Bible - cruelty and violence

Ethics, Morality, and Sin

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply

God's cruelty shows that God is evil.

Yes
9
47%
No
9
47%
Don't know
1
5%
 
Total votes: 19

Compassionist
Guru
Posts: 1020
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:56 pm
Has thanked: 770 times
Been thanked: 135 times

Bible - cruelty and violence

Post #1

Post by Compassionist »

Please read this list of cruelty in the Bible. Is the Bible true? If it is true then why is God so cruel and violent? Doesn't God's cruelty make God evil and unworthy of praise and worship?

User avatar
Wootah
Savant
Posts: 9161
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:16 am
Has thanked: 186 times
Been thanked: 105 times

Post #91

Post by Wootah »

Autodidact wrote:You believe that God is real. Therefore, for you, if God commands you to kill my children, you do it. I don't believe that God is real. Therefore, for me, if I heard God telling me to kill your children, I would know I was hallucinating, and not do it.
This is a bit bizarre. Do you know what a hypothetical is?
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hypothetical

Are we both engaged in this thread in the same spirit or are you just gaming?

User avatar
Wootah
Savant
Posts: 9161
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:16 am
Has thanked: 186 times
Been thanked: 105 times

Post #92

Post by Wootah »

Autodidact wrote:And as a result, you believe that killing babies is sometimes right.
I believe in a fair Socratic discussion. The fact is that I could create a hypothetical situation in which you would have to agree that killing a baby was the right thing to do. But you aren't engaging in your own hypothetical and your own discussion. Just grandstanding so you can say 'yuck'.

But what you could be asking about Christians is why if their God is doing all that stuff do they preach love. One of the reasons is that what God does in the bible is totally opposite to what we are commanded to do. We are warned squarely not to judge lest we be judged and to leave the judging to God. We don't kill babies in reality, nor do we support it.

Side questions: Doesn't it interest you why I am able to freely discuss difficult moral issues and you squirm? Why not be free? Who taught you that discussing a topic would make you a bad person? Do you think watching a movie leads to violence?

User avatar
ttruscott
Site Supporter
Posts: 11064
Joined: Tue Jan 31, 2012 5:09 pm
Location: West Coast of Canada
Been thanked: 3 times

Post #93

Post by ttruscott »

Someone sed:
...if you believe in Jesus, then you believe that stabbing babies to death is morally right?
You think your word meanings are the same as a Christians but they are not.

Baby to you means innocent, unsullied and non-threatening.

To us it might mean:
- a sinner under condemnation from God
- a 6000 year old hardened criminal who just happens to be in a tiny baby body for the moment
- a brother in sin newly come to this world

IF a baby is the innocent you think it is, then GOD could never order His follower to kill it. Your set up is like asking: if God can create anything and is all powerful, can He make a rock HE cannot lift? These things are outside of HIS creativity and HIS power so the question is meaningles like, can GOD see something that isn't there?

And so the question: If God asked you to murder an innocent, would you? is just as meaningless because it goes against the revealed nature of GOD as love.

But if GOD orders the execution of a murderous raping pilaging soul who has declared himself the eternal enemy of GOD and the destroyer / defiler of HIS Church for all eternity, and the execution is to get him off the earth and send him back to the spirit world,

then who would not do it, including yourself if it was your family he set his horrendous desires upon. And if this demonic murderer was just born into a new body, a new babies body, but was in fact old and cruel to the max, you would still do it if he threatened your family and so would I.

[Given of course that you recognize that it is GOD speaking to you and know that HE is telling you the truth about this murderous soul hiding in a newborn body.]

The same would apply to a demon (for that is what we are talking about) who just got to earth into a new born body but hasn't had his chance to start to destroy people's lives yet. If you knew the truth about this baby...

So don't talk to me about babies and hide a supposed righteousness behind some love for innocence.

No Christian will ever kill an innocent and God would never ask him to do that.

Peace to you all,

Ted
PCE Theology as I see it...

We had an existence with a free will in Sheol before the creation of the physical universe. Here we chose to be able to become holy or to be eternally evil in YHWH's sight. Then the physical universe was created and all sinners were sent to earth.

This theology debunks the need to base Christianity upon the blasphemy of creating us in Adam's sin.

User avatar
Autodidact
Prodigy
Posts: 3014
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:18 pm

Post #94

Post by Autodidact »

I believe in a fair Socratic discussion. The fact is that I could create a hypothetical situation in which you would have to agree that killing a baby was the right thing to do. But you aren't engaging in your own hypothetical and your own discussion. Just grandstanding so you can say 'yuck'.
I don't think "yuck" is the right word to use for genocide.

I understand your frustration. As a Christian, you are stuck defending evil. As an atheist, I am not. Here's the hypo:

You hear God telling you to kill my children. You do it. I hear God telling me to kill your children. I don't. Because it would be wrong.
But what you could be asking about Christians is why if their God is doing all that stuff do they preach love.
I could be asking that, but I'm not. What I'm asking is, why does a perfectly nice person subscribe to an evil morality? Oh, it's because you're Christian.
One of the reasons is that what God does in the bible is totally opposite to what we are commanded to do. We are warned squarely not to judge lest we be judged and to leave the judging to God. We don't kill babies in reality, nor do we support it.
Wrong. God doesn't just kill babies, he repeatedly commands His people to do so.

"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Numbers 31

If that's not evil, I don't know what is.

Side questions: Doesn't it interest you why I am able to freely discuss difficult moral issues and you squirm? Why not be free? Who taught you that discussing a topic would make you a bad person? Do you think watching a movie leads to violence?[/quote]

User avatar
Autodidact
Prodigy
Posts: 3014
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:18 pm

Post #95

Post by Autodidact »

Someone sed:
...if you believe in Jesus, then you believe that stabbing babies to death is morally right?
You think your word meanings are the same as a Christians but they are not.

Baby to you means innocent, unsullied and non-threatening.
To me it means a human being under the age of two.
To us it might mean:
- a sinner under condemnation from God
- a 6000 year old hardened criminal who just happens to be in a tiny baby body for the moment
- a brother in sin newly come to this world

IF a baby is the innocent you think it is, then GOD could never order His follower to kill it. Your set up is like asking: if God can create anything and is all powerful, can He make a rock HE cannot lift? These things are outside of HIS creativity and HIS power so the question is meaningles like, can GOD see something that isn't there?
And if there's one reason above all others that Christianity is a purely evil belief system, there you have it. Christians believe that newborn babies are evil, sinners, born in depravity.
And so the question: If God asked you to murder an innocent, would you? is just as meaningless because it goes against the revealed nature of GOD as love.
I understand that you believe newborn babies, who have never harmed anyone in any way, are evil sinners deserving of being slaughtered. You believe that because you are Christian, a belief system which you are explaining to us as not just wrong, but evil.
But if GOD orders the execution of a murderous raping pilaging soul who has declared himself the eternal enemy of GOD and the destroyer / defiler of HIS Church for all eternity, and the execution is to get him off the earth and send him back to the spirit world,

then who would not do it, including yourself if it was your family he set his horrendous desires upon. And if this demonic murderer was just born into a new body, a new babies body, but was in fact old and cruel to the max, you would still do it if he threatened your family and so would I.
Me. I wouldn't do it. That is one of the most horrible, disgusting, pure evil belief systems anyone has ever described to me. I may have to leave the thread, because it is upsetting to me that I live in a world with people who believe these things.
[Given of course that you recognize that it is GOD speaking to you and know that HE is telling you the truth about this murderous soul hiding in a newborn body.]

The same would apply to a demon (for that is what we are talking about) who just got to earth into a new born body but hasn't had his chance to start to destroy people's lives yet. If you knew the truth about this baby...

So don't talk to me about babies and hide a supposed righteousness behind some love for innocence.
Oh no, far be it from me to claim that a newborn baby is worthy of protection or even just being allowed to live.

Here's God's reason for the slaughter of the Midianite babies:
The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.�

What about the poor Amalakites? Why do the Amalekite babies have to be killed? Vengeance again:

This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." btw, they are being punished for something that happened hundreds of years before.

The other leading reason: they live in land that God wants to give to His people:

"When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you may nations...then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy." Deuteronomy 7:1-2, NIV. 1

"...do not leave alive anything that breaths. Completely destroy them...as the Lord your God has commanded you..." Deuteronomy 20:16, NIV.

Biblical scholar Raymond Schwager:

"... has found 600 passages of explicit violence in the Hebrew Bible [a.k.a. Old Testament], 1000 verses where God's own violent actions of punishment are described, 100 passages where God expressly commands others to kill people, and several stories where God irrationally kills or tries to kill for no apparent reason. Violence ... is easily the most often mentioned activity in the Hebrew Bible."
No Christian will ever kill an innocent and God would never ask him to do that.

Peace to you all,
That's odd. Because the God of the Bible does just that. Read it, Ted. There's nothing in there about those babies being especially bad or evil or demons or whatever superstition you hold. God says kill them for revenge, and because they're born in the wrong place.

User avatar
Wootah
Savant
Posts: 9161
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:16 am
Has thanked: 186 times
Been thanked: 105 times

Post #96

Post by Wootah »

Autodidact wrote:
No Christian will ever kill an innocent and God would never ask him to do that.

Peace to you all,
That's odd. Because the God of the Bible does just that. Read it, Ted. There's nothing in there about those babies being especially bad or evil or demons or whatever superstition you hold. God says kill them for revenge, and because they're born in the wrong place.
Hopefully you are remotely connecting why Christian's try to trust and leave judgement to God.

Kismet
Student
Posts: 27
Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 9:46 pm

Re: Bible - cruelty and violence

Post #97

Post by Kismet »

Autodidact wrote:So that would be yes, God did command all those atrocities, and you're fine with that? You would worship a jealous, genocidal, being?
You assume I worship the Biblical God. That would be incorrect. I worship a God who is... different. I would say he is so different that neither you or I can judge him or conceptualize him by our standards... God is not prone to human "jealousy" or "anger." Rather, he is a force over and above such petty categories, including the "good" or "moral."

cnorman18

Re: Bible - cruelty and violence

Post #98

Post by cnorman18 »

Thought I'd repost this to inject a little sanity into this debate:
cnorman18 wrote:
How can you justify all the slaughtering in the Bible e.g. Amalekites, Canaanites, Medianites, etc? Not to mention killing off all living things except the alleged occupants of Noah's ark. How is such atrocious commands leading to a 'higher standard of behaviour'? Buddha taught far better than the Bible.
I don't have to justify those things, because they never happened.

(a) It makes no sense to study the Bible as literal history, because it isn't; and that is because (b) the Bible isn't the Word of God, but the words of men talking ABOUT God; in fact, (c) the Bible isn't even one document, but a collection of ancient documents that are redacted from oral traditions that predate it by many centuries, which have many different backgrounds and agendas; therefore, (d) it makes no sense to study the Bible as either the record of actual historical events, or as the direct teachings from God about what is wrong or right.

The Bible -- and by that I mean the Hebrew Bible, which is apparently what is being discussed here -- is the LITERATURE of the Jewish people. Not our religious beliefs, not our history, not our ethics. LITERATURE, which includes legend, fable, teaching tale, hero story, ecstatic vision, political polemic, love song, ethical discussion, metaphysical speculation, folklore, and perhaps some garbled seventh-hand history. It is LITERATURE, and it is unwise to make more of it than that. That some do is not the fault of the text, nor of the people who wrote it.

It has always puzzled me that those who do NOT believe that the Bible is The Inerrant Word of God Himself will use arguments against it which assume that it IS. Actual Bible scholars, and liberal theists alike, consider the Bible in the ways that I have described above. We don't worry about the massacre of all the Midianite males, for instance, because that massacre pretty clearly never took place. Read the passages about it; pages are spent establishing the PRIESTLY military leadership of those massacres, and more pages spent on establishing that the PRIESTS got the bulk of the spoils; and only a couple of lines on the battle itself. It's not rocket science to conclude that this was a literary creation written LONG after the fact, as in CENTURIES, which had no other purpose than to promote the authority of the PRIESTLY establishment in the Kingdom period.

Besides, a few decades later, in Judges, the Midianites seem to be around in sufficient numbers to have Israel "in their hands" for seven years. Taking those passages seriously as history is equivalent to future historians making hard-and-fast conclusions about that history of the Old West from Clint Eastwood and John Wayne films.

Compassionist
Guru
Posts: 1020
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:56 pm
Has thanked: 770 times
Been thanked: 135 times

Re: Bible - cruelty and violence

Post #99

Post by Compassionist »

[Replying to post 98 by cnorman18]

Thank you for your post. That is not what the Bible says about itself, nor is it what Christians believe about the Bible. "All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right." - 2 Timothy 3:16, The Bible (New Living Translation).

Youkilledkenny
Sage
Posts: 819
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 6:51 am

Re: Bible - cruelty and violence

Post #100

Post by Youkilledkenny »

[Replying to post 1 by Compassionist]

The bible is only as true as one wants to accept it.
God exists only to those who want to accept it existing.
Proof doesn't exist otherwise.
Should God be praised? Depends on which God you're talking about as there seems to be at least 2 in the modern bible.
But it all boils down to the individual believer: some are kind and caring others are hateful and vindictive. The caring person's God isn't likely to be the same God of the hateful believer.
And vice versa.

Believe (or not) in what you want. Just keep it to yourself and in your own life.

Post Reply