biblical atrocities, and tigers, and bears, oh my!

[Bosh]

My favorite was always Pslams 137:9

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Rather than desiring the complete destruction of the Midianites, God spares the blameless from his wrath, not only preserving them, but drawing them into his fold, into the nation of Israel.

So the male babies that were killed weren't blameless? How?? And what a wonderful example of mercy mass rape is

Do not murder is different from do not kill.

Since when is the mass slaughter of infants not murder?

That's the whole point, Ben. Once you start looking at the Bible with a little bit of skepticism, analyzing it as you would any other book, the whole damn thing falls apart.

That's what happened to me. After reading all the god-ordered cruelty in the OT for the first time (it always got skipped over in Church) I just couldn't take any of the rest of it as seriously as before and it wasn't long before the whole thing fell apart in my eyes.

Otherwise, it is pointless to condemn a non-existent God for genocide

How so? As a literary character he's not a terribly nice guy and because so many people take him seriously which character is important.

Genocide seeks the complete destruction of a peoples.

So the Holocaust wasn't genocide???

Given the facts, the events surrounding the resurrection, the situation, all corroborated by independent sources, and eyewitness testimony, the resurrection is the most reasonable explanation for these events.

How so? All you've got are the Gospels.

While every other people committed mass slaughter while invading, it was not oftend they so completely destroyed other peoples as did the Hebrews described in the Old Testament.

Well you can't take the OT accounts at face value, a lot of it is just empty bragging. It grossly exaggerates the rapidity and the thoroughness of the conquest by the Israelites. It probably wasn't anything exceptional and at the time there wasn't any major difference between Judaism and other Hebrew religions (probably wasn't even monotheistic, just monolaitric).

I haven't heard anything from Al Qaeda other than the fact that they consider the US to be the great Satan.

You should keep in mind that Satan is different in Islamic than in Christian tradition. There his only real sin is refusing to bow to anyone but God, not direct rebellion against God. In many ways, America does match up pretty well to the Satan of Islamic tradition.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Do not murder is different from do not kill. You will find the former in the commandments, and the latter in your own mind.

1. The commandment in fact said "Thou shalt not kill." You will find the same thing in KJV, NRSV, and other versions. The NIV translation is wrong.

2. Genocide is not murder? Or it is not murder when YHWH commanded you?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
For the women...

In my highlight, the women were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD. No distinction is made for the old women.

So the Israelites failure to live by the rules of the Lord warranted the Lord ordering them to kill entire peoples to eliminate such temptations? What about taking responsibility for your own actions? If God didn't like the Israelites straying, punish them, not little babies of other peoples.

I've still not see one jot of explanation as to why it was necessary or just ot slaughter the little children and old people of these tribes. Big grown Israelite men were taking little babies and smashing them against rocks, or slicing them apart with swords, or whatever horrible way they had to kill them. It's amazing to me that you take such a strident view about abortion but can blithley tolerate the mass slaughter of women, children and the elderly because someone wrote down in the Bible that their god told them to do it, so that makes everything o.k.

Why does Yahweh have not just transgressors killed, but also their families and friends who haven't done anything? Why, if we're all individuals responsible for our own actions, is it okay to be killed for association?

The only rationale is that these were people justifying their actions through claiming divine authority. It's a running trend in human history--people have always claimed to have the word of the gods to justify the things they do, whether they be Sumerian Priest-Kings, Pharoahs, Roman Emperors, Popes or Televangelists. Frankly, if a god did exist, I could only believe that these people's claims as to its will are so far from the truth that said being would have stern dealings with them in the hereafter.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
The Assyrians were fairly aggresive too. And the Romans of course. They both commited genocide.

Neither out of religious reasons, however, and neither with the intent of exterminating whole peoples. The Assyrians wanted to instill terror in their foes to weaken resistance, but they weren't out to drive people extinct. Likewise, the Romans were harsh conquerors because they wanted to instill Roman law and order into the provinces, and the belief was that any resistance should be met with harsh reprisal to discourage future resistance.

The Hebrews of the Bible, however, explicitley engage in genocide solely to wipe people out of the land and make room for themselves to live. It's a rather startling admission! Certainly other groups engaged in this, but the Hebrews have the most detailed documentation of it.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
If you accept as possible that one God, Yahweh, can speak to his people, then you also have to accept as possible that all gods might speak to their people, including Marduk, Tammuz, Osiris, Zeus, Mithra, Zoroaster, Wotan, Vishnu, etc.

In that light, why does that lead you any closer to any sort of truth? After all, yoru belief in a particular god and rejection of others is nothing more than an opinion.

"I contend that we are both atheists; I simply believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you don't believe in all of the other gods, you'll understand why I don't believe in yours."

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
As a Christian, I would say that Christ's death and resurrection, as I have earlier in the thread, attests to the truth, and authority of both him, and God the father, or YHWH.

And, as was pointed out, belief in this is solely based on faith, not any empiric evidence or historical corroboration. There is just as much evidence for the resurrection, or any event in the life of Jesus, as their is for the heroic feats of Hercules, the actions of the gods in the Iliad, the ascension of Mohammed into heaven and the miraculous claims of any number of religions.

So it's all still in the same boat.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by skywalker
"I contend that we are both atheists; I simply believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you don't believe in all of the other gods, you'll understand why I don't believe in yours."

Excellent quote.

[Neutrino]

Nice quote indeed... who's that from?

[joncha]

Originally posted by skywalker




"I contend that we are both atheists; I simply believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you don't believe in all of the other gods, you'll understand why I don't believe in yours."

Young skywalker is strong in the force.

[joncha]

.... but Obi wan is scaring me.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by joncha
.... but Obi wan is scaring me.

I do have to wonder how many babies he'd dash against rocks if God commanded him to do so.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Neutrino

Nice quote indeed... who's that from?

I have no idea... it used to be in someone's sig, and I remembered it.

[Urban Ranger]

Mine

I will have to dig out the quote file when I get back home

[Ben Kenobi]

what about when YHWH 'proscribed' whole nations, sentencing them to total destruction

It would help if you could specify to what you allude to given the overall thread, and the different passages involved.

I would argue that the nations played a hand in their own destruction, that God did not destroy them without cause.

[Ben Kenobi]

I do have to wonder how many babies he'd dash against rocks if God commanded him to do so.

How about none?