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Author Topic:   Is God good?
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 181 of 722 (682948)
12-06-2012 9:02 AM
Reply to: Message 180 by Kairyu
12-06-2012 8:48 AM


Re: God's goodness in the Garden of Eden.
The God of Genesis 2&3 should be held liable for creating an attractive nuisance.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 180 by Kairyu, posted 12-06-2012 8:48 AM Kairyu has not replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 182 of 722 (682950)
12-06-2012 9:28 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by Rahvin
12-03-2012 2:23 PM


Military Bravado
Sorry, jaywill. Your god is an evil genocidal monster.
Rahvlin,
You have a monsterous and callous disregard for human beings in the early fetal stage of development. You are a monster to count a mosquito as of more value than a united human sperm and human egg.
Monster. Reserve some sorrow for yourself.
Scholars recognize that the bravado with which Joshua wrote was typical of the military speak of the ancient Near East in those days.
Other military officials wrote of having left nothing breathing after certain battles when it apparently was not to be taken completely liturally. The Bible often does reflect the style of contemporary prose of the age. And military generals used hyperbole and bravado in writing of their conquests.
The rhetoric sounds like bragging. Ie. the language of Joshua 10:40
quote:
"Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded."
Joshua is using the rhetorical bravado of his day. He asserts that
1.) All the land was captured.
2.) All the kings were defeated.
3.) All the Canaanites were destroyed. Compare Joshua 10:40 with Joshua 11:16-23
"Joshua took the whole land ... and gave ... it for an inheritance to Israel"
Scholars acknowledge that the book of Judges is literally linked to the book of Joshua. Yet in the early chapters of Judges we read that the task of taking over the land was far from complete.
1.) God says "I will not drive them out before you" (Judges 2:3)
This indicates some of the speak of Joshua was typical military bravado speak.
2.) Judges 1:21, 27-28 asserts "[they] did not drive out the Jebusites"; "[they] did not take possession"; "[they] did not drive them out completely."
These nations, Judges says remained "to this day" (Judges 1:21) . People who had been said to have been wiped out reappear in the story. Many Canaanites stuck around.
So the charge of genocide or being Israel totally wiping out societies is not accurate.
Some readers accuse Joshua of being misleading or making definite errors in his record. I think we should take Joshua's rhetoric as speaking the language that everyone in his day would have understood.
As today we would say perhaps "The Bulls devoured or destroyed the Bears" in sports speak.
"The enemy was fairly trounced!" is what Joshua is writing in the then contemporary military talk.
At one time he writes - "There were no Anakim left in the land" (Joshua 11:22); He says they were "UTTERYLY DESTROYED" in the hill country (11:22). This could not be literally true according to the very same Joshua. Latter Joshua tells that Caleb asked permission to drive out the Anakites from the hill country (Compare 14:12-15 and 15:13-19).
Joshua is not being deceptive. He was using typical ancient Near Eastern military hyperbole. He could write about the elemination of inhabitants in that way and also write about the nations "remain among you".
Nothing left to breath of the enemies? Not liturally because Joshua latter warns Israel not to mention, swear by, serve, or bow down to their gods (Joshua 23:7; 12-13; Compare 15:63; 16:10; 17:13; Judges 2:10-19)
In this hyperbolic speak Joshua writes "the land had rest from war" (Joshua 11:23). Yet chapters 13 and beyond indicates territory that had not yet been possessed (13:1).
"Now Joshua was old and advanced in age: and Jehovah said to him, You are old and advanced in age, and VERY MUCH of the land remains to be possessed."
We are told that a number of tribes failed to drive out the Canaanites (13:13;15:63; 16:10; 17:12-13, 18). So "Joshua took the whole land ... and gave ... it for an inheritance to Israel" of chapter 11 cannot mean a total wiping out of the Canaanites.
Joshua tells seven of the tribes of Israel - "How long will you put off entering to take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?" (18:3)
God tells Israel of the process of DRIVING OUT the Canaanites would be gradual. Deuteronomy 7:22 contains the prediction and Joshua 2:20-23 reaffirms it. And to drive out is not the same as to kill all. We see God's intention to destroy the worship centers and disperse the locals of the most aggregous Canaanite sins.
I hold then the the conventional warfare rhetoric common in many other ancient Near Eastern military accounts appears in Joshua and mostly refers to combatants of armed resistance. Whatever the reason was for Israel's failure to drive all the Canaanites away we are still told in sweeping language that Israel wiped out all of the Canaanites.
This kind of talk can be compared to modern sports talk.
"This hockey team obliterated this other hockey team."
"This baseball team destroyed some other baseball team."
In the second and first millennia BC ancient Near Eastern military accounts used language of exaggeration and bravado. The similar speaking of the book of Joshua actually evidences writing that would have been so typically understood in that day - alledged total devastation of an combatant enemy.
cont. latter
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Rahvin, posted 12-03-2012 2:23 PM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 185 by Rahvin, posted 12-06-2012 12:04 PM jaywill has replied
 Message 186 by Panda, posted 12-06-2012 12:05 PM jaywill has replied

  
Eli
Member (Idle past 3491 days)
Posts: 274
Joined: 08-24-2012


(1)
Message 183 of 722 (682977)
12-06-2012 11:50 AM
Reply to: Message 177 by jaywill
12-06-2012 12:13 AM


Re: For the sake of the argument...
jaywill writes:
What I read is that God said "it was very good" (Gen. 1:31)
Where did you read it was a perfect scenario ?
I didn't. That is a purely ex-biblical Christian tradition, a part of the doctrine of "Original Sin." If you believe corruption entered into the world only after Adam ate the apple, your premise is just that.
jaywill writes:
What I read that God told Adam up front, directly, frankly that if he ate of the fruit of the tree he would die (Gen. 2:16,17) .
I am also told in the NT that Adam, in eating, was not deceived (First Timothy 2:14). He was warned of the consequences, knew them, and deliberately disobeyed.
He must have known enough
Again, having not eaten from the tree of knowledge, Adam did not know if the consequences were good or bad. He did not know that death was bad. He did not know if obedience was good or bad.
Suffering became the revelation that made the realization of good and evil possible. Prior to eating, there was no suffering, no hunger, no weariness. Adam understood nothing of suffering, and therefore understood nothing about consequence.
It is irrelevant if the instruction was clear, the consequence was a mystery. This is not a failing proposal, simply because of the object.
What is it called?
"THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL."
Of which Adam has not eaten and is not allowed to eat. Clearly, he does not have sufficient information to know if disobedience is good or evil if he is forbidden from such knowledge. He does not know if death is good or evil.
So it does not matter if God tells him he will die beforehand. Adam is still not given the insight and foreknowledge to appreciate what that means. Hence, he is underequipped to make the correct decision.
He is set up, purposely, to fail in order for God to bring suffering and death into the world.
Edited by Eli, : No reason given.

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kofh2u
Member (Idle past 3819 days)
Posts: 1162
From: phila., PA
Joined: 04-05-2004


Message 184 of 722 (682978)
12-06-2012 11:54 AM
Reply to: Message 178 by Larni
12-06-2012 7:30 AM


Re: For the sake of the argument...
So if you kill all humanity bar a select few to keep the line going you define that as good: this being the case can we assume that you would define the actions of fictional character Hugo Drax off of James Bond as good.
Aside from considerations of fictionality would his plan of killing all of humanity bar a select few to carry on the line good, also?
Yes or no?
So if you kill all dinosaurs bar a select few birds to keep the line going you define that as good:
.... would his plan of killing all of dinosaurs bar a select few beautiful and ecologically necessary and useful birds to carry on the line good, also?
Yes or no?
I think yes.
I think the Law of Evolution was a good Law for God to make.
Since the on going ever unfolding changing Reality would make it impossible for some species to be anything but tormented, the option to adapt and co-exist with reality seems good.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 178 by Larni, posted 12-06-2012 7:30 AM Larni has replied

Replies to this message:
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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 185 of 722 (682982)
12-06-2012 12:04 PM
Reply to: Message 182 by jaywill
12-06-2012 9:28 AM


Re: Military Bravado
You have a monsterous and callous disregard for human beings in the early fetal stage of development. You are a monster to count a mosquito as of more value than a united human sperm and human egg.
Monster. Reserve some sorrow for yourself.
This, jaywill, is an ad hominem. You are attacking me, rather than my argument. My moral value is not up for discussion in this thread - only the Biblical god's is.
Your opinions on my ethical system as it applies to abortion are off topic. Your calling me a "monster" simply demonstrates that you must resort to personal attacks and insults, as you are unable to effectively deal with my arguments.
Entertainingly, as I have never actually sponsored or performed an abortion, even if I were to accept your premise regarding when life attains moral value, I would still be guilty of no crime, whereas your god, if for the sake of argument we are to assume the veracity of the Bible, is still absolutely guilty of mass murder.
The remainder of your post, of course, is basically off-topic. You're attempting to divert attention away from the world-killing Flood of Genesis, and instead focus on apologetic arguments defending other examples of immorality as mere hyperbole.
It will not work, jaywill. If the god of the Bible killed off all but 8 people in the entire world in the Flood, then the god of the Bible is guilty of the largest-scale genocide ever. This makes him evil.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of
variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the
outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by jaywill, posted 12-06-2012 9:28 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
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Panda
Member (Idle past 3712 days)
Posts: 2688
From: UK
Joined: 10-04-2010


(1)
Message 186 of 722 (682983)
12-06-2012 12:05 PM
Reply to: Message 182 by jaywill
12-06-2012 9:28 AM


Re: Military Bravado
jaywill writes:
You have a monsterous and callous disregard for human beings in the early fetal stage of development. You are a monster to count a mosquito as of more value than a united human sperm and human egg.
Monster. Reserve some sorrow for yourself.
If passively disregarding the life of some unformed babies is evil, imagine how evil god must be to actually take an active role in killing MILLIONS of grown children!
There is not enough sorrow in the universe to reserve for the monster that is god.

"There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god." J. B. S. Haldane

This message is a reply to:
 Message 182 by jaywill, posted 12-06-2012 9:28 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 187 by jaywill, posted 12-06-2012 1:39 PM Panda has not replied
 Message 189 by jaywill, posted 12-06-2012 3:55 PM Panda has replied
 Message 197 by kofh2u, posted 12-06-2012 6:06 PM Panda has replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 187 of 722 (683008)
12-06-2012 1:39 PM
Reply to: Message 186 by Panda
12-06-2012 12:05 PM


Re: Military Bravado
First, a little more on military bravado speak of the ancient Near East.
Paul Copan writes that Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen thought that many Old Testament scholars have been misled in there assessment of the book of Joshua
quote:
" ... some have concluded that the language of wholesale slaughter and total occupation - which didn't (from all other indications) actually take place - proves that these accounts are falsehoods. But ancient Near Eastern accounts readily used "utterly/completel destroy" and other obliteration language even when the event didn't literally happen that way."
[ Is God a Moral Monster ? Making Sense of the Old Testament God, Paul Copan, Baker Books, pg.171 ]
We can compare these ancient records of military rhetoric to the book of Joshua.
1.) Thutmosis III of Egypt in the latter 15th century BC boasted that - "the numerous army of Mitanni was overthrown within the hour, annihilated totally, like those (now) not existent."
The facts are that Mitanni's forcess lived on to fight into the 15th and 14th centuries BC.
2.) King Mursilli II of the Hittites: He reigned from 1322 - 1295 BC. Ancient records concerning him making "Mt. Asharpaya empty (of humans) " and of making "the mountains of Tarikarimu empty (of humanity)."
The record is rhetorically exaggerated.
3.) The "Bullitin" of Ramses II tells of Egypt's victories in Syria (around 1274 BC), which were actually less than spectacular. The record says that he slew "the entire force " of the Hittites. It says he slew "all the chiefs of all the countries," and that he disregarded "millions of foreigners," which he considered "chaff". Sounds very impressive. But it was hyperbolic expressiveness and not literally true.
4.) The Merneptah Stele (around 1230 BC) boasted that the Northern Kingdom of "Israel is wasted, his seed is not" annhilated by Rameses II's son Merneptah. The declaration was premature.
5.) Moab's king Mesha (840/830 BC) bragged the same Northern Kingdom of Israel was annhilated forever - "Israel is utterly perished for always," which was a premature statement over a century too early. The Assyrians devasted Israel in 722 BC.
6.) The Assyrian ruler Sannacherib (701 - 681 BC) used hyperbolic language in declaring "The soldiers of Hirimme, dangerous enemies, I cut down with the sword, and not one escaped."
The book of Joshua similarly used this literary device in chapters 9 through 12. It has to be rhetorical because at the conclusion the continued existence of the Canaanites is matter of factly reported. Canaanites remained whose idolatry could continue to enfluence Israel.
Joshua warns of intermarriage and entanglement with the remaining nations of the land.
"For if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which REMAIN AMONG YOU, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know with certainty that the Lord your God will not continue to DRIVE THESE nations OUT from before you" (Joshua 23:12-13)
Here again the expected promise is divine dispersion rather than divine genocide -total killing off.
If the Canaanites were utterly wiped out in genocide why would there be any discussion of the possibilities of intermarriage or treaties?
The emphasis in God's command in Deuteronomy was over archingly about religion. Israel was to destroy altars, images, and sacred pillars. The commission of God was the destruction of Canaanite RELIGION foremost. This was more important that the destroying of people.
This point is made clearer in the Exodus passage warning Israel -
"Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst. But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their pillars and cut down their Asherim." (Exodus 34:12-13)
The killing of people is not the overall focus but the driving out from the sinful religious centers of the Canaanites. It is not the destoying of people which is the typical command but the destruction of religious relics -
"You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place."
Next I will discuss the harsher commands concerning the case of the Amalakites. We can see that the norm was that Israel was to disperse the people from their religious centers and destroy the idolatry of the Canaanites primarily in Gary Miller's words "as painlessly as possible".
The threat to Israel was not the people themselves in most cases, but the idolatrous way of life.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 186 by Panda, posted 12-06-2012 12:05 PM Panda has not replied

  
Larni
Member (Idle past 164 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 188 of 722 (683010)
12-06-2012 2:56 PM
Reply to: Message 184 by kofh2u
12-06-2012 11:54 AM


Re: For the sake of the argument...
Just answer my question, please.

The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer.
-Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53
The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286
Does a query (thats a question Stile) that uses this physical reality, to look for an answer to its existence and properties become theoretical, considering its deductive conclusions are based against objective verifiable realities.
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 134

This message is a reply to:
 Message 184 by kofh2u, posted 12-06-2012 11:54 AM kofh2u has not replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 189 of 722 (683013)
12-06-2012 3:55 PM
Reply to: Message 186 by Panda
12-06-2012 12:05 PM


Re: Military Bravado
If passively disregarding the life of some unformed babies is evil, imagine how evil god must be to actually take an active role in killing MILLIONS of grown children!
There is not enough sorrow in the universe to reserve for the monster that is god.
If God is that bad then maybe you could answer me this:
How come in the book of Jonah God expresses concern about young ones being judged by Him who are not yet able to discern their left from their right hand ?
God tells the grumbling prophet Jonah, who is mad that God has had mercy on Israel's enemies, the city of Nineveh -
" And I, should I not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot discern between their right hand and their left, and many cattle?" (Jonah 4:11)
Same Bible, same Old Testament, same God. Here God knows the count of the number of humans who don't yet know the difference between their right and left hand.
See if you can give me a answer that is not a wise crack. How come we see God here taking great care not to judge the immature ?
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 186 by Panda, posted 12-06-2012 12:05 PM Panda has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 190 by jar, posted 12-06-2012 4:06 PM jaywill has replied
 Message 198 by Panda, posted 12-06-2012 6:09 PM jaywill has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 190 of 722 (683014)
12-06-2012 4:06 PM
Reply to: Message 189 by jaywill
12-06-2012 3:55 PM


Re: Military Bravado
Same Bible, same Old Testament, same God. Here God knows the count of the number of humans who don't yet know the difference between their right and left hand.
See if you can give me a answer that is not a wise crack. How come we see God here taking great care not to judge the immature ?
That is easy. It is a different story written by a different author meant to serve a different purpose describing a different God.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 189 by jaywill, posted 12-06-2012 3:55 PM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 191 by jaywill, posted 12-06-2012 4:10 PM jar has replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 191 of 722 (683015)
12-06-2012 4:10 PM
Reply to: Message 190 by jar
12-06-2012 4:06 PM


Re: Military Bravado
That is easy. It is a different story written by a different author meant to serve a different purpose describing a different God.
Your reply is noted.
Let's see what Panda has to say about it.
I may come back to your answer, but trying to keep it tied to the subject rather than branching off into a discussion on textural criticism of the Old Testament documents.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 190 by jar, posted 12-06-2012 4:06 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 192 by jar, posted 12-06-2012 4:34 PM jaywill has not replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 192 of 722 (683016)
12-06-2012 4:34 PM
Reply to: Message 191 by jaywill
12-06-2012 4:10 PM


Re: Military Bravado
But it is on topic. There is no one God found in the Bible rather a whole series as the concept of God evolved and each writer created a new God.
The God that is associated with the Flood Myth is an evil critter. The God in the Jonah myth is an entirely different critter.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 212 by Phat, posted 12-07-2012 12:06 PM jar has replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 193 of 722 (683017)
12-06-2012 4:54 PM
Reply to: Message 185 by Rahvin
12-06-2012 12:04 PM


Re: Military Bravado
This, jaywill, is an ad hominem. You are attacking me, rather than my argument. My moral value is not up for discussion in this thread - only the Biblical god's is.
Hold on. You make a calculating objective observation to critique my Father. Don't be surprised if a objective critique can be made about you.
Okay. You're a swell guy. Feel better now?
Answer me this: When Jesus talks to the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28 why didn't He just put her to death ON THE SPOT ?
I mean Jesus clearly only cares to do the will of His Father, Whom He repeatedly claims is the God that Israel has served all along. Why does Jesus speak positively about the Canaanite woman's FAITH rather than just instruct the Jews standing by to kill her ?
Your opinions on my ethical system as it applies to abortion are off topic.
I haven't written that much on it. You set yourself up to be the judge of God on ground of His treatment of the young. Its fair then to question your own stance of the subject.
Why didn't God kill Naaman the Syrian rather than heal him in Second Kings 5 ?
Why did Jesus use this account to show the Jews that God withheld blessing from Israel but bestowed upon a foreigner ?
"And there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them were cleansed, execpt Naman the Syrian. And all in the synogogue were filled with anger when they heard these things ..." (Luke 4:27,28)
All the genocides and ethnic cleansings I am familiar with are between racial groups or ethinic clans. Why would Jesus go out of His way to remind the Jews that non-Jews received blessing from God while Jews missed out?
Your calling me a "monster" simply demonstrates that you must resort to personal attacks and insults, as you are unable to effectively deal with my arguments.
I seem to be doing not bad without personal attacks. You make an "objective" character assessment of my Father. Expect that an objective comparison with your status as His judge can commence in kind.
Entertainingly, as I have never actually sponsored or performed an abortion, even if I were to accept your premise regarding when life attains moral value, I would still be guilty of no crime, whereas your god, if for the sake of argument we are to assume the veracity of the Bible, is still absolutely guilty of mass murder.
That's a back door your leaving open - "IF the veracity of the Bible ...".
Tell me why the monster God bent on only genocide of non-Jews actually has some Gentiles come into the land and benefit from His blessings while Israel is cast OUT to Assyria ?
Second Kings 17:26 - "And they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations that you have carried away and made to dwell in the cities of Samaria do not know the custom of the God of the land; therefore He has sent lions among them, and now they are killing them because theuy do not know the custom of the God of the land.
And the king of Assyria gave a command, saying, Take there one of the priests whom you have carried away from there; and let him go and dwell there, and let him teach them the custom of the God of the land."
The rest of the chapter discribes the mixed success the priest had in instructing the non-Hebrews about fearing the God of Israel in the land. He doesn't wipe them out, exterminate them, kill them off by one means or another. Rather it says -
"So these nations feared Jehovah but served their graven images, as well as their children and their children's chldren; as their fathers had done, so they have done unto this day." (v.41)
These facts do not conform to an accusation of Yahweh's only solution to securing Canaan being wholesale genocide of other ethnic groups.
The remainder of your post, of course, is basically off-topic. You're attempting to divert attention away from the world-killing Flood of Genesis, and instead focus on apologetic arguments defending other examples of immorality as mere hyperbole.
I dealt with the Flood. Your dullness fails to appreciate the NEED to save the rest of the human race in the future from such rock bottom depravity.
And now that I have examined some military hyperbolic talk, I will give attention to some of the most harsh commands of God about thier enemies.
In a bit we'll tackle the Amalakites.
You cannot appreciate the wide and frank scope of record of both God's "kindness and severity" . My approach is more realistic. I don't expect God to ALWAYS react as Barney the Dinosaur in the face of the most severe instances of human revolt to the divine.
It will not work, jaywill. If the god of the Bible killed off all but 8 people in the entire world in the Flood, then the god of the Bible is guilty of the largest-scale genocide ever. This makes him evil.
I have no idea HOW MANY people - all the world was at that ancient time.
The Bible says the Queen of the Ethiopians came from the ends of the earth. According to modern geography that was not all that far away.
The New Testament says Ceasar sent a census out to all the world. I don't think the writer meant China or what was the American continent in those days.
So a flood judging all the world, at that time, may not be thought of as the numerical equivalance of today's global population. The scattering of man over the face of the earth is discribed in Genesis 10 AFTER the flood.
Regardless, I do not soften the severity of everybody except 8 people being judged. I just believe God as always knew exactly what He was doing.
And for yet one more time, the severe judging of the sins of man in the Old Testament makes all the more meaningdful that His Son died for as the object of His judgment for every person who has ever lived, before Christ, during His earthly ministry, and afterwards.
The centrality of Christ's redemption is caused by God to be the substitutional judgment in the eternal sense for all mankind of all ages.
All things considered, I say God is wonderful and not the "monster" of your slander. But He is not going to back down on His judgment of sin. And we NEEDED to see that sin is an abomination to Him.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 185 by Rahvin, posted 12-06-2012 12:04 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 194 of 722 (683019)
12-06-2012 5:07 PM


Rahvlin : " I set myself up to pronounce the God of the Bible to be a moral monster when it comes to kids."
Jaywill: " Okay. Who are you ? What's your position on the death of children?"
Rahvlin: "OFF TOPIC! OFF TOPIC!"
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
 Message 195 by Rahvin, posted 12-06-2012 5:15 PM jaywill has replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(2)
Message 195 of 722 (683021)
12-06-2012 5:15 PM
Reply to: Message 194 by jaywill
12-06-2012 5:07 PM


Rahvlin : " I set myself up to pronounce the God of the Bible to be a moral monster when it comes to kids."
Jaywill: " Okay. Who are you ? What's your position on the death of children?"
Rahvlin: "OFF TOPIC! OFF TOPIC!"
1) A fetus is not a child.
2) Abortion is not the topic
3) Most importantly, this is a strawman argument. I said the Biblical god was a monster because he killed the entire world aside from 8 people. I said the god of the Bible was evil because he committed genocide. That has nothing to do with restricting the crime to children,.
4) It is also a tu quoque fallacy. Whether or not my position on abortion is evil or not, and in fact whether I myself am evil or not, is irrelevant to the question of whether the god of the Bible is evil.
If mass murder is evil, then the god of the Bible is evil.
Your attempts at a rebuttal consist of nothing more than fallacious arguments and deception.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of
variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the
outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 194 by jaywill, posted 12-06-2012 5:07 PM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 196 by jaywill, posted 12-06-2012 5:58 PM Rahvin has replied

  
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