badger3k

So, would you agree that it was a good thing to kill him in the first place? Him and his entire nation? That's the question. Is genocide a morally good option?

andrewcriddle

I'm suggesting that in Bronze Age/Early Iron Age tribal society the options were sometimes grim.

Either one physically annihilated all the other tribe or one killed the adult males and forcibly incorporated the women and children into your tribe or you faced another brutal battle in another generations time and another and another...

It can be too easy to condemn societies in very different circumstances for being brutal in ways different to us.

Andrew Criddle

Gamut

This may be true but there is still a problem.

A God with unlimited intelligence, resources and options supposedly ordered the killings.

Now, that being true I find it very difficult to believe that this was the only option He could come to.

Having supposedly performed stupendous miracles before, He could have easily made something else happen if this story were true.

A being with infinite options available who still settles on genocide is not worthy of any respect as this shows an indication of His desire to kill these people. He obviously wanted them cut down and butchered.

I don't think anyone misunderstands the options of that age, it's just that the order was given by Moses supposedly upon direction by God, who could have handled it an infinite number of ways.

If it's not what He wanted, He would have chosen something else, unless you believe that God was forced into this position at which point He loses His Omnimax status.

Wallener

This is clearly not the Hebrew G-d - especially not the early Hebrew G-d - so I don't see how it has relevance.

Gamut

How can this not be relevant?

This Hebrew God is the same one we are discussing. The same that is followed now, from the same holy book.

Just because an idea has evolved doesn't change anything.

The current followers of this God believe He is Omnimax.

They read this story believing He is Omnimax, and yet they still follow Him.

That is the subject of this debate in a round about way.

Is it morally acceptable for this Omnimax being to order genocide? That is the question.

It is obvious that the OP answer is "yes" because clearly Moses was a baby killer.

The debate following that point is whether or not it morally right.

BadBadBad

Only, the reason all the children were killed is given in the Bible, and that's not it.

Numbers 31:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people

31:9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.

They didn't seem to be too worried about the little boys at this point.

31:16 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. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

Therefore kill all the male children and non-virgin women for the same reason we've talked about all throughout this thread. God wanted them to die a cruel, brutal death to satisfy his burning vengeance.

God wanted spiteful revenge.

badger3k

We're not condemnin them in their worldview, we are condemning them in ours. Using our values, or at least the ones supposedly preached from those who claim the title "Christian", who supposedly worship an all-loving and merciful god, we take a look at the events in question.

If they are literal, and they did occur as written, how can someone today say that the genocide was either moral or good by today's standards? In other words, if you think it was a good action, then you should have no problem doing the same thing today.

In my view, it may have been necessary from the Israelite point of view, but it was not a good action (especially not from the point of view of the innocent women and children who were slaughtered). As I said, war is not pretty, and people have to do a lot of things we normally consider evil, such as kill people. We can consider some death in war (combatants, at least) as being OK, because we use subjective morality in cases like that. Last time I looked, objective, absolute standards of good and evil did not have subjective bits. It's supposed to be all or nothing.

badger3k

Considering the books are supposed to reflect the early Hebrew conception of their god, which supposedly has not changed (since how can a perfect being change - even though it sure seems that way) between the Hebrew texts and the New Testament, it is very relevant.

We're still looking at the Christian viewpoint, not the one where there are several gods that eventually were incorporated together into the early Hebrew monotheism. If we were comparing Yahweh and El, for instance, maybe the argument might be true, but were looking at the synthesis of them.

BadBadBad

Are you implying that it was necessary to slaughter whole populations to satisfy God's vengeance? That's really the question here. Why is revenge for an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God necessary? Didn't the Israelites sin against God in exactly the same ways as those that were killed? Weren't the Israelites just as worthy of death? Why was this one act of butchering children necessary as compared to just one more rebellious sin against God by refusing to obey him? Was it just as necessary to kill children for God as it was "necessary" for A&E to not eat the apple? If A&E were free to reject God in a way that condemned all of mankind, why was it necessary for Joshua to obey God? I thought he had free will?

How were the options grim anyway?

Option A - Love your neighbors
Option B - Slaughter your neighbors for their land, buildings, cattle, olive yards, water wells, their virgins, and to seek revenge for a loving omnipotent God.

Option A is not grim. Only option B is grim.

Only they didn't do either option. They didn't annihilate all of the other tribes. They didn't incorporate the women and children into their tribe. Killing the men wasn't sufficient to satisfy God's burning hot vengeance. He had to have all the male children killed by the stiffnecked and rebelious calf worshipping Israelites to get revenge for the stiffnecked, rebellious, strange god worshipping Amorites, Caananites, Midianites, etc. Not to mention the third option you conveniently left out which was not to slaughter their neighbors at all.

I thought that morality was absolute. So if you want to support the morality of these actions then feel free to do so. Only don't hold to absolute morality on the one hand and then argue with some fancy special pleading that morality is different now. If killing children is immoral for us, based upon God's word in the Bible, it was immoral then for the same reason.

I don't recall Andrew. Do you acknowledge that God commanded Joshua and company to kill all that breathe by the edge of the sword? It seems to me that both you and Lee have tried to deny God's hand in the actual slaughterfield. So, if you want to continue on this line that we shouldn't judge Joshua and company by our standards, you need to come down cleanly on the issue that God did in fact command the brutal slaughter of all that breathe. Otherwise, without God's commandment to slaughter all that breathe, you really don't have a leg to stand on to say that it wasn't immoral.

Even then, haven't you condemned these actions yourself?

Your own sensibility and morality would override direct commands from
God himself. You would judge God's morality and find it severly lacking.

andrewcriddle

I've made clear earlier in the thread that IMHO the extent of wars of annihilation in the history of early Israel has been exaggerated in the later tradition.

However, again IMHO, such wars of annihilation did on occasion happen. Some of them, by the standards of the time, probably being more excusable by necessity than others.

I do find some of the events depicted in the OT accounts of Israelite wars morally troublesome. However, I'm confused by what you mean by moral absolutes here. Are you saying that although war is acceptable by absolute moral standards, our cultures prohibition against deliberately killing non-combatants is a true moral absolute valid in all times and places ? or are you saying that warfare itself is contrary to absolute moral values ?

I have doubts whether the first claim is plausible and although there certainly is a plausible argument for absolute pacifism, such an argument raises much broader concerns than the morality of what happened in early Israel.

Andrew Criddle