shnarkle wrote:Danmark wrote:When entire cities are destroyed by your god, the destruction includes infants and children who are not yet an an age where they can make moral judgments. For example, as a matter of law children of a certain age may not be held responsible for criminal acts.
Perhaps you could give an example from the bible to support your claim.
There are plenty of examples. Children are slaughtered by God directly, by supposedly direct commands to tribal leaders of various descriptions and by armies under the influence of the L
ORD implementing his will and declared to be implementing his will.
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Direct killing by God[/center]
A single child
In the case of a single child we have David’s son. The child had done no wrong yet was blasted by God as some sort of exercise in morality. The lesson is that hanky-panky with a willing participant foaming herself in a bathtub outside your window in the sun—surely not an accidental activity—does not justify murder, the murder of her husband by nefarious means. And yet it justifies the murder of a child.
The mind to devise killing one’s mistress’s husband is a warped mind. Yet how more warped the mind to think infanticide a just dessert? It is presented in the source material as direct killing by God:
- 2 Samuel 12:1-18a Yahweh sent Nathan the prophet to David. He came to him and said: 'In the same town were two men, one rich, the other poor. The rich man had flocks and herds in great abundance; the poor man had nothing but a ewe lamb, one only, a small one he had bought. This he fed, and it grew up with him and his children, eating his bread, drinking from his cup, sleeping on his breast; it was like a daughter to him When there came a traveller to stay, the rich man refused to take one of his own flock or herd to provide for the wayfarer who had come to him. Instead he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for his guest.' David's anger flared up against the man. 'As Yahweh lives,' he said to Nathan 'the man who did this deserves to die! He must make fourfold restitution for the lamb, for doing such a thing and showing no compassion.' Then Nathan said to David, 'You are the man. Yahweh the God of Israel says this, "I anointed you king over Israel; I delivered you from the hands of Saul; I gave your master's house to you, his wives into your arms; I gave you the House of Israel and of Judah; and if this were not enough, I would add as much again for you. Why have you shown contempt for Yahweh, doing what displeases him? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, taken his wife for your own, and killed him with the sword of the Ammonites So now the sword will never be far from your House, since you have shown contempt for me and taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife." Thus Yahweh speaks, "I will stir up evil for you out of your own House. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to your neighbour, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun You worked in secret, I will work this in the face of all Israel and in the face of the sun."' David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against Yahweh'. Then Nathan said to David, 'Yahweh, for his part, forgives your sin; you are not to die Yet because you have outraged Yahweh by doing this, the child that is born to you is to die.' Then Nathan went home.
Yahweh struck the child that Uriah's wife had borne to David and it fell gravely ill. David pleaded with Yahweh for the child; he kept a strict fast and went home and spent the night on the bare ground, covered with sacking.The officials of his household came and stood round him to get him to rise from the ground, but he refused, nor would he take food with them. On the seventh day the child died
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Direct command to tribal leaders[/center]
The command
God issues his instructions for a routine genocide. Basically the same as the last population to be wiped out, the elderly, their adult children who had honoured their parents by following their cultural traditions, their grandchildren, the infants, the little babies and all the pregnant women. A subterfuge is included for this particular episode:
- Joshua 8:1-2 Then Yahweh said to Joshua, 'Be fearless now, and be confident. Take all your fighting men with you, and march out against Ai. I will put into your power the king of Ai, his people, his town and his territory. You are to do with Ai and its king as you did with Jericho and its king. As regards booty, you may take the goods and the cattle no more. Take up a concealed position against the city, to the rear of it.
The rout
Essentialy the fighting men were lured away from the city. According to the source material, verse 17, there were no men left behind. Therefore only women and children remained, together with infants and newborn babies. I will probably post the whole passage—since that’s what was requested—so to cut the story down a bit the details are that once all the men were some distance away the Israelites pounced on the city setting fire to it. The women and children came out to defend themselves and God’s people, acting in accordance with his command, murdered the lot of them as is spelled out in verse 24. Including all the babies.
- Joshua 8:14-25 When the king of Ai saw how things lay, he and all his people hurried out to engage Israel on the slope facing the Arabah; he did not know that an ambush had been laid against him to the rear of the town. Joshua and all Israel with him let themselves be driven back, taking flight towards the wilderness. All the people who were in the town followed them in loud pursuit, and in pursuing Joshua they left the town itself unguarded.
- 17 Not a man was left behind in Ai, all had gone out in pursuit of Israel; and in pursuing Israel they left the town undefended.
Then Yahweh said to Joshua, 'Point the javelin in your hand at Ai; for I am about to put the town in your power'. Then Joshua pointed the javelin in his hand towards the town. No sooner had he stretched out his hand than the men in ambush rose quickly from their position, ran forward and entered the town; they captured it and quickly set it on fire. When the men of Ai looked back, they saw smoke rising from the town into the sky. None of them had the chance to run one way rather than another, for the people fleeing towards the wilderness turned back on their pursuers. For when Joshua and all Israel saw that the town had been seized by the men in ambush, and saw the smoke rising from the town into the sky, they turned round and attacked the men of Ai. The others came out from the town to engage them, so that the men of Ai found themselves surrounded by Israelites, some on this side and some on that. These set about them till not one was alive and none left to flee; but the king of Ai was captured alive, and brought to Joshua.- 24When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open ground and where they followed them into the wilderness, and when all to a man had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and slaughtered all its people.
The number of those who fell that day, men and women together, was twelve thousand, all people of Ai.
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Implementing God’s will and declared to be implementing God’s will[/center]
Who is acting
This atrocity is not ascribed to any normal cause. People try to invade one another with varying degrees of success, from time to time, but verse 15 spells this out very clearly indeed: it is the L
ORD acting here. I will point out that in
Amos 1:13 these same crimes
unendorsed by the L
ORD are criticised strongly. From the source material:
- Hosea 12:10-11, 13:12-(14:1) I have been Yahweh, your God, since the days in the land of Egypt I will make you live in tents again as on the day of Meeting. I will speak to the prophets, I will increase the visions and through the prophets I will deal out death.. The iniquity of Ephraim is carefully hoarded, his sin is safely stored away. Pangs as of childbirth overtake him, and a stupid child it is, its time is up but it does not leave the womb. And am I to save them from the power of Sheol? Am I to rescue them from Death? Where is your plague, Death? Where are your scourges, Sheol? I have no eyes for pity.
- 15 Ephraim may flourish among the reeds, but the wind from the East will come, the breath of Yahweh will rise from the desert to dry his water-sources, to parch his springs, to strip his land of all its treasures.
Samaria must atone for rebelling against her God. They shall fall by the sword, their little children be dashed to pieces, their pregnant women disembowelled.
If you require additional examples they can be provided.
This, not Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby, is the standard of righteousness for admission to heaven. Clearly atheists would not comply with those standards since any murders done would not be attributed to God or to divine command or divine manipulation of the Id. The Bible is unambiguous, in my opinion. Indeed it goes to some length to spell out its position. Not all language is so direct. For example I noticed in post
post 739 the sentence
Those atheists who have murdered do so as a direct result of their beliefs, while those professing christians do so as a direct violation of the life and teachings of Christ.
which seemed rather imprecise. I tried switching the subjects around:
- Those professing christians who have murdered do so as a direct result of their beliefs, while those atheists do so as a direct violation of the life and teachings of Christ.
and found that the meaning was essentially unchanged, in the absence of any information about what either group may believe. A professing christian can have beliefs at variance with those attributed to Christ, after all.
The Bible, on the other hand, is most lucid. Its God is equally unambiguous. I hope that addresses your questions and helps others to answer the question posed in the Original Post.[right]
[font=Times New Roman]Passages quoted: JB ©1966[/font]
compare AV here[/right]
