megasamurai Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 Was the killing of all those groups who were killed justified or not? Did God do what he had to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Was the killing of all those groups who were killed justified or not? Did God do what he had to do. Are you asking about killing in stories or real events that took place in war? For real events God never does the killing Himself. God always needs a human army to do the genocide for Him. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megasamurai Posted October 1, 2012 Author Share Posted October 1, 2012 I'm referring either directly or indirectly. Done by his hand or ordered by his mouth? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wndwalkr99 Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Most of it never happened anyway, so why bother? Should Gandalf have given the ring to Frodo? Discuss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megasamurai Posted October 1, 2012 Author Share Posted October 1, 2012 Because Christians say that by condemning the genocides that might never have happened as immoral, they are saying that everyone else is making excuses for not following the Bible. Is the condemnation of the hypothetical genocide a delusion or genuine disagreement with his hypothetical actions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centauri Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Was the killing of all those groups who were killed justified or not? Did God do what he had to do. In the mind of a believer there is no such thing as an unjustified action on the part of God. It's a completely airtight system of logic where any action or instruction by "God" is righteous by default. The "God" being referred to is always their version of it, created according to their specifications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megasamurai Posted October 1, 2012 Author Share Posted October 1, 2012 The biggest justification is that killing the canaanites prevented the canaanites from killing the Israelites and it hindered the process of human sacrifice. Therefore, it saved more lives than it killed. That's what many Christians say that it was self-defense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centauri Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 The biggest justification is that killing the canaanites prevented the canaanites from killing the Israelites and it hindered the process of human sacrifice. Therefore, it saved more lives than it killed. That's what many Christians say that it was self-defense. Israel was the invading force. The self defense argument can be applied to just about any war. Examples would include the Iraq invasion, the German invasion of Poland in 1939, and the U.S. war with Mexico. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Justified genocide is an oxymoron. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megasamurai Posted October 1, 2012 Author Share Posted October 1, 2012 Yes, it is definitely true that the Jews drew first blood in Cannaan. What about the fact that since the Canaanites sacrificed children, by killing the child sacrificers, the world would have less bloodshed in the long run? That's the second Christian defence of the genocides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astreja Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 But do historians -- Not Bible scholars; actual historians -- know for certain that the Canaanites regularly sacrificed children (contemporaneously with their encounters with the Israelites, not in the distant, primitive past of the culture)? It's easy to slander your enemy when he's already dead. One could assert that the Canaanites stripped naked, painted themselves sky-blue pink and went rampaging through the desert staging mass camel-tippings, but if the only account of this is in the writings of their enemies, it does make one wonder... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merck Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Yes, it is definitely true that the Jews drew first blood in Cannaan. What about the fact that since the Canaanites sacrificed children, by killing the child sacrificers, the world would have less bloodshed in the long run? That's the second Christian defence of the genocides. Slaughtering every living thing to prevent human sacrifice is about as nonsensical as imprisoning everyone to prevent crime or outlawing schools to stop poor test scores. But the very idea that Yahweh finds human sacrifice abhorrent is factually incorrect. In fact, Yahweh delights in human sacrifice, just not sacrifices to other gods. " You must attack that town and completely destroy[a] all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the open square and burn it. Burn the entire town as a burnt offering to the Lord your God." Deut 15:15-16 "By the word of the Lord he cried out against the altar: “Altar, altar! This is what the Lord says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’” 1 Kings 13:2 "But nothing that a person owns and devotes to the Lord—whether a human being or an animal or family land—may be sold or redeemed; everything so devoted is most holy to the Lord. No person devoted to destruction may be ransomed; they are to be put to death." Lev 27:28-29 And it doesn't end there! There's the binding of Isaac (though God puts a stop to that right before the end), the story of Jephthah sacrificing his own daughter to secure victory in battle, and (how could anyone forget) Jesus. That's right. God abhors human sacrifice so much that he made it a requirement for salvation! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megasamurai Posted October 1, 2012 Author Share Posted October 1, 2012 A quick search engine search shows that many historians feel it's very possible. If they did practice human sacrifice, was it justified in killing them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merck Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Megasamuri, I'm not sure if you saw my previous post, but my answer would be no - they were not justified. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 The Israelites were Canaanites. They use to worship the same gods. They use to worship in the same way. The Old Testament is mostly fiction. The bit that isn't fiction was heavily embellished propaganda. But I see what you are getting at. In the stories God murders city after city full of children and some see it as justified. Here is the thing. God appears to Abraham and what is God's great revelation? Worship me and I will make you rich. Have I got a real estate deal for you! That was God's great plan for the world back then. Why didn't God just appear to the Canaanites and teach them to live a better life? The reason is that back then God didn't love the whole world. God was as barbaric as the men who dreamed God up. They could not imagine a better God than one who would lead them into battle and slaughter the children of whoever was in their way. It's the way men fought wars back then so it's the way people imagined gods back then. The genocide in the Old Testament was about land and racism. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcdaddy Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 The Israelites were Canaanites. They use to worship the same gods. They use to worship in the same way. The Old Testament is mostly fiction. The bit that isn't fiction was heavily embellished propaganda. But I see what you are getting at. In the stories God murders city after city full of children and some see it as justified. Here is the thing. God appears to Abraham and what is God's great revelation? Worship me and I will make you rich. Have I got a real estate deal for you! That was God's great plan for the world back then. Why didn't God just appear to the Canaanites and teach them to live a better life? The reason is that back then God didn't love the whole world. God was as barbaric as the men who dreamed God up. They could not imagine a better God than one who would lead them into battle and slaughter the children of whoever was in their way. It's the way men fought wars back then so it's the way people imagined gods back then. The genocide in the Old Testament was about land and racism. This is accurate. Now that I've thrown my weighty 0.02 cents behind this Post, you can now fully trust it's contents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeCoastie Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Yes, it is definitely true that the Jews drew first blood in Cannaan. What about the fact that since the Canaanites sacrificed children, by killing the child sacrificers, the world would have less bloodshed in the long run? That's the second Christian defence of the genocides. Yet they celebrate the story of Abraham and Issac. Sure god turned out to be trolling Abraham but he would have gone all the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Yes, it is definitely true that the Jews drew first blood in Cannaan. What about the fact that since the Canaanites sacrificed children, by killing the child sacrificers, the world would have less bloodshed in the long run? That's the second Christian defence of the genocides. Kill the sacrificers and the children too, then steal their sheep and fuck their virgins. That'll show 'em. If you're asking a serious question here then I worry about your standards of morality. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Babylonian Dream Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 The biggest justification is that killing the canaanites prevented the canaanites from killing the Israelites and it hindered the process of human sacrifice. Therefore, it saved more lives than it killed. That's what many Christians say that it was self-defense. To that, I say they know nothing about the ancient canaanites. There is no evidence of human sacrifice anywhere between the Nile and the Zagros that we have. Its pretty safe to say that it was the Bible that commands human sacrifice (Isaac, Jephthah's daughter to name 2) and not the Canaanites. Also Islam (martyrdom by suicide in the more extreme bits). Historically speaking, Israelites were just canaanites were Israelites/Philistines/Phoenicians/etc.... As for it being justified, bullshit. Why not just add them in as among the other countryfolk? Who is to say they'd kill the Israellites? Were not the Israelites killing them and taking their land? There is no justification for that nor any genocide. Ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megasamurai Posted October 1, 2012 Author Share Posted October 1, 2012 It's not necessarily my belief that it was ever justified. William Lane Craig and others are known to have used this justification. The Amalekites being examples of a tribe that actually attacked Israel unprovoked (In Exodus. They get genocided unprovoked in Samuel.) The Midianites and Moabites, I don't remember who drew first blood, but they allied with the Amalekites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 It's not necessarily my belief that it was ever justified. William Lane Craig and others are known to have used this justification. The Amalekites being examples of a tribe that actually attacked Israel unprovoked (In Exodus. They get genocided unprovoked in Samuel.) The Midianites and Moabites, I don't remember who drew first blood, but they allied with the Amalekites. Oh I get it. You are doing research because you have heard the apologetics and you want to know more. You can use Lev 27:28-29 because that part of the Bible didn't get changed when an editor tried to cover up the old Israeli human sacrifice. Also there is 2 Sam 21. Pay close attention to verse 8,9 and 14. Also 1 Kings 13:2. Note that it was okay to sacrifice a human as long as it was a priest of a rival religion. 2 Kings 23:20 mirrors this as does 2 Ch 34. (Special thanks to the SAB) Also Numbers 31 has Moses doing human sacrifice in vs 25-41. The Israelites were Caanites. The Israelites worshiped the same gods in the same ways. That is right - at an early point the Israelites were doing human sacrifice. Later an editor tried to cover this up and failed. Just for fun: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
centauri Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Yes, it is definitely true that the Jews drew first blood in Cannaan. What about the fact that since the Canaanites sacrificed children, by killing the child sacrificers, the world would have less bloodshed in the long run? That's the second Christian defence of the genocides. The Israelites killing Canaanites didn't solve anything because they did more evil than those they killed. 2 Kings 21:9 But they hearkened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel. One would also have to determine the number of Canaanites killed vs. the number of children they would have sacrificed in order to reconcile the question of whether there would have been more or less bloodshed. That figure cannot be determined, which renders the apologetic as biased wishful thinking. There's also the problem of justifying a one size fits all extermination that includes animals, children, and elderly. Deut 20:16 But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: Destroying anything that draws a breath is hardly what I would expect from a God that is supposed to endorse justice. If God was disturbed by child sacrifice, then he could have easily eliminated the problem by waving his hand and rendering all Canaanites sterile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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