I just feel a bit sorry for you, thats all.[inkling]
I feel sorry for us all. The worst is yet to come.
Sylvia
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character...
by digderidoo 261 Replies latest jw friends
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snowbird
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inkling
I feel sorry for us all. The worst is yet to come.
Sadly enough, I think I might just agree with you here.
[ink]
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snowbird
*triple sigh*
unprovoked
Must be the water ...
Sylvia
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inkling
unprovoked
Ah, ok... so you feel that the residents of Jericho DID provoke Israel? How did they do so?
[ink]
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hillary_step
Snowbird,
HS, please state the source for your statement in red.
Yes, there is a lot of blood and gore, but NEVER will you find the Israelites making a God-sanctioned unprovoked attack on other nations. NEVER. <- Incorrect when it came to the Caananites and many other situations
Some background for those who have forgotten their Bibles. The Canaanites according to the OT were a cursed race to begin with ever since some mysterious 'sexual' incident took place between Canaan and Daddy Noah one night after he got got pie-eyed on desert Tequila. The Lord God was not amused and decided to launch a revenge on Cannan which lasted hundreds of years and ended up in the complete genocide of his tribal nation. Nice guy.
Exodus 3:8: OT God tells the Israelites he is going to give them the land on which the Canaanites are living.
Exodus 13:5: God reiterates that it has been his plan (premeditated) to remove the Canaanites from their land and give it to the Israelites for some while - actually since the likely lad and the unlikely dad managed to fall foul of themselves. Something to do with Y-fronts, a stage and Tom Jones concert.
The Israelites decided to jump the gun, not wait for the Lord God to get his act together and tell them when, attacked Canaan without provocation. They got their nose bloodied for their efforts. It seems that it is essential that one wait on the Lord's command before murdering children and old women.
Later on they waged war on Canaan AGAIN, this time defeating them, because the Lord God had ordained it to be the correct time for the Holocaust. If I recall, it took about six years to complete the task, about the same time as Hitler. The Israelites prevailed and 'ethnically cleansed' (murdered) every person living in the land of Cannan cos the Lord God asked them too. He saw, and look it was good.
Later, in the Psalms, the Lord God thanked them for murdering thousands of people on his behalf in an unprovoked attack, calling it an act of loyal love to his good self.
There are other instances of unprovoked attacks made by Israel on other tribes. If you would like me to continue in this vein, please let me know.
Some Godly people. Some God! The ultimate serial killer who listens to the cries of frightened children facing a stabbing sword and hears music.
HS
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
ink, I guess snowbird believes Jericho provoked Israel simply by being alive. Let's clarify the history:
*** it-1 p. 401 Canaan *** Though no great animosity seems to have been manifested by the Canaanites toward the Hebrew patriarchs...
No provocation by Canaan during the patriarchs.
***it-1p.401Canaan***...the Canaanites made no attack upon the Israelite camp at Gilgal during the period of the recovery of many of the Israelite males from circumcision and during the subsequent celebration of the Passover.
Still, no direct provocation by Jericho. Why the slaughter?
***it-1pp.402-403Canaan***
Why
didJehovahdecreetheexterminationoftheCanaanites?The historical account shows that the populations of the Canaanite cities conquered by the Israelites were subjected to complete destruction. (Nu 21:1-3, 34, 35; Jos 6:20, 21; 8:21-27; 10:26-40; 11:10-14) This fact has been used by some critics as a means for depicting the Hebrew Scriptures, or "Old Testament," as imbued with a spirit of cruelty and wanton slaughter. The issue involved, however, is clearly that of whether God’s sovereignty over the earth and its inhabitants is acknowledged or not. He had deeded over the right of tenure of the land of Canaan to the ‘seed of Abraham,’ doing so by an oath-bound covenant. (Ge 12:5-7; 15:17-21; compare De 32:8; Ac 17:26.) But more than a mere eviction or dispossessing of the existing tenants of that land was purposed by God. His right to act as "Judge of all the earth" (Ge 18:25) and to decree the sentence of capital punishment upon those found meriting it, as well as his right to implement and enforce the execution of such decree, was also involved.
The justness of God’s prophetic curse on Canaan found full confirmation in the conditions that had developed in Canaan by the time of the Israelite conquest. Jehovah had allowed 400 years from Abraham’s time for the ‘error of the Amorites to come to completion.’ (Ge 15:16) The fact that Esau’s Hittite wives were "a source of bitterness of spirit to Isaac and Rebekah" to the extent that Rebekah had ‘come to abhor her life because of them’ is certainly an indication of the badness already manifest among the Canaanites. (Ge 26:34, 35; 27:46) During the centuries that followed, the land of Canaan became saturated with detestable practices of idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed. The Canaanite religion was extraordinarily base and degraded, their "sacred poles" evidently being phallic symbols, and many of the rites at their "high places" involving gross sexual excesses and depravity. (Ex 23:24; 34:12, 13; Nu 33:52; De 7:5) Incest, sodomy, and bestiality were part of ‘the way of the land of Canaan’ that made the land unclean and for which error it was due to "vomit its inhabitants out." (Le 18:2-25) Magic, spellbinding, spiritism, and sacrifice of their children by fire were also among the Canaanites’ detestable practices.—De 18:9-12.
Hmmm, too bad nobody ever warned the Canaanites, eh? And don't tell them to move, kill them! Kill them all! Sounds like a God-sanctioned unprovoked attack to me. And there is no exact mention of Jericho doing anything particularly evil as listed in the last sentence. Another sweeping generalization. Simply, Jericho was inhabited by the descendants of Canaan who was cursed by Noah for doing something while Noah was drunk. And Jehovah sent the Israelites to destroy these weaker, independant, peaceful Canaanite cities since the Philistines were much more unified and powerful and did provoke and kill many Israelites, but that was later in the history of Israel.
Oh, except that evil city of Jericho had whores! Wicked, evil, corrupt, WHORES!!! Oh, wait, Jehovah saved a whore didn't he. After all, she was obviously one of the good whores, right?
So, later, when the Israelites settled in, they got rid of all that wickedness and whole-heartedly followed Jehovah forever. That's why the Jews continue to enjoy peace, happiness, and prosperity in their promised land right down to today.
Yeah, the OT Jehovah is the perfect God for the JWs. He'll slaughter 6 Billion people tomorrow since they don't read the WT and follow the FDS. Then the 'faithful' can move into the nice houses of the dead people. And they'll probably get tired of Jehovah and start worshipping Baal, too.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Snowbird, what was the provocation? *double sigh*
How about a reference from the OT of how Jericho provoked Israel? *triple sigh*
Have you ever read the Bible? Do you have a dictionary to check 'unprovoked'? Do you need a glass of water?
By the way, we are using emotional provocation here. Just like the Israelites emotionally provoked the residents of Jericho by marching around the city for a week.
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cognizant dissident
We could go on for 100 more pages arguing with Snowbird and we won't make any progress at all, because her position has nothing to do with logic. Therefore all the logic in the world will not work on her. She is telling us that is the case for her, summing it up in these 4 lines:
3. I believe God is righteous in all His ways even if we don't understand those ways.
4. I can accept God-sanctioned genocide because of statement #3.
5. I can accept God-sanctioned slavery because of statement #3.
6. I can accept all the laws given to the nation of Israel because of statement #3.
It won't matter if God himself rapes and murders every single man, woman, child and animal on this planet and tortures them all for eternity. The very fact that she believes he is God, gives him the "right" to do it! This is the very premise the Noachin flood was built on, the entire old testament, and the new testament as well. Jews, Christians and Muslim religions are founded on it. They all know very well exactly what the scriptures say. No, they do not "condone" it. You saw the definition of "condone" that Hillary put up. "Condone" is too mild a word for it. They do not condone slavery, rape, murder and genocide. They consider it RIGHTEOUS! They LOVE it. They WORSHIP it! Why? Because of Statement #3 of course.
You just can't argue with "logic" like that. You can only wait for it to die out and work to educate the young, IMO.
Cog (still just as disheartened as 3 pages ago! )
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snowbird
HS threw out this nice little barb:
Some background for those who have forgotten their Bibles.
This is a refresher from The Message Bible.
Numbers 14:41-43 But Moses said, "Why are you crossing God 's command yet again? This won't work. Don't attack. God isn't with you in this—you'll be beaten badly by yourenemies. The Amalekites and Canaanites are ready for you and they'll kill you. Because you have left off obediently following God , God is not going to be with you in this."
44 -45 But they went anyway; recklessly and arrogantly they climbed to the high hill country. But the Chest of the Covenant and Moses didn't budge from the camp. The Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in the hill country came out of the hills and attacked and beat them, a rout all the way down to Hormah.
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snowbird
For Billy and Inkling ...
Joshua 6:15 -17 When the seventh day came, they got up early and marched around the city this same way but seven times—yes, this day they circled the city seven times. On the seventh time around the priests blew the trumpets and Joshua signaled the people, "Shout!— God has given you the city! The city and everything in it is under a holy curse and offered up to God.
"Except for Rahab the harlot—she is to live, she and everyone in her house with her, because she hid the agents we sent.