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 
“Nate told me in a previous comment that the atheist mass murders of the 20th century were okay because some of the people slaughtered weren’t really innocent anyway.”
I don’t disbelieve you SOM. That sound’s like Nate’s pretzel thinking. One standard and rationale when it suits him and a completely different one when it doesn’t
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Arch,
If you actually listened to or read to news sources like Rush Limbaugh yourself, you would know that that commentators like Rush spend nearly their entire time on the air quoting from atheist favorites like the New York Times, the Huffington Puffington Post, CNN, MSLSD and others.
Instead you insist on being told what to think. And anything outside what you’ve been told what to think simply doesn’t exist.
Again, you’ve expressed the atheist head in the sand philosophy perfectly.
You may be a blithering ignoramus but at least your atheist brainwashing has made your blithering ignorance remarkable in its factory-like consistency.
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T,
Me thinks you are being severely unkind to the pretzel.
Atheists are rot gut liars in the realm of politics and philosophy.
It’s as simple as that.
And that is precisely why atheism belongs nowhere near mankind and can only spawn the most brutal, murderous and unjust regimes.
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You know, Silliness, if you would study more World History, Government and Civics classes, and less theology, you might learn how the REAL world works. The US, and others, liberated Kuwait because Kuwait has been a member of the UN since 1967, and asked for our help – we honored a tgreaty. Moi, of Kenya, Amin, of Uganda – there are a hundred or more “evil dictators” around the world – is it REALLY our job to risk American lives to eliminate all of these, and the others that will pop up to take their place. I know it’s not your strong suit, but get real!
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Ron, thank you for taking the time and for having the courtesy to check them out.
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Arch,
President Bush the Younger spent 14 months convincing the world that attacking Saddam Hussein was a just cause.
His efforts made him so popular that the Democrat Party insisted on a second bipartisan vote just so they, the Democrats could be as popular as George Bush the Younger.
I’ll bet that little detail was also somehow omitted from your brainwashing protocol.
Both Gulf Wars were just and legitimate and bipartisan-approved.
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“President Bush the Younger spent 14 months convincing the world that attacking Saddam Hussein was a just cause.”
Bush the Younger lied, and over 5,000 young American men and women died, and thousands more lost limbs. It was about control of the oil fields, about money, and that’s never a “just cause.”
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Arch,
You’ll have to ask the tyrant Barack Obama about Africa.
I think he’s got a few squads of special forces out in the jungles looking for the girls who were kidnapped by one of the today’s favorite African Bozos.
In fact, the tyrant Barack Obama has US forces all over Africa these days.
Was that little nugget also not part of your brainwashing protocol?
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Arch,
Right. Bush lied. People died.
That’s a rather well known part of your brainwash protocol.
You guys say it every time you can’t face the truth about something even though Bush is long gone.
Bush also lied about ObamaCare didn’t he? Wasn’t he the President who said, “If you like your insurance policy you can keep it.”
And wasn’t it President Bush who lied to the whole world about the Benghazi massacre being caused by a video?
And wasn’t it President Bush who lied about sending the IRS out to silence his political opposition?
I can see why President Bush is so unpopular with you.
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And that is precisely why atheism belongs nowhere near mankind and can only spawn the most brutal, murderous and unjust regimes.—SOM
You mean like the Holy Roman Empire? Or the European colonial expansion that culminated with Manifest Destiny?
Apparently you missed my previous comments (here and here) showing that the Holocaust followed centuries of religious propaganda that conditioned the population to take action against the Jews. Hitler and Luther both claimed they were doing God’s work. And the Good Friday liturgy containing the phrase “Let us pray for the perfidious Jews” (Oremus pro perfidis Judaeis) wasn’t changed until 1960—a full 15 years after the Second World War.
The last major genocide occurred in Rwanda only two decades ago—an ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Christians against fellow Christians. If pleading “we’re no worse than the rest” is Christianity’s best defense to atheism, that doesn’t say much for its moral superiority, does it?
And I challenge you to name one dictator who committed genocide or war under the banner of atheism.
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“You’ll have to ask the tyrant Barack Obama about Africa.” – yet a further demonstration that yoour ignorance knows no bounds – the two African dictators I mentioned were LONG before Obama’s time. You seem to be the poster child for, “A Mind is A Terrible Thing To Waste”.
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Let’s chat about your buddy, “W,” whose I.Q. I strongly suspect, closely mirrors your own:
W:
• After 8 years, couldn’t find Osama Bin Laden?
• Lied about Iraq ’s WMD’s and ties to Al-Qaida, committing America’s resources to pursue his personal vendetta?
• Tried having Mohamed elBaradei (head/UN International Atomic Energy Agency) fired, for repeatedly warning that Saddam had no WMD’s?
• Authorized the Patriot Act, converting the FBI into the KGB?
• Exceded Osama’s score of 3300, for the number of American deaths for which he’s responsible?
• Appointed a crony’s roommate to head FEMA, who fretted tardiness for dinner while raging water swirled about Americans cowering on New Orleans’ rooftops (“You’re doin’ a HECKuva job, Brownie!”)?
• Cut 80% of the Army Corps of Engineers’ request for levee improvement at New Orleans Lake Pont Chartrain, to fund his war in Iraq ?
• Signed a tax cut package primarily benefiting the rich?
• Proposed an offsetting budget cut, reducing appropriations for Medicare, Medicade, educational programs, food stamps and student loans?
• Threatened vetoing the McCain Amendment outlawing torture and human debasement, while maintaining: “We do not torture”?
• Authorized offshore “Black Sites” to hold anonymous prisoners indefinitely, without recourse (or witnesses)?
• Allowed oil company cronies to gouge Americans for record gains (ExxonMobile 3rd quarter: $100 billion!), while having the power to regulate the market by releasing Federal reserves?
• Was certainly aware of Dick “Halliburton” Cheney’s secret meeting with these same cronies?
• Advocated opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to those cronies, allowing them to rape virgin wilderness in pursuit of oil profits?
• Let a former attorney for Chevron-Texaco head an FTC investigation into oil company price gouging?
• Chose a timber industry lobbyist to head the Forest Service?
• Put a mining industry lobbyist (who considers public lands unconstitutional) in charge of Public Lands?
• Installed a utility lobbyist, who represented the worst air polluters in America , head of the Clean Air division of the EPA?
• Made a Monsanto lobbyist Number 2 at the EPA?
• Made head of Superfund, a woman who taught corporate polluters how to evade Superfund regulations?
• Made Edwin Foulke (partner in a union-busting law firm), head of worker health and safety with the Department of Labor?
• Signed a Republican bill severely limiting bankruptcy protection (pushed by banking/credit card/retailing industries)?
• Installed a Rove crony, Kenneth Tomlinson (who was under investigation for misuse of Federal funds), as Chairman/Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to nudge PBS toward the Conservative Right (Elmo’s NEKKID!)?
• Appointed John “Mr. Congeniality” Bolton US Ambassador to the UN, behind the backs of vacationing Congress?
• Put Stewart Simonson, general counsel for Amtrak, in charge of bioterrorism and other public health (including avian flu) emergencies, who has no experience – (“heck of a job, Stewie?”) – in public health, bioterrorism, epidemiology, or even management?
• Appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fundraisers, to the Foreign Intelligence Board, whose job it is to “advise the President on the quality and effectiveness of US Intelligence efforts,” including a top fundraiser/former business partner, and two Texas oil men?
• Set lawsuit caps (benefiting those who funded his campaigns), limiting liabilities of insurance companies, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, tobacco companies, etc.?
• Sought to privatize Social Security, guaranteeing billions to brokers in commissions and rollover fees?
• Authorized pressure be put on the Food and Drug Administration to stall over-the-counter sale of the “Plan B” contraceptive, despite scientific findings that it’s safe for such dispensation?
• Appeared determined to insert religion into public schools to brainwash American youth?
• Retained Karl Rove as his dark Merlin, approving the Rovian smearing, through lies and innuendo, of his opponents: Ann Richards, John McCain, Al Gore, John Kerry, and John Wilson?
• Refused to allow UN Human Rights experts to privately interview Guantanamo detainees (allows only the Red Cross, which keeps its findings confidential, reporting them only to the detaining power, vs the UN, which makes reports public)?
• Pulled a disappearing act for twelve hours after the WTC was struck?
• Continued to vacation at Crawford for two days, as Katrina bore down on Louisiana ?
• Wouldn’t acknowledge global warming?
• Wouldn’t acknowledge evolution as a reality?
• Met with Omar Bongo, President of Gabon, less than ten months after lobbyist Jack Abramhoff (currently under investigation) offered – for nine million dollars – to arrange such a meeting?
• According to a recent U.N. report, had NO plan in place for governing post-invasion Iraq?
• Denied foreknowledge of the sale of 21 American ports to an Arab company based in a MidEastern country known to encourage terrorists, yet he staunchly threatens to veto any legislation aimed at quashing the arrangement?
• Demonstrated daily for the world that this country had a president who, despite his need to discuss the subject with intelligent, educated world leaders, couldn’t bother to learn to pronounce the word, “nuclear”?
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@SOM
Lot’s of traditions have been passed down over the millenia: astrology, acupuncture, tarot card reading, karmic healing, voodoo, etc. Does that make them real, tool?
And the belief that God magically poofed evertyhing into existence out of nothing by making a wish is your belief, not mine.
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Ron,
The atheist mass murders slaughtered 100,000,000 in the span of just two decades.
No one in human history or in your atheist brainwash protocol can hold a candle to the atheists concerning mass murder, mayhem and societal collapse.
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Arch,
As usual, anything outside your atheist brainwash protocol is completely incomprehensible to you.
That’s why you always, and mean always, miss the point.
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Ron,
Astrology is not a special holiday commemorating a specific event. Neither is acupuncture, tarot card reading, karmic healing or voodoo.
You are employing the logical fallacy of equating apples and oranges.
How many times is it that I’ve called you on this very same logical fallacy?
It makes me think it’s part of the atheist brainwashing protocol because all atheists use it compulsively and can’t comprehend the simplest explanation of it when it is given to you.
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SOM,
Like I said, name one genocide committed under the banner of atheism. All you’ve proved is that bad people do bad things when they unwaveringly committed themselves to following bad ideologies—be they religious or political.
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Arch,
Your ability to cut and past leftist talking points is almost as amazing as your ability to change the subject and be blind to the obvious.
But Bush the Younger is not my friend.
As a matter of fact he is quite loathsome to people of my political persuasion.
Now Dick Cheney…
There’s a man worthy of respect!
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“Bush the Younger lied, and over 5,000 young American men and women died, and thousands more lost limbs.”
@Arch,
Not to mention nearly a half million American soldiers with PTSD and approximately 62% with traumatic brain injuries. And you’re right — it was about power and control over resources — behavior no different than the bloody war god, Yahweh, who was made in the image of hyper-masculine, power-hungry, dopamine addicted men.
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Ron,
Atheism has no banner just as modernism or postmodernism has no banner.
I can’t name one group of people in human history who went to war over Aristotelian philosophy, either.
So again, even though I just pointed out the logical fallacy of equating apples and oranges, to paraphrase former pop star Britney, “Ooops! You did it again!”
The completeness of your atheist brainwashing has reduced your ability to converse to simple, knee jerk compulsion.
You just keep using the same logical fallacy over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…
…and over.
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“Now Dick Cheney…There’s a man worthy of respect.”
You really ARE dumber than a dust-bunny! Who do you think had his hand up W’s ass for 8 years? Bush was his puppet! Head of Halliburton, and you say iraq was about a tyrant, not oil! Was Saddam more of a tyrant when W was Pres, than he was when Senior ran him out of Kuwait? So why didn’t Senior take him out? Because public opinion would have opposed any further action after Kuwait had been freed – BUT, if Junior could use lies to whip the world into a frenzy of fear and paranoia, believing that Saddam had WMD’s, THEN it was open season and Get Out of Jail Free!
Try watching something other than Faux News sometime – no wonder they call you Silliness of Mind! Sheeesh!
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SOM,
Right. So you fully acknowledge that no one used their their ‘lack of god’ beliefs as a pretext to justifying war or genocide, whereas the same cannot be said of those who did same on account of their god beliefs.
Thanks for your candor. We’re making progress.
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Ron,
Because your claims are all based on the same logical fallacy they are false.
Since your claims are false, any conclusions you make are also false.
That means you have lost the argument.
You don’t get to ask anymore questions of me or require that I continue responding to the same proven nonsense.
What’s wrong with you people?
You just keep babbling the same nonsense even after it’s been proven over and over and over
…and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…
…that it’s complete nonsense.
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“bad people do bad things when they unwaveringly committed themselves to following bad ideologies—be they religious or political.”
@ Ron — Agreed.
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Arch,
Mentioning Dick Cheney to the low information, brainwashed herd is like showing the Cross to vampires.
You responded right on cue just as your brainwash protocol demands you do.
In low information English that means I just yanked your chain and you went off like a plugged up toilet.
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