Why did God kill children?

by brotherdan 185 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  SweetBabyCheezits

  We can confirm we don't know everything so it would be better not to judge God's actions but rather be concerned with our own.

  Or Allah's actions, eh? Can't judge those! Noooo...
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  cyberjesus

  so if god did good killing those kids because they were pagans and they were gona grow up and do wicked things, why doesnt kill all the kids in the world? he should kill mine. cuz they are gonna grow up atheists, he should kill me cuz i think he is an idiot and a moron for creating children just to kill them...your god makes me sick. i rather side with satan at least he doesnt hide his feelings and he is less violent than god
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  SweetBabyCheezits

  ^

  Just so Bible literalists understand, we don't really think your god is evil or killed children. We simply think he's a figment of the imagination that you persist in making real. We state the obvious contradiction of unloving actions ascribed to a loving god to show why we think it's ridiculous that you rationalize it away. But you knew that already.

  Oh, I also don't believe in Allah.

  Annnd Fat Tire is the nectar of the gods.

  Carry on.
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  AK - Jeff

  Your God being a monster is one of the primary reasons I don't believe in him - a REAL LOVING GOD could not/would not act in such hateful manner.

  So, while I don't believe in your God, it is the record of your God's actions that has aided in sealing that direction in my life.

  Jeff
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  caliber

  The command to kill all the Canaanite peoples is jarring precisely because it seems so at odds with the portrait of Yahweh, Israel’s God, which is painted in the Hebrew Scriptures. Contrary to the vituperative rhetoric of someone like Richard Dawkins, the God of the Hebrew Bible is a God of justice, long-suffering, and compassion.

  You can’t read the Old Testament prophets without a sense of God’s profound care for the poor, the oppressed, the down-trodden, the orphaned, and so on. God demands just laws and just rulers. He literally pleads with people to repent of their unjust ways that He might not judge them. "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ez. 33.11).

  He sends a prophet even to the pagan city of Nineveh because of his pity for its inhabitants, "who do not know their right hand from their left" (Jon. 4.11). The Pentateuch itself contains the Ten Commandments, one of the greatest of ancient moral codes, which has shaped Western society. Even the stricture "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was not a prescription of vengeance but a check on excessive punishment for any crime, serving to moderate violence http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5767

  Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. . . . And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites [one of the Canaanite clans] is not yet complete” (Gen. 15. 13, 16).

  Think of it! God stays His judgement of the Canaanite clans 400 years because their wickedness had not reached the point of intolerability! This is the long-suffering God we know in the Hebrew Scriptures. He even allows his own chosen people to languish in slavery for four centuries before determining that the Canaanite peoples are ripe for judgement and calling His people forth from Egypt.

  These are not my words but they make great sense to me.. it puts the whole situation in proper perspective.

  Even in courts of law today not all so-called " murder "is considered equal ... circumstances dictate first degree, second degree or manslaughter charges or even justifiable self-defense
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  SweetBabyCheezits

  Caliber, you sound like you're in denial. First of all, this isn't simply the Canaanites getting slaughtered. You're counting the hits and forgetting the misses. If Yahweh was compassionate, then he is"evidently" also bipolar.

  Here's a thread post that never really got resolved the other day with Inkie on the same subject....

  Inkie: Have you yourself actually and in truth read for yourself the accounts written in Bible about how wicked the Egyptians and the inhabitants of Canaan were?

  Me: Yes, I have read those bible accounts. Based on what I read in the bible, Canaanites (not necessarily all) did evil things, Egyptians (not necessarily all) did evil things, and Israelites (not necessarily all) did evil things. Yahweh was no Gandhi either. If cleansing the land was his goal, surely an all powerful god could've executed his attacks with the skill and accuracy of a scalpel instead of a shotgun.

  I see no justification for killing babies and children just because they were be born to heathen parents.

  I see no justification for rape.

  I see no justification for slavery.

  I see no justification for wiping out entire nations. (I don't care how wicked most of the people supposedly are.)

  BTW, speaking of disgusting atrocities of the OT, I thought it was funny that there are two very similar accounts in the bible (Judges 19 and Genesis 19) in which a man accepts visitors in his home and some of the townsmen come to his house and demand that he send out his male visitor(s) so they can rape them? But instead of, I dunno, say.... calling down evil on these sexual predators to have two she-bears tear them to pieces (that's silly, I know), the man of the house offers his virgin daughter(s) for the townsmen to have their way. The conclusion of Judges 19 account is especially gruesome when the Levite finds his dead, gang-raped concubine the next AM and cuts her into 12 pieces, Dahmer-style, and sends a piece to each tribe. But I suppose that's all poetry. Or or maybe the scribes or copyists added that in? Or maybe it was a mistranslation?

  No, wait, we can accept that as literal because God has the authority and power so whatever he does is A-OK. We should be grateful that we can show our ugly faces in his presence! I've heard this logic somewhere else.... let's see... ah, yes, physically abused women.

  You folks who say, "As the creator of everything only he has the knowledge and right to decide," or ,"god gave us life, he has the right to take it,"... that's acceptable logic. But just because someone has a right to do something doesn't mean that exercising that right is the loving thing to do. Last time I checked, drowning children wasn't a sign of compassion for them.

  Instead of making excuses for God like JWs make excuses for the Society, I choose to face reality, however unsatisfying that might seem.
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  caliber

  a man accepts visitors .....the man of the house offers his virgin daughter..the Levite finds his dead, gang-raped concubine ..sends a piece to each tribe...

  strangely I don't find God mentioned in your account above

  By the time of their destruction, Canaanite culture was, in fact, debauched and cruel, embracing such practices as ritual prostitution and even child sacrifice. The Canaanites are to be destroyed “that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God” (Deut. 20.18). God had morally sufficient reasons for His judgement upon Canaan, and Israel was merely the instrument of His justice, just as centuries later God would use the pagan nations of Assyria and Babylon to judge Israel.

  But why take the lives of innocent children? The terrible totality of the destruction was undoubtedly related to the prohibition of assimilation to pagan nations on Israel’s part. In commanding complete destruction of the Canaanites, the Lord says, “You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods” (Deut 7.3-4). This command is part and parcel of the whole fabric of complex Jewish ritual law distinguishing clean and unclean practices. To the contemporary Western mind many of the regulations in Old Testament law seem absolutely bizarre and pointless: not to mix linen with wool, not to use the same vessels for meat and for milk products, etc. The overriding thrust of these regulations is to prohibit various kinds of mixing. Clear lines of distinction are being drawn: this and not that. These serve as daily, tangible reminders that Israel is a special people set apart for God Himself

  http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5767

  He is certainly not subject to the same moral obligations and prohibitions that we are. For example, I have no right to take an innocent life. For me to do so would be murder. But God has no such prohibition. He can give and take life as He chooses. We all recognize this when we accuse some authority who presumes to take life as “playing God.”

  Again these are not my thoughts but it all makes sense to me !!
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  caliber

  Caliber, you sound like you're in denial. First of all, this isn't simply the Canaanites getting slaughtered. You're counting the hits and forgetting the misses

  At least I am staying on topic ....Why did God kill children?
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  SweetBabyCheezits

  Again these are not my thoughts but it all makes sense to me!!

  Considering the holes in your response, I understand your disclaimer.

  strangely I don't find God mentioned in your account above

  That's part of the point. See, god gets angry when children tease his prophet and he has two she-bears maul them.... but when a horde of sadomasochistic men want to gang-rape some visitors to their village, well, god's got better things to do than intervene in THAT.

  Also, if god didn't approve of the Levite or Gibeonite host's actions (in offering up the concubine and virgin daughter, respectively), why didn't he deal some law against them for being spineless cowards?

  Under similar circumstances, Lot pulled the same pansy-ass stunt but remained approved by god (in that he was not punished for it). So while not directly named in these accounts, god hardly conveyed any disgust for Lot's actions (or the Levite's) in the bible - his "moral guidebook."

  As for the slaying of innocent children relating to the "prohibition of assimilation to pagan nations"... that argument leaks like a sieve when you consider other passages in which "God's nation" was given permission to take the enemies virgins (and sometimes children) as part of their spoil:

  1. Numbers 31:7-18 Rape and pillage of the Midianites (Moses, god's spokesman, approved)
  2. Deuteronomy 20:10-14 More rape and pillage (Instructions concerning warfare)
  3. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 "Marrying" (today we would call it rape) of virgin captives

  These passages show the flaws with the above argument regarding "prohibition of assimilation." And, coincidentally, these verses also show god's "unchanging standards" regarding rape.
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  SweetBabyCheezits

  Caliber: For example, I have no right to take an innocent life. For me to do so would be murder. But God has no such prohibition. He can give and take life as He chooses.

  The logic here is apalling. I'll quote the same thing I said earlier....

  SBC: ...just because someone has a right to do something doesn't mean that exercising that right is the loving thing to do. Last time I checked, drowning children wasn't a sign of compassion for them.