genocide as commanded by God?

[282Mikado]

On that basis, then, Hitler and Stalin should have been strangled at birth. Is that what you're arguing?

Based on what I wrote there is absolutly no basis for this comment as I was merely stating that we are not only influenced by God's perfect will. Influences counterproductive to God's will have and still do impact what goes on in this world. To say I was arguing anything is inane.

As to your friend judging Christ, he is an atheist and one must assume from your original posting that a significant part of his disbelief is based on his judgment that a God that was truly loving and just would not allow or do the things that have happened to people throughout history. Based on that and perhaps other judgments he has opted to not believe in God. He had to make at least one judgment in order to come to his disbelief. In his judgment he believes God can not be true because a loving God would not do these things. This is a judgment against God.

 

[Matt Black]

First off, I'm not the one with the atheist friend. Secondly, you seemed to be suggesting that since the children would end up sacrificed to Molech and Co or grow up to sacrifice their own children to Molech, then infanticide was justifiable. You were thus purporting to advance (presumably on behalf of God) a teleological rather than deontological approach to situation ethics. But that self-same approach could equally be applied to the infant Hitler or Stalin - the teleological approach advocated by you would call for their murder at birth or at least before they reached a position of power or influence. I'm saying that murder is wrong - whoever does it and for whatever purported reason.

If you were saying something else, I'd be happy to be disabused of the above notion.

 

[282Mikado]

First off, I'm not the one with the atheist friend. Secondly, you seemed to be suggesting that since the children would end up sacrificed to Molech and Co or grow up to sacrifice their own children to Molech, then infanticide was justifiable. You were thus purporting to advance (presumably on behalf of God) a teleological rather than deontological approach to situation ethics. But that self-same approach could equally be applied to the infant Hitler or Stalin - the teleological approach advocated by you would call for their murder at birth or at least before they reached a position of power or influence. I'm saying that murder is wrong - whoever does it and for whatever purported reason.

If you were saying something else, I'd be happy to be disabused of the above notion.

I recommend you go back to grade school and study reading comprehension again. I was not condoning murder. I was stating that Satan has corrupted people in the past to believe that their murder of infants was justifiable. I did not say that I believed this was justified. I also never advanced anything on the behalf of God. I merely stated that God is not the only influence impacting the choices made by people. God did give us a free will to choose whom we would follow. Some follow God, some follow Satan. This does have a direct positive or negative impact on events.

I also was not saying you had the atheist friend. That was address to Gekko.

 

[BobRyan]

Here's a rather simplistic answer, but it has served me well in the past.

Suppose your athiest friend has a family and many possessions that he worked hard to attain and he loves them with all his heart. He has made this love abundantly clear to all that would listen and has set boundries all around to protect his family and possessions.

Then a small gang moves in right next door. They are actually children of people that are friends with the athiest. They have heard all about this guys love and have seen all his rules and protections but they don't care. Unfortunately they have gone bad. One rapes his wife. Another kidnaps his oldest son and burns him at the stake. Another steals his car and destroys it in a joy ride threw town. Another kidnaps his daughter and forces her into a life of drugs and prostitution. Another burns his house down.

How will your friend feel? What would he want to do to this gang?

Now picture a God that CAN NOT sin, nor can He tolerate sin in His presense. The evil above is just a small drop compared to the evil that He has had to endure. God expressed His love. He set forth the rules and spelled out the consequences if those rules were to be broken (See Deut. 30 - 32). He gave them everything they needed to prosper and they turned their back on Him. God upheld His part of the bargain, the people did not and so destruction was allowed to come against them.

Notice that many times, like in the below example from Judges that God merely did what the people wanted. They forsake God. They wanted nothing more to do with Him so He gave them what they asked for. He turned His back. He removed His protection, without which they were open prey for their enemies.

True. But also remember that in the case of pagan nations (as we see in Lev 18) God did not hold them to the same high standard. He let them slip into more gross sins until finally they passed the bounds of probation.

In Dan 5 God says that the Babylonians were weighed in the balances and found wanting -- and that day they were destroyed by the Persian armies.

God tells Abraham that the "sin of the Amorite is not yet complete" and that they will have 400 more years of probation before they are expelled from Canaan.

God tells Israel that they have reached the end - have filled up the cup of their iniquity in Matt 23. In 1Thess 2 Paul makes the same point stating that the Jews had filled up the measure of the cup of their sin - their probation was ending.

And yet - there is another even "more final end" coming - the Lake of Fire.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Matt Black]

I recommend you go back to grade school and study reading comprehension again. I was not condoning murder. I was stating that Satan has corrupted people in the past to believe that their murder of infants was justifiable. I did not say that I believed this was justified. I also never advanced anything on the behalf of God. I merely stated that God is not the only influence impacting the choices made by people. God did give us a free will to choose whom we would follow. Some follow God, some follow Satan. This does have a direct positive or negative impact on events.

So who would you say was doing the ordering of murder to the Israelites - God or Satan?

 

[Amy.G]

Is God committing genocide when He sends masses of people to hell?

 

[282Mikado]

So who would you say was doing the ordering of murder to the Israelites - God or Satan?

In some cases (Sodom and Gomorrah) it was God. In some cases He just lifted His protection as requested, in those cases I would say Satan.

In either case what first happened was God set forth His promises of either blessings (when He is followed) or cursings (when He is not). Man has always had the choice whom he would follow. How is it God's fault if man decides to completely stray away from His will and follow Satan?

Let me ask you a question:

What is a sinless God to do when the depravity of man has gotten so bad that it threatens everything good in His creation?

 

[Matt Black]

Die for that depravity.

 

[282Mikado]

I just went through this thread again and I have to wonder, Matt, just what portion of the scriptures you actually believe are literal. According to your answers you pretty much have to throw out all of the OT. Revelations is pretty much history as well.

Do you believe in hell or is that just a figurative fairy tale? Does it matter that someone get saved in order to get into heaven? If the unsaved can't get into heaven, where do they go? It can't be hell because a loving God would not subject one person to anywhere that causes weeping and gnashing of teeth. What happens to Satan in the end. Surely not a real lake of fire. How inhumane. Come to think of it, is there really a Satan? That doesn't make much sense for God to allow us to be tormented by such an evil being.

Just how much of the Bible is real to you? You say tradition interprets the Bible. Are you than saying the Pharisees had it all right in their traditions? The Roman Catholic Church?

I have to think that your pocket sized Bible has to be pretty convenient for you to follow. You just select the verses you like and toss the rest as not literal.

 

[Matt Black]

I believe in all of it. But I don't believe all of it is literal - surely you acknowledge that there are different literary genres within the corpus we call the Bible?

 

[DHK]

Tradition doesn't interpret the Bible. The Bible doesn't change. A denial of its truths doesn't change the truth that it teaches. Just because you deny the truth of the Flood, put it away from your mind, dismiss it, doesn't mean it didn't happen. It is referenced so many times in the NT that it can hardly be dismissed as an allegorical myth. It would be the equivalent of calling Christ and the Apostles deluded and liars.

1. The destruction of the world by a flood.
2. The total destruction of Jericho--men, women, children, by Israel.
3. The total destruction of Ai--men women, children.
4. The total destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and of the cities round about by God, and all of their inhabitants.
5. The total destruction of the Canaanites.

Matt you dismissed a good part of this post. You don't agree that the flood is literal. But you cannot dismiss all of these events as allegorical. Israel did go in and destroy the inhabitants of Jericho and Ai, and the Canaanites. These are facts of history. This part of my post you have never addressed. It was God's command. It was perfectly consistent with God's nature, purpose, and justices. In it God never transgressed the command of "Thou shalt not murder," an accusation that you blasphemy label Him with.

 

[Linda64]

I believe in all of it. But I don't believe all of it is literal - surely you acknowledge that there are different literary genres within the corpus we call the Bible?

What part of the "all" isn't "literal"? The Bible is either "all inerrant and literal" or none of it is.

"When the PLAIN sense of Scripture makes COMMON sense, seek no other sense."

Genesis 7:17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
Genesis 7:18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
Genesis 7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
Genesis 7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
Genesis 7:21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
Genesis 7:22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
Genesis 7:23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
Genesis 7:24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

Is this account of the Genesis flood, literal? If it's not, then how can you believe any other part of the Bible? If any part of the Bible is a lie, then NONE of it is to be trusted!

 

[Matt Black]

Matt you dismissed a good part of this post. You don't agree that the flood is literal. But you cannot dismiss all of these events as allegorical. Israel did go in and destroy the inhabitants of Jericho and Ai, and the Canaanites. These are facts of history. This part of my post you have never addressed.

Oh, I'm quite willing to accept it happened as historical fact

It was God's command.

That I cannot believe - that God, the God Who is Love Himself, Who commanded "Thou shalt not murder", should Himself incite the murder of innocents.

It was perfectly consistent with God's nature, purpose, and justices.

Like heck it was!!

In it God never transgressed the command of "Thou shalt not murder," an accusation that you blasphemy label Him with.

Then He can't possibly have given such a command. Absolutely no way.

 

[Matt Black]

What part of the "all" isn't "literal"? The Bible is either "all inerrant and literal" or none of it is.

Why are you erroneously conflating "inerrant" and "literal"? They are two quite different concepts.

 

[DHK]

Oh, I'm quite willing to accept it happened as historical fact That I cannot believe - that God, the God Who is Love Himself, Who commanded "Thou shalt not murder", should Himself incite the murder of innocents. Like heck it was!! Then He can't possibly have given such a command. Absolutely no way.

Then what do you call this:

Deuteronomy 20:16-18 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:
17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:
18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.

The reason for such devastation is given in verse 18.

 

[gekko]

Deuteronomy 20:16-18 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:
17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:
18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.

you truly asking "then what do you call this" - or are you just curious to what matt's answer will be?

i refer back to what ivon has written:

God doesn't have the right to tell me to kill you if you don't pose a threat to me any more than he has a right to tell me I can sleep with your wife. So, by default of having commanded the deaths of persons A through Z, we logically conclude that persons A through Z would have posed a physical threat, God in his foreknowledge effectively called for a preemptive strike, and the comprehensive slaughter of the aforementioned was a legitimate act of self defense. Are you contending that generational violence isn't plausible? Or isn't historical?

 

[standingfirminChrist]

Ivon's quote is nonsense.

God is God and because He is God, whatever He chooses to tell one to do, is right; whether it be to tell one to kill another, or to tell one to destroy something that belongs to another.

 

[DHK]

God doesn't have the right to tell me to kill you if you don't pose a threat to me any more than he has a right to tell me I can sleep with your wife.

And God won't do that. He never will. We live in an age where, if someone has wronged you, you are obligated, by law, to take it to the courts. Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, I will repay. It never says, for example, "Vengeance is Gecko's, Gecko will repay with his own vengeance." God doesn't give that permission to anyone. He has ordained government as a God-ordained institution (Romans 13:1-4) which we need to abide by.

So, by default of having commanded the deaths of persons A through Z, we logically conclude that persons A through Z would have posed a physical threat

Who is A through Z. In this generation, especially in my country where the death penalty has been abolished, they would have received life sentences if found guilty. So I am at a loss at what you are speaking about. Who commanded what deaths?

God in his foreknowledge effectively called for a preemptive strike, and the comprehensive slaughter of the aforementioned was a legitimate act of self defense. Are you contending that generational violence isn't plausible? Or isn't historical?

Be more specific. We live in a day and age of grace. What you are saying doesn't make sense. If one lived in the time of Moses, it would be a different story. God works in different ways in different dispensations. Look at Hebrews 1:1,2.

 

[Linda64]

Why are you erroneously conflating "inerrant" and "literal"? They are two quite different concepts.

That statement is not conflated...let me say in a different way: The Bible is BOTH "inerrant AND literal". All I want to know is WHICH part of "all" do you consider literal? Do you interpret God's inerrant Word "literally" or do you "pick out for yourself" which portions of the Bible you consider"literal"?

Either you believe all of God's Word to be BOTH literal and inerrant or you don't believe any of it. You just don't "pick and choose" what you want to believe is "literal". God does not give you that option.

 

[Magnetic Poles]

Either you believe all of God's Word to be BOTH literal and inerrant or you don't believe any of it.

Absolutely incorrect. Parts of the Bible are clearly allegory and parable. Even Jesus taught using parables. This binary mindset is an open door to error.