How Apologists Defend God's Genocides

[unknown soldier]

If there's one issue that keeps Christian apologists busy, it's that thorny issue of the Biblical accounts of God killing huge numbers of people. According to one source, the death toll at God's hands totals 2.8 million people. How do apologists "apologize" for God's deadly ways?

It's important to understand that it's a tenet of apologetics that God is perfectly righteous, and therefore nothing he does can be considered evil. Starting with this conclusion, apologists seek reasons to free God from any charges of immorality. I'd appreciate everybody's input regarding their own reasons why God is good despite his murderous ways, but here are some reasons to start with:

• God's killings are actually good, it's just that we cannot understand why it was good for him to kill.
• God is able to kill anybody he wants to, so it's OK for him to kill. His might is right!
• God is the creator of all life including human life, and therefore as the creator of life he can snuff it out any time and any way he chooses to.
• Since God is perfectly just, his perfect justice cannot tolerate sin, and he must eliminate sin by eliminating sinners.
• God kills those he sees as a threat to his "chosen people."
• We Christians invented and own morality, so if unbelievers say God's killings are evil, then they are stealing our morality.

[brunumb]

...
Please point out the stage of human development where the embryo first becomes a baby. ...

I think everyone should decide it on their own case. At what stage you would want to be killed?

At what stage did you become you? How did you know?

[unknown soldier]

Person who gives life, has also right to decide how long life he gives. There is simply no good reason to say he should give more, because he would not have to give anything at all.

OK, then you simply assert that God can kill yet be moral. I can assert that God is wicked for his killing. So who wins?

Anyway, aren't you just making up a moral precept because you want to believe God is good no matter what he does?

Parents dont give life. Parents reproduce. Parents have life and it continues in their cells, if everything goes well. If humans truly would know how to give life, we would not have childless couples.

I think our parents are our creators. We can actually see them act to make babies. God, on the other hand, never shows up at any point in the process. So I think that if you insist that what creates human life has the right to take human life, then you assert that parents have the right to kill their kids.

I just point out that atheists are often hypocrites who accept killing of innocent babies, if people that they like do it, but if God does it, then it is not good.

Some atheists are hypocritical some of the time. Who isn't hypocritical at times? Anyway, I think Christians are hypocritical if they cry about Stalin's genocides and then turn around and worship a genocidal God. If I was a Stalinist, I could simply assert that Stalin had the right to kill just like you assert God has the right to kill.

And just for the record, I never approved of killing babies. I used to be one!

And by what the Bible tells, God gives eternal life only for righteous and I think that is good. I think it would be evil to allow evil to continue forever. But I understand that evil people think it is bad and evil.

If it was up to me, I'd make life good for everybody regardless of their character. If people are treated well, then I think they won't want to be evil. That way evil can be eliminated without eliminating people.

People dont have right to kill anyone. But, I believe that death of a body is not the end, which is nice.

If it's so nice to be dead, then wouldn't you do people a favor by killing them?

[theophile]

I wouldn't call that a summary of my argument, but yes, my post was clearly setup as a defense of even genocide having a time and place.

So, as long as the perpetrators can claim that their actions were sanctioned by God, I guess that means you are in support of genocide. Good to know.

That is not at all what I said.

[theophile]

Have you ever noticed how God acts in the bible? It is invariably through others, in which I include people, animals, the elements...

Yes, that has always struck me. It's almost as if there was no God really there at all. We just have a lot of self-interested people claiming to act as intermediaries on behalf of God or interpreting natural events as caused by God in order to maintain influence and control over their followers. It happens even now with extremist sects and weird cults.

The bolded text is probably the first thing you've ever said that I agree with.

And sure, there are a lot of self-interested people claiming to act as intermediaries. If I could use a bit of Jesus on this one, you will know them by their fruits.

[theophile]

If my opinion makes any difference to you, I submit that we give genocide no time and no place. Genocide has no place in a civilized world.

But huge caveat there. Civilized world. I would agree that genocide has no time or place in a civilized world. But what do you mean by civilized? Are we civilized? As we decimate the environment and life on this planet? As we continue to perpetrate racism and sexism and anti-LGBTQism? As we allow the poverty of billions of our own kind? ...

I have serious questions about our "civility," and if I was on the outside looking in, and had the power to do something, I would doubt whether human beings deserve their place in this world (again, whether granted by God or simply an accident of evolution). Now, does that mean I think we are due a genocide? Absolutely not. But some tough love in order to soften our hearts? Yah, I think that is long overdue. (And unfortunately the plagues that have been set upon us are having little impact...)

No, you are making the very common error that all apologists subscribe to such a notion of omnipotence. Arguments that God can do anything without limit (say, at the snap of a magical finger) are a bit ridiculous, unhelpful, and simply stop all conversation.

What is God unable to do? You contradict Matthew 19:26 (NRSV):

But Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible."

Apologists have come up with a list of things they say God can't do, and I'm left wondering what "all things" means. So in the wacky world of Christian apologetics, "all" means "not all."

Addressed this. The issue is less with the word "all" and more the word "possible." Possible does not mean actually able. It means within the realm of possibility. As in, it is within the realm of possibility that one day we will all get around in flying cars. And have a vaccine for COVID-19.

I also went further to suggest the true meaning of omnipotence, and how it comes about.

Why do you think the Word of God is such an important concept?

It's an important concept in Christianity because that's all God is; a bunch or words.

You are saying this to be dismissive. But there is real truth in what you are saying, and something that should be taken seriously if you have any interest whatsoever in theology (or arguing against theology), and getting beyond dated and unhelpful concepts of God. He's a bit heavy on Derrida I think, but a good and fun read (if a bit flowery) would be something like John Caputo's Weakness of God.

To bring up the counterpoint that "all things are possible for God," we need to be clear that "possibility" does not mean "actually able," whether right now or ever before. Rather, it is an eschatological concept. As in, it means at the end, when God is at last all in all, i.e., when all of us (people, animals, elements) have contributed our power to God, only then is God truly omnipotent, or quite literally "all powerful." (Up until then, God could quite literally be powerless, with no one answering the call or contributing any real power to it.)

So for you these two statements mean the same thing:

1. All things are possible for God.
2. Some day we will all get together and make all things possible for God by lending him a hand.

I never cease to be amazed at Biblical interpretation.

Again with the dismissive, trivializing statements (versus actual arguments). If you don't like my words then consider Paul's in First Corinthians 15:24-28 where he says the same thing:

Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. ... When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

What Paul is describing here is the eschaton, or the end, of our calling as human beings first issued in Genesis 1, i.e., when God put everything under us to rule. What Paul is describing is when we at last fulfill that mission, and have the whole of creation under us, or behind us (which is to say all power), and ultimately give it over to God.

This is when and how God truly becomes all-powerful. According to the bible, that is, and not some random apologist.

So again, be dismissive, but you are ignoring what the bible actually says, and arguing against a strawman. If that's what does it for you, go ahead. But there's nothing in that for me.

But even then, at the eschaton, when all power is God's, that power is still through us. So it is always us, and never some super-magical-finger-snapping Being out there, that is doing the work. That is true throughout the bible. Bringing back the example I raised before, God would be freeing the world from Nazism through us, and as such would be limited to whatever power we have, or the power of any others who answer the call, to do so.

Why put God into that mix? The allies' efforts are quite adequate to explain the defeat of Hitler.

I don't really care if you put God into that mix or not. The end result is the same. To a reference I made in the previous post, you will know them by their fruits.

Yah, again, more magical finger snapping. Got it. Heard it a billion times before. And look, I would agree with you if I thought this notion of God you're advancing had biblical credence, but I don't think it stands up to scrutiny.

But I've read the Bible! God's been snapping his magical fingers since creation week. He flooded the earth, he parted a sea, he rained fire from heaven, he got a virgin pregnant with himself without a penis--I'm not making any of this up.

Reading the bible is not enough. Per earlier discussions on the challenging nature of the bible, it needs to be studied. Also, you completely ignored what I said (assuming you read it) and simply reiterated what I already knew to be your position... So on both counts, read more closely.

That's why I keep using the simplest and clearest of references, to make it easy as possible. Again, Genesis 1. It is not God but the elements that act there. To your point before, God is nothing but a bunch of words calling upon them. The same is true with Exodus. The sea parts. Or more precisely, the wind parts the sea (which is a clear reference again to Genesis 1, and the ruach Elohim or wind / breath that issues the Word of God as it hovers over the deep...)

It's a subtle but extremely important shift. And to bring back Paul, and Genesis 1, that's part of our mission. To bring the sea, even, under our rule. So that it answers our call. And we can ultimately bring it's power back to God.

In the end-time passages I cited from Paul, it was death itself that at last answered our call and as such was "conquered" by the son of man, which is to say by humankind. Hence the resurrection of the dead... when death at last loses its "sting."

[Don Mc]

• God's killings are actually good, it's just that we cannot understand why it was good for him to kill.
• God is able to kill anybody he wants to, so it's OK for him to kill. His might is right!
• God is the creator of all life including human life, and therefore as the creator of life he can snuff it out any time and any way he chooses to.
• Since God is perfectly just, his perfect justice cannot tolerate sin, and he must eliminate sin by eliminating sinners.
• God kills those he sees as a threat to his "chosen people."
• We Christians invented and own morality, so if unbelievers say God's killings are evil, then they are stealing our morality.

I would say that all four options are potentially valid.

I posted six reasons why Christians might defend God's homicides. Maybe I should have used a numbered list.

Ha! Yes, it appears I forgot how to count. Let me try that again:

I would say that all six options are potentially valid.

That is, I don't see anything about God killing 2.8 million people that would make the Bible incorrect or make Christian theism false.

I think it's a problem for those Christians who say God is good.

Oh, I do say God is good. And you have outlined a few reasons even if sprinkled with sarcasm and hyperbole to think that God could kill 2.8 million people and still be good.

Now if the idea here is that the God of Scripture is cruel, capricious, unjust, tyrannical, etc., that would seem to suggest that Christian theism is not "wishful thinking."

It's not hard to see that many angry people might wish for a violent God of war to waste their enemies.

Right, but a God of war who is not only violent but cruel, capricious, unjust, tyrannical, etc., might also turn around and waste those same angry people, along with their enemies and everyone else, just for the fun of it. And it is hard to see how anyone rational enough to hold a conversation like this would wish for anything like that.

So it may be that atheism is the more wishful way of thinking after all.

Sure. Atheists like John Lennon might wish that there was no religion.

All the more so if they hold a view of God as a murderous sociopath. If I believed there was an omnipotent being out there who kills people indiscriminately by the millions, I would be tempted to become an atheist myself. I'd certainly prefer to imagine there is no such God than to live constantly terrorized by what he might do next.

[Don Mc]

If there's one issue that keeps Christian apologists busy, it's that thorny issue of the Biblical accounts of God killing huge numbers of people. According to one source, the death toll at God's hands totals 2.8 million people. How do apologists "apologize" for God's deadly ways?

It's important to understand that it's a tenet of apologetics that God is perfectly righteous, and therefore nothing he does can be considered evil.

That last line was not from me but from the unknown soldier. I do agree that God is perfectly righteous, but not that nothing he does can be considered evil. There's really nothing stopping me from thinking that absolutely anything and everything is evil. The important question is whether God actually does evil.

Boy, considering that evil is never considered good I would think anyone who created it would have to be pretty evil himself.

Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Let's assume for a moment that the verse quoted above is not hyperbole, not figurative, and not stripped out of its larger context(s), but represents sound theology based on careful and responsible methods of interpretation. It still would not follow from the act of directly creating evil that the creator of it is himself evil. After all, evil could not exist prior to being created and thus the creator of evil could not be evil.

Given that Christian theism is true, then, it's just the kind of truth many would find difficult to face.

Who gives that, Christians? Them's pretty biased words don'tcha think? Of course they are.

No, not biased at all. A conditional statement like that makes no commitments and expresses no preferences. So as a theist I believe that both of the following propositions are true:

Given that theism is true, God exists.
Given that theism is false, God does not exist.

So it may be that atheism is the more wishful way of thinking after all.

The only thing atheists wish for is that reason grab theists and shake them up a bit.

I will confess that I need a good dose of rationality every now and then, but more often I need to let go of my cynicism and skepticism and learn to love and trust others God most of all.

[brunumb]

If I believed there was an omnipotent being out there who kills people indiscriminately by the millions, I would be tempted to become an atheist myself. I'd certainly prefer to imagine there is no such God than to live constantly terrorized by what he might do next.

One doesn't simply choose to become an atheist because one doesn't like how God behaves. Atheism involves not believing that gods of any type actually exist. That said, it's hard to reconcile the contradictory nature of God as depicted in the Bible. Supposedly loving and merciful but also barbaric and murderous. I think the authors of the NT recognised this and tried to give him a makeover with their hippie Jesus who wonders around performing magic tricks to impress the crowds and spread the love. But unfortunately the shadow of Yahweh with his hands drenched in blood is always still there .

[1213]

OK, then you simply assert that God can kill yet be moral. I can assert that God is wicked for his killing. So who wins?

Why do you think it is wrong if God does not give eternal life for all?

I think God is moral, even if He kills, because He has right for it and He has good reason for it and there is actually no reason why He should give more than what He gives.

Anyway, aren't you just making up a moral precept because you want to believe God is good no matter what he does?

I dont think so. This is simply about what can be reasoned to be right or not. Good, evil and bad are subjective opinions, and as some have said, opinions dont matter here.

I think our parents are our creators. We can actually see them act to make babies. God, on the other hand, never shows up at any point in the process. So I think that if you insist that what creates human life has the right to take human life, then you assert that parents have the right to kill their kids.

I think that is same as you would say you create yourself. No, only thing parents do is that they make it possible that the gametes meet and have chance to grow. People dont create people, they grow, and it happens not because of them, but because God set the life moving.

Anyway, I think Christians are hypocritical if they cry about Stalin's genocides and then turn around and worship a genocidal God. If I was a Stalinist, I could simply assert that Stalin had the right to kill just like you assert God has the right to kill.

Stalin has not given life, so he doesnt have the same right as God who has given life.

If it was up to me, I'd make life good for everybody regardless of their character. If people are treated well, then I think they won't want to be evil. That way evil can be eliminated without eliminating people.

By what I see, the more you give nice things to people, the more evil they often become. I think good example of this is the "BLM" riots.

[1213]

...
Please point out the stage of human development where the embryo first becomes a baby. ...

I think everyone should decide it on their own case. At what stage you would want to be killed?

At what stage did you become you? How did you know?

I would say it happened instantly at the first stage, when the growth begun. And I think it is evil to dehumanise babies, even if they are small, it is something that Nazis, or body part salesmen would do to gain own profit.