The Immorality of God - The Canaanites

[athrock]

It's always cute to see believers try to justify mass murder on a grand scale with an appeal to Divine Command and by blaming the victims, who didn't get to present their side of the story in a "holy book".

I'll bet you're a nightmare on a jury: Well, ordinarily rape is a bad thing, but in this case the bitch had it coming.

Is there any chance you will actually interact with the arguments presented in the OP rather than make an emotional appeal that fails to undermine them?

The key for you will be to demonstrate that God's actions are inconsistent with His character.

I look forward to your first attempt.

[Whateverist]

Hey are you going to answer my probing questions, or are you just holding out to get probed some more?

[athrock]

It doesn't really matter if the stories are true or not. People believe they are, and want me to give myself willingly to the person described in the book, so I'm free to judge his actions as acceptable or not. It's like if someone watched star wars, and tried to argue that Darth Sidious is a good guy. I don't believe those events happened, but I can still argue against the idea tht Sidious isn't evil.

Fair enough. But don't you think it is reasonable to consider carefully whether God's actions are acceptable or not based upon a full set of data?

when I decide if something is acceptable or not, I use my standard. There's a big culutral difference between the bible and most modern societies. Granted I'm not perfect, but my limited understanding of right and wrong is all I have. So that's what I work with.

Which is both subjective and potentially wrong. Assuming you don't claim to be infallible, I would expect you to be open to arguments that might be counter to your own intuitive first glances, eh?

The Canaanites were a bad people. That's all well and good. Killing them all, down to the women and children, does not solve the problem of people being bad. This is a proven historical fact. Wiping out neighbors who disagree with you does not solve the problem.

Apart from the fact that there is evidence that they WEREN'T literally wiped out down to the last man, woman and child, what problem do you think was being solved?

And where were they supposed to go? If there was another place for a tribe to go, why didn't Yahweh just send the isrealites there?

God had promised the land to Abraham and his descendants, remember?

It doesn't matter if the Isrealites only stole some land, and killed some people. It's still wrong.

They didn't steal it. See above.

Killing people for not worshiping Yahweh is not "wiping out evil". It's just picking sides based on who is willing to worship Yahweh more. Which is really what the bible is about. It has little to do with morality. It's just some god demanding worship, and killing people who don't.

Incorrect. The Canaanites weren't punished because they refused to worship Yahweh. They were punished because their deeds were evil. You can learn more about them from any number of sources online. Not a good group of folks.

[Cecelia]

You're ignoring my point entirely.

God allegedly told the Israelites to commit genocide against the Cannanites. Sounds like a really nice guy. Since the days of actually recording history and witnesses, God has not made any such announcements to people. Is God afraid of recording devices or something?

Instead people today merely try to attribute (falsely) things to him, such as you did with World War II. Attributing the Allied Victory to God. But God wasn't involved at all, at least not in the manner of the cannanites. Which suggests to me one of two things:

#1. The Israelites merely attributed their actions to the will of their 'God', and no such command was actually given.

or

#2. The Israelites were commanded by God, but then God had absolutely zero to do with anything since the advent of recording devices and mass communication quite mysteriously.

The most likely answer, of course is #1. Much like with the course of many other things in the OT where people attributed things to 'god', but God never showed his face much like he doesn't today (most likely because he doesn't exist. Non-existent entities have a hard time showing up!)

The God of the Bible (as a work of fiction) is immoral. He's an author-insert Mary Sue who can do no wrong according to the author because he is who he is. Really he's a badly written mary sue when committing genocide (multiple times!) is considered 'right'. The author clearly never considered a viewpoint other than their own. Which makes for a rather boring work of fiction. There's no morally gray area for the character of Yahweh, because Yahweh is the super popular, super powerful jock at the high school, and everybody loves him and anyone who doesn't is 'bad'. Of course this doesn't work so well when Theists argue for it, because today we consider other viewpoints other than our own. Heck even the villains of the bible are poorly written. Satan gets almost no screen time, and comes across as better than God. Most groups committed genocide against are supposedly so terrible, but we never hear about most of their deeds. They're just so one dimensional that it's like really bad fanfiction. And then the NT is basically bad fanfiction of already bad fanfiction.

So tell me. What makes God moral and just? The fact that the bible says he is? Because that's pretty bad fanfiction. I could write Sauron as the hero of Lord of the Rings in really bad fanfiction, but if I leave all the terrible stuff he's done and try to paint it as 'good', then that doesn't really make him a good guy at all. It makes him a bad guy with good publicity. Which is what Yahweh is. A bad guy with good publicity. In fact if Satan were real, I'd presume he'd want to present his side of the story by inspiring his own book.

[Crossless2.0]

It's always cute to see believers try to justify mass murder on a grand scale with an appeal to Divine Command and by blaming the victims, who didn't get to present their side of the story in a "holy book".

I'll bet you're a nightmare on a jury: Well, ordinarily rape is a bad thing, but in this case the bitch had it coming.

Is there any chance you will actually interact with the arguments presented in the OP rather than make an emotional appeal that fails to undermine them?

The key for you will be to demonstrate that God's actions are inconsistent with His character.

I look forward to your first attempt.

I'm not really interested in the character of your fictional god. I'm interested in the character of the sort of people who feel the need to justify or explain away the alleged actions of this literary figure. Do you believe that Yahweh ordered the killing of Amalekite infants (those unregenerate sinners!)? If so, am I to assume that you would have taken part in that barbarity if you were alive then and believed yourself under orders? If not, why not?

[drfuzzy]

 God had promised the land to Abraham and his descendants, remember?  

  It doesn't matter if the Isrealites only stole some land, and killed some people. It's still wrong. 

  They didn't steal it. See above.

YAY!!  All of my financial problems have now been solved.  If your GOD tells you to take something, then it's not stealing!!!  And you can't say GOD didn't tell me to do it.  Rape, murder, theft - all ya gotta do, folks, is say that your GOD demanded it, and you're golden.

[Chad32]

It doesn't really matter if the stories are true or not. People believe they are, and want me to give myself willingly to the person described in the book, so I'm free to judge his actions as acceptable or not. It's like if someone watched star wars, and tried to argue that Darth Sidious is a good guy. I don't believe those events happened, but I can still argue against the idea tht Sidious isn't evil.

Fair enough. But don't you think it is reasonable to consider carefully whether God's actions are acceptable or not based upon a full set of data?

when I decide if something is acceptable or not, I use my standard. There's a big culutral difference between the bible and most modern societies. Granted I'm not perfect, but my limited understanding of right and wrong is all I have. So that's what I work with.

Which is both subjective and potentially wrong. Assuming you don't claim to be infallible, I would expect you to be open to arguments that might be counter to your own intuitive first glances, eh?

The Canaanites were a bad people. That's all well and good. Killing them all, down to the women and children, does not solve the problem of people being bad. This is a proven historical fact. Wiping out neighbors who disagree with you does not solve the problem.

Apart from the fact that there is evidence that they WEREN'T literally wiped out down to the last man, woman and child, what problem do you think was being solved?

And where were they supposed to go? If there was another place for a tribe to go, why didn't Yahweh just send the isrealites there?

God had promised the land to Abraham and his descendants, remember?

It doesn't matter if the Isrealites only stole some land, and killed some people. It's still wrong.

They didn't steal it. See above.

Killing people for not worshiping Yahweh is not "wiping out evil". It's just picking sides based on who is willing to worship Yahweh more. Which is really what the bible is about. It has little to do with morality. It's just some god demanding worship, and killing people who don't.

Incorrect. The Canaanites weren't punished because they refused to worship Yahweh. They were punished because their deeds were evil. You can learn more about them from any number of sources online. Not a good group of folks.

We don't have a full set of data, because we only have one side of the story. A story told by the people who worshiping Yahweh, and felt that Canaanite lands belonged to them.

I have my opinions, and you have your opinions. But when a theist comes to be and says that at one time the paragon of goodness felt that rape, slavery, and mass murder are acceptable within certain limitations, but two men loving each other is a death-worthy crime, i find that suspect.

Yahweh promised lands to the descendants of Abraham, then the land was taken by someone else, and the descendants were enslaved. Kind of dropped the ball there, huh? And his solution to this, when he eventually gets around to freeing the Isrealites, is to tell them to go fight and die in a war over the land that was promised to them. Apparently this was the best solution Yahweh could come up with.

Yeah, some army comes to you, and tells your family to pick up and leave, because their god said the land your family has lived on for generations told them it belonged to them now. That's stealing.

Because their deeds were evil. How so? How were they do different from what the Isrealites did? I've heard child sacrifice was involved, but there's a verse in the bible where Yahweh commands child sacrifice of his follower. Yahweh has issues with homosexuality for vague reasons. Just because Yahweh has personal issues doesn't mean people are evil when they don't listen to him.

Good and evil doesn't mean much when you base it on a book that, again, says raping a young virgin in a field is ok as long as you can pay the bride cost, but having consentual sex with another same sex adult is a horrible thing.

[downbeatplumb]

Well I'm glad you asked that, I would judge behaviour by the standards of today. If you do judge the actions of the god character through modern morality it falls short and you will see that the actions replicate what you would expect from a poorly written being used to justify the actions of bronze age goat herders.

First, why do you use the phrase "bronze-age goat herders"? Do you think that you are more intelligent than they were? I'm not arguing that you are more knowledgeable about many things (except goat herding perhaps), but do you think that you are superior to them by virtue of the fact that we have advanced the sciences beyond what they understood?

Has this made you MORALLY superior to them? Are you a better man?

Am I more intelligent than a bronze age goat herder?

Certainly I am better educated and have access to thousands of years of accumulated knowledge, I am also less prone to superstition, so while not having a higher IQ I would certainly be better able to answer almost any question you could possibly ask.

Am I morally superior to bronze age people?

Yes.

The bronze age goat herders were rather an immoral lot stoning people left right and centre, rampaging through lands enslaving races and committing genocide and using spurious myths to excuse these hideous actions.
  
Am I a better man?

Yes.

The bronze age culture was mysoginistic and rooted in superstition which led to brutal oppression and violence, the bronze age world would resemble ISIS.

And if our society approves of things such as abortion which kills innocent children in their mothers's wombs and the use of drones which results in the deaths of innocent civilians, are we really able to say that we are morally advanced beyond the "goat herders" who would have found those things to be morally repugnant?

Do you know what happened when abortion was illegal. Of the desperate plight of women who, for whatever reason went to back street abortionists and took all sorts of risks to not have the children. Abortion is often the right choice if you have the tiniest knowledge of the facts on the subject.
So are we more morally advanced than the bronze age goat herders? yes we are.
We are more nuanced and inclusive and take on more factors. 
 

Again we see theists justifying genocide. A common trend.

Rubbish. I have EXPLAINED why that which you call "genocide" may not be inconsistent with the existence of God. You haven't really undermined that view.

It would be inconsistent with a nice god.
But again I see these things as just excuses so that they could excuse their rapine rampage. "Our diety made us do it"

God is supposed to be able to have mind control. In the exodus fable he is said to have "hardened Pharoahs heart" so surely a kinder way of dealing with them would be anything other than what the story says. To be clear the story of the canaanites is just a petty justification for a violent act perpetrated by an evil cult, the cult of the rather silly desert god Yahweh.

To be REALLY clear, the story of the Canaanites does nothing to undermine the existence of a loving, personal God who occassionally acts to wipe out evil.[/quote]

To be clear the story paints a bad picture of your god and is one of the many examples of it being a dick, a bit lie the green goblin or Lex luther, it has many foul deeds in its cannon.

[athrock]

Each of these points suggest that there is nothing inconsistent or contradictory about the Judeo-Christian view of a God who is both loving and capable of wiping out evil.

But don't you apologists teach that god was first and created all else?  If there is evil in the world it obviously has god's blessing.  If He occasionally has to reboot a particular group that would indicate He has favorites.  Perhaps the evil you do to those who torment god's chosen is blessed in the eye of the lord?  Would you personally be faithful enough to bash the skull of an infant if you believed it to be god's will?  

No, theists don't teach that god is created at all.

As for evil, it is the absence of Good. Kinda like atheism is the absence of belief.

As for bashing the skull of an infant, you are proposing a test of faith - like Abram being asked to sacrifice Isaac. I would rather doubt myself and what I thought I heard from God than to be wrong and take an innocent life.

But if I had just spent 40 years wandering through the desert eating manna that fell from the sky every morning, drinking water that came from a rock, watching the Jordan river part so that I could pass through on dry land, and seeing the walls of Jericho fall at the blast of my trumpet, then yes, I could probably be inclined to think that I must now kill all of the those that God commanded me to kill.

God gave His people many great signs in order to form them into a people that believed and obeyed.

How would you have responded if you had seen all of those wonders?

Ironically, atheists often ask, “If God exists, why doesn’t He prevent evil?” The destruction of the Canaanites is an example of God putting an end to evil practices (such as child sacrifices to a false god) just as these atheists demand. Unwilling to let go of this convenient (if impotent) cudgel, however, atheists continue to object to God’s judgment and destruction of the Canaanites—a clear example of wanting to have it both ways.

The shoe may be on the other foot.  It is no concern of mine that the god of bible does what I would call immoral if men did it.  It causes me no conflict because I'm willing to call that spade a spade.  I think it is you that is made uncomfortable by all this, not atheists.  But hey, if it helps you to project one side of your internal debate out there onto atheists in order to work through your issues, I'm glad we can help.

This is a weak argument, and I see it all the time in this forum. "Oh, it's you believers who are trying to convince yourselves." No, Whatever, it really isn't. Believers believe. It's non-believers such as yourself who cling to the notion that God is immoral who must try to explain away rational explanations of God's actions.

IOW, atheists understandably ask hard questions. Believers reply with reasonable answers. Now, the ball is back in your court to deal with the implications of those answers. And simply repeating the questions is not the response of an intelligent man.

Finally, while objections to the immorality of the God of the OT may explain why one may not be Jewish or Christian, they offer only an incomplete explanation for why someone is an atheist since there are many alternative views of God that do not require acceptance of anything from the Bible.

Promising to hear you say so.  I quite agree.  But thank you, no thank you.  I'm not having any more gods.

Oh, you're lack of belief might be rational, but that doesn't mean it's reasonable.

[athrock]

Hey are you going to answer my probing questions, or are you just holding out to get probed some more?

Which post?

I thought I did respond to you...