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 
KC,
Saint Thomas Aquinas gives a great treatment of evil in his tour de force, “Summa Theologia.”
The meaning of the Bible can only be approached through study and lots of thinking.
Unfortunately, the atheist, in order to get atheism to work out, assigns his own meaning to the Bible. That means no real study and absolutely no thinking at all.
Atheism is the ultimate in circular reasoning.
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Ridiculous. Atheism describes what someone does not believe. That’s hardly a call to arms. The worst atrocities in human history have been committed by fanatics, whether they are of the religious or political variety. It’s fanaticism that’s so dangerous — not a particular belief.
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Sure, because Christianity doesn’t do that…
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SOM, I asked you to answer a simple question. You can’t answer it or you won’t ?
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T,
An atheist quoting holy scripture is like a chimpanzee trying to tap out the works of Shakespeare on a keyboard.
The universe will end before either the chimp or the atheist make any progress.
And it has been found that the chimp gets nowhere near Shakespeare and ends up defecating all over the keyboard.
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KC,
Monkey see. Monkey do. Atheist is as atheist does.
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“Wonder when the Boobsy Twins are going to show up, they’re overdue? Well, we’ve got Silliness of Mind, a poor substitute (for ANYthing), but I guess he’ll have to do until the real thing comes along.”
Ah you missed me Ark. Same Old MA here. I disbanded my google plus account so had to sign up under a twitter account. I liked nate’s middle verse. apparently God gave people ways out of the judgement.I had missed that before. When you put that with families that would have fled who recognized the power of God with the israelites then Nate’s point gets even weaker. Mostly the die hards would have been the ones to have been killed
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Nate,
The facts is the facts. Atheists are responsible for the greatest mass murders in human history.
That is the consequence of atheist non-belief.
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Nate,
People do everything under the sun – even Christians, because they are human too and possess all human foibles.
But religion attenuates the baser nature of man. So much so that civilization comes into being.
Every civilization in human history grew up around religion.
But all atheists regimes end up inhumanly brutal and civil society is destroyed.
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SOM, you nor your buddy TBlacksman have any credibility here when you make statements like your recent ones.
Neither of you want to engage in any civil discussion about beliefs or lack thereof . You might as well sign off and go have a beer together and tell each other how brilliant you guys are and call it a day because no one here is going to take you seriously..
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KC,
To my knowledge I have responded to all your questions. For the hearing impaired could you please repeat your question.
I will be happy to answer it if I can.
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KC,
I suppose it’s okay for atheists to trash the Bible and ridicule Christians nine ways from Sunday, but schooling the atheist in the utter absurdity of his nihilistic, inhumane philosophy is beyond the pale.
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SOM, I only asked you one question. “SOM, who caused the evil in the following scriptures ???”
1 Samuel 16:14 [ David in Saul’s Service ] Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.
1 Samuel 16:15 Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you.
1 Samuel 16:16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.”
1 Samuel 16:23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
1 Samuel 18:10 The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand
1 Samuel 19:9 But an evil spirit from the Lord came on Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the lyre,
Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
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KC,
I responded to that question.
You’re going to have to do your own homework just like I did.
As an atheist you are intellectually lazy and it wouldn’t be healthy for me to deprive you of your journey toward Truth.
The short answer to your question (which I have already stated in a previous comment) is that the atheist can’t comprehend suffering and evil and so in your self-righteous anger you respond by winking God out of existence.
And since you have no idea what the Bible means, cutting and pasting a few talking point quotes and demanding that I respond to them is equally ridiculous.
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Then SOM, I’m afraid you’re just demonstrating that you don’t understand atheism. The despots you’re thinking of had plenty of political reasons to commit the horrors that they did, but no religious ones.
I don’t think Christians are going to be mass murderers just because some Christians started the Crusades, others started the Inquisition, and others persecuted countless minority groups like Jews and “witches.” It would irresponsible of me to try to draw that connection, even though there’s probably more basis for it than the one you’re trying to draw.
So why don’t we stay focused on the actual issue? If you think God was justified in commanding the genocide of the Canaanites, why is that? Would direct revelation to them have not been successful for some reason? Or was the real reason they needed to be killed because of the land they possessed?
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“I suppose it’s okay for atheists to trash the Bible and ridicule Christians nine ways from Sunday, but schooling the atheist in the utter absurdity of his nihilistic, inhumane philosophy is beyond the pale.”
Silenceof mind. My kind introduction. I am a fan of yours and have even been accused of being your sock puppet by the locals. I take it they don’t like either of our styles 🙂 🙂
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T,
When they call me, me, I feel insulted too.
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“As an atheist you are intellectually lazy and it wouldn’t be healthy for me to deprive you of your journey toward Truth.”
I don’t believe KC will ever pick up a greek dictionary to begin that journey if he did he might figure out one of the meanings of the word evil is bad or hurtful and yeah when god judges you it isn’t a good thing
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“When they call me, me, I feel insulted too.”
ROFL…Life has come to nate’s blog
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“And since you have no idea what the Bible means”
I have been reading the bible for over 50 years. I think I know what most of it means. I also have commentaries to help me with the scriptures I am unsure of.
I wasn’t asking you to site any outside source for your answer. I was asking YOU, to give me YOUR opinion of who was causing evil in the scriptures I provided. You obviously don’t have an answer so maybe you need to go back and read your bible some more instead of just giving me rhetorical B.S.
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Nate,
There is no political reason for genocide. Genocide is the evil that results when atheists are left by their little lonesomes to run things.
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Seriously?!
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KC,
I’ve been reading the Bible for over 50 years too, and it is still a great mystery of wisdom.
And I wouldn’t dream, like you obviously do, that I actually, fully, understand the mind of God (a slice of which is expressed in the Bible).
The Bible is one of the greatest works of literature ever written.
That is why I compare the atheist critique of that great work to the shenanigans of chimpanzees.
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“That is why I compare the atheist critique of that great work to the shenanigans of chimpanzees.”
Great answer SOM. Again, you don’t have an answer so you have to resort to your berating B.S.
You just don’t realize how silly you look by doing this. Anyway, I’m done with you, Mr No Answer.
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“So why don’t we stay focused on the actual issue? If you think God was justified in commanding the genocide of the Canaanites, why is that?”
Fair enough nate. Theres nothing wrong with that request.
First off direct contact has not shown itself to work. it didn’t stop Cain from murdering Abel. People have this misguided idea that sin really isn’t really sinful its just people not knowing better. Thats not anything with substantial proof and the shocking view of the Bible is that even when God does one day manifest himself the response in revelations is that they turn weapons against him
Sin came into the world in the presence of God not because of his absence. You leave out two things in these complaints almost every time
A) the people were often having done to them what they had done to others according to the text
B) the reason of future ramifications is often given
In other words leave the people be and they will end up not only doing the same things moving forward but teach people to do the same. I could do without Molech being the most popular worship in the world now. No matter what you think of Judaism the world does better with it now than it would with Canaanite Gods
Finally the major difference with you and Christians who don’t buy your narrative is that they think the creator of love, family, friendship, beauty, laughter,self sacrifice who when all the cards were on the table gave his son to die gets some street cred to be given the benefit of the doubt about knowing the future of these people, what was in their heart and what danger they were to the world. You ignore the overall track record of their God in favor of judging him on matters you don’t have all the information about.
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