God and the Midianites

[Angel]

Questions for debate:

1. Did God want the Midianites dead because of His vengeance ONLY (as Autodidact stated)?


Some views already offered to this question...

btw, what was the reason the Bible gives for all this slaughter? Vengeance.
"The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites."

So I think what we learn from these passages is that God is vengeful. Also, everyone born into a tribe is responsible for the actions of that tribe, however long before they themselves were born.

Link to comment..
Post #3 t here to see where Autodidact makes this claim).

My view is that God's vengeance was involved but ALSO the WRONG acts of the Midianites. I defended this view here in post #3, 5, and 13.

What say everyone else?

[Angel]

1. Repeated unsubstantiated claims here so far:
God ordered the Midianites to be slaughtered because of vengeance ONLY.

btw, what was the reason the Bible gives for all this slaughter? Vengeance.
"The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites."

So I think what we learn from these passages is that God is vengeful.

Source
Post #3 here to see where Autodidact makes this claim). The claims are also made here or defended here on this thread, as well.


2. The REPEATED ignoring of evidence, mainly the verses that I've posted in the previous post which directly contradicts Autodidact's 'claim'.

3. Going off topic

There seems to be some semantic tomfoolery going on here. I have no other way of parsing your pedantry.

Yahweh wanted Vengeance.

Why??

For ALL the reasons you would like to submit - the wrongdoing, the disobedience, the immorality - WHATEVER.

None of that helps your position or negates the fact that VENGEANCE was the vehicle employed to AVENGE these naughty things the evil Midianite children must have done in this vain deity's eyes to merit slaughter.

I do not blame the Midianite children for anything and you left out the adults interstingly. You pretty much just supported my points. This thread is about the reasons God wanted the Midianites dead so if He wants people dead then of course He's going to act on it. The command to kill the Midianites was given in Numbers 25:16-18 and there's no mention of vengeance there but there are OTHER reasons given for going off to kill the Midianites. To say it was ONLY for vengeance would be ignoring Numbers 25:16-18 which is what I'd call intellectual dishonesty esp when it's been pointed out and you still continue making the same claim. Anything more I can say here as already been addressed in my previous post to Woland.

[Strider324]

1. Repeated unsubstantiated claims here so far:
God ordered the Midianites to be slaughtered because of vengeance ONLY.

btw, what was the reason the Bible gives for all this slaughter? Vengeance.
"The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites."

So I think what we learn from these passages is that God is vengeful.

Source
Post #3 here to see where Autodidact makes this claim). The claims are also made here or defended here on this thread, as well.


2. The REPEATED ignoring of evidence, mainly the verses that I've posted in the previous post which directly contradicts Autodidact's 'claim'.

3. Going off topic

There seems to be some semantic tomfoolery going on here. I have no other way of parsing your pedantry.

Yahweh wanted Vengeance.

Why??

For ALL the reasons you would like to submit - the wrongdoing, the disobedience, the immorality - WHATEVER.

None of that helps your position or negates the fact that VENGEANCE was the vehicle employed to AVENGE these naughty things the evil Midianite children must have done in this vain deity's eyes to merit slaughter.

I do not blame the Midianite children for anything and you left out the adults interstingly. You pretty much just supported my points. This thread is about the reasons God wanted the Midianites dead so if He wants people dead then of course He's going to act on it. The command to kill the Midianites was given in Numbers 25:16-18 and there's no mention of vengeance there but there are OTHER reasons given for going off to kill the Midianites. To say it was ONLY for vengeance would be ignoring Numbers 25:16-18 which is what I'd call intellectual dishonesty esp when it's been pointed out and you still continue making the same claim. Anything more I can say here as already been addressed in my previous post to Woland.

It's delightful that you don't blame the children, but your god sure found a way. And there is nothing interesting about leaving out the adults, since although some pathetic argument might be able to be advanced as to them deserving to be slaughtered by this petty, vain deity - you got NUTTIN' to justify the murder of babies, which presumably is why you find them.... uninteresting.

[Angel]

There seems to be some semantic tomfoolery going on here. I have no other way of parsing your pedantry.

Yahweh wanted Vengeance.

Why??

For ALL the reasons you would like to submit - the wrongdoing, the disobedience, the immorality - WHATEVER.

None of that helps your position or negates the fact that VENGEANCE was the vehicle employed to AVENGE these naughty things the evil Midianite children must have done in this vain deity's eyes to merit slaughter.

I do not blame the Midianite children for anything and you left out the adults interstingly. You pretty much just supported my points. This thread is about the reasons God wanted the Midianites dead so if He wants people dead then of course He's going to act on it. The command to kill the Midianites was given in Numbers 25:16-18 and there's no mention of vengeance there but there are OTHER reasons given for going off to kill the Midianites. To say it was ONLY for vengeance would be ignoring Numbers 25:16-18 which is what I'd call intellectual dishonesty esp when it's been pointed out and you still continue making the same claim. Anything more I can say here as already been addressed in my previous post to Woland.

It's delightful that you don't blame the children, but your god sure found a way. And there is nothing interesting about leaving out the adults, since although some pathetic argument might be able to be advanced as to them deserving to be slaughtered by this petty, vain deity - you got NUTTIN' to justify the murder of babies, which presumably is why you find them.... uninteresting.

I never said I found the issue of babies dying uninteresting. In fact, I started 2 threads on the issue already if you've been paying attention. One is called Killing kids and the other is called Babies are not innocent.

You should read up on these before telling me what I find or don't find interesting.

[Strider324]

There seems to be some semantic tomfoolery going on here. I have no other way of parsing your pedantry.

Yahweh wanted Vengeance.

Why??

For ALL the reasons you would like to submit - the wrongdoing, the disobedience, the immorality - WHATEVER.

None of that helps your position or negates the fact that VENGEANCE was the vehicle employed to AVENGE these naughty things the evil Midianite children must have done in this vain deity's eyes to merit slaughter.

I do not blame the Midianite children for anything and you left out the adults interstingly. You pretty much just supported my points. This thread is about the reasons God wanted the Midianites dead so if He wants people dead then of course He's going to act on it. The command to kill the Midianites was given in Numbers 25:16-18 and there's no mention of vengeance there but there are OTHER reasons given for going off to kill the Midianites. To say it was ONLY for vengeance would be ignoring Numbers 25:16-18 which is what I'd call intellectual dishonesty esp when it's been pointed out and you still continue making the same claim. Anything more I can say here as already been addressed in my previous post to Woland.

It's delightful that you don't blame the children, but your god sure found a way. And there is nothing interesting about leaving out the adults, since although some pathetic argument might be able to be advanced as to them deserving to be slaughtered by this petty, vain deity - you got NUTTIN' to justify the murder of babies, which presumably is why you find them.... uninteresting.

I never said I found the issue of babies dying uninteresting. In fact, I started 2 threads on the issue already if you've been paying attention. One is called Killing kids and the other is called Babies are not innocent.

You should read up on these before telling me what I find or don't find interesting.

You assume I didn't. You applied a tortured logic in those threads to justify Yahweh murdering babies because, well.....what else can a believer do? It's always amazing, and tragic, the lengths the believer will go to in order to convince himself that he has a reason to accept any atrocity imaginable committed by his favorite deity so as to continue clutching to his desire for the brass ring and holy bribe of eternal life. It's ethically indefensible, and yet - here you are........

[Angel]

It's delightful that you don't blame the children, but your god sure found a way. And there is nothing interesting about leaving out the adults, since although some pathetic argument might be able to be advanced as to them deserving to be slaughtered by this petty, vain deity - you got NUTTIN' to justify the murder of babies, which presumably is why you find them.... uninteresting.

I never said I found the issue of babies dying uninteresting. In fact, I started 2 threads on the issue already if you've been paying attention. One is called Killing kids and the other is called Babies are not innocent.

You should read up on these before telling me what I find or don't find interesting.

You assume I didn't. You applied a tortured logic in those threads to justify Yahweh murdering babies because, well.....what else can a believer do? It's always amazing, and tragic, the lengths the believer will go to in order to convince himself that he has a reason to accept any atrocity imaginable committed by his favorite deity so as to continue clutching to his desire for the brass ring and holy bribe of eternal life. It's ethically indefensible, and yet - here you are........

If you've actually read those threads, you will see that I've asked questions as to why babies were killed, I did not ASSERT or ever say that they were justified. Although, I'm looking for answers which ws the purpose in starting the threads.

I don't blindly accept any atrocity but instead I question which is why I've created 2 or 3 threads QUESTIONING why and what justification God has for killing babies.

[Autodidact]

If you read ALL of the relevant passages which I've quoted in this post, you'll see that Israel engaged in IDOLATRY and SEXUAL IMMORALITY with prostitutes in Peor. BOTH of these acts are IMMORAL based on the Bible so WRONGDOING was involved as well as God's vengeance, it was NOT ONLY vengeance.

Let's summarize. Feel free to correct me or to add anything anywhere.

A few people didn't praise Yahweh, but praised other "false" gods for some reason -which is already strange (read: incoherent), since presumably if they knew their gods were false and that only Yahweh existed they wouldn't be idolaters. If ancient humans were THAT stupid then they can hardly be held accountable for their actions, because "free will" is utterly meaningless in the face of someone who is dumb enough to worship gods he knows don't exist when it will anger the one true "loving" bipolar maniac in the sky which he knows exists.

And if they didn't know that, then Yahweh seems more than a bit incompetent and negligent.

And cruel.

I don't agree with you completely because after Israel left Egypt they manufactured a golden calf and worshipped it as a god despite knowing about the God of their forefathers - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That sounds to me more of not caring if God is true and instead just putting what you want to worship and calling it a god. It's a matter of the will more than stupidity. So that's one case example.

The definition of 'idolatry' in the biblical context is worshipping idols or gods other than the God of Israel. It doesn't matter whether it's done in ignorance or not, that is still the standard. You may not agree with the moral standard but that doesn't mean that it wasn't violated. At best, we can say the Midianites violated a standard of a selfish control freak and all the other adjectives you've used in your post.

So,
1.Yahweh was upset because didn't get his dose of praise from a random tribe in the desert. Pettiness.

Not completely. God was upset because the Midianites led HIS people, Israel, into worshipping Baal, the Midianite's god.

And,
2. Some people had sex in ways and contexts that aren't compatible with Yahweh's orders, and that upset him. Control-freakedness.

3. Therefore Yahweh took his vengeance on an entire population. Cruelty. But he still somehow deserves to be called good and loving and just, or so claim his worshipers.

Sexual immorality as defined by the Bible is still a moral standard whether you like it or not. So going by the moral standard, teh Midianites were in the wrong. Keep in mind, I'm not arguing for if that moral standard is 'objectively' right, I'm just saying according to the Bible it is a moral standard and what the Midianites did was violate it.

What makes you think that the vengeance Autodidact was speaking of didn't take into consideration the reasons you apparently consider to morally justify Yahweh's genocidal vengeance? He just said it was vengance, which it was. Was it vengeance for anything? Well, sure, depending on who you consider the offended party and how exactly they were offended in a way that requires mass graves.

Please read Numbers 25:16-18 which I've also quoted in post #5. That passage mentions that first time God mentions to kill the Midianites. There's no mention of 'vengeance' in those passages and vengeance is mentioned later in Numbers ch. 31. To say that God wanted the Midianites dead for ONLY vengeance would have to take ignoring Numbers 25:16-18 along with Numbers 31:15-16.

This debate that me and Autodidact have been has involved some technicalities but I'm willing to go there just to expose when someone has a practice of leaving out details just to make a picture seem worse than what it is. Reading Autodidact's post, you'd be left with thinking God just wanted vengeance just for the sake of vengeance. You wouldn't have known that the Midianites led Israel into idolatry and sexual immorality. You would not have known that the Midianite leaders conspired with Balaam to lure Israel into these immoral acts (Numbers 15:16). Perhaps, that would be a valid point if Autodidact was only referring to the children who died in that attack, but no, Autodidact is referring to the entire slaughter.

Mafia bosses exert vengeance on those who don't bow to them too, you know.
And we don't see many people without a gun at their heads calling them "good" and "loving", do we?

This topic seems to be nothing but a distraction.

If it's a distraction to you then you don't have to post here again. I'm well within the forum rules of asking this question. The question you just asked is beyond the scope of the OP and can get to become a distraction if you keep asking it. I repeat, I did NOT open this thread to debate about if vengeance is right or wrong. I open this thread to discuss ALL of the reasons involved for why God wanted the Midianites dead.

As far as I can discern, nowhere did Autodidact imply that Yahweh and his groupies wouldn't have any excuses at the ready for his vengeful and cruel orders and actions. He has stated as much repeatedly.

Refer to post #1 of this thread. Autodidact only mentioned 'vengeance'. I'm the one that had to expose his leaving out of details for making it sound like it was vengeance just for the sake of vengeance.

Wouldn't it annoy you if you told someone that "the mafia boss killed the baker's children for vengeance" and JUST after you readily acknowledged the "reasons" for his vengeance, someone kept telling you the same irrelevant things overassertively:

Please do NOT attempt to change the subject of the topic post. You SPECIFICALLY made the claim that the maffia boss ordered for the children of the baker who didn't pay his protection money to be killed out of His vengeance ONLY. This thread is not about if vengeance is right or who was killed, it's about reason(s) that the maffia boss had an issue with the children. You wanted to make it appear as if there was NO wrongdoing whatsoever involved, and I called you out on your pattern of leaving out details.

I would think so.

Does anyone care WHY the maffia boss wanted these children killed?

Yes. I would also say vengeance would be a WHY answer, as well. Also, there's a difference between vengeance just for the sake vengeance, and vengeance supplemented with reasons involving WRONGdoings.

Unless your view is the equivalent of saying that the baker's "misdeeds" (highly arguable word of course, just like for praising other gods and having sex, big deal) somehow (tell me how and why) become the children's moral responsibility despite there being an "omnipotent and all-wise and loving" god watching the whole thing, your god's vengeance is nothing but a demonstration of his detestable, cruel and vain personality.

-Woland

I'm not here to argue if God's actions were right, I'm just here to debate ALL of God's reasons for wanting the Midianites dead.. we can even say the kids don't apply, if you'd like.

Vengeance, by definition, is always FOR something; otherwise it wouldn't be vengeance. In this case, it was for exercising freedom of religion and having the wrong kind of sex. So not only do we see that God is vengeful, but grossly unjust. Good job.

[Autodidact]

1. Repeated unsubstantiated claims here so far:
God ordered the Midianites to be slaughtered because of vengeance ONLY.

btw, what was the reason the Bible gives for all this slaughter? Vengeance.
"The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites."

So I think what we learn from these passages is that God is vengeful.

Source
Post #3 here to see where Autodidact makes this claim). The claims are also made here or defended here on this thread, as well.


2. The REPEATED ignoring of evidence, mainly the verses that I've posted in the previous post which directly contradicts Autodidact's 'claim'.

3. Going off topic

There seems to be some semantic tomfoolery going on here. I have no other way of parsing your pedantry.

Yahweh wanted Vengeance.

Why??

For ALL the reasons you would like to submit - the wrongdoing, the disobedience, the immorality - WHATEVER.

None of that helps your position or negates the fact that VENGEANCE was the vehicle employed to AVENGE these naughty things the evil Midianite children must have done in this vain deity's eyes to merit slaughter.

I do not blame the Midianite children for anything and you left out the adults interstingly. You pretty much just supported my points. This thread is about the reasons God wanted the Midianites dead so if He wants people dead then of course He's going to act on it. The command to kill the Midianites was given in Numbers 25:16-18 and there's no mention of vengeance there but there are OTHER reasons given for going off to kill the Midianites. To say it was ONLY for vengeance would be ignoring Numbers 25:16-18 which is what I'd call intellectual dishonesty esp when it's been pointed out and you still continue making the same claim. Anything more I can say here as already been addressed in my previous post to Woland.

And what evil actions did the babies commit to justify ordering soldiers to slaughter them?

[Autodidact]

It's delightful that you don't blame the children, but your god sure found a way. And there is nothing interesting about leaving out the adults, since although some pathetic argument might be able to be advanced as to them deserving to be slaughtered by this petty, vain deity - you got NUTTIN' to justify the murder of babies, which presumably is why you find them.... uninteresting.

I never said I found the issue of babies dying uninteresting. In fact, I started 2 threads on the issue already if you've been paying attention. One is called Killing kids and the other is called Babies are not innocent.

You should read up on these before telling me what I find or don't find interesting.

You assume I didn't. You applied a tortured logic in those threads to justify Yahweh murdering babies because, well.....what else can a believer do? It's always amazing, and tragic, the lengths the believer will go to in order to convince himself that he has a reason to accept any atrocity imaginable committed by his favorite deity so as to continue clutching to his desire for the brass ring and holy bribe of eternal life. It's ethically indefensible, and yet - here you are........

If you've actually read those threads, you will see that I've asked questions as to why babies were killed, I did not ASSERT or ever say that they were justified. Although, I'm looking for answers which ws the purpose in starting the threads.

I don't blindly accept any atrocity but instead I question which is why I've created 2 or 3 threads QUESTIONING why and what justification God has for killing babies.

O.K., what do you think? Was it moral or immoral for YHWH to order His soldiers to go back and be sure to stab all the babies until they were dead?

Now for me, it is extremely uninteresting, because there is obviously no justification, so nothing to start a thread about. Killing babies is evil, the Bible is evil, and YHWH is evil. End of discussion. But for you, apparently, there is a question to discuss, about whether God is justified in committing and obviously evil action. Now THAT I find interesting.

[Angel]

What makes you think that the vengeance Autodidact was speaking of didn't take into consideration the reasons you apparently consider to morally justify Yahweh's genocidal vengeance? He just said it was vengance, which it was. Was it vengeance for anything? Well, sure, depending on who you consider the offended party and how exactly they were offended in a way that requires mass graves.

Please read Numbers 25:16-18 which I've also quoted in post #5. That passage mentions that first time God mentions to kill the Midianites. There's no mention of 'vengeance' in those passages and vengeance is mentioned later in Numbers ch. 31. To say that God wanted the Midianites dead for ONLY vengeance would have to take ignoring Numbers 25:16-18 along with Numbers 31:15-16.

This debate that me and Autodidact have been has involved some technicalities but I'm willing to go there just to expose when someone has a practice of leaving out details just to make a picture seem worse than what it is. Reading Autodidact's post, you'd be left with thinking God just wanted vengeance just for the sake of vengeance. You wouldn't have known that the Midianites led Israel into idolatry and sexual immorality. You would not have known that the Midianite leaders conspired with Balaam to lure Israel into these immoral acts (Numbers 15:16). Perhaps, that would be a valid point if Autodidact was only referring to the children who died in that attack, but no, Autodidact is referring to the entire slaughter.

Vengeance, by definition, is always FOR something; otherwise it wouldn't be vengeance. In this case, it was for exercising freedom of religion and having the wrong kind of sex. So not only do we see that God is vengeful, but grossly unjust. Good job.

I put in red bold font the part of my post that you quoted to clearly specify why I had an objection with your comment that I quoted in post #1 which was from another thread. I never denied vengeance was involved but I also wanted you to factor in the WRONGDOINGs that were also involved.

As far as your conclusion goes about the grossly unjust part, I really wouldn't care how or what God feels while punishing someone but I would want to know if there was wrongdoing involved in those being punished. To me there's no guidelines for feelings on this matter, like me having to feel nice or mad towards someone involved in a crime. I would call the cops and help to pursue justice whether I felt mad, sad, or glad. And when it comes to the passages I've been referring to in regards to the Midianites, there were wrongdoing involved, at least among the Midianite adults esp. some of the leaders.

You have a point about the babies being killed, but it's stating the obvious as I've already mentioned that point myself. To me, that is the only unjust part.

[Angel]

It's delightful that you don't blame the children, but your god sure found a way. And there is nothing interesting about leaving out the adults, since although some pathetic argument might be able to be advanced as to them deserving to be slaughtered by this petty, vain deity - you got NUTTIN' to justify the murder of babies, which presumably is why you find them.... uninteresting.

I never said I found the issue of babies dying uninteresting. In fact, I started 2 threads on the issue already if you've been paying attention. One is called Killing kids and the other is called Babies are not innocent.

You should read up on these before telling me what I find or don't find interesting.

You assume I didn't. You applied a tortured logic in those threads to justify Yahweh murdering babies because, well.....what else can a believer do? It's always amazing, and tragic, the lengths the believer will go to in order to convince himself that he has a reason to accept any atrocity imaginable committed by his favorite deity so as to continue clutching to his desire for the brass ring and holy bribe of eternal life. It's ethically indefensible, and yet - here you are........

If you've actually read those threads, you will see that I've asked questions as to why babies were killed, I did not ASSERT or ever say that they were justified. Although, I'm looking for answers which ws the purpose in starting the threads.

I don't blindly accept any atrocity but instead I question which is why I've created 2 or 3 threads QUESTIONING why and what justification God has for killing babies.

O.K., what do you think? Was it moral or immoral for YHWH to order His soldiers to go back and be sure to stab all the babies until they were dead?

Now for me, it is extremely uninteresting, because there is obviously no justification, so nothing to start a thread about. Killing babies is evil, the Bible is evil, and YHWH is evil. End of discussion. But for you, apparently, there is a question to discuss, about whether God is justified in committing and obviously evil action. Now THAT I find interesting.

I see nothing wrong in asking questions even if you see no reason to. It's no different than atheists bringing up the problem of evil argument which the killing of babies would fall under. I ask just in case someone wants to offer a reason and defend why it's justified.