Agnosticism, Atheism, Christianity, Faith, God, Morality, Religion

Bloody Well Right

Nate

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 1:1-5

So 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?

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Published by Nate

446 thoughts on “Bloody Well Right”

  1. I was really surprised, Silliness, that you and W aren’t best Buds – the two of you seem to think SO much alike:

    “I trust God speaks through me.”
    — George W. Bush —

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  2. Arch,

    I have never claimed that God speaks through me.

    But I am rather heartened that you are no long trying to compare me to you.

    I consider being compared to W rather than you, a step up.

    Not a big one but at least now I’m knee high to a grasshopper.

    Tank you berry much.

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  3. “But I am rather heartened that you are no long trying to compare me to you.” – surely you jest – you could improve for a lifetime, and never rise to my level. You’re like a platypus aspiring to be a swan, just because you both swim!

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  5. “The platypus, like the archaeopteryx is long extinct.” – see what I mean about “dumb as a dust-bunny” – the playtpus is very MUcH alive and living in Australia. Don’t get out much, do you Silliness?

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  6. Arch,

    I’ll bet you went on a big ass Google bug hunt to find out all about the Australian platypus.

    “What a maroon!”*

    *a term barrowed from Bugs Bunny

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  7. ““What a maroon!”*

    *a term barrowed from Bugs Bunny”

    At least we now know where you get that vast storehouse of knowledge you lay claim to – cartoons! I’ve known about the platypus since I was a kid! You can’t even manage to spell “borrow” right – some mental midget —

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  8. SOM,

    I think you left out a few “and overs” in your last response. I only count 47 and there should be a minimum of at least 50.

    And what can I say? I’m a tough genus to convince: cute and cuddly one moment, tearing people limb from limb the next (like that kid-friendly Hebrew fable story about Elisha the bald head found in 2 Kings 2:23-25).

    We’ll talk some more later. You’ve already made three huge concessions in this one conversation alone and that’s a pretty good start. It took me almost two years to disabuse the last apologist of his finely-honed prejudices against non-believers. He eventually stopped blogging about it altogether.

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  10. Silliness, don’t you have cartoons to watch? How else do you expect to further your education?

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  11. SOM,

    Apology accepted. You caught me during my cute and cuddly mood. But don’t test me. 😉

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  12. Thanks, Howie! Yeah, life has gotten in the way of blogging of late. The loss of my sister hit me so hard I’m still staggering.

    Hope all is well with you!
    God bless, and thanks for welcoming me back. 🙂
    C

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  19. Aw, Cheez! I just stumbled in on an estrogen-filled hug-fest – I just gonna slide on out da back dooah heah – later alla y’all —

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  20. Estrogen? What —boys like you find hugging to express sympathy, compassion and respect unmanly? And we wonder why this world is so effed up. 😉

    Carry on with trivial dialog with SOM. I’ll gladly side on out da back dooah heah — later alla y’all —

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  21. Portal, sorry, I missed your comment before. Thanks so much!

    Wow! This whole thread has completely worn me OUT! I must say that I’m scared utterly of both camps! lol So much hatred spewing from both sides. It actually makes me very sad to see how little we’ve learned over the millenia as a race of human beings.

    But I will hold to what I believe – that it is NOT what you believe, how well you can reason/think, or how profound your arguments are formulated, but rather how you actually live that makes the difference. Hopefully all of you spewing hatred virtually are not doing so in reality (one can hope).

    P.S. I did want to address one comment from somewhere above: T stated that the way is narrow and not all will bow the knee. Paul begs to differ:

    For it is written, “AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME, AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL GIVE PRAISE TO GOD.” Romans 14:11

    … so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, Philippians 2:10

    And now, in contradiction of what I just did above, if you want to read something really profound, check this blog post out: http://jsparkblog.com/2014/07/08/the-error-of-narrow-gate-theology-jesus-is-bigger-than-a-single-bible-verse/

    Reducing our whole theology to single verses has done more damage than we will ever realize, methinks. And to think it could all have been avoided had we resisted the urge to divide the Scriptures into chapter and verse to begin with! I challenge anyone here to print a book of the Bible out without chapter and verse delineations and read it in its entirety. I’ve done this with a few N.T. books and was amazed at how the meanings seemed to change from what I had been taught by religious leaders who claimed advances in scholarship.

    All that is my 2 cents, and worth about as much. 🙂
    C

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