striderlives

Damen und Herren,

I have quoted several verses from the bible showing Yahwehs sanctioning and outright commandments to kill women and children on another forum where a poster has 'promised' a thorough thrashing of my position - point by point, showing either the lack of context or my simple dimness as to the 'true meaning' of those verses.

IOW, some kind of apologetic smackdown.

I offered Hosea 13:16, 2 Kings 2:23, Ezekiel 9:5-7, and 1 Samuel 15:2-3.

I left out the Midianites, my favorite - but that's my bad.
:frown:

Any heads up as to what position he will likely take?

Dina Noun

Well, Hosea 13:16 gives an explanation for why the cruelty would befall them: “ … because they have rebelled against their God.” When people rebel, they are often treated harshly.

In the bear-mauling tale in 2 Kings, the believers will probably try to say that it wasn't children, but youths - young teenagers: and there were at least 42 of them who taunted Elisha, so surely he was in grave danger.

In the Ezekial passage, again, God is only killing those who 'deserve' to be killed.




I personally like Job. In it, God gives Satan the thumbs up to kill Job's servants and Job's children. Afterwards, God Himself admits that there was no reason for this killing ...



I also like the story of Moses and the Pharaoh, because in it God forces Pharaoh to do things, then holds Pharaoh responsible.

I assume most people are familiar with the Moses/Phraraoh/Set My People Free story. The really short version: God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let the Israelites go, and Moses does. Pharaoh doesn't listen. So God starts telling Moses to do this or that plague so that Pharaoh will listen and let the Israelites go. But Pharaoh pigheadedly refuses. Yep, in general, after each plague is inflicted on Pharoh and his kingdom - be it all the waters turning into blood, swarms of locust, complete darkness during the day, or any of the many other - Pharaoh says he will let the Israelites go, but then once relief is in sight, changes his mind back to NOT letting them go. Finally, because Pharaoh would not listen, God inflicts the final plague: the death of all the first born in Egypt. Nice God, huh. Oh, but God is MUCH worse than that makes it sound. Here's why.

God says BEFORE Moses starts his mission that He will not LET Pharaoh let the Israelites go.

Yes, the Bible tells us that God Himself took away Pharaoh’s free will! That God actively prevented Pharaoh from letting the Israelites go, but then turned right around and punished Pharaoh by killing his firstborn son! And the firstborn sons of all of Egypt!

Oh, but perhaps the Bible just messed up somehow: maybe it doesn’t repeat that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Nope. The Bible says it MULTIPLE times.

We see again that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he wouldn’t free the Israelites in Exodus 9:12:

And again and again this is confirmed.

God TOOK WAY Pharaoh’s FREE WILL, FORCED Pharaoh to do something, then turned around and punished him and all of Egypt for it! And God PLANNED this all out ahead of time!

What we have hear is God playing out a ruthless, malicious, perverted, unrighteous, game, with Moses and Pharaoh being mere pawns. God is controlling the entire game; He keeps hardening Pharaoh's heart, just as He said He would do beforehand, and as we are told throughout the story He did. But then God kills all of the firstborn sons of Egypt, because Pharaoh did what God made him do! God's one sick mother.



Eventually, Pharaoh does let the Israelite slaves go. But then he mysteriously changes his mind and pursues them. Why? Because God made him!

That Pharaoh pursues the Israelites, after having finally set them free, because God forces him, as stated not only twice in Exodus 14:1-8, but again in Exodus 14:15-18.

And what is God’s purpose for having Pharaoh and his army pursue the Israelites? FOR GOD TO GAIN GLORY THROUGH HIS KILLING THEM ALL!

And then, after God has killed all the Egyptians – which He, the puppet master FORCED to do what they did – all the Israelites start singing about how wonderful God is!!!

Sadistic little so and so’s. And their God too!

TomboyMom

Here's a couple of cruel incidents from the OT:
1 Samuel 15:3
Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

Numbers 31:7-18

15 "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. 16 "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

The usual response I have received from the opposition is that God can do what he wants cuz he's God, he can do what he wants with his creation, who are we to question him, and without God there is no moral standard by which to judge him.

Sheshbazzar

Careful, or your reasoning may also lead you into acceptance of the conclusion that The Scriptures teach that;

".......Yahweh has mercy on whomsoever He will have mercy, and whomsoever He will, He hardens."

Life just isn't fair! and Yahweh's just a big old bully, and there is no gawd;
'cause any gawd that we would call good just wouldn't or couldn't cause, or let anything bad happen to anyone at all;
Nope, if he were any good, he'd just feed every single one of us milk and cookies everyday, and wipe our noses an arses fer us, an step right in to break up every stupid argument we start, and would keep us from stubbing our toes on any of the stones we were to lazy or stupid to watch out for.
Bwwaaa! Bwaaaa! Boo-hoo-hoo!
We just hate you gawd! an we are gonna run away! you'll see! Bwaaaa!
We'll tell on you! Boo-hoo! We'll tell! we'll tell everyone just what a bad, bad, meanie of an ol' gawd you really are! Boo-hoo-hoo!

TomboyMom

You agree then that your God is a cruel genocidal maniac, but you have no problem with that? Is that your position?

Note we are not talking about Yahweh allowing someone to stub their toe; we are talking about him commanding people to run their swords through the bellies of little babies; not exactly the same thing, is it?

RUmike

It's funny... Often times subjects get repeated here pretty often, and a lot of people say, "*Yawn* check the archives". But when this subject pops up, everyone delights in telling their favorite OT atrocity. So I'll join in too...

Deuteronomy 13:6-10
If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, 'Let us go and serve other gods,' which neither you nor your fathers have known, some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.


Hmmm...was this the commandment that our founding fathers derived "freedom of religion" from?

Jesse Leigh

G'morning!

While this does tend to simplify the issue somewhat, essentially it is correct.

What most of the people on this forum fail to realize is that you (we - *each* of us) have already *earned* a death sentence, and that we all live and breathe by the *Grace* of God quite literally. He can withdraw this Grace at any time and still be perfectly within His Province.

Humans have no buisiness (not to mention the capability of) judging God. As the Bible points out, He is the Potter and we are (again quite literally) the clay. We are dust, people, and Yahweh is GOD. He keeps the universes spiralling and fuels every star, yet still knows every thought each of us have before we have it.

Awesome!

If you can't be humble in the face of that, then I doubt anything else I say will mean anything at all. - Jesse.

post tenebras lux

Hi Jesse, how did I earn a death sentence?

How has some new-born babe earned a death sentence?

Thanks in advance, Luxie

Jack the Bodiless

Well, I haven't. So what did YOU do to earn one, Jesse? You seem to have something weighing on your conscience... what is it?
The Bible says otherwise. We DO have the ability to judge God, and to determine that he is cruel and evil: Genesis 3:22 confirms this. We know the difference between Good and Evil, independently of God: that's what the story of the Forbidden Fruit was all about (and, interestingly, God didn't want us to have this ability).

We can also judge God by God's own rules. For instance, God says that children shouldn't be punished for the crimes of their parents: but God himself breaks this rule many times.

In general, however, you aren't arguing that God is NOT evil: you're simply declaring that you don't care.

Gamera

That's the unusal response of voluntarists of the middle ages, the most prominent of which was Duns Scotus, from which we get the word "dunce."

Christianity rejected voluntarism (the idea that the essence of God is his will and he can do anything he wants which by definition is right), and embraced the view that the essence of God is love, not power.

So no Christian would give this "usual response," unless they are ignorant of church history, which I admit, most religious rightwingers are (but they aren't Christians in my opinion in any case)

That doesn't mean that answering the topic question is easy or that it is an illegitimate question. It's not. It's a good question. I think the answer revolves around being free moral beings and having free will, and the fact that God of the OT is conceptualized in a way that was comprehensible to the people of that time, who were superstitious, violent, and selfish. The process to move them from that condition to the condition of unconditional love required to fulfull the NT isn't easy and isn't about doctrine, but an historical process that God, according to us Christians, participated in, unwillingly and holding his nose, if he had one.