The Immorality of God - The Canaanites

[Whateverist]

Reasoning usually moves the individual in the direction of faith.

Sounds like pretty self serving, wishful thinking to me. I sincerely doubt it is true. Reason all too often assumes it has no use of faith when that isn't true. But then most of those who come here proclaiming faith more often have shown it is the powers of their reason which they have the most confidence in. In my experience, it is hard to find a religious person with any faith whatsoever.

[Minimalist]

“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”

― Martin Luther

So sayeth a xtian cocksucker.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Many people argue that God acted immorally in the Old Testament when He ordered the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites who were living in the land that God had promised to Abraham and his descendants. However, there are several reasons why this is a poor argument.
 
First, if God does not actually exist, then the accounts of His deeds in the Old Testament are meaningless fables, and it does not matter what these stories claim about God.
 
Second, if the purpose of objecting to Old Testament accounts is to hold God and His followers to a standard of behavior, then it is reasonable to ask whose standard should be used and why?
 
Third, if believers in the Judeo-Christian God are to answer for God’s actions in their scriptures, then it seems reasonable to examine the justifications for and explanations of those actions as offered by them including:
 

1. The Canaanites were actually a perverse people, and God patiently waited 400 years (from the time of Abraham to Joshua) allowing the Canaanites time to amend their evil ways. Instead, their wickedness actually increased, so God used the Israelites to punish the Canaanites for their sins – just as He had punished all mankind by means of the flood earlier, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and even the Israelites themselves by means of forty years spent in the wilderness and the Babylonian captivity. Clearly, God was no harder on the Canaanites than He was upon His own people.
   
2. The Canaanites had the opportunity to flee; by choosing to stay and fight, they resisted God and sealed their own fate. 
   
3. It is evident that the Israelites didn’t literally kill every single Canaanite man, woman and child, because the Canaanites continued to appear in the Bible long after the time when they were allegedly wiped out. It is more likely that the authors of the Old Testament books used metaphorical or hyperbolic language to express the message they wanted to convey about Israel’s victories over the Canaanites.
   

 
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.

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.

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.

Why in unholy fuck do you expect anybody who doesn't believe in your god to be impressed by this scurrilous bit of chest-beating bullshit? I don't think you have any purpose for posting anything here other than to insult people with your annoying twaddle!

[Esquilax]

And, FWIW, the question of God's immorality in the OT is a huge deal to a lot of folks. Cecelia, for example, is beside herself with hatred of God for his alleged sexism. I don't know what may have happened to her in the past to make that her hot button, but there it is. Others here are gay and that's their obstacle. I suspect one person may have even been molested by a priest - though this is just a guess on my part. My point is that people have different reasons for their atheism, and thoughtful discussion of these things might actually remove some barriers. I'm not sure that everyone is emotionally ready to have that kind of conversation, though.

Do you understand how disrespectful you're being to these people and their views when you dismiss them all as emotional reactions to something in their past? I know it's easy to just say "you're only an atheist because you're gay," or were molested, or somesuch, but aside from being simplistic and reductive, it's also profoundly rude; you don't know us, you have no basis at all for even ascribing a hatred of god to us, much less reducing our atheism to a simple emotional reaction rather than a legitimate position arrived at via means of evidence.

Why do believers so often try to undercut the people instead of tackling the arguments?

One other thing I've observed: most of the people in this forum are westerners and they come largely from a Judeo-Christian background. I'm not seeing too many people identifying as former Hindus or Muslims or Buddhists. I'm sure there may be a few here, but not the majority who are clearly coming from Catholic and Evangelical Protestant backgrounds for the most part. This means that they didn't say, "Well, I'm not happy with the Catholic Church's teaching on X, Y or Z, so, God must not exist." People with hot button issue like that usually become Protestant. No, the former believers here seem to have emotional or experiential reasons for their animosity toward God and believers.

Dissatisfaction with church teachings is irrelevant to this. You're right when you say that such dissatisfaction may lead one to change denominations- I'd add the possibilities of simply changing one's personal interpretation of the scriptures or setting aside one's personal opinions because these are the words of god to that list, though- but that's not what's at play here. It's the realization that none of these teachings are grounded to anything real or justified that makes one an atheist, not simply dislike of what the teachings are.

That there's so much to object to within religious doctrine is a corollary to atheism, not a reason for it.

Reasoning usually moves the individual in the direction of faith.

Reason and faith are antitheses. If a position is reasonable it doesn't require faith; this statement of yours is claptrap.

[athrock]

What are you trying to get at, athrock? We're not stupid people here. We each have good reasons to be against the morality expressed in the Old Testament. Even you yourself implied you have an issue with genocide and slaughter of people. But unlike you, I believe (as do many others) that genocide is repulsive no matter what. So even if God exists, and even if God commanded me to do so, I'd still find it repulsive. God himself would have to threaten my loved ones to eternal hell for me to even think about (reluctantly) applying his sick plan.

But anyway, when are you going to change your label to Bible-believing Christian? Or is it Catholic Christian? Come on, you're not a deist ... just as you weren't just simply an open-minded agnostic before.

Oh, no...not stupid. Well, most of you don't appear to be. There are some whom I suspect are either stupid, angry teenagers or ignorant, elderly cranks. But some folks are clearly sharp as a tack. And fun to read and talk to!

The problem, I think, is that many have made rational decisions based on incomplete or false data. What do I mean by this? Well, I'm no Bible scholar, but I know enough to spot obvious errors. For example, Rhondavous and Brakeman are in this camp. They are in the worst possible situation, btw - they know just enough to think that they understand the Bible but probing the depth of their actual theology doesn't require a very long measuring stick.

They (and pretty much everyone else as best I can tell) have concluded that they already know what theism in general or Christianity in particular are all about, so they either have no need to do any further research or (worse) they rely on other atheists to tell them what theism and Christianity are all about.

Sorry, but if you want to take issue with what a believer holds, then read the believer's own materials first and then dissect it. Luther's Small Catechism or the Catechism of the Catholic Church are available online...quote a passage and begin to argue against it. But don't build up with a strawman and then proceed to dismantle it. You've proven nothing in the process except your own ignorance.

As a side note, does any atheist here ever go into a Christian bookstore and buy a decent book in order to understand what Christians actually believe? And don't tell me you heard it all when you were a child. Really? You have a grade-school understanding of the deepest mysteries of God? Please. And yes, I'm aware that some folks here had their crisis of faith when they were older (I do go back and read old threads - it pays to do research!), but I warrant that many of these deconversions were predominantly emotional and not intellectual in nature. (If you are that ONE exception, don't feel obligated to tell me your story. I could bury you with plenty of conversion stories in return.)

Yet Christians (not all) will read books by Hitchens and Dawkins in order to understand atheism. My point here is that a lot of this forum's members are woefully ignorant of what believers actually believe...despite having been raised in theist homes in some cases.

So, the arguments made by ignorant people can be completely rational...and completely wrong because they are based on bad data. Garbage in, garbage out.

Ironically, this is where the atheist often closes his or her mind (and the conversation)...by snidely commenting that the Bible (or the Qur'an or the BoM, etc.) is the garbage that the gullible have taken in. Yet, former atheists attest that it was only when they were able to examine things more open-mindedly, "Hey, hang on a sec...this has a ring of truth to it...", that they were able to begin a process of real discovery.



Subsequent posts will reveal who is and isn't at that point, yet. 

[athrock]

Athrock, why the continued need to rationalize/justify your belief to us? You're allowed to believe what ever you want, it's OK.

What are you really looking for?

We are all entitled to our own beliefs, mh, but we are not entitled to our own facts.

The unfortunate belief that God is immoral is one that can be overcome by close attention to evidence presented well.

[athrock]

 

1. The Canaanites were actually a perverse people, and God patiently waited 400 years (from the time of Abraham to Joshua) allowing the Canaanites time to amend their evil ways. Instead, their wickedness actually increased, so God used the Israelites to punish the Canaanites for their sins – just as He had punished all mankind by means of the flood earlier, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and even the Israelites themselves by means of forty years spent in the wilderness and the Babylonian captivity. Clearly, God was no harder on the Canaanites than He was upon His own people.
   
2. The Canaanites had the opportunity to flee; by choosing to stay and fight, they resisted God and sealed their own fate. 
   
3. It is evident that the Israelites didn’t literally kill every single Canaanite man, woman and child, because the Canaanites continued to appear in the Bible long after the time when they were allegedly wiped out. It is more likely that the authors of the Old Testament books used metaphorical or hyperbolic language to express the message they wanted to convey about Israel’s victories over the Canaanites.
   

 

Late to the party....but:

1.  Since -when- was perversion an excuse for genocide?  If someone (or, in fact, everyone) told you to kill someone for the crime of "perversion" allow me to believe that you would not comply.  
2. Some segment of a populace will -always- fight to defend their lives, even if they were in the wrong by some other standard.  This is hardly a revelation.
3. That a people didn't fully execute, down to every last feotus and child, a sadistic order, is no comment upon the the sadism of the order.

1. If God commanded that the Israelites wipe out the Canaanites for their perversions, you may be sure their sins were not minor in His sight.

3. Suggesting further that the decimation of the Canaanites was not the "sadistic" "genocide" that is often claimed.


And btw, "genocide" is a term normally applied to the destruction of a single ethnic group. Was this a genocide because of race? Or a punishment because of sin?

Why did the God of the OT order the destruction of the Canaanites, Rhythm?

(Hint: http://www.gotquestions.org/Canaanites-e...ation.html)

[brewer]

Athrock, why the continued need to rationalize/justify your belief to us? You're allowed to believe what ever you want, it's OK.

What are you really looking for?

We are all entitled to our own beliefs, mh, but we are not entitled to our own facts.

The unfortunate belief that God is immoral is one that can be overcome by close attention to evidence presented well.

What facts? Biblical facts? What evidence? Biblical evidence? Just because it's in a book does not make it a fact or evidence. It only becomes a fact/evidence in the mind of those that choose believe. I think that you understand that will never be the case for the vast majority, if not all of us.

So I ask again, what is your purpose for being here? Are you a mission from god (Blues Brothers)? Is a conversion the purpose? That we accept the fantasy? Or that we accept you? It's becoming very apparent that you will not accept us.

[athrock]

Seriously, what the hell?

We know that Yahweh was a war god that was worshiped by many tribes in the Middle East.  Archaeologists have shown that the Hebrews were a Canaanite faction that split from the whole.  The Exodus never happened.  Sure, there was warfare, and Canaanite cities were destroyed, probably by the "new" tribe, the Hebrews.  But they certainly didn't accomplish a complete genocide - - they just celebrated theft and murder and rape.  And the victor writes the account of how GAWD told them to destroy the EVIL people who don't worship the right imaginary friend.  And since the Egyptians ruled the area, off 'n' on, the fairy tale about how the Hebrews were saved by their god from the evil overlords makes a whole lot of sense.  

And now we're fighting over the stupid fairy tales. Whether it's OK for a "deity" to tell people to take another tribe's land, murder it's males and rape it's females.  Well, sure, that was humanity 3000 years ago.  And now a Wholly Babble worshiper is trying to tell us that this behavior is OK??

How does one answer such ignorance? 

[athrock]

Many people argue that God acted immorally in the Old Testament when He ordered the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites who were living in the land that God had promised to Abraham and his descendants. However, there are several reasons why this is a poor argument.
 
First, if God does not actually exist, then the accounts of His deeds in the Old Testament are meaningless fables, and it does not matter what these stories claim about God.
 
Second, if the purpose of objecting to Old Testament accounts is to hold God and His followers to a standard of behavior, then it is reasonable to ask whose standard should be used and why?
 
Third, if believers in the Judeo-Christian God are to answer for God’s actions in their scriptures, then it seems reasonable to examine the justifications for and explanations of those actions as offered by them including:
 

1. The Canaanites were actually a perverse people, and God patiently waited 400 years (from the time of Abraham to Joshua) allowing the Canaanites time to amend their evil ways. Instead, their wickedness actually increased, so God used the Israelites to punish the Canaanites for their sins – just as He had punished all mankind by means of the flood earlier, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and even the Israelites themselves by means of forty years spent in the wilderness and the Babylonian captivity. Clearly, God was no harder on the Canaanites than He was upon His own people.
   
2. The Canaanites had the opportunity to flee; by choosing to stay and fight, they resisted God and sealed their own fate. 
   
3. It is evident that the Israelites didn’t literally kill every single Canaanite man, woman and child, because the Canaanites continued to appear in the Bible long after the time when they were allegedly wiped out. It is more likely that the authors of the Old Testament books used metaphorical or hyperbolic language to express the message they wanted to convey about Israel’s victories over the Canaanites.
   

 
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.

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.

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.

So God got pissed when people sacrificed their rug rats to false gods but he was all grins and giggles when they sacrificed them to him.

Did Yahweh demand human sacrifices, WoG?