God kills

[Youkilledkenny]

In a recent post in another thread, it was asked of another poster:"You were OK with him (God) drowning babies in the flood?" to which the response was "Yes entirely justified. Completely agree with what God did, good move."

It strikes me as more than alarming that a person (or people or group of people) be "ok" with this scenario. Picture a woman giving birth when a wall of water sweeps through her village, drowning her and the partially born baby immediately. Or a family watching their child take its first steps while water rushes them without it being seen in time to react (not that would have made much difference and the almighty wanted them dead).

It seems the only other worse way to kill someone slowly would be burning them alive.


Of course if "God wants you dead" there's nothing you can do about it if you're a believer in such things. It's not as if we could protest en mass in front of God's throne and make him change his mind.
But the actual state of 'being OK with it' (or even being happy about it as some most certainly are) - is that something we should accept about ourselves as a species? Being "ok" with a supreme being violently, torturously and barbarically eliminating life in such a way?
Surely a supreme being could be able of ending life in a much more 'sedate' way. Drowning seems to be a very vengeful thing - something not worthy of praise (IMO anyway).

Are we, as human beings, supposed to be "ok" with God killing another in such a terrible way? Should we rejoice when these types of things happen? What does this say about us when we reach that level? And would we be as "ok" with it if it was one of our own family members or loved ones?
And does this point to a more (perhaps hidden) violent aspect of ourselves?

Or is it a "God did it WOO HOO!" way of thinking we are, as God's creation, commanded to accept?

[Youkilledkenny]

[Replying to post 20 by William]

So the idea is to focus on what people believe about what GOD is and what GOD wants in relation to the idea that the flood actually happened when (according to some beliefs) scientists say it couldn't have happened?

The idea is not to get into a debate over rather or not X happened scientifically as (I'm pretty sure) there is another thread for that.
The idea is to focus on the action (or lack of) in blinding accepting a horrible thing God is said to have done and not get into a back-n-forth about rather or not said action has been proven to have happened scientifically, and discuss that - independent of what science has or hasn't proven.

if they are wrong about GOD in that, perhaps in the many things nowadays seen as evil by modern day humans related to a GODs supposed orders to do evil, they are wrong about those too.

I'd say what people believe in and how people act can't directly be attributed to what scientist have or have not proven and thus, making this aspect of the discussion irrelevant.

In the spirit of this discussion, accept "God done action X" happened.

[William]

[Replying to post 20 by William]

So the idea is to focus on what people believe about what GOD is and what GOD wants in relation to the idea that the flood actually happened when (according to some beliefs) scientists say it couldn't have happened?

The idea is not to get into a debate over rather or not X happened scientifically as (I'm pretty sure) there is another thread for that.
The idea is to focus on the action (or lack of) in blinding accepting a horrible thing God is said to have done and not get into a back-n-forth about rather or not said action has been proven to have happened scientifically, and discuss that - independent of what science has or hasn't proven.

if they are wrong about GOD in that, perhaps in the many things nowadays seen as evil by modern day humans related to a GODs supposed orders to do evil, they are wrong about those too.

I'd say what people believe in and how people act can't directly be attributed to what scientist have or have not proven and thus, making this aspect of the discussion irrelevant.

In the spirit of this discussion, accept "God done action X" happened.

The spirit of the discussion can then be deemed 'a bad spirit' -

[marco]

Nonetheless, your conflating; "There is no difference between this and some modern African woman murdering her child because the child was "possessed." is unsupported.

I have no idea what this means. I am expressing a viewpoint and normally I don't need a lawyer to assist me in forming my view.

If a father said to his son, 'join the army and kill the enemy' - and as a result of that, the son is killed, do you think this is evil on the fathers part?

Assuming we are still discussing the Abraham/ Isaac tale I see not the slightest similarity here. Let me construe: Join the army and kill the enemy presumably means "Join the army and, in so doing, you will be able to kill enemies." While it's not the most pleasant paternal advice, there is nothing wrong with it.
However:
"Take your son and kill him" is pretty nasty. It defeats me to see any parallel.

Perhaps the story is no more than symbolism, where Isaac is the forerunner of Christ in his sacrificial lamb situation. But that is playing games.

So who then would be playing the 'games'? GOD?

Is the game problematic?

Is it possible that GOD does exist but that humans have got it wrong about what GOD is and what GOD wants etc?

The game I referred to was a semantic one where we look for valid reasons that might explain the horror in the story of Isaac.

It is indeed possible God exists and we've all got it wrong about him. I certainly hope the Bible has got it wrong in describing his atrocious instruction to Abraham.

Now obviously GOD is said to kill or is said to have ordered killings - so why is it okay for humans to do so but not for gods?

It isn't ok for humans to order the murder of innocents. Did someone say it was?

What I am trying to get from you is some idea on why it might be permissible for humans to kill but never permissible for gods to kill.

You have moved several hundred miles from what we're discussing. It is wrong for God to order a father to murder his son. You haven't defended this but you've asked irrelevant questions about modern practices and whether killing is sometimes right. It may well be permissible for gods to kill. In fact if I am threatened by a terrorist I would welcome divine intervention. But as I say, we've cycled too far from the scene of the accident. Can we get back?

[OnceConvinced]

In a recent post in another thread, it was asked of another poster:"You were OK with him (God) drowning babies in the flood?" to which the response was "Yes entirely justified. Completely agree with what God did, good move."

This is why Christianity can be considered so scary. Believers are perfectly ok with God committing genocide to solve a problem. It's scary to think that such acts can be justified because "God said so" or "God did so".

Are we, as human beings, supposed to be "ok" with God killing another in such a terrible way? Should we rejoice when these types of things happen?

We should be horrified. To think that a god would deal with the problem of evil by destroying everything in his path is nightmarish. A group needs to be killed? Oh, let's send an earthquake and destroy the entire city.

Why is it that God's choose what would normally be deemed natural disasters to wipe people out? The collateral damage is huge. Why would a god send a flood to wipe out the entire world? It makes absolutely no sense.

If a builder built the most perfect house, the most beautiful house and rented it out... and the tenants decided to perform evil acts in the house, would it make sense for the builder to destroy the entire house and rebuild it? Of course not. It would make no sense at all. He would just evict the tenants and patch up any damage they might have done.

God however, destroys the entire house. And he does it in a sadistic manner.

Why would a god use a natural disaster when he could just wipe out all the evil people with a spoken word in a way that doesn't cause immense suffering? Surely a sensible and loving god would?

And to justify those horrendous acts of God? Seriously? No, nobody should be ok with God's brutal methods. One should expect gods to be a little more thoughtful. Find ways to deal with problems that don't involve carnage.

[OnceConvinced]

Shouldn’t it be more alarming that people support abortion and abort babies all the time and support also euthanasia?

What is more alarming to you? Aborting a baby so that it will never do evil? Or drowning a baby so that it will never do evil?

God could have chosen abortion instead of drowning. Abort all babies of evil people. Wouldn't that be more sensible and less barbaric?

I actually can't believe you're comparing humans to God. Humans are fallible creatures who will convince themselves to do terrible things. Is God the same?

Here's a question for you? What's more alarming? That people support abortion and abort babies all the time and support also euthanasia? Or people who support a god that is going to burn to death the majority of humans who have ever existed?