Genocide in the Old Testament

[Minimalist]

Let's get back on point.

This is what the fucking bible champions in "joshua."

28 That day Joshua took Makkedah. He put the city and its king to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it. He left no survivors. And he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.

29 Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and attacked it. 30 The Lord also gave that city and its king into Israel’s hand. The city and everyone in it Joshua put to the sword. He left no survivors there. And he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.

31 Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Libnah to Lachish; he took up positions against it and attacked it. 32 The Lord gave Lachish into Israel’s hands, and Joshua took it on the second day. The city and everyone in it he put to the sword, just as he had done to Libnah. 33 Meanwhile, Horam king of Gezer had come up to help Lachish, but Joshua defeated him and his army—until no survivors were left.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...ersion=NIV

The question for jesus freaks to ask themselves is why they would worship such a murdering fuck of a god. The rest of it is simply a distraction for them to avoid their cherishing a monster.

[Cyberman]

Fundy logic:

1. I worship God
2. I want my God to be the ultimate good guy
3. I wouldn't want to worship an evil god
4. The bible appears to say that God has done evil things
5. This would threaten my belief in a good god
6. Therefore, God's apparently evil actions must be
a) mistranslations, taken out of context, and/or outright heathen lies
b) derived from some moral standard infinitely more superior than I want to know
c) automatically good by virtue of God doing them
d) all of the above.

[Bad Writer]

Nailed it, Stimbo.

[Jackalope]

It appears that god, being peferct according to biblical standards, exhibits traits of perfection that if found in humanity, would be considered sinful and result in humanity being condemned.

Yep, makes perfect sense.

P.S. Derp.

[Beta Ray Bill]

Let's examine "free will."

God knows everything that ever was, is and will be. He knows what every human in existence has ever done or ever will do. But to believe "free will," God let's us do what we want so that we can make our own choices, learn and eventually be judged. That doesn't fit together. God knows every atrocity that will ever happen, who will do them and how they will be judged. So, God just lets bad things happen so that we can have "free will" even though he knows whether we're going to Heaven or Hell the moment we're created?

Now, how important is "free will" to the world? Don't you believe that there are millions and/or billions of people in this world that would give up their "free will" and go live in a cage for the rest of their lives if it meant that God would stop a serial killer from slaughtering two-dozen innocent children, or militaristic tyrants in Africa from massacring hundreds of helpless people?

You might say that God wants us to learn how to take care of ourselves, you know, the old "teach a man to fish" thing. But life is a vicious circle. Mankind just keeps making the same mistakes over and over.

Examples? (Note that they are not all Christian)
The Crusades, where uncountable millions of people died.
The Aztec sacrifices of the 1300s where 20,000 people were killed every year.
The Thuggee Murders in India from the 1500s to the 1800s, where 2 million people were killed.
The Holocaust of WW2, where 11 million people were killed, not just 6 million Jews.

Look at those atrocious numbers. If God truly existed, and truly loved us, he would know other ways to teach us than simply letting us massacre ourselves in droves, many of whom died because of Christians trying to please their god. Genocide just keeps happening again-and-again, from everywhere in the world. You can't just say that the Indians and Aztecs did what they did because they weren't Christian. Believers in Jesus Christ are just as guilty as everyone else.

God, and later Jesus, did nothing to improve the nature of mankind. I know I would give up all my "free will" if God would just stop letting these things happen. But he won't. Do you know why? Because it's just not plausible that an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-LOVING god could even exist. It's "self-defeating," to quote Johnny-Five.

And to say that God is allowed to do these things just because he's God, is dimwitted. Christians say that he can do whatever he wants, and we aren't supposed to ask why, but why can't he practice what he preaches? Why does he and Jesus teach us these rules, then totally ignore them themselves? It's illogical. If God tells us "Thou shalt not kill" then just lets us wipe out ten million people, his rules and lessons are totally irrelevant. A teacher has to follow his own rules, or else give his students a damn good reason why his rules don't apply to him.

And please, don't just say "because he's God." That's a simple-minded defense, and one that cannot be rationally defended.

[Lion IRC]

In a world which has atomic bombs, and has used them on populations much bigger than Canaanite cities, it's a little precious to hear physicists like Krauss moralising about biblical wars. The dead children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki want a physicist to explain the "beauty" of science.

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War is hell. There is tons of it in the bible. And there's a LOT more to come.

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Every time we see war and violence in the bible, it is started by humans. And God only intervenes to bring it to a hasty conclusion.
BTW - the Israelites who invaded Canaan, were they the same Israelites who bible skeptics claim NEVER left in an exodus from Egypt?

[Minimalist]

Knauss does not insist they we worship him or pretend to be a font of moral goodness the way you clowns carry on about your fucking god.

[Ryantology]

In a world which has atomic bombs, and has used them on populations much bigger than Canaanite cities, it's a little precious to hear physicists like Krauss moralising about biblical wars. The dead children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki want a physicist to explain the "beauty" of science.

Yet another example of justifying the actions of a god of allegedly perfect good by equivocating him with drastically less perfectly-good humans.

[Lion IRC]

God doesnt need to justify His actions.
Physicists who make atomic bombs do.

[Silver]

God doesnt need to justify His actions.

False.