"For the lord thy god is a jealous god among you."

[Socratic Meth Head]

Every single attempt at justifying the god of the Old Testament has been exceedingly poor.

There are numerous occasions when god supposedly went on genocidal killing sprees, (wow, news huh?) not to mention we have no evidence of these supposed events.

2 Kings 19:35
"And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: (185,000!!) and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses"

Numbers 31:17-18
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately.
But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.

Not to mention, the guy is a fucking slave owner

Leviticus 25:44-46
"‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."

Anyone who wishes to condone the supposed actions of this guy are invited.
Or even anyone who wants to provide evidence where 185,000 people just fucking drop dead in one night or similar stories.

[Minimalist]

One might wonder why the Assyrians were so stupid as to send 185,000 men to attack a shithole of about 7-8,000 in the first place. 

God seems to exaggerate a lot.

[robvalue]

If God wants his people to have slaves, why not just create serving humanoids with no sentience? As many as are needed?

Oh right, because it has to fit around the facts, at least loosely.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

If God wants his people to have slaves, why not just create serving humanoids with no sentience? As many as are needed?

Oh right, because it has to fit around the facts, at least loosely.

Too right it does. People in slave societies don't own slaves because God told them they could. They own slaves first and then use God as an excuse to justify human chattel: 'Well, if having slaves was wrong, our all-powerful God would stop slavery. Since we have these slaves, God must approve of slavery. QED.'

Twisty fucks.

Boru

[Godless-Heathen]

IME they dont justify it. Most Christians I've come across, are either completely unaware of it, or pretend they can just ignore it, cus Jesus. They cant seem to get their heads around the fact that the god of the OT is the same god as the NT, and that all the disgusting shit he did in the OT, can't just be swept under the carpet because of the apparent personality transplant he seemed have had by the time the NT was written.

[Aoi Magi]

I really don't understand the mental gymnastics of the believers. I mean why do the people who were shunned as blacks, slaves, e.t.c flock to join xtianity, the very thing that oppressed them for centuries and still fosters bigotry to this day. Same goes for the women who support xtianity and islam. Do people really like to get oppressed or something?

And what personality transplant? JC was a bigot and hater even by his own PR standards, and even he supposedly had to whine to yahweh who's obviously a bigger dick. By no means does it mean yahweh was any different from OT, rather all it seems like is got himself a PR manager who did shitty job and got fired.

[robvalue]

I get the feeling that the religion kind of validates oppression to the oppressed. Like there's a reason for it; in the same way there's a reason for the suffering in the world.

Without the religion for comfort, the stark reality is presented.

[Pat Mustard]

IME they dont justify it. Most Christians I've come across, are either completely unaware of it, or pretend they can just ignore it, cus Jesus. They cant seem to get their heads around the fact that the god of the OT is the same god as the NT, and that all the disgusting shit he did in the OT, can't just be swept under the carpet because of the apparent personality transplant he seemed have had by the time the NT was written.

If they go the second route quote Matthew 5:17 & 18 at them, and tell them it's not very christian to go against Jesus.

[Drich]

Every single attempt at justifying the god of the Old Testament has been exceedingly poor.

There are numerous occasions when god supposedly went on genocidal killing sprees, (wow, news huh?) not to mention we have no evidence of these supposed events.

2 Kings 19:35
"And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: (185,000!!) and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses"

Numbers 31:17-18
Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately.
But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.

Not to mention, the guy is a fucking slave owner

Leviticus 25:44-46
"‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."

Anyone who wishes to condone the supposed actions of this guy are invited.
Or even anyone who wants to provide evidence where 185,000 people just fucking drop dead in one night or similar stories.

The account in 2 Kings in of itself is indeed evidence. As to the kind of evidence or nature of said evidence is up for debate, but it is indeed evidence. As with any narrative provided by any historical or religious document. For instance lot of what we know of ancient Egypt comes from a single source and is whole unsupported by anything else, yet because we have the one document or artifact we can declare via the EVIDENCE provided that Egypt's history includes what ever is documented.

As far as condoning anything, one must simply look at and understand that his system of 'morality' is subjective and can and does change with our social surroundings and over time. Once you can properly frame out and isolate your own self induced sense of righteousness or morality you can then proceed to honestly look at the narritive and frame out the circumstance that allowed the death of so many (including women and children) to be justified.

So with those two things in mind We need to ask out selves honestly what other 'evidence' is left after a mass death even by conventional means lets say 70 years after it happened, then 100, then 1000 then 5000. Because if you don't know what can be left after a mass death after 5000 years then you will not be able to identify the evidence even if someone is slapping you in the face with it.

Then we must look to modern times to see if their was ever an time in recent history were our 'morality' demanded that we 'take the gloves off and kill women and children.'

Both can be answered with the Dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. We start by looking at why the bomb was dropped on a city containing women and children. First it was a military staging point where there were indeed a mass of troops being garrisoned there as it was a hub city with in a day's march of several potential beach landing sites for the American invasion. So the question becomes were the women and children specifically targeted? or were the collateral damage? As we found out on the Island invasion of Okinawa when we fought the Japanese/Okinawians there every single man woman and child who could physically shoot a gun was given a gun and indoctrinated to fight to the death. So yes, the women and children of Hiroshima were also apart of the the reason that city was targeted. Meaning we have found a modern example of Women and children being intentionally targeted. We do not know how many died that single day but the estimates range from 65,000 to 200,000 people.
http://www.warbirdforum.com/hirodead.htm
But one can argue that this was a military heavy town, so then we look at the fire bombing of tokyo's residential neighborhoods. In one night some estimate 275,000 were killed and over a million injured.

Pretty much only A-typical combatants. (women and children)

So the next question is what evidence is left after 70 years? A hand full of monuments and historical documentation.

Now compare that with what is left with what happened in 2nd kings, and honestly ask yourself what do you expect to be left of the 185,000 who were probably left exposed to the elements in that region after 3500 years.

Now ask yourself why do 'we' get a pass for killing women and children to make our lives better, but God doesn't when He knows that someone in that comming blood line would be a lot harder on the Jews or even all of Humanity that the Japanese were?

[Gemini]

Now ask yourself why do 'we' get a pass for killing women and children to make our lives better...

We don't.