If God is love, how do we explain the Old Testament passages where he commands the Israelites to eradicate entire groups of people, even the children (Josh 9:24; Num 31; 1 Sam 15)? Sometimes people say it was to punish these people for their evil practices, like child sacrifice. Well, child sacrifice is certainly a terrible thing. But does it make sense to punish child sacrifice by killing all the children?
Let’s think about this for a moment. When cultures engaged in child sacrifice, it’s not because they just loved killing children — it’s because they believed it served as some kind of propitiation, appeasing their gods for the greater good. So if God didn’t approve of child sacrifice, what seems like the most rational way to deal with it: (1) kill everyone, including all the children you don’t want killed, or (2) make yourself known to these people as the one true god and tell them that child sacrifice is not what you want? Wouldn’t option 2 be a win-win scenario?
Here’s something else to consider. If God didn’t like child sacrifice, why did he command Abraham to offer his son Isaac as one? Granted, he stopped the sacrifice before the boy was killed, but isn’t this a weird command for a deity who despises child sacrifice? And what about Psalm 137, where the inspired writer is lamenting Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem and says the following:
8 O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed,
Happy the one who repays you as you have served us!
9 Happy the one who takes and dashes
Your little ones against the rock!
Furthermore, if God wanted the Canaanites destroyed because of their heinous practices, why stop at Canaan? There were many cultures that engaged in terrible practices like this from time to time — why not send the Israelites to slaughter them all? Instead this “judgment” is only brought against people in the same geographic location that God wanted the Israelites to inhabit:
After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying: 2 “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. 3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. 6 Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.
— Josh 1:1-5So they answered Joshua and said, “Because your servants were clearly told that the Lord your God commanded His servant Moses to give you all the land, and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you; therefore we were very much afraid for our lives because of you, and have done this thing.”
— Josh 9:24
How strange that these passages focus on taking the land from the Canaanites and not on their evil natures…
As a final consideration, even if the only thing left to do with these evil Canaanites was kill them all, does it make sense that God would choose the cruelest and most agonizing way to do it? Instead of speaking them out of existence, or immediately striking them all dead, he has them besieged by invaders. They’re forced to watch their loved ones being massacred before being hacked to death themselves. Would God really command this?
How does a god who would command genocide on this scale differ from the vilest despots of the modern era? What’s the difference between this god and bin Laden? What’s the difference between a god like this and a devil? Could a god this bloody be right?
Finding Truth 
“TBlacksman’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the Internet
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
See now thats better. You are learning the Peter principlee. Stick to what you are good at – copy and paste, post a few links and quips. Don’t strain yourself with too much else. It won’t work anyway.
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Ron,
The Passover celebrates the Hebrew liberation from slavery.
It is the forerunner of Jesus Christ who came later on to free all of mankind from slavery to sin.
The Jewish Passover uses the blood of a lamb. The Christians see Jesus as the lamb of God.
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Still I was so looking forward to the explanation of the laws of Nature since you claim you know they don’t require God. Drats! Might have been a nobel prize in it for you too.
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Ron,
Gods existence is outside the laws of nature.
That makes the nature of his existence completely different than the existence of created things.
The error you are committing here is equating classes of two things that are completely different.
In essence, you the atheist, have created God in your image and have found him wanting.
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“Sounds about right…..very, er, dare I say, Christian?”
Yes, Christians hyped up on power, testosterone and an addictive neurotransmitter, dopamine. In his book “The Winner Effect: How Power Changes Your Brain”, Neurologists Ian Robertson writes:
This helps to explain why so many wars and upheavals are caused by men, although that doesn’t exclude women. But I think we can safely assume that most wars have been started by men. The problem with the Abrahamic god (though myth) was that he promoted a hyper-masculine culture and war. The Abrahamic god exhibited primate behavior, much like alpha male baboons and chimpanzees.
A study out of the University of Leeds demonstrated that approximately 95% of people follow in crowds without their conscious awareness. They follow like sheep. Jesus compared his followers to sheep. Alpha males who are slaves to their biopharmacy don’t seem to have problems getting people to follow — and the patriarchs, i.e., Moses, made it worth their men’s while by splitting the spoils stolen from other tribes and taking virgin girls as sex slaves and servants. Numbers 31.
There is an excellent article by Robert Sapolsky “Peace Among Primates” who studied the behavior of baboons in the savannas for over 2 decades. He writes his observations of the Forest Troop baboons in the section “Left behind”, and noted the antisocial behavior among the high testosterone, high dopamine alpha male baboons. What was interesting about this was that their behavior was nearly identical to the behavior of the Abrahamic god, Moses and other patriarchs of the OT who went to battle for Yahweh, Jesus daddy.
When half the alpha male baboons died by eating tainted meat, the dynamics of the Forest Troop changed dramatically. They became more prosocial. In the words of Sapolsky, they created a baboon utopia. As noted in the article, genes and environment are intertwined. In other words, environmental conditions turn genes off and on.
There are several other conditions that lead to antisocial behavior, like damage to the prefrontal cortex. Brain injury is the signature wound of war. So, theoretically, if a god promotes war (as seen in the OT), he (male) is increasing the likelihood of brain injuries, which increases the likelihood of antisocial behavior. I should also note that child abuse is the 3rd leading cause of damage to the prefrontal cortex. Although Stalin and Hitler were birthed by religious Christian mothers, they were brutally beaten by their alcoholic fathers.
I also recommend an excellent Stanford lecture by world renowned psychologist Philip Zimbardo. He was the one who headed the Stanford Experiment. The eye opening lecture can be found on YouTube: “Journey From the Psychology of Evil to the Psychology of Heroism”. He explains why the United States military police guards/soldiers, who had been prosocial before they went to Iraq, exhibited very antisocial, inhumane, abusive behavior towards Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison. I’ll post the video in my next comment just in case Nate has his blog links set to default.
There are many more causes that lead to antisocial behavior, and by gaining a better understanding of biology, neuropsychology, brain plasticity and gene expression, we can create environments that will greatly curtail antisocial behavior. Just ask the Forest Troop baboons. No god needed.
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Wow, actual information in a comment! 🙂
Thanks, NeuroNotes!
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“Your over reliance on books is probably an artifact of your Protestant upbringing (the sola scriptura doctrine).” – Silliness, you should try and read one sometime – I’m sure there’s someone you can ask about words of more than one syllable —
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<"your philosophy of scientism is an erroneous mode of thought” – mysticism is SO much more accurate!
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Arch,
I can tell when I’ve busted your chops by the pugnacity of your responses and the light year distance of your response to the actual topic at hand.
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Arch,
Systematic thinking and common sense only seem mystic to you because you’re an atheist.
Get a brain of your own and train it to be human and things will start to make sense to you.
I guarantee it.
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“Sounds about right…..very, er, dare I say, Christian?”
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Arch,
Name the African country referred to by Tu Tu that is presently owned by European Christians.,
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Silliness, there’s no evidence that the Hebrews were ever IN slavery!
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ALL of the gods have been created in our image, and all have been found wanting eventually.
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Arch,
As I stated earlier there is no need for the evidence you require. Your demand is bogus.
Even if the Bible were total fiction and total myth, its wisdom and messages dazzle, just like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
You are so attached to your own private hallucinated version of how the Bible should be that you are unable to learn what it actually means and unable to connect your contrived concepts to reality.
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“I can tell when I’ve busted your chops” – Oh really! And by which of your monosyllabic pearls of wisdom have you deluded yourself into believing you’ve accomplished this?
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Arch,
Sorry but you don’t get to tell everyone in the human race what every god or God should be especially because you don’t believe in any gods or God.
Firstly, you don’t have the authority to do so and secondly to place belief requirements on the entire human race for something that you don’t believe in, is irrational, hypocritical, tyrannical and delusional.
Leave to Arch to win the trifecta of everything that is wrong with atheism.
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Arch,
You are only able to hear monosyllables because you suffer from various sensory, emotional and intellectual impairments.
But leave it to the atheist to blame his impairments on others.
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Arc,
I may not have family member that born into others religion. You ride a car through road, you can easily find temple, church. I been exposed to many religion since I was kid.
Malaysia, my country is one of most diverse religion in the world. You open the morning TV, you watch 2 hrs Hindu prayer wasting their milk by bathing their scripture and chanting their prayer. Every Thaipusam, we can watch the largest Hindu outside India, hurting themself by carrying “cavadi”
Every Chinese New Years, you can watch the gods flying around fighting with demons.
Every Christmas, you watch the Santa going through the fire funnel to give a gift to kids. And Santa name’s never occurs in Bible.
If, my Islam are being teach through solely culture and practice of Muslim in certain country.
If that the case, with my engineering’s way of thought, I assume my religion today is Agnostic. Luckily for me, my religion I learn is from the book and my family were emphasize on education.
Still, the question are not related to blog’s post.
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RE: “with my engineering’s way of thought, I assume my religion today is Agnostic.” – Hifzan, I have just gained respect for you, as a free-thinker – it doesn’t matter to me that you’ve not chosen to be an atheist, only that you have chosen to think for yourself.
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RE: “But leave it to the atheist to blame his impairments on others.</em" – translation from SOM-ese: "I know you are, but what am I?"
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Arc,
Why I mention Agnostic not Atheist. Being Atheist, you lost too much…
I don’t think Atheist are logic and many of them are just following “Atheist” because of “popular culture”. No fundamental to sustain a community. More emphasize sexual behavior than social behavior. Emphasize on individualist rather community. Don’t have any institution to reconcile among each others if there are a dispute.
Even though, I believe Christian like to fool people. I do believe Christian is better than Atheist.
Atheist is like China/ North Korea.
Before they have power, they called it socialist (the idea/fundamental is great), but when come to implementation it bullshit, it become a communism.
Being Agnostic, they understand certain thing, but if they don’t understand, they accept it. Being Atheist, they dont understand but still think they were understand it. Atheist is a person who think they are a god himself (think they know everything). A dangerous mind…..
As individual, you may success. As community, you will collapsed.
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Hifzan, I get the impression, that you don’t really understand what atheism is all about. It’s not intended to hold a community together, it’s simply a disbelief in a god. It occurs to me, that if a community needs a religion to hold it together, it has a lot more problems than they realize. Who knows what it would be like if it had no religion? Many Northern European countries, especially those in Scandanavia, have a very small percentage of theists, yet somehow their communities manage to hold themselves together – they find other points of common interest.
“Don’t have any institution to reconcile among each others if there are a dispute.” – that’s what courts are for.
“Being Atheist, they dont understand but still think they were understand it. Atheist is a person who think they are a god himself (think they know everything).” – all people are individuals, and you will find some who DO think they “know everything,” but as you can see, right here on this board, there are at least two theists who think they know it all.
The truth is, regarding how the universe was created, how life came to be, and where things are going in the future, moth atheists will readily admit they they don’t know, whereas most theists will tell you exactly how everything came to be and where it’s going, even though they know no more than anyone else.
Here’s something else that might interest you:
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Arc,
If the Atheism is define as “A person who don’t believe in God”. I have many example surround me. Living in SouthEast Asia, you are open to most any idea/philosophy of the world. It just a matter to look for it/ or not.
Religious country also have civil court…
Theist in your idea is majorly “Christian”. Muslim will say “I don’t know most of the thing”. There is a proverb in Arabic that origin from Imam Malik conversation: “Saying I don’t know is half of the knowledge.”and: “Whoever abandons saying ‘I don’t know’ has put his knowledge in peril.” This is one of the 6 principle of faith, Belief in UnSeen/Unknown. Which have another mean, I believe that I don’t know everything and can not see everything.
When Christian keep saying they know everything, they already put them self in contradiction and hot seat. I have many conversation with Christian, and they like to answer it even it they don’t know. This will killed them eventually,
I agree with above, but I disagree with all others.
wiki
I also can concluded that : After the Razi’s death, most population converted to Islam and gain highest renaissance which later being called “Islamic golden age”. Then later being stop due to Mongol invasion. If religion is opposed the science, Persian are suppose to collapsed after Razi death. The situation are totally opposite.
We both came from 2 different school of thought. We will going opposed who right and who is wrong. If Atheist is master of philosophy and kalam (logic), Islam is maestro of philosophy and kalam (logic) too. From history that I read, I hardly read that atheist’s logic can win against Muslim’s logic.
But future is unknown, let look forward..
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