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To preserve Isreal? Why? What makes them so special.
I don't think anybody really knows all the reasons why it was Israel but some group had to lay the foundation stones for Christianity. Plus, once it was promised to Abraham it had to stay in his family.
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As for killing someone to prevent them from doing something worse, well God seems to be a lazy guy as it would have been easier if He would have appeared to them and save
Well you know the canned answer and you gave it below, but I want to point out that actually beholding God could be worse. It is my belief (and I contend that when you are debating me you are debating my own peculiar beliefs, or else you are constructing strawmen) that if somebody saw God and then fell away that person would be *worse* off than somebody that didn't see God and fell away. Non- theists often say "Knowing there is a God doesn't mean I'll worship him". Most Christians hold that something similar happened in the War of Heaven. I would think the angels that fell pretty much knew there was a God...
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what freewill does a dead man have? What choices would a godless man have if they have never seen or heard of the Truth?
I am responding to these together because I feel they are related. It depends on your view of the afterlife. If you interpret afterlife as an immediate trip to the judgement bar before possibly being flung into the bunroaster I suppose your argument is valid. If there is a possibility of being taught and converted, or rejecting the gospel in the afterlife, then this goes away. I believe that people who were not exposed to the Gospel message in life will have a chance in the afterlife for conversion. I also believe that there is a significant difference in the penalty for sin in ignorance and people who knowingly sin.
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If God only cares to preserve His children of Isreal to the determent of all of His other children, why should His other Children give a rats ass for that kind of a parent?
I don't think it was to the detriment of all other children (except in a literal Global flood, of course) most of the time only people in Mesopotamia and surrounding areas get smited.
Of course in the Christian worldview it seems like Gentiles are getting the better end of the stick. Jesus died for everyone, and belief and obedience gets an eternal reward. It isn't that that eternal reward is only for the Jews. The way I see it, most any culture that could have been chosen to be the covenant people would have been about the same way. There would be cultural differences but there would also be wars and dissensions and the occasional pestilence.
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Still it is true, if the flood was true, that God slaughtered infants whose only crime was that God felt their mothers were guilty of something.
Anytime innocents die is it is unfortunate. The only answer I can make to this is that it is my belief that infants and young children are not informed enough to have truly free will and so are not truly capable of sin. Therefore it is my opinion that they are covered by the resurrection and judgment for what happened in life is very lenient, although theoretically I believe they are granted full faculty after resurrection and *could* choose to fall away in the post-mortal existance and still be condemned. It is the parents whose eternal welfare I am concerned the most about.
By the way all of your points are sound and well-constructed.
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