blt to go

Do you believe Revelations has already happened? Or do you believe it is a future event? If future, then God WILL ask this to happen again.

I presume you hope you are in the armies of heaven. (Rev 19:14) rather than the partygoers of hell.

Rev. 19:15 talks about the "winepress of the fury of the Lord." What will that look like? Rev. 14:19-20 gives us a pretty vivid picture.

It says that blood will flow to the height of a horses' bridle (say 6 feet very conservatively) and for a distance of about 180 Miles.

Can you envision that much blood? 6 ft deep by 180 miles by unknown width. Heck, make it 40 ft width, the width of a highway, shoulder to shoulder. THAT is a lot of blood.

If God came to you, in Heaven, and said, "Hey, you are part of the Army of Heaven, and I must have, to fulfill prophecy, blood this deep. Here's a sword, knock yourself out" would you go out and kill man, woman, and child to achieve God's Goal?

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

But not brutality, that was not ordered.

Now when a child dies, even given God's decision that this be the case, is this to be considered brutality? Does he have that prerogative? That is my main question here.

Then the next question is whether he ever involves people in carrying out his judgments.

Do we know he ordered that swords be used? If not, do we know he did not object?

I would then ask, do we have any instance of these Israelites thinking they knew what to do in carrying out God's orders, when in fact, they did not? Well, they did:

Joshua 9:16 Three days after they made the treaty with the Gibeonites, the Israelites heard that they were neighbors, living near them.

Or even more noteably, at the defeat at Ai (Josh. 7-8).

And did they have any experience of God carrying out supernatural judgments resulting even in people's deaths, with a human agent involved in carrying them out? They had that, too, in the plague of hail in Egypt, and at the Red Sea. Now drowning is not painless, but I believe the hailstones were not dropped randomly, and could certainly dispatch someone instantly.

So I don't think we have to draw the conclusion that an action taken was the method that was prescribed.

No, unless he gives me a motive that is not cruelty, brutality, vengefulness (which is not the same as vengeance), then I will conclude that this action is not his will.

Only if we conclude that God ordered a motive of brutality, that the Israelites had that motive, can we make this conclusion.

If you are saying there are real moral values, I agree. And I believe they match up with Scripture, and if God did demand cruelty from one of his followers, I would jump ship indeed.

I would also want to be forbidden to be hateful or to seek my interest above other people's. I think I am forbidden that.

I wouldn't do it to fulfill a prophecy, for just and only that reason. I would expect there to be a deeper reason, and even a good one, even here.

Regards,
Lee

John A. Broussard

I'm beginning to see your view of god. Whatever she/he/it wants to do is perfectly alright no matter how much suffering his actions may intail. And yet you worship a creature who has this quality.

Surely you must see the implications of your attitude. Isn't this really a slave mentality?

Remember, now, we're speaking about an all-powerful, all-benevolent god, so you can't say the suffering is all for the best, since there had to be a way for this all-powerful god to accomplish his ends without all that suffereing.

Don't you sometimes wonder whether your god might not be all-malevolent?

Biff the unclean

Sorry to butt in Lee, but what the heck are you talking about? The bible is specific that not only were Joshua & Co. to kill every living person but it goes out of it's way to insist that this be done with "the edge of the sword."
So no quick stabs to the heart. God instructs that all these people be hacked to death. Like being hacked to death by an axe. Only todays axes are made from carbon steel and hold a sharp edge. Joshua's swords were made from bronze mostly. The swords of the rich would have been made of soft iron. None of them would have held an edge very long. So it's the same order as if God insisted that every man woman and child be hacked to death by blunt axes.
If the hacking of babies to pieces with blunt instruments not your idea of brutality then may I ask what is?

Wallener

That doesn't support your position as the passage explicitly states they did not consult with G-d. Nowhere does it say they didn't consult with the Lord regarding the use of dull swords or the killing of women and children.

As a Jew, I have to say I'm mortified - bordering on horrified - by the spin you are putting on these texts and - worse - the whole "Tyre sank but nobody noticed" concept on That Other Thread. IMO, you are making a mockery of faith and giving a backhanded slap to the face of thousands of years of Jewish study that struggles with these particular passages for the obvious reason they are, quite plainly, brutally violent instructions from G-d.

Avatar

How so? By pointing out that these orders were brutal, and violent, and utterly at odds with what Chistians claim God is all about?

It's nice to know that people do struggle with it as opposed to ignore it like most, though.

BadBadBad

Aah. The command structure. You may have something there. Does this sound familiar?

From here:

"As we saw in Chapter 1, there had always been a strong tradition of unquestioning obedience to authority in the pre-colonial kingdom of Rwanda . This tradition was of course reinforced by both the German and Belgian colonial administrations. And since independence the country had lived under a well-organised tightly-controlled state. When the highest authorities in that state told you to do something you did it, even if it included killing. There is some similarity here to the Prussian tradition of the German state and its ultimate perversion into the disciplined obedience to Nazi orders.

Political scientists tell us that the state can be defined by its monopoly of legitimate organised violence. Where does the legality of the exercise of that monopoly stop? In time of war, people who refuse to carry out orders to commit violent acts can be shot. And we will see that violence and compulsion were used in the Rwandese case. This obviously constitutes no excuse, especially since, as we will also see, some people found in their religious faith or simply in their individual conscience the strength to resist the orders. But we have to realise that this is a society where two factors combine to make orders hard to resist. The first is a strong state authoritarian tradition going back to the roots of Rwandese culture. The Tutsi abami were definitely not constitutional monarchs, and killing was even an accepted sign of their political health--the difference being of course in the order of magnitude and social inscription of the killings. The second is an equally strong acceptance of group identification. In Rwanda, as elsewhere, a man is judged by his individual character, but in Rwandese culture he does not stand alone but is part of a family, a lineage and a clan, the dweller on a certain Hill. On top of this age-old feeling, the tight administrative practices (and regional discriminatory policies) of the regime had reinforced this 'collective grounding of identity'. When the authorities gave the orders to kill and most of the group around you complied, with greater or less enthusiasm, it took a brave man indeed to abandon solidarity with the crowd and refuse to go along. And such a heroic position would not be without personal danger. Sadistic killers such as the notorious Murambi bourgmestre Remy Gatete seem to have been in a small minority and heroes such as prefet Jean-Baptiste Habyarimana were even rarer. The vast majority of civil servants carried out their murderous duties with attitudes varying from careerist eagerness to sullen obediences. "

BadBadBad

God's perogative to kill is not the issue. It's whether you would kill for God. It's whether you would agree with the morality of God. You want to know if people are ever called to be involved in carrying out his sentences? You have read Joshua haven't you? God was fighting for the Israelites. He was handing them his enemies for slaughter.

Joshua 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.

God commanded. Joshua smote all that breath with the edge of the sword.

It's not a matter of what you want. It's a matter of what God wants. It's a matter of absolute morality. Obeying God is good. Disobeying and rebelling against God is evil. Will you obey God. That is the question.

If we're going to discuss the story of Joshua, perhaps you should read it. Killing all that breath, men women and children by the edge of the sword is not a subtle point in the story.

It's up to you now to judge God. Is he a sadist? That's entirely up to you to decide. Trust in his absolute morality and justice or rebel against him to rely on your human sense of morality. Kill the baby. Kill the baby with sufficient brutality to satisfy God's vengeance. That's good. Refuse to kill the baby. Kill Joshua. Put the sword down. Show your humanity and morality and ethics and rescue your own loved one I hold hostage. That's evil. You decide.

Context, context, context

DT 32:41 If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.

So basically, you have to have faith in the very same men that bring you God in the first place. You know like Moses. Moses supposedly performed fantastic miracles of God. Do you have faith in Moses or not?

God has turned the Amorites over to you. He's ordered Joshua to utterly destroy them all with full knowledge that Joshua is doing that over and over with the edge of the sword. God himself has whetted his glittering sword to devour flesh. And here it is. Take it.

Now how you intend to butcher and hack this baby to death without brutality or cruelty is going to be quite the miracle. Only don't look to God for that grace. It's his sword you've got there.

Obviously, if you've read the story by now, God's justice and vengeance is in fact all that breath be brutally and cruelly hacked to death. Otherwise, God might have made them just disappear. God commanded this brutal genocide. It's not your place as mere human to judge God or his motivations or his justice, vengeance, or morality. God commands it, therefore he must have a good reason to command it. It's a question of faith. Do you have faith in God and the men like Moses who bring the story of God to us. That is the question.

BadBadBad

How does God order man to kill all that breath, but not with brutality? How do you kill all that breath without brutality? You see, the key word here is killing. No matter how you go about it, it's brutal, cruel business. These folks aren't just going to bed one night and dying in their sleep. They're being killed one by one. Each person knows it's his turn next, and in this story they're all being hacked and butchered by the edge of the sword. My story from Rwanda is exactly that. Seven brothers and sisters are brutally slaughtered before the eyes of the last remaining child. The mother and son watch unbelievably as you approach with Joshua's sword. He's begging you. He'll says he'll never be an Amorite again.

Brutality wasn't ordered. Please!

God commanded the Israelites to move into the land as he promised Abraham. What of the people that lived there? They were wicked and worthy of utter destruction, you know just like the Israelites. God commanded the Israelites to move into the promised land and kill all that breath to satisfy God's justice and vengeance. Joshua and Moses commanded to kill all that breath with the edge of the sword, and God himself commanded Joshua to keep doing it in Joshua 10:40

Does God have the prerogative? That's not he question. That's irrellevant, and I keep telling you that. Regardless of whether God has the prerogative, God through Joshua has commanded you to kill the baby. You must judge Joshua's commandment. You must decide if you have faith in Moses and Joshua and the miracles of God performed through them. You must judge God. You must decide whether you will obey him or rebel against him. You must decide if it's brutal to butcher a baby. You must decide if you care whether it's brutal. You must decide if obeying God and doing something I think is brutal is worth seeing your own loved one slaughtered by me. It's entirely up to you.

Joshua 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.

John A. Broussard

Well put. lee will wiggle and squirm, come up with a lot of don't knows and maybes, but won't be able to really deal with this issue. As a matter of fact, anyone believing in the literal interpretation of the bible cannot answer this question except to admit that god is evil.