andrewcriddle

I'm not sure if that is true.

The claim made about Rwanda IIUC is that very many people did things while doubting whether such action was right. (FWIW I'm doubtful about this claim as history but that's another matter.)

My position is that I would probably refrain from doing things even if I doubted whether such refraining was right.

You may disapprove of both positions but unless what one should do is always clear cut for you, it may be difficult to always avoid both.

Andrew Criddle

BadBadBad

Andrew claimed that the command to kill all that breathe by the edge of the sword was carried out witout malice or cruelty. How can God have a sinful motive? You have admitted that all babies are sinful and that God has the prerogative to end their lives in the manner and time he sees fit. God's motive was justice and he commanded Joshua carried out his prerogative. Let me list out the criteria you seem to be laying out here,

1. It is not within God's nature to sin against himself. Therefore any command from God would not have a sinful motive.

2. Andrew believes that killing by the edge of the sword is painless and efficient, not malicious or cruel. If you can believe that, you can believe that any form of killing can be carried out without malice or cruelty.

3. God's commands must comply with your sense of morality and common decency. This seems to be the sticky one.

In that man created God, I understand the basis of number three. It also explains why there's a contradiction between the God described in Joshua and the God you believe in. Man's decency and morality changes. You're problem is that you believe God doesn't. That's why you're having such a difficult time explaining Joshua and the OT. God is not described as decent or moral according to man's standards today. So what you really seem to be saying is that the OT does not describe the God you believe in at all.

This is ridiculous Lee. Joshua 10 details a very long string of slaughters by the edge of the sword. This debauchery is summed up in Joshua 10:40 with the clencher statement: "as the LORD God of Israel commanded." It couldn't be any more clear.

10:40 So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded.

The scripture defines a baby as a sinner worthy of utter destruction. It defines God as the creator of babies with the prerogative to end their life in the time and manner he sees fit. It defines God as deciding to execute his prerogative and explains his reasoning and rational as just and moral. It then defines God as giving a command for Joshua to do just that by the edge of the sword. This is in the scripture. Is the scripture in error?

So you're simultaneously denying that God did command Joshua to kill by the edge of the sword. You're denying that you would carry out that command on moral and decency concerns. However, if God actually did command you to do it, you'd be justified in morally and decently carrying it out. So, if you did carry it out, you'd be an innocent murderer.

BadBadBad

So who was it that said Lee would not kill the baby?

So if, God passed judgement on man for grave sins against God. And if God's wrath burned hot and he decided to execute his justice and vengeance. And if God whetted his glistening sword and sentenced the Amorites to die by it. And if God handed you that sword through Joshua to you to carry out his sentence. And if Joshua told you God commands you to kill the baby now, you would do it.

But, fortunately for you ..... the Bible doesn't say that.

So you wouldn't do it.

Yes, I believe you still have a point or two you either haven't addressed or you have been unclear on or have provided contradictory answers to.

Biff the unclean

Is that a yes? Because I didn't ask if God damned babies, I asked if you had any problem with their damnation.

So when that woman (sorry I forget her name) a couple of years ago drowned her children in the family car because she clearly heard the voice of God commanding her to do so...was she or was she not crazy? You appear to be saying that she did the right thing...can that possibly be?

BadBadBad

I thought about this last night, and I do want to clear one thing up. With respect to the old man that took part in the Rwanda killings, I don't hold him morally responsible for the killings since he claims his own life was at stake. Although we don't know that for sure, it was a very real and documented possibility. I've already said this is a circumstance that I too might be compelled to kill babies. I couldn't bear to see my family slaughtered, and I would do anything to prevent it. I do hold him morally responsible for switching discourse to the dominant ideology. So, there I believe is the weakness in my argument.

If you could show that Joshua's army was compelled to kill all that breathe and that it was a matter of survival for them, then you would be on firm footing. You're not doing that though. You're switching discourse to the dominant ideolgy, then you're saying you wouldn't do it because butchering babies is beyond decency and morality. It's an entirely contradictory answer.

BadBadBad

Deanna Laney who chased her sons out into the front yard and bashed their brains in with a rock and her son in the crib because God told her to do it is probably a better example. Texas is always a better place to find killers for God.

Charles Bailey

Lee, please try to search for some intellectual honesty. If you continue to evade the point of my questions then there is no point in my continuing this discussion with you. For example, my question above was asking for a reason not to keep the young boys alive if the young girls were merely being kept alive for servanthood...and you respond by telling me why the women were put to death?

Then, you snipped the rest of my questions which were pertinent to the original question, "what were the young girls kept alive for?" These evasive tactics are unacceptable, and they are designed to give the appearance that you're making relevant responses to the points made when in fact you aren't doing anything of the sort. If this is going to be your modus operandi, then I have better things to do.

Yes, I am well aware of the matter at Peor, but had you not snipped my questions, the irrelevancy of your response would be obvious. So, I will repeat one of the questions you've snipped: why make virginity a criterion for female survival at all? Of what relevance would this be to servanthood? Isn't it possible, Lee (since you are so fond of considering possibilities), that at least some of the women "who had known a man intimately" had no part in the "matter at Peor?" If not, why not?

Why keep only the virgins alive Lee?


Huh? What will be a consequence from bringing what people in where?

The implication of the text is that Moses instructed the Israelites to kill every Midianite survivor except the virgin girls so that they could use them for their sexual gratification as they pleased. In a humanitarian culture this is often called "rape."

I don't have the first clue as to what you're talking about here. You're not being very clear, but then I suppose that is the point of obfuscation then, isn't it?

Lee, you're beginning to confuse yourself. We were discussing Numbers 31 which is an account of the Midianite massacre. The Amorites had nothing to do with Moses' instructions to keep all the virgin girls alive for themselves.

If you were making an honest attempt to treat the problem rationally by answering the questions that were actually posed--instead of ones that weren't--there probably would be no confusion. So how about it Lee? Why don't you for once answer a question directlly, relevantly, and succinctly?

Why keep alive only the virgin girls?

Nonsense! The criticism here, Lee, stems from the moral principle of murdering innocent human beings whose only crimes had been to be of a particular ethnicity and to have occupied a particular piece of land. And the women at Peor's only crime was to worship the God they put their trust in. They were blamed for what the Israelite men did of their own will, which was worship a foreign God.

The story doesn't have to be historical in order for it to be worthy of criticism any more than Aesop's Fables have to be historical to merit some criticism. So once again, either you do not even understand the very nature of this discussion or you're deliberately trying to obfuscate it with irrelevant material.


The phrase "must have been" when combined with the word "supernatural" is too absurd for comment. But again, we're not talking about the Amorites here.

Why keep alive only the virgin girls?

Now I see! The Israelites weren't actually killing people, they were killing Nephilim! Oh, wait, did any of the daughters of men include Hebrew women? Isn't that a possibility Lee? Why didn't Moses instruct the Israelites to kill their own Nephilim?

Oh, and what does any of this have to do with answering the question: why keep only the virgin girls alive?

I'm sorry Lee, but you've explained exactly nothing. All you've done is make one naked assertion after another while merely assuming the historicity and inerrancy of the text. Besides, Moses <snicker, snicker> gives the reason why he has instructed the Israelites to kill the remainder of the Midianites:

NUMBERS 31:15-18
15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?

16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.

17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Notice there was nothing there about the Midianites being Nephilim. Speaking of "possibilities" Lee, is it possible that the Midianites were just people?

Now your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to demonstrate the following assumptions that your assertions depend on:

1. There are such things as "fallen angels."
2. There is such thing as the "supernatural."
3. There were such things as "Nephilim."

Oh, and while you're at it, you might try to explain (notice I said explain and not assert) why there were Nephilim after the flood?

That's a tautology Lee. I was looking for useful information. I asked you how the fact that everyone dies provides an objective moral foundation for committing acts of genocide and ethnic cleasing? Again Lee, you affirmed the notion that an atheist has no objective moral basis to take issue with the Numbers 31, so I'm asking you what your objective moral basis is for approving of Numbers 31. (Please remember that I'm not interested in your own personal subjective moral basis here.)


Alleged prophecy only deals with information that human beings have (or can have) which means that it is incapable of demonstrating the existence of a supernatural agent. What I asked you to provide was a single verifiable fact that human beings could only have obtained through supernatural means. (Well, not in those words, but it should have been clear enough what I was getting at.)

Possibilities are nearly limitless. What is pertinent to any rational discussion are things that amount to what is probable and not merely possible. Inductive arguments are meant to propose the plausibility of a proposition which can only be achieved by statistical considerations. Arguments from silence normally don't even register unless we have an absence of evidence where evidence should most certainly be expected, as in the type of evidence we have for Bible-God which, of course, is consistent with its non-existence. The same could be said for the Exodus and wilderness wanderings of the ancient Hebrews, and the global Flood of Genesis.

Your "possibilities" are not derived from the text we are discussing, but are derived from unrelated texts from other sources. You're merely arguing from the assertion that the Bible is the Word of God, and presumably from the assumption that Moses authored the Pentateuch. Two positions that you will be in need of establishing as they go against the professional opinions of a majority of scholarship, and defy common sense.

As I said, the text is explicit. There is no need for specualtion. See above as to my response about submitting mere possibilities which are nearly limitless. As of this minute, the only apparent motive for making such an appeal is your desire to believe in the inerrancy and divine inspiration of the Bible. This is not an acceptable standard of exegesis.[/quote]

You're appealing to a type of argument you are on record as rejecting. This is the fallacy of special pleading. The fact that you seem to think it's okay to reason this way doesn't make it so. Please get informed.

The text is explicit. You are simply trying to force a desired interpretation--one that is more palatable for your faith--onto the text for selfish interests. This does not represent a sound method of hermaneutics.

Not true. Occam's Razor suggests that when evaluating two or more explanations for a single proposition, given an equal amount of evidence for the plausibility of each explanation, the explanation which requires fewer assumptions is more likely to be correct than the explanation requiring more.

In our particular case, the available evidence isn't even equal. I have the text, you have an infinite amount of possibilities with no verifiable support.

There is simply no linguistic reason to avoid a plain reading of the text, period. Special pleading just doesn't cut it.

Quite the contrary. I do not accept propositions that are based on supernatural presuppositionalism. If you want to talk about possibilities then let's talk about possibilities! Is it possible that the Bible is not the Word of God? Is it possible that the Bible is not inerrant? Is it possible that no gods exist, including the God of the Bible? Is it possible that Jesus never existed? If your answer to any of these is yes, then perhaps you should admit right now that you do not have a solid basis for accepting the veracity of Scripture. Perhaps you should admit that you can't know (as you claimed before) that Christianity is true, that God exists, and that you are going to be saved?

Yes, I noticed after having made my post. Personally, I think if you avoid making relevant responses to his points as you've done here, you're going to be a collossal waste of Farrell's time. (And everyone else's for that matter.)

Ah, but we've been trying to discuss absolute and objective morality here, so who gets to subjectively decide when means are or aren't appropriate given your moral construct?

Give me one reason why I should consider the text of 1 Peter 4:6 as an indication that it is okay to slaughter women and children--or any human being for that matter?

Because Pslam 136 is about God's preference for the Israelites, and how he led them out of Egypt, and how he destroyed untold thousands of lives along the way, and how he stole land on their behalf, etc. Then it says that this same God provides food for all flesh (presumably those he hasn't butchered) and you want to argue from this that the Hebrew God indicates his love for the Egyptians he murdered by providing them with food before he hacked them to pieces on the day he passed over the House of Israel? It's simply preposterous reasoning!

No kidding! This is what some have been trying to get you to admit of your Bible. Just because the Bibles says X, doesn't necessarily mean that X. In fact, there is good reason to believe that ~X in many, many cases where the Bible claims X.

Now, if the Rwandan tribesmen claimed that God told them to massacre thousands, then who are you to question their veracity? Isn't it at least possible (according to your logic) that if they claimed to have been given such a command from God, that they did in fact receive the command? Are you going to argue that this isn't possible, Lee? Go ahead and argue that that isn't possible!

So again, using the same evidence we have for Numbers 31, would the Rwandan massacres be absolutely and objectively morally permissible if they had claimed to have received the command from God? If not, why not?

Actually, neither of you addressed the question, in fact, you simply reasserted the premise without an explanation.

If what is righteous merely equates to what is God's will, then God could presumably "will" the exact opposite of what you think he wills at this very moment, and you would have to accept his will as righteousness--no matter what his will is! If God today says that killing babies is impious, then you have to accept that killing babies is impous; but if God tomorrow says that killing babies is pious, then you would have to consider killing babies pious, period!

So in an objective and absolute moral construct like yours, where is there room for questioning God's will? Where is the need to evaluate an act according to its level of malice or cruelty so long as God simply wills it? Who says God must provide a "non-sinful motive?" Besides, getting back to my original question, how would you know what a non-sinful motive is when God is commanding you to do something? If what is right equates to God's will, how would you know when he is ordering something that is wrong or unrighteous?

But, if your Bible is true, then God's morality includes commanding human beings to kill other human beings (including babies), so wouldn't this pretty much rule nothing out?

As Robert Ingersoll once said of the Bible: "Could a demon have done worse?"

John A. Broussard

Fair enough.

We've established the OP. You agree that Moses was a baby killer.

Now let's go on to the next question. Why was he?

Was he just following orders? That's the Eichman defense, as I noted earlier. If Moses was just following orders, we can then get into who gave the orders and why.

If he wasn't just following orders, why did he go about killing babies?

andrewcriddle

FWIW I think it probable that the history underlying the recorded massacres by Joshua is the relatively occasional act under extreme circumstances of the Israelites putting a city or tribe under sacred ban and then fighting a war of extermination against it.

In the narrative as it now exists, such acts, which were in reality rare, are carried out by Joshua on a vast scale.

This rewriting of history serves to exaggerate the ethnic separateness of Israel from its neighbours and emphasise the need for Israelites to avoid fraternisation with those neighbours.

Andrew Criddle

Biff the unclean

As much whitewash as you slap on it the story of this genocide is still in your bible, not as a horror, not as something terrible. God, your God, the Jesus you believe in, not only approves of genocide He orders it.
This rewriting of the bible servers to demonstrate that you don't really believe the values that it teaches.

And may I point out that all the crap the Jews have suffered as a race in the past few thousand years can be traced back to their faith based lack of fraternisation with their neighbors.