Why is belief in a higher power required?

[Godscreated]

Me quibbling, are you serious dude, you're the one who has been insisting it is murder, there is a huge difference in the two.

They are the same damn thing, you obtuse little man.

No they're not the same thing, if I cut down a tree and it falls on and kills a man I certainly did not murder him, my actions caused his death so I killed him but I did not murder him.

Really, that's what you see those verses saying, like I said I reread the story and guess what, I could not find where God ordered the Israelites to kill anyone. This is another thing you need to prove to us. By the way what magic words are you seeing?

Okay, I'll admit to reading it wrong on the god thing, but you're still wrong on the murder thing.

Thank you, and no above I explained the difference in killing and murder. So you do not think you may have misread other things or should I say you haven't the whole of the story.

No one has ever said that people did not died in that city, we actually know they did, scripture tells us this. Killing and murder are two different things, you're the one calling the act murder, this is a misinterpretation of the verses.

What, would you say, is the difference between killing and murder? And why is the former okay, when the latter is wrong?

Killing is not always okay, murder is never okay. Killing for the most part is a bad action, it usually brings sadness to someone. When a war breaks out killing becomes a necessary tragedy, that does not make it murder in all cases, self defense in taking a life is killing but, it's not murder. I've not said the killing in those verses was good nor did I say it was bad, what I will say it was just because it served a purpose that proved what God had promised His people the Israelites.

you see, when I hear about a horde of people descending on a town unprovoked and slaughtering all that lay therein, I tend to think "ohh, that's bad." You, you seem to be thinking, "well, thank god they only killed them! It would have been awful for them to have been murdered!"

You equate death with injustice in these verses without the understanding of the whole situation and in this case part of this situation goes back to Moses time. You can not solve a math problem without all the necessary information and I'm saying you have neglected to gather all the information that's available to this situation, so you can not possibly give a correct verdict to those verses. Like I told you I went back and read the story and found that I had forgotten part of it, nothing that would change my stance though. You on the other hand do not even know why this all got started, it was a promise from God to His people, Moses warned them yet they insisted on taking an oath.

How are you possibly squaring the two as different in your mind?

I think I've pretty well have distinguished between the two, however in the case of these verses I say again it was just to God's purpose.

Christ represents the price payed for all forgiven sin, yes that's right He died for all those who would accept His payment for our sins. The rest will pay for their own sin, so again if God allowed one sin to go unpunished then at your judgement you would be screaming bloody murder. God is just and that should give you reason to pause and think.

Your god routinely lets people off the hook for their sins! What else is your repentance for? According to your own theology, the only unforgiveable sin is a lack of belief; I could be a killer, just like the people depicted in Judges, and still get into heaven by dint of Jesus' sacrifice and my own belief. Don't go pretending that your book actually solves this problem of atonement, because all it is is a loophole so you don't have to be held accountable.

God never lets anyone off the hook as you put it, all sin is payed for, either through Christ or, for those who reject Christ through their own selves. You're right you could be a killer, worse than anyone ever and still be forgiven, but only through Christ, there is no other way. If you would not chose Christ as your savior then you would be paying for your sins. I do not pretend the Bible actually solves the problem of atonement, Christ did that, scripture records for us what He did for us, and if that's a loophole I'll take it,why, because God made the loophole for me to have in my favor, praise God on high.

So basically, I'm not being a good Party Member and practicing the correct amount of doublethink? I agree, I'm much more intellectually honest than that. You keep sitting there and thinking that the killing of an entire town was a good thing.

In this case you are being intellectually dishonest because you have cherry picked a few verses out of an entire story, and as I said part of the story Goes back to Moses time. I said that the destruction of the town and it's people was just and it served God's purpose through a promise, so in that sense it was good, though I'm sure you will never see it.

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This is about wives and preserving an entire family of people and you want to turn it into an orgy or some other evil act, well guess what it wasn't an orgy and no matter what you say you can't change it. Your words are worthless on this matter, the family of Benjamin got their wives and the family continues.

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It doesn't need to have been an orgy, in fact that's not even what I was thinking of, but it's interesting that your mind went there. However, you did say that the virgins were the ones kept because virginity was prized, and that they were to bear children, which requires a certain amount of sex to have happened. That's your words.

You are the one who keeps harping on sex, sex here, sex there, sex everywhere it seems that's all you can think about, I was beginning to think you wished you could have been one of the 600. Virginity is cared about in today's church, though I'll say virgins are becoming rare in the church.
Of coarse sex was engaged in to have babies, Israel was trying to help the family of Benjamin to survive, but not in a way that you claim, murder and rape were not a part of this.

So, you can either admit that, in order for these virgins to bear children they would have had to have been raped, or you can argue that these survivors of a slaughtered village, after having been given away to complete strangers as wives, had willing sex with the men they were married to regardless of their own consent. It's a binary choice, those are the two options.

They did not have to be raped, the only reason you say this is because you hate God and desire to twist His word into something it's not. Binary choice, you sound like you want to be a god and dictate the only choices these people had. Well you got it all wrong, you do not even know who this women were, they were Israelite women, they were not marrying outside their nationality, just as God had commanded long ago. They could have very well known some of these men, we do not know for sure, but it's not like they live a hundred miles away. Yes that's right the men, women and children that were killed were Israelites, surprised? Do you know why one Israelite town was attacked by the rest of the nation, let's just say they let down the rest of Israel and payed the price and through all this God's judgement came upon the nation. Do you even know how all this got started, it all came about because of rape and murder, yep that's right some men of Benjamin raped and murdered and the tribe would not give up the ones who did this terrible thing. So it started with Israel taking action against Benjamin, it cost Israel dearly but, it cost Benjamin almost everything. I have a suggestion go read the entire story and then find God's promise to the nation during Moses time, you'll have the whole of the story then, even if you do reject it.

... the immorality of the religion you worship should be described accurately, yes.

I do not worship a religion, I worship the triune God, the Father, the Christ and the Holy Spirit, and He is completely just and moral.

The rest of your reply is nothing but a rehashing of the same ol' things, now that you have a sense of what happened and the explanations I've given, I'm not going to bother with them. Why don't you go and read the story before this goes on farther it sure would solve a lot if you would. I say good night I'm finally getting sleepy at 6:00 AM.