The god of the old testament has . . . . issues

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

I didn't ever say they were guilty or responsible for filling the earth with violence. In fact, I went out of my way to say that what hope could there be for children born into such a world?

Oddly enough one of the chief tenets of the Roman Catholic faith is that despair (lack of hope) is a sin against the Holy Ghost.

Neatly avoiding the main point as you do (that god killed humans and creatures which had not even had a chance to commit a sin) you then appear to be accusing god of sinking into despair.

Eh, I think the accounts you are speaking of refer to something more then just a river flooding.

Well strangely enough, the ancients didn't appear to possess the internet, the telegraph, an international telecom network or a global positioning satellite system,

How exactly they were meant to discriminate between a devastating local flood(s) and a supposed worldwide inundation ?

The answer of course is that the peoples who wrote these fables had no sure way of discerning between what happened to their 'world' and what happened to the world at large, as errors of fact in the rest of the Old Testament alone indicate.

Ok, good. Now, the question is why. Did he do so to try to make himself look better in the eyes of God?

That's only the question if, as again, you're intent on avoiding the main point and droning about Saul's 'motivation'.

Why obey an indiscriminate genocidal deity ?

Why reverence something that can't or won't tell the difference between those who have committed wrongs, and the innocent ?

What one wonders, did the Amalekites' oxen do to deserve such punishment ? Wear clothing of mixed fabric and uncover their parents' nakedness on the Sabbath whilst eating pork sandwiches ?

Yet, as the passage I quote, Saul deliberately makes the distinction between the Kenites and the Amalekites.

Yet he is unable to make any distinction between those Amalekites who were guilty and those who were not:

15:8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

'All the people'- has the same stench as 20th Century indiscriminate genocides and massacres.

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi For me it was a couple of things. None of the other religions claimed the things that Christianity does, that their messiah died on the cross and after three days rose again. They all have ideas about the way in which the world works, but they do not make the historical claim.

Could you clarify that?

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Ok, good. Now, the question is why. Did he do so to try to make himself look better in the eyes of God?

Amalek is painted to be really, really bad in the Torah. Wiping them out may have been justifies and thus not blood-thirsty.

Then again it could be in the Torah because of what Amalek did to the Jews and its a human bias that made its way in.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Actually that is exactly what they did with the Kenites.

*NEVER* happened. The Jews did not wipe out the Keninites. I would say this with equal conviction that I would say the great flood never happened(may of been the caspian sea breaking which did cause a collosal flood in the region, then aagin, might of been inspired by nothing). The Jews never wiped out the Kenenites.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Yet why then did Samuel rebuke Saul for offering the good things to God as a sacrifice after he got caught red handed?

Because Saul was disobeying lots of the laws, not just that one. To paraphrase the rebuke... do you think the lord delights greatly in incence and offerings, he wants compliance.


Ancient Judaism was very worried about the Jews reverting to local religions...actually Judaism has always had that worry, then and now. What if G-D knew his orders to wipe out the cananites would be disobeyed and did not want them obeyed, but gave them to explain how serious keeping themselves seperate from the cananites was? Sounds like a perfectly sound theological explination to me and that idea just occured to me, greater theologians have talked about it since it happened.

Originally posted by molly bloom
What one wonders, did the Amalekites' oxen do to deserve such punishment ? Wear clothing of mixed fabric and uncover their parents' nakedness on the Sabbath whilst eating pork sandwiches ?

They attacked and raided a group of peaceful emancipated slaves who were wandering the dessert for 40 years(and who were coincodentally G-Ds chosen people). They were agressive and

The philistines(bet you heard of them) who constantly raided ancient Israel were supposed to have been the descendents of Amalek. They also stole the ark of the covenant.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Vesayen
G-D spoke to Abraham. Hardly an act of faith.

Believing that such things are possible is an act of faith. There are any number of more likely explanations.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Vesayen


They attacked and raided a group of peaceful emancipated slaves who were wandering the dessert for 40 years(and who were coincodentally G-Ds chosen people). They were agressive and

The philistines(bet you heard of them) who constantly raided ancient Israel were supposed to have been the descendents of Amalek. They also stole the ark of the covenant.

That doesn´t explain in which way the oxen of the Armalekites were involved in these raids

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST


That doesn´t explain in which way the oxen of the Armalekites were involved in these raids

They cheered from the sidelines, presumably, or organised the kitchens perhaps.


Bad oxen. Bad cattle.

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST


That doesn´t explain in which way the oxen of the Armalekites were involved in these raids

There are a ton of theological reasons to not loot the amalekites, but none of them matter because it does not say anything bad about G-D. Who cares about cattle?

Originally posted by Sandman


Believing that such things are possible is an act of faith. There are any number of more likely explanations.

Believing such a thing is true would require an act of faith, yes.

The point we were arguing however was not that, but that Abraham did not need faith, he had reason.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Vesayen


There are a ton of theological reasons to not loot the amalekites, but none of them matter because it does not say anything bad about G-D. Who cares about cattle?

The Hindus .

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by aneeshm


The Hindus .

Well you weren't involved, so kindly keep your hands off of other people's livestock!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
You don't understand. I beleive in God. It's not that I have doubts about others gods.. the descriptions are just not of the God I worship.

peace,
JM

I am confused.

Where did you get these descriptions from?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Vesayen
The point we were arguing however was not that, but that Abraham did not need faith, he had reason.

Reason based on what? It's not like Abraham had a YHWH detector, so how could he be so sure?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Vesayen

Who cares about cattle?

Well this guy, apparently:

1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

3 Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

The First Book of Moses, Called
Genesis


In fact, the god of the Israelites is behaving exactly as a ruthless Israelite ruler or military commander might behave, or an Assyrian ruler for that matter:

11 Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered?

The Second Book of the Kings, Commonly Called, The Fourth Book of the Kings

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I am confused.

Where did you get these descriptions from?

Mostly by reading about other religions.

I do need to read more, I agree.

peace,
Jon Miller

[Ben Kenobi]

Could you clarify that?

It's best done by a process of elimination.

Jews believe in a messiah, but they do not believe any of their prophets are God himself, and nor do they believe that their messiah has come. So in order for Judaism to be true, they are not making as bold a claim as Christianity.

Moslems again elevate Mohammed as their prophet, but they do not believe that he is the son of God, as Christ is to Christianity. So they do not make as bold a claim.

All the other non-monotheist religions all make claims of truth, but none that a specific person, in a specific time is God himself made flesh.

Amalek is painted to be really, really bad in the Torah. Wiping them out may have been justifies and thus not blood-thirsty.

Then again it could be in the Torah because of what Amalek did to the Jews and its a human bias that made its way in.

Or perhaps the entire Torah is corrupted by human bias.

*NEVER* happened. The Jews did not wipe out the Keninites. I would say this with equal conviction that I would say the great flood never happened(may of been the caspian sea breaking which did cause a collosal flood in the region, then aagin, might of been inspired by nothing). The Jews never wiped out the Kenenites.

I did not say that the Jews wiped out the Kenites. They spared the Kenites, as an example of how God did distinguish between the guilty and the innocent.

Because Saul was disobeying lots of the laws, not just that one. To paraphrase the rebuke... do you think the lord delights greatly in incence and offerings, he wants compliance.

Thank you. My point exactly.

Ancient Judaism was very worried about the Jews reverting to local religions...actually Judaism has always had that worry, then and now. What if G-D knew his orders to wipe out the cananites would be disobeyed and did not want them obeyed, but gave them to explain how serious keeping themselves seperate from the cananites was? Sounds like a perfectly sound theological explination to me and that idea just occured to me, greater theologians have talked about it since it happened.

That is what he did later on, with about the same degree of compliance. This instance is different, because as you note, there is a history behind God's destruction of the Amalekites, and his preservation of the Kenites.

quote:
Originally posted by molly bloom
What one wonders, did the Amalekites' oxen do to deserve such punishment ? Wear clothing of mixed fabric and uncover their parents' nakedness on the Sabbath whilst eating pork sandwiches ?


They attacked and raided a group of peaceful emancipated slaves who were wandering the dessert for 40 years(and who were coincodentally G-Ds chosen people). They were agressive and

The philistines(bet you heard of them) who constantly raided ancient Israel were supposed to have been the descendents of Amalek. They also stole the ark of the covenant.

[mactbone]

So, you're saying that any religion that claimed to have their God walk upon the Earth would seem a worthy religion?

Krishna is believed by Hindus to have been a man born in Mathura, and the 8th avatar of Vishnu. In Gaudiya Vaishnavism he is believed to be the supreme being.

Krishna was of the royal family of Mathura, and was the eighth son born to the princess Devaki, and her husband Vasudeva, a noble of the court. Vedic Astrological calculations give the opinion that Krishna was born earlier than 3102 BCE.

So, what about Hinduism?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


quote:
Originally posted by molly bloom
What one wonders, did the Amalekites' oxen do to deserve such punishment ? Wear clothing of mixed fabric and uncover their parents' nakedness on the Sabbath whilst eating pork sandwiches ?


They attacked and raided a group of peaceful emancipated slaves who were wandering the dessert for 40 years(and who were coincodentally G-Ds chosen people). They were agressive and

The oxen did ?

I'm sorry, but have you been ingesting hallucinogens ?

Are you confusing 'Animal Farm' and the Bible mayhap ?