patch and recording everything they find.







* It's also worth noting that other cultures kept excellent records during the OT era. For example, many Chinese and Indian peoples managed, with astonishing stoicism, to keep continuous records even as the entire world was drowned by the Noahic flood. So either Genesis is just as made-up as Exodus, or the Chinese are really good at treading water.

 

[Learner]

like the example of the Egyptian pharaoh reprobate who was even given Ten chances to let the Israelites go, who continued to challenge God and hold the Israelites captive

It's a great example. If only it wasn't a total pack of lies.

The entire Exodus story is just a story. Fiction.

It just ain't so.

(Is all I need to say here )

We know this, because the Egyptians were pretty good record keepers, and didn't once seem to notice that they had captured the Israelites*, nor that those wily Israelite slaves had taken time out of their busy day of being oppressed by Pharaoh, to remove every single archaeological trace of their existence from Egypt (knowing, as they did, that Egypt would be the focus of intense archaeological scrutiny a few thousand years later).

Indeed there has been intense archeological scrutiny but were you aware that it is known for the Pharaoh who would be current of the time to
have writings all about him, inscribed 'over the top' (erasing) previous inscriptions of previous Pharaohs? Which doesn't sound quite the "good record keeping" to me - rather the writings seem a little more on the god-like self-image. I wonder who decides the final edits of a pharaohs legacy if not himself or the family left behind after his death?

The Exodus never happened. The Israelites were never held captive in Egypt. It's just fiction. A myth. There is just as much evidence of the Israeli escape from Pharaoh as there is of Jack's escape from the giant that lives atop the beanstalk.

...as I allude from the above.
The Israelites defeated the Egyptians according to the writings of the Israelites.

Pharaoh could not oversee his written legacy since he was killed in the sea. If however pharaoh did survive the sea, what we can attain from the psyche of a god-like self-image persona...

.... his pride would NOT record and admit to his defeat!!!

(I'll stop here, Lunch breaks over)

 

[DBT]

What are the moral implications of God killing the first born of Egypt because of the Pharaohs unwillingness to comply? What does that say about the nature of this God?

 

[ideologyhunter]

A Robert Ingersoll quote I can't get out of my head -- it's from 'Some Reasons Why':

"Suppose the Devil had inspired a book? In what respect would he have differed from God on the subject of slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious persecution? Suppose we knew that after God had finished his book the Devil had gotten possession of it, and wrote a few passages to suit himself, which passages, O Christian, would you pick out as having probably been written by the Devil? Which of these two: 'Love thy neighbor as thyself' or 'Kill all the males among the little ones, and all the women and girls keep alive for yourselves'...If God wrote the last, there is no need of a Devil."

 

[Learner]

The devil, the excellent accuser, would do much better to 'encourage' the same rhetorical notion as what Ingersoll promotes! Adding to the various angles of many arguments against the Holy hosts of the bible, across-the-board.

If we were to entertain the flawed idea, if Ingersoll is suggesting, e.g. that the existence of Jesus is the devil's plan, the bit he wrote in. Then interestingly that would imply the Jesus 'mythicists' like Carrier & Co. and even Bart Erhman are doing the work of God of the OT, perhaps without them realising it?

Entertaining the idea..
..I've been entertained.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Entertaining the idea..

How about the idea that slavery and genocide are (metaphorically at least) satanically evil?

 

[DBT]

What about the moral implications of a God that knowingly creates an evildoer in the form of the Devil?

 

[Elixir]

What about the moral implications of a God that knowingly creates an evildoer in the form of the Devil?

He’s smart.

God: God is good
People: Compared to what?
God: Hold my beer

 

[DBT]

A beer drinking God can't be a bad thing.

But that's not Yahweh the Angry, who only drinks Bile.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Is there any other explanation that makes as much sense? Even if we discuss a particular god of a particular sect of a particular religion we find differences and different interpretations of that "god" and its behavior among individuals in that particular group of people. They may agree on a majority of alleged characteristics but are never 100% in agreement. People who talk about god appear to be merely projecting themselves onto this human archetype.

If I worship a god that commits genocide and I explain it away by saying that my god is mysterious then obviously I approve of genocide. If I worship a god that allows children to die of cancer than obviously I approve of children dying of cancer. We shouldn't be asking someone why their god allows evil but be asking why they themselves allow evil.

The difference between a good person that does bad things and a bad person that does good things is the things those persons do. Claiming that I have a god is just my attempt to put some space between my behavior and personal accountability for same.

According to Lacan, yes. God is pure projection.

According to Jürgen Habermas God is the metaphor we give to our hopes and dreams.

You can enjoy Michael Jacksons music without being a pedophile or being pro-pedophilia.

I'd also like to mention that within Abrahamic faith, God moves in mysterious ways, ie don't think about the stuff that you don't agree with. It's above your pay grade

 

[Swammerdami]

Out of morbid curiosity, I looked up some Christian[] sites to see how they justified the evil OT god's actions. Let's just say that anything god did to protect the chosen people, was find and dandy. They see it as justice. I think that's really fucked up. Genocide is okay as long as their god does it and why did god choose one special people. Damn. They even mentioned that atheists see their OT god as evil. Damn right we do. There mythological character is a very bad boy!

The Jewish God really is a nasty guy! (Can we say that without being accused of anti-Semitism?) How about Allah of Islam? Does he call for the murder of otherwise-innocent Infidels?

There's a passage in one of the Gospels where Jesus tells leaders of one Jewish sect (Philistines?) that the God they worship is a cruel Satan.

 

[bilby]

There's a passage in one of the Gospels where Jesus tells leaders of one Jewish sect (Philistines?) that the God they worship is a cruel Satan.

Which is interesting for another reason - Jesus is clearly of the opinion that other Gods are real, even Gods with a clear familial relationship to his own.

The Philistines are not told that their God is not real, a lie, a distortion, or a mistake; They are told that their God is unworthy.

Monotheism is not yet a thing here. Jesus worships (perhaps even embodies) a God, but not the God.

The Old Testament is riddled with polytheism, but here we see that polytheism is still too obvious and unquestionable to discuss, even in the New Testament.

There's no "That isn't God, because I am (or I follow) the only God"; Instead there's a lot of "Don't worship those Gods, because this God is better".

Monotheism is anti-biblical. Any true follower of the Bible should be a polytheist (albeit one who claims his God can lick all the others, so there!).

And note that the God of the Philistines (or whoever) is a variation on the theme of Jesus's God. So not only does Jesus imply polytheism; He also implies that Gods - real, full featured, independant moral agent Gods - are created by their believers.

Heresy apparently doesn't lead people to worship non-existent Gods; It causes (cruel and Satanic) Gods, with the power to challenge Jesus's God, to actually exist.

Even Jesus clearly understands that Gods are fiction (though he also believes that such fictions are real and powerful).

 

[DBT]

There's a passage in one of the Gospels where Jesus tells leaders of one Jewish sect (Philistines?) that the God they worship is a cruel Satan.

Which is interesting for another reason - Jesus is clearly of the opinion that other Gods are real, even Gods with a clear familial relationship to his own.

What are the verses? Just curious.

 

[Learner]

What are the moral implications of God killing the first born of Egypt because of the Pharaohs unwillingness to comply? What does that say about the nature of this God?

I'll say briefly for the moment.

Exodus:1:15-16 and 22 gives us a hint, that the ease with little to no 'conscience' for the 'intention to murder'(children and adults), was not a rare thing; a worldly mentality that was universally shared and understood because that was the way of life! War and vengeance is the language they understand.

Three hundred years before Moses even (and the events of the Egyptian 1st born). Similar theme, any connection?

Exodus 1:15:16 and 22

15.Then the king of Egypt told the Hebrew midwives,whose names were Shiphrah and Push,

16: "When you help the Hebrew women in child birth, look at the child when you deliver it. If it's a boy, kill it, but if it's a girl, let it live.

22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people to throw into the Nile every [Hebrew] boy that was born, but let every girl live.

So,as I see it, not you of course - Egypt and it's people was judged (not murdered) at the time of Moses.