Genocide in the Old Testament

[Ryantology]

Capital punishment isn't murder.

I don't happen to agree. Revenge killing isn't better than other forms of deliberate killing.

And do we need to look at humans' treatment of other species again? That usually shuts you up.

Every time you've made the mistake of going down this route, I simply ask you why you hold your allegedly perfect God to the same low standards as you hold for the obviously imperfect human race, but only apply this inconsistency when you think it helps your argument? Because, all it demonstrates is your rank hypocrisy. If God exhibits the behavioral flaws of humans, you simply handwave it. If humans exhibit the behavioral flaws of God, it means they deserve death.

Isaiah 13:18: they will have no mercy on infants, nor will they look with compassion on children.

This comes from a prophecy from God telling Isaiah not only to single out children and infants for slaughter, but to do it with no compassion or mercy, to make that slaughter as horrifying as his imagination inspires him to do. And, this is the second command specifically targeting infants for killing; a couple of verses before this, you get a command from God to dash their infants to pieces in front of them.

To God, it's not enough that they die. They have to die in the most barbaric way the inventors of this sick tale could conceive. God instructs his killers to not only be brutal, but to have fun doing it. Enjoy yourselves. Rape their wives (also Verse 16).

To conclude, John, you're full of shit. These children aren't going to heaven just for being children. If God had that much mercy in him, he wouldn't make a point to order his soldiers to be explicitly brutal towards them. Infants and children are being punished for sins (have any three words justified as much cold-blooded murder in this world as "punishment for sins", I wonder), but what sins could an infant do?

Yes, most hold that those that die below the age of accountability go to heaven. That's hardly murder.

Whether or not a killing qualifies as murder has nothing to do with the eventual afterlife destination of the murder victim. It has to do with whether or not there was malicious intent on the part of the killer. As demonstrated above, God is most certainly malicious towards infants and children, not content to merely snuff out their lives but to make an absolute bloodbath of it.

If omniscience means that all of our thoughts and actions are predetermined, then we are not autonomous beings and we have no rights. This is a self-defeating argument. Even if you win the battle, you lose the war.

It would mean that God is most certainly just a cruel psychopath who created a universe and filled it with victims to torture.

Humans don't have the mental capacity as god. Therefore, it's not murder when god kills.

According to you, God's is the highest. He's perfect. Therefore, unlike humans, God is incapable of killing by accident, and is always capable of solving any problem without killing. God always has the option to not kill, so when he does, the only logical explanation is that he wants to and derives pleasure from it. Therefore, logically, every time God kills, it is always murder. It literally cannot be anything else.

We protect certain species which we take a liking to. Others, such as ants, are not used for food, in my area don't bite or sting or carry disease, yet I'm free to kill them at will, with poisons which seem to cause suffering before death. Judging by the pest control aisle at the local store, this is a pretty common practice.

Yeah, it's too bad we're not omnipotent and omniscient, so that we could solve every pest or food problem in the world without ever harming a single living creature.

No. Those under went to heaven, as already noted. Those above had sin of their own.

So, when God ordered the killing of children and infants in Babylon with a specific demand that neither mercy nor compassion be shown towards them, it was because they had no sin of their own?

You don't seem to understand: if we don't have free will, then it's nonsensical to say we're suffering, or even to call us "we." A better analogy then an anthill would be a really complex novel.

Nobody is ever actually harmed in a novel because the people in it aren't real.

OK - Esquilax, why is human intelligence the cutoff at which killing is murder?

Give me just one example of humans killing animals, plants, bacteria, any reason you like, and explain to me why your perfect and omnimax God cannot solve his problems in a different way, and you'll have your answer.

The problem is, according to the things you are saying, you enjoy the idea of mass murder because your religion tells you that mass murder is okay. Take note of how hard you attempt to equivocate humans with insects and vermin every time this topic arises, a play right out of the Nazi handbook. I can't help but think that if God commanded the construction of death camps (and the Bible proves that he would be totally fine with the idea), you'd be one of the first people volunteering to run one.