Which massacres did Jehovah sanction?

by Spectrum 91 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Narkissos

  Some secular scholars don't believe that Israel was ever powerful enough to commit the massacres described in the Bible. Most higher critics, think the bible is just so much fiction anyway. If one is going to hold to that view, then this whole matter of the massacres is just irrelavent anyway.

  Hmm... not really. The Deuteronomistic (hi)story of the "Conquest," fabricated as I think it is, did promote a stinking exclusivistic ideology the historical and political consequences of which are far-reaching -- "down to this day" as the Deuteronomistic writer would put it.
• 

  Hellrider

  It`s been interesting to read the responses Forscher got from that one sentence he uttered. Most of the responses were ok, not involving personal attacks, etc. But of course, there had to be some selfrighteous, politically correct utrage too, such as this one:

  Forscher wrote:
  
  

  And really, considering the wholesale slaughter of innocents going on in the name of "a woman's right to choose", I have to ask myself just how we can dare claim the moral right to judge him?

  Never been in that situation have you? That kind of judgemental attitude is about as far as you can get from a loving christian one.

  All together now "eeeevery speeeerm is sacred...."

  Whenever someone mentions "abortion", of course the "intellectuals" on the left will scream out in selfrightous, "morally superior" anger. "How dare someone, in this day and age, question the practise of abortion!?! The nerve of some people!! Oh, he`s probably a conservative, maybe a christian even, probably voted for Bush even...tsk tsk tsk, oh, the poor intelectual state of this country. How dare he, he`s not even a woman, how dare he raise his voice on this?!"

  "Never been in that situation have you? That kind of judgemental attitude..."
  

  What the fuck do you know about his experiences, his life, the choices he has had to made!?! And you dare speak about "judgemental attitude"???? Well, let me tell you something!! I have been in that situation! Well, I`m a man, but I had to, on my own, decide whether the woman I had gotten pregnant, was to have an abortion or not.I had a purely (mutual) sexual relationship with someone, and she got pregnant, because we were careless. We never had any intention of moving in together or take the relationship to another level or anything, but she got pregnant. There was never Love, just Lust, so to speak...So, she said that it was up to me. She said she wanted to have it, but it was no biggie (she is not against abortion at all, unlike me). If I felt uncomfortable with it, she would get an abortion.We were both young enough to have kids later on, if we wanted to (and not necessarily with eachother)To many guys, who find themselves in that unfortunate situation, my situation (with a woman willing to have an abortion), was a perfectly cool situation. So, the decision was up to me. I had never given abortion a thought before this, but now I had it thrown at me. To make a long story short: I decided that we would have the kid. He was born, he was perfect, blonde, curly hair all over his head, blue eyes, over 4kgs, in short: perfect. And I have never been happier with any choice I ever made than that one!

  Now, how do you dare insinuate that anyone who raises their voice against abortion, is either A) someone who have never been in a difficult situation like that B) A Bible fanatic or C) A male chauvinist pig or D) All of the above!?!?! What do YOU know about the person you are discussing with, other than that he dared speak out against abortion?!? As for me: I have been in a difficult situation like that, I`m not a Bible fanatic, not even a christian (and I just have to laugh to the underlying statement, that someone who are ignorant enough to be anti-abortion, automatically have to be a christian) and I don`t think I`m a male chauvinist pig (of course, being a man who is against abortion, that would probably automatically qualify me as a male chauvinist pig in the eyes of some, but these "some" are not people I neither have any sort of intelectual respect for, neither do I wish to ever sit down and have a conversation with one, been there, done that).

  As for my views on abortion,they`re pretty much the same as Forscher, I think. I realize that it`s a very difficult question, and I can`t say that I`m against it in all cases and situations. Of course rape, incest, physical or mental deformity in the featus qualifies for abortion. (And by the way, rapists should be incarserated for the rest of their lives, the same with murderers and pedophiles). But because abortion is legal for anyone who wants to have one, the ethical boundaries are being pushed all the time. In parts of Russia and the former Soviet union, they perform abortions on featuses all the way thru the pregnancies (that is, a woman can have an abortion even in the 8th month !!! - of her pregnancy). In my country we have a 12-week-limit, unless there are special considerations. I don`t know what the situation is in the US.

  The point of it all, and my personal conclusion: It fucking sickens me that tens (hundreds??) of thousands of perfectly healthy featuses are hacked up and pulled out (cause that`s what an abortion really is, even if the featus is just a few inches long and is shaped like a snail at 12 weeks) every year. And as much as it "disgusts" and "sickens" those lefties that someone might actually "in our day and age" think the way I do on this subject, it fuckings "disgusts" and "sickens" me that people with the (above outlined) attitude even exists!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  So, now you can unleash your "morally correct", selfrightous and "morally superior" outrage on me to. Be my guest.
• 

  MuadDib

  It doesn't really matter which massacres Jehovah sanctioned because, as has been hinted at in this thread, none of them ever happened. The single example of the Assyrian army is proof enough. To begin with, the Assyrians were likely unable to muster 185 000 troops for a single campaign because such a number probably amounted to an enormous proportion of the adult male population of their empire. The ancient Middle East was so economically backward and politically fragmented that societies had to be relatively small almost by default, and this meant that large armies were simply nonexistent. Even the most sophisticated, wealthy, and populous polity of the era - Egypt - could only field an army of 20 000 men at any given time; to do more would have meant a much too drastic disruption of the normal economic and political activities that sustained these ancient societies. The loss of all these men would have meant not just the end of the Assyrian Empire but the end of Assyrian civilization - but we know that both continued for generations after Sennacherib.

  Furthermore, even if the men had been available, keeping them all supplied, fed, and disease-free in the arid, primitive conditions of the Iron Age Levant would have been practically impossible. Forces of that size weren't able to mount sustained offensive operations until the early modern period, thanks to advances in medecine, logistics, and technology centuries in the making, and even then they faced enormous difficulties in keeping themselves organized, fit, and supplied enough to actually fight. Where would 185 000 troops have found enough food to feed themselves in a region characterized by subsistence agriculture in dry conditions? Even if they could have found enough in the area around Jerusalem, how would they have transported it in once they'd stripped their immediate environs bare, given the absolutely primitive conditions of land transport at the time? It doesn't make any sense.

  And then there's the matter of body disposal. How did the citizens of Jerusalem deal with 185 000 corpses piled up around their city? Dealing with the problem - and it would have to be dealt with quickly before the bodies began to putrify and spread disease - would have required a monumental cleanup job made all the more difficult by the primitive technology available to them at the time. Even today dealing with the masses of victims produced by severe natural disasters or international conflicts is extraordinarily difficult and requires the diversion of many resources away from other essential activities. Where did Jerusalem get all the surplus labour? Another point: standard ancient practice was to heap up battle casualties in a giant mound and burn them, in order to prevent the contamination of water supplies and farmland and halt the spread of disease from the corpses. 185 000 corpses isn't just enough for one colossal mound - it's enough for eight or nine. Presumably these would have to have been in the immediate environs of Jerusalem. So where are they? The burial mounds of many ancient battle victims have been excavated and still constitute readily visible landmarks in many parts of the ancient world. One would think that there would have to be some evidence of these massive casualties since archaeologists have excavated so many other, much smaller mass battle graves. Yet we have none.

  These are just a couple of the problems that modern science can easily find with the purported "history" of the Bible. Wax eloquent all you want about the moral quality of a God who condones the massacres of innocents; to me, it's more important to establish whether these stories are truthful to any extent at all. Short answer: they aren't.

  As for abortion, I kind of like to look at the issue in reverse. If a state can prevent a woman from getting an abortion, what's to stop it from forcing her to have one? Seemingly if the state is to have greater control over her own body than she herself does, it could decide who gets to give birth when. Of course, we would never dream of allowing any level of government to force a woman to abort her child. So where do lawmakers and self-righteous pro-lifers get off forcing women to bear children they don't want?
• 

  Spectrum

  MuadDib,
  
  Are you sure about those numbers being incorrect?
  
  The Persian in 480BC sent about 200,000 soldiers some all the way from Persia to fight the Spartans.
  The 1st Crusade amassed 100,000 on just the Christian side and moved them over 2000 miles over hostile arid territory whislt fighting one battle after another. The Moslems matched those figures in some battles. The Christians completed their goal in just three years. Some say it was a miracle. I couldn't believe they made it. So outside chances do happen.
  
  So if you didn't know the story of this Crusade but read it in a book by some obscure writer would you use the same sort of analysis you did on the Israelites and Assyrians and come up with, "these armies are unsustainable and the stories are over cooked to make the crusaders look like super heros, it's a fairy tale?"
• 

  Brigid

  Well, to further deviate from the original topic, I'm going to put my 2 cents in about abortion. I am a woman. I am a mother. I have never had an abortion. I agree with Hellrider <?> that it is not a decision to be taken lightly and we do tend to polarize things: Either GOOD or BAD. We should not leave an involved potentially loving father out of a decision making process of such epoch proportions. After all, it is potentially their child as well. BUT...ultimately, it has to be the woman's decision. When I hear pro-lifers talk about options, I agree that many good decisions can be made before conception but human sexuality is never that simple (oh, if only it were--I would never have had to drive a desperate young co-worker who was already a mother of 2 trying to get through a few more months of school so she could leave her abusive husband to the abortion clinic when she found she was pregnant again). I respected and supported her decision--it was hers to make. We had to wade through a group of middle aged heckling men (I'LL RAISE THE BABY, THEY SAID)..funny, we'd passed an orphanage on the way in a very bad part of town--wondered if any of them who were willing to raise this child were volunteering there--also, since they were all white, I wondered how'd they feel about raising this child as it was half black?

  It's not a situation that you can blanket laws over. It effects all of us. But if we have to err, I want to err on the side of choice. I'm sorry but it's a woman's body! I don't think that men can ever know how fucking creepy it is to think that a group of people who have never brought a child to term, gone through painful (PAINFUL) childbirth can make decisions over your personal health. 9 months (actually 10) is a helluva long time--you are hindered in how you can work, if at all (try getting hired if you're poor and pregnant). It's not a black and white issue. It's painful. It's scary and it has serious implications in both camps.

  Just my 2 cents,

  ~Brigid

  p.s. I'd be interested in hearing more about how we can make society a lot more welcoming to mothers with children lessening the need for abortions. Day cares at work places. Stipends for bringing new life and new taxpayers into the world.
• 

  Hellrider

  That was a very intelligent post, Brigid.

  Yes, many of the "pro-lifers" are as arrogant and stupid as many on the other side of the fence. To sum it up, there are idiots in both camps. The situation you described, I can understand that she had to have an abortion, and I sympathise greatly with your friend. There is something very wrong with the whole justice system when a woman finds herself in a situation like that, and has to make a choice like that. Guys like her husband should be locked up and have the key thrown away. The outrage in my post was not directed towards women like your friend, and I hope you didn`t take it that way. Society also has a responsibility in all of this. If "the system" had helped your friend with getting her a new place to live, having a restraining order put on her abusive husband, and a lot of financial help, perhaps she could have finnished those last months of school and had her new baby, who knows?

  However: There are some people in this world who sees an abortion like nothing more serious than having a wort removed (I`m fucking serious). Even in my own family (on the non-JW-branch) - I have seen some young women use abortions like a damn birth control-thing, one had 4 abortions, and two had 2 (I have realized that I tend to get a bit personal/use my personal life a bit to much in my posts, that`s why I`ve stopped using a pic of me, lol). And that just disgusts me. And there are, of course, some women like that in the world, just like there are lots of guys who don`t give a shit, as long as they don`t have to pay anything. And these people, and their apologists, are what disgusts me, not people like your friend.
• 

  MuadDib

  Good points, Spectrum. The army of Xerxes I may have approached 200 000 men, but this only serves to prove my own argument: in order to obtain this force he had to spend lots of money on gathering troops from all across his empire, in territorial terms the largest polity the world had yet seen, and very wealthy thanks to his recent reconquest of Egypt. Sennacherib could not have hoped to draw a similar number from a vastly smaller and poorer area. In addition, the Persian army had the distinct advantage of being supplied by the enormous Persian fleet that sailed along the coastline in company with them, ancient water transport being much more effective than land transport (as is the case today). Sennacherib would not have had such an opportunity.

  The First Crusade also serves to illustrate my argument. By the time the Crusaders arrived at Constantinople they were broke and hungry and had to be reprovisioned by the Byzantines, without whose aid they would never have attained their objective. Who filled this role for Sennacherib? The Crusaders' march through the Holy Land to Jerusalem took two years and many of them died along the way from hunger, thirst, and disease - not even close to 100 000 of them were left by the time they obtained their objective, which is why they immediately had to be reinforced and resupplied by other expeditions exploiting the mercantile fleets of the Italian maritime cities - Venice, Genoa, Amalfi, and Pisa - which, of course, is another helpful advantage unavailable to the ancient Assyrians.

  Of course outside chances can and do happen, and people are capable of powerfully ingenious feats of military engineering and logistics when they put their minds to it - but context is always vital to any analogous discussion of history.
• 

  Brigid

  Hellrider,

  Somehow, I got that you were not in the "rabid" camp. I think that human sexuality is just so so so complicated. We've been trying to tame and sanction ourselves and these things between our legs since time began to no avail. I think balance is the key. I in no way want to live in a society where life and the inconvenience of that life are cheap and disposable (where we're heading quickly--not just due to abortions but just a kind of collective low self-esteem as humans). On the other hand, I do not want to live in a society that dictates over my own body. Where pro-choicers have gotten off track, I think, is not listening to what the potential fathers have to say. I think as creepy as it is to have my body infiltrated by government, it's a little wrong to force a male (without giving him ANY INPUT) to pay for and involve himself in the life of a child--or to kill his child if he is willing to raise it (again, without his input at all).

  So, I think we've hi-jacked the thread enough. You may email me privately or start a new topic and I'll be all over it!

  ~Brigid
• 

  MuadDib

  Oh, and also: Herodotus' account of the Persian invasion records 1 700 000 men and 1 330 triremes under Xerxes' command. Modern historians do indeed consider that these armies are totally unsustainable and the stories are cooked over to make the Greeks look like superheroes. So these sorts of things do happen.
• 

  Spectrum

  Brigid,
  
  Pressure from society on idividuals to comform to a certain standard is sometimes good. It gives society homogeneous moral values and a consequence everybody knows where they stand.
  The flip side of the coin is, the people that cry from the rooftops choice should be a fundamental right for all won't be there to guide a young girl that on her back about to get impregnated by some spotty teenager. They won't be there when she has messed up her life or at least her youth to carry her through the turmoil. They'll be on these stupid talk shows saying the same old same old about freedom to do what you want whilst teenagers buy these simple appertising values and get suckered into drugery.
  
  I therefore don't agree with your following statement
  
  " But if we have to err, I want to err on the side of choice. I'm sorry but it's a woman's body! I don't think that men can ever know how fucking creepy it is to think that a group of people who have never brought a child to term, gone through painful (PAINFUL) childbirth can make decisions over your personal health."
  
  
  The women should never have the right to an abortion if the father wants the baby. She carries the baby, she is not the God of the baby.