BadBadBad

If someone said to me that I must kill someone else's child or they will kill me or my family, I would. So, yes I can see circumstances where I might have to come to terms with killing.

Would it be moral? I guess that depends on whether you were me or the parents of the child I was about to have to kill.

Wallener

Thanks. Not trying to establish an attack, was just genuinely curious what your position was.

andrewcriddle

I think it's unlikely that (while continuing to have my current sensibilities) I would actually deliberately kill a baby whatever the evidence (secuar or religious) that it was my duty to do so.

As a member of a different culture with different sensibilities I would doubtless act differently.

However I don't think this is a really interesting answer.

As I said before there are straightforward things that I think I ought to do but don't because I don't want to.

The question of what would I do in reality faced with a decision it is utterly unlikely I will ever have to make, seems to have little to do with what would be right or wrong for me to do in that situation. And even less to do with what someone living in a very different culture should decide to do.

How far do you believe that these mass slaughters actually happened on the scale suggested in the Bible read literally but were in reality more brutal than the text suggests ?

The claim that this didn't happen but if it had really happened it would be more brutal than the text suggests is IMO not very interesting.

Taking Numbers 31 as it stands. IF the battle can be arranged so that no Israelite at all dies (31:49) then presumably the enemy can be very quickly killed afterwards




What you seem to be arguing is that since war in primitive society is inevitably sometimes very brutal pacifism is the only acceptable response in those circumstances.

Is that what you're getting at ?
I'm not sure if I was unclear in my previous response, but my point is that the issue of a threat to my loved one if I kill someone might apply even if the person I kill is guilty of heinous crimes and will continue such crimes unless stopped.

It would be a terrible decision to have to make but it seems clear that there could be circumstances in which ones love for a relative ought to take second place to other obligations.



FWIW the promise is in the circumstances worthless.

If I'm convinced that left alive the child will inherit a blood feud obligation against me then nothing he says in the circumstances really changes that.

In fact morally speaking such a promise could not possibly bind him in any way.

Andrew Criddle

Biff the unclean

My position is that the story of Joshua is the story of a genocidal maniac told by the loyal followers of the maniac. I imagine, had the Nazis won, they would be telling much the same story about the Jews that the Jews are telling here about the Amorites. I can imagine the glee of the tale of how God made sun stand still to give brave Hitler time to destroy all that breathed in the Warsaw Ghetto. “Chosen (of God) People,� “Master Race,� there’s precious little difference in these assertions.
Whether Joshua is historic or not the bible condones… no, make that celebrates… such barbarism and attributes it to God. Which leaves the worshipers of God simultaneously claiming that God is goodness itself and a genocidal killer. So any morality based on this God is rendered useless because it’s completely arbitrary.

Biff the unclean

There is no evidence for either. Only outlandish stories of impossible events...a.k.a. works of fiction in which they are characters

Wallener

Indeed. The basic fact of the universe is that ethnic cleansing and genocide work far better than we may like to think they should. Infanticide as a general policy has been blessed by Darwinism, so it's a little difficult to argue there is something unnatural about it. From that perspective, I see nothing incoherent in a story having G-d order what is essentially a genocide. Also don't see anything incoherent in Joshua's actions: if you're going to cleanse a region, you don't really have a choice but to deal with infants in an extreme manner.

We aren't built for grandiose truths: we're built for survival.

rexrex4

People! People!! I scream!! I cry!!! Read these words. Let their meaning penetrate your skull. THINK! THINK! THINK! FEEL! FEEL! FEEL!!!!!
If these words are remotely justified in even being uttered as they have been, Then we need as a human race to grow up and grow up fast. Because the words are based on a false premise and that fact needs to be faced, and if the premise is not false, then let us be adults and stop pretending anyone including a god that could have enabled such a dead world deserves anything other than to be seen as solely a piece of meat to be eaten when convenient, etc. etc.

Wallener

Infanticide as a male reproductive strategy is well-documented. Primates, in fact, are one of the best examples. The world is what it is...

Biff the unclean

Speaking as a zoologist, what the f***ing bloody hell are you talking about!!!!!?????
Human women are not brought into "heat" by murdering their children.

rexrex4

The false premise here is that even if you were factually correct about the bloody brutality of nature, you are wrong that Darwinism or evolutionary theory somehow sanctioned the simplistic notion that if nature is bloody in tooth and claw, there can be no LEGITEMATE reason for us not to blindly follow suit. In fact you completely misconstrue evolutionary theory.
But please don’t snip one tiny phrase and ignore the whole content. It is the concept that is embraced in the quote as a whole that can forge a cold blooded government policy, not the little rationalization you pulled out which is useful for the purpose but not sufficient without the philosophical underpinnings such as your statements offer.