For those who feel YHWH is good, is his commanding his chosen people to kill the children of other tribes morally equal to or very close to morally equal to (i.e. just as bad as) Molech commanding his people to kill their children? Yes or no? Why or why not?
YHWH Commanding To Kill Other Tribes' Children Morally = Molech Child Sacrifice?
by InterestedOne 7 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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designs
You want to exterminate another culture you get your god to approve it. Amazing that after 3000 years they still use the same excuse.
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Band on the Run
Yes, maybe YHWH was worse than Molech. The Paradise Lost book with the baby sacrifices was so graphic and over the top. What was Abraham and Isaac about but devoid of any morals. Does anyone believe Isaac just got up and had a normal life, playing sports with Abraham. Ha, ha, little incident. It is monstrous. Repeatedly, I have heard conservative rabbis discuss the story and every rabbi condemned God.
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sabastious
When you choose to murder an adult it's best to murder their kin too so you don't have to watch your back for the rest of your life. There was a reason why Moses put "thou shall not murder" in the 10 commandments, it's because people murdered like mofos back then, including Moses himself.
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truth_b_known
If YHWH commands it then it's righteous. That is the standard Jehovah's Witnesses excuse for the hypocrisy.
Why was it ok to for Israelites to participate in warfare on behalf of the nation of Israel against other nations, but Jehovah's Witnesses are forbidden from military service? JW answer: "Well, that was righteous warfare commanded by Jehovah."
How many times does the Watch Tower use the Old Testament Mosiac Law to condemn something, but at the same time state that we are no longer held to that law due to Jesus new covenant? Jehovah says if someone enters your tent during the night time and you kill the intruder it's ok, but you're blood guilty if you kill someone to protect yourself or any other innocent. I'm confused.
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yourmomma
the baby killing is an aspect that i cannot reconsile with "the god of love". even if I give you the adults, the teenagers, hell kids above 5, i'll give all that to you, and say that fine, you have to kill them because they are lost causes from being brought up in a corrupt culture. but babies? babies can be raised in a different enviorment and adapt to their surroundings. a baby can be brought up in the "righteous" culture of the Isralites. so why kill the babies? that is the way of "love"? thats how "the god of love" handles it? im not an atheist, i believe god mostly likely or possibly exists, but he for sure, imo, isnt the god of the OT, that dude was a monster war lord who ordered mass genosides that make the holocaust look like a minor genoside. and the "well god was doing those babies a favor, as they went straight to heaven" argument to me is ludicrus and stands just like JW arguments defending the watchtower blood docterine when they say "oh well, he'll get a reserection".
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glenster
I'm not sure which verses you're thinking of, but I Copied and Pasted this
from another article I'm working on:"Herem or cherem (Hebrew: ???, ?erem), as used in the Hebrew Bible, means ‘de-
vote’ or ‘destroy’. It is also referred to as the ban. The term has been ex-
plained in different ways by scholars. It has been defined as 'a mode of se-
cluding, and rendering harmless, anything imperilling the religious life of the
nation,' or 'the total destruction of the enemy and his goods at the conclusion
of a campaign,' or "uncompromising consecration of property and dedication of
the property to God without possibility of recall or redemption. J. A. Thompson
suggests that herem meant that in the hour of victory all that would normally be
regarded as booty, including the inhabitants of the land, was to be devoted to
God. Thus would every harmful thing be burned out and the land purified.""Most scholars conclude that the biblical accounts of extermination are exag-
gerated, fictional, or metaphorical. In the archaeological community, the Bat-
tle of Jericho is very thoroughly studied, and the consensus of modern scholars
is that the story of battle and the associated extermination are a pious fiction
and did not happen as described in the Book of Joshua. For example, the Book of
Joshua describes the extermination of the Canaanite tribes, yet at a later time,
Judges 1:1-2:5 suggests that the extermination was not complete."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkhemet_MitzvahA similar passage is Isaiah 14:21-23 (see below).
"For those who feel YHWH is good" The good of God generally carries these
considerations:The stories claim divine intervention with a higher quality being with prer-
ogative about life of any age, which makes a difference. To make an analogy
with people and animals, people who eat animals of whatever age, from eggs to
adults, aren't regarded as murderers but would be if they killed other people
for food. Prerogative makes a big difference in how God or people are charac-
terized (as a man eating a hamburger could be characterized as a murderer, God
could be characterized as Godzilla, etc.). Basically, it means it's all God's
to do what He wants with as fair game.The God concept has to be reconciled with the good and bad of life and people
that God is possible beyond. The bad has always been understood as including
that everybody of whatever age dies, some in unfortunate ways (a lot more in the
last year alone than in all such OT verses put together), and the bad things
people do. The best you can do is find the good in life and people and be glad
you got it, and likewise it's what you're thankful for if you're going to have a
faith in God (Job, etc.).Critics sometime pose the idea of an all-beneficent God, which is impossible
or we'd live in heavenly circumstances with perfectly nice people forever, leave
out God's prerogative, and fail to distinguish between conservative and liberal,
to create a straw man God to criticize and show 'centric intolerance in charac-
terizing that as what all believers believe.If you're going to be a believer, I'd recommend liberal (regarding a literal
great flood, evolution, homosexuality, some OT things representing ideas of the
followers only brought along so far by God, etc.). But even conservatives be-
lieve in a God with the prerogative who, if not all-beneficent, provides good as
we find good in life and hope for an inclusive or exclusive version of heaven.Psalm 137:9
This passage is occasionally used to characterize the God of the Bible as
cruel in wanting his followers to smash the children of others against rocks.
The followers would have faced more frequent and serious opposition from neigh-
boring people if it were that simple.It's by a Jewish person in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusa-
lem in 586 BC. "It ends with violent fantasies of revenge, telling a 'Daughter
of Babylon' of the delight of 'he who seizes your infants and dashes them
against the rocks.' (New International Version)" (Wikipedia). His people were
cruelly taken into captivity by Babylonians--he's wishing the same for them eye
for eye style. God isn't given as granting his wish (there's more on that in my
next section), and Jesus later teaches you've heard it said eye for eye but I
say turn the other cheek, etc.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+137&version=NIV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_137Isaiah 14:21-23
Some have characterized the God of the OT as in this passage as showing a
cruel contradiction with Deut.24:16 (God doesn't want children put to death for
the sins of their fathers--a person shall be put to death for his own sin; also
see Ezek.18:2,19-20).21 "Prepare for his sons a place of slaughter Because of the iniquity of their
fathers. They must not arise and take possession of the earth And fill the face
of the world with cities." 22 "I will rise up against them," declares the LORD
of hosts, "and will cut off from Babylon name and survivors, offspring and pos-
terity," declares the LORD. 23 "I will also make it a possession for the hedge-
hog and swamps of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction," de-
clares the LORD of hosts. (NASB)This means God intended that the rulers of Babylon, who took Israel into cruel
captivity, would fall, and the descendants of the rulers wouldn't take power,
either. A few points about it in context:- Ezekiel 18 refers to God not killing a son because of the guilt of his fa-
ther's sin.- Ezekiel 13:10-16, 19 indicate God may want to kill sinful people who nurture
crime and kill others unjustly.- Isaiah 14:12-16 refers to Satan, so the following verses about his "chil-
dren" refer to the subsequent Babylonian leaders as undesirable, not that the
literal human children of fathers were guilty because of what their fathers did.- Isaiah 14:21-23 God judges against the "children," subsequent Babylonian
leaders, because He knew they'd intend to persist in the ways of their "fathers"
(as the leaders of many countries would continue as before despite the death of
a leader), not just for being the children of their fathers--for being subse-
quent leaders who did the same things.- Jer.18:7-8 NKJV: "The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a
kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 'if that nation against
whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I
thought to bring upon it.'"- the rulership of Babylon in Isaiah's day eventually "died," ended, but not
because God's followers literally slaughtered the leaders. You would need to
use a broader figurative interpretation regarding the Babylonian leadership end-
ing over several generations.
http://www.biblequery.org/isa.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Babylonian_EmpireThe articles at the web sites at the next two links explain that the God of
the Bible doesn't have children punished for the sins of their fathers:
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/paydaddy.html
http://www.bumby.org/faq/contradictions/sins_of_the_fathers.htm -
Shanagirl
Yahweh, Jehovah loves bloody murder. Even today, the religions who worship him still killing for the name of this false tribal god. Even the JW's love to reflect the blood thirst this god seems to have in their teaching literature and in the way they like to spiritually murder disfellowshipped ones. This god just wants to kill souls.
Shana