otseng wrote: ↑Thu Dec 21, 2023 5:33 am
boatsnguitars wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2023 10:20 am
Nazis killed the Jews because they believed Jews caused disease, and did sinful things according to their beliefs. It's like racists saying, "We don't target black people because of their skin color, we target them because they do more crime than other people... That's why racial profiling is acceptable." (They don't realize that racial profiling is the reason more Black people get arrested - after all, they don't do crime at a higher rate than whites, or, if they do in some areas, it's because they are economically disadvantaged - because of their skin color).
You are simply doing the same thing. Just own it, but don't pretend you are somehow taking the high road that because it wasn't genocide it's all good.
No, I'm not doing the same thing. I've provided 3 sources pointing out the discrimination is based on race (and I can provide more if necessary). Whereas you have not cited any sources to back up your claims.
I've provided an argument. Citations aren't magical. They don't automatically win debates. However:
If the President of the United States were to announce that God had toldhim to use the vast military power at his disposal to obliterate, say, the na-tion of Iran, “saving alive nothing that breathes,” people would assume thathe was mad and he would speedily be dismissed from office. No one—well,almost no one—would take seriously the idea that God had instructed himto do this terrible thing. Why not? Because, apart from the obvious fact that such an attack would be contrary to our national self-interest, a genocidal attack on another nation is a moral outrage, and God is generally assumed to be perfectly good in a sense that is incompatible with commanding moral outrages. Why then, should we not react to the Deuteronomy passages quoted above in a similar way? No doubt the author(s) of Deuteronomy believed that God had commanded a genocidal attack on the inhabitants of the Promised Land.
https://spot.colorado.edu/~morristo/Did ... nocide.pdf
Many Christians believe that the Hebrew Bible – the collection of writings they refer to as the Old Testament (OT) – contains a faithful record of God’s dealings with his chosen people. Yet there aredisturbing OT texts1in which the God of Israel (Yahweh2) is represented as mandating genocide3,commanding the Israelites to lay waste to whole cities, killing men, women, children, and even animals.Given the nature of these stories, one might have thought it obvious – just on moral grounds – that theBible contains grave errors. But some well known and highly respected Christian philosophers are reluctantto draw that conclusion. Richard Swinburne speaks for many when he says that, as the Giver of life, Godhas a right to take it, and also the right to assign the task of taking life to others. Applying this doctrine tobiblical texts, Swinburne writes: “God therefore has the right to order the Israelites to kill the Canaanites”(2011: 224).4Even if this is correct, it is not by itself (as I am sure Swinburne would agree) sufficient to dispose ofthe problem posed by the genocide texts. A perfectly good and wise God would not exercise a “right” to command genocide unless he had very good reasons for doing so. The crucial question, then, is whether itis at all plausible to suppose that God had reasons compatible with his goodness and wisdom for commanding the annihilation of various ancient peoples.5As we shall see, the genocide texts themselves give reasons for these divine commands.
https://spot.colorado.edu/~morristo/div ... nocide.pdf
For example, in Deuteronomy 20:16-18 God orders the Israelites to "not leave alive anything that breathes… completely destroy them …",[27][28] thus leading many scholars to characterize these as commands to commit genocide.[29][30]
The Book of Revelation is full of imagery of war, genocide, and destruction.
Genocide
Scholar Nur Masalha writes that the "genocide" of the extermination commandments has been "kept before subsequent generations" and he also writes that those commandments have also served as inspirational examples of divine support for the slaughtering of enemies.[180] Scholar Leonard B. Glick states that Jewish fundamentalists in Israel, such as Shlomo Aviner, consider the Palestinians to be like biblical Canaanites, and that some fundamentalist leaders suggest that they "must be prepared to destroy" the Palestinians if the Palestinians do not leave the land.[181]
Arthur Grenke quotes historian, author and scholar David Stannard: "Discussing the influence of Christian beliefs on the destruction of the Native peoples in the Americas, Stannard argues that while the New Testament's view of war is ambiguous, there is little ambiguity in the Old Testament. He points to sections in Deuteronomy in which the Israelite God, Yahweh, commanded the Israelites to utterly destroy idolaters whose land they sought to reserve for the worship of their deity (Deut 7:2, 16, and 20:16–17). ... According to Stannard, this view of war contributed to the ... destruction of the Native peoples in the Americas. It was this view that also led to the destruction of European Jewry. Accordingly, it is important to look at this particular segment of the Old Testament: it not only describes a situation when a group attempts to totally destroy other groups, it also had a major influence on shaping thought and belief systems that permitted, and even inspired, genocide.[182]
So, I've provided MORE citations that show that people agree it was genocide in the Bible. I win.
