Quote:
Originally Posted by t0lkien
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I know I'm going to regret this, but:
Re. Joshua, it was war. The city was evil yadda yadda. There are several other instances in the OT where God commanded the Israelites to wipe out an evil settlement/city (often who had been trying to wipe them out). Would you take out Hitler if you met him as a child? No, because you don't have perfect vision, yet people have argued for it ethically. God (if he is there) does and did have complete foresight and knowledge. These were isolated instances, not general ethics i.e. it's not the same as saying to kill all Jews at all times (and those who refuse to "believe" and convert, by the way) as the Koran does. Would you take down someone who was threatening your family if that was the only recourse? I would, yet I don't subscribe to hurting anyone in any way.
That's an incomplete answer to a much larger discussion, I realize. If you want more complete responses, Google is your friend. It's not like this is a novel question that hasn't been raised and debated before. I'm not hoping to convince you or anyone else. I just don't want a lack of response to imply reluctance to discuss it. I already know it's not going to achieve anything.
Re. Elijah, you might want to read the story again, or read it if you haven't. The priests challenged Elijah to a "battle" to the death. If he lost, he was going to be killed by them. Those soldiers were coming to kill/imprison Elijah, hello? He spared the ones whose leader spoke with him directly and didn't attack him.
God is not a hippy, or Oprah. The same love that spared us nailed Jesus to the cross to pay for our crap. You won't understand God's definition of love (and justice) until you understand that. Half the issue with these "modern" assertions and attacks is the incomplete and flawed context they come from.
Anyway, peace out. We aren't going to convince each other of anything.
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It's good to hear someone taking up the pro killing children side of the argument. God knows, we don't, so it's perfectly moral for him to command the killing of as many kids as he sees fit. Kids he created mind you. Sounds like a perfect moral entity to me.
What's hilarious to me, Is you come here with some jaded attitude about primary sources. But when people discuss the bible directly and point out "hey none of that shit is remotely moral at all," You start with this tap dance about how it could someone be moral to demand the murder of innocents.
It isn't moral to kill kids now. It wasn't moral to kill kids then. This is not the kind of behavior you would expect from a perfect being. It is however, the kind of behavior you expect from a bronze age God of primitive desert dwellers.
The way God dolls out punishment is
not moral. The believe that these people deserved what the got is not a
respectable position to take. So while a respect many Christian people, I refuse to accept their repugnant stance of biblical morality.