Four questions for Christians

[Ryantology]

I can't seem to get a straight answer and I don't want to derail more threads, so:

1: Under which circumstances, precisely, would you consider it acceptable to carry out the violent mass killing of every infant and child in a city?

2: Is it just to kill a person because they live in the same place as a person who committed a sin, if they had no direct or conscious involvement in it?

3: If we are judged guilty, and can be punished for our sins even before we commit them, how is this consistent with the notion of free will being the choice between God and sin?

4: If there is any possible alternative to purposefully killing a person in order to achieve whatever imaginable end may involve doing so, in other words, if you can do what you need to do just as easily regardless of whether or not you kill that person, is it just to kill them anyway?

[Consilius]

If this is about the Tenth Plaugue, I have some questions for you before I make a statement:
Do you accept that Pharaoh killed many more Hebrew boys than God killed Egyptians?
Also, do you agree that Pharaoh could have possibly stopped the Ten Plaugues from happening by a simple act, meaning that he willfully consented to what happened to him and his people?
I will go on.

[fr0d0]

1. In a circumstance of an all knowing being able to judge that this was fair.

2. No

3. In a scenario where you have an immortal soul

4. No

[orogenicman]

If this is about the Tenth Plaugue, I have some questions for you before I make a statement:
Do you accept that Pharaoh killed many more Hebrew boys than God killed Egyptians?
Also, do you agree that Pharaoh could have possibly stopped the Ten Plaugues from happening by a simple act, meaning that he willfully consented to what happened to him and his people?
I will go on.

Since we have no evidence outside of a few pages from Exodus, my response would be I don't know, and neither do you. And I think it is only fair that you answer his questions before you expect him to answer yours. After all, it is his thread.

[Drich]

I can't seem to get a straight answer and I don't want to derail more threads, so:

1: Under which circumstances, precisely, would you consider it acceptable to carry out the violent mass killing of every infant and child in a city?

After having been made to watch all of them for a few hours.

2: Is it just to kill a person because they live in the same place as a person who committed a sin, if they had no direct or conscious involvement in it?

We are all guilty of one sin or another, and even the smallest sin requires death. Thankfully Christ died for those sins so we do not have to.

3: If we are judged guilty, and can be punished for our sins even before we commit them, how is this consistent with the notion of free will being the choice between God and sin?

Free will comes in the way of being able to select the attonement offered by Christ. For your right in that we have no choice but to sin. The choice is in desision to seek forgiveness for said sin.

4: If there is any possible alternative to purposefully killing a person in order to achieve whatever imaginable end may involve doing so, in other words, if you can do what you need to do just as easily regardless of whether or not you kill that person, is it just to kill them anyway?

Why are we killing people to begin with? If out of anger and frustration of having been to watch every inner city kid in a given area, then know logic and reason are not in the mix any longer.

[John V]

I can't seem to get a straight answer and I don't want to derail more threads, so:

1: Under which circumstances, precisely, would you consider it acceptable to carry out the violent mass killing of every infant and child in a city?

2: Is it just to kill a person because they live in the same place as a person who committed a sin, if they had no direct or conscious involvement in it?

Considering Hiroshima and Nagasaki, why do you limit the question to Christians?

[Minimalist]

I can't seem to get a straight answer

Nor will you. Not from these apologists for yhwh the bloody-handed.

[Cato]

I can't seem to get a straight answer and I don't want to derail more threads, so:

1: Under which circumstances, precisely, would you consider it acceptable to carry out the violent mass killing of every infant and child in a city?

2: Is it just to kill a person because they live in the same place as a person who committed a sin, if they had no direct or conscious involvement in it?

Considering Hiroshima and Nagasaki, why do you limit the question to Christians?

Truman was a Christian. He might have answered, but he's fucking dead.

[Consilius]

On the Tenth Plague:
You see Exodus 12:29 and say 'God is evil.' I, personally, decided to do more research on the subject, and have more answers.
First of all, Egypt had supposedly killed many more Hebrew boys than God killed Egyptians. He killed ALL males in Hebrew households, or at least most of them. He did this for a span of about 80 YEARS. It could have for been a single day, and the tally would STILL be higher. Actions are reciprocated back on the offender under God's 'eye for an eye' and 'tooth for a tooth' policy. This policy could be found in Confucianism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Greco-Roman and, yes, Egyptian literature. "The Teaching of Ankhsheshonqy".
Pharaoh caused all ten of the Plagues by refusing to let Israel go. He had firsthand knowledge of all the Plagues beforehand, and consented to their execution. Now we come upon the issue of 'God hardened his heart'.
In Greek and Hebrew, E.W. Bullinger noticed that they at times use active verbs to express an agents' design or attempt to do something. In Jeremiah 4:10 and Ezekiel 14:9, God did not 'decieve' anyone, as would be contrary to his nature, but allowed them to be decieved. Deuteronomy 26:68 originally meant "you shall be sold," but there is no buyer, because it means that "you will be allowed to or intend to be sold". Therefore, 'God hardened his heart' coould mean that 'God allowed his heart to harden.' Notice how the Exodus says Pharaoh hardened his own heart in many cases (8:15,32; 9:35)
Yet another interpretation of Exodus 7:3 is that it is a metonym. A metonym goes like this: "I am reading Shakespeare." You are not reading Shakespeare, but his particular works. Someone or something is said to have done something when an attribute of what they said actually did it. John 4:1-2. Jesus did not baptize people, his teachings caused them to be baptized. 1 Kings 22:52. Jeroboam didn't force people to sin, his actions did. Acts 16:14. God didn't open Lydia's heart, the words of his servant, Paul, did. Exodus 7:3. God didn't harden Pharaoh's heart: the words of his servant, Moses, did.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apconten...ticle=1205
So we can say that Pharaoh willingfully caused the Ten Plagues to ravage his people. But, apparently, the Egyptians weren't so innocent either. Exodus 10:1, 14:17, and 1 Samuel 6:6 state that the Egyptians were just as bad as their Pharaoh. So that removes the innocence of pretty much everyone, except the kids.
In ancient society, in Egypt as well as Babylonia and Israel, children were punished for the sins of their parents. This punishment has nothing to do with sin being 'transferred' to other people. The firstborn son of a parent was an essential family member. First-born males recieved inheritance, could protect aging parents, and could perpetuate the family name, like last names allow them to do today. The loss was a judgement on the parents, and not God getting revenge on kids.
Also, there is an age of accountability at around 7-9. So, if we have firstborn males of hardened hearts dying after that age, they would have been accountable for their sins. Anyone who died before it would have gone to heaven, or, as the Catholics like to call it, 'limbo'. So we are left with the kids who died before their 8th birthday.
These particular kids were not punished, because that was not the intention. All that was needed from them was that their souls be absent from their bodies to produce the desired effect. Also, who's to say that their souls were not simply taken from their bodies during sleep? It was midnight, and I don't think that spiritual beings can walk around with bronze swords to hack the heads off about 69,000 kids in 8 hours.
http://christianthinktank.com/killheir.html
Note that God isn't simply siding with the Israelites. The entire Book of Judges is about God letting in foreign nations to conquer his own people. But God is only partial in the sense that he sides with the oppressed and works with them against the powerful. God isn't getting back at people, but judging them for their offenses and punishing them justly, despite what he feels for either side. Luke 19:41-43.
The Earth looks flat, but it is round. The Bible looks unsettling, but if you ask, you will eventually find someone who can answer.

---

That person may not necessarily be me. I'm just a Christian who THINKS he's found an answer.

[Cato]

Consilius,

You are omitting a very important part of the Exodus account that renders much of what you said irrelevant.

The fact you have not mentioned is that it was God who hardened Pharaoh's heart. Why? I think the only reasonable answer is so that God could keep fucking with them, including killing innocent children as you pointed out.