Israel ... Jehovah ... The Promised Land ... Genocide

by wannabefree 44 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Perry

  Cofty,

  Jesus also said : For he [government] is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

  While we have a personal obligation to love our neighbor and our enemy for that matter, we also have a civic obligation to assist the government in the administration of justice. To the extent that a governments' idea of justice agrees with God, to that extent it will have God's blessing or eventual wrath.
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  cofty

  So murdering babies by the tens of thousand was legally justified was it?

  Your ethical judgement would shame an Afghan warlord. Fundamentalist christianity produces moral cripples.
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  Comatose

  The one thing I love about Perry is that he so openly shows his thinking to anyone here who is new and reading this stuff. He doesn't even attempt to be sly and keep his true thoughts quiet. He just spews this stuff and makes it readily apparent to anyone reading it how twisted his version of god is.

  yes, to the OP genocide is wrong. I also find it funny that people just excuse it and gloss over it.
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  Perry

  Cofty,

  As I pointed out, the bible describes personal responsibilities, civic responsibilities, and responsibilities that lie in the providence of God. There are times however when the issue of "greater good" does fall into the hands of individuals and governments.

  For example, an individual may have to make a decision to "unplug" a loved one from a mechine for the greater good of limiting suffering.

  A government may have to make a distasteful decision to wipe out a community like hiroshima and nagasaki to limit the costlier causalty count of a land invasion against a totalitarian agressor. Even in man's limited scope, there are exceptional circumstances that demand a human price for the "greater good".

  So I ask, if we in our limited scope can at times, under extraordinary circumstance exact a human cost for the greater good, how can you criticize God in his infinite wisdom, good, and authority from doing the same?
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  cofty

  Here is a description of an actual incident of the sort the OP is referring to. As you read it imagine Perry gleefully doing his bit murdering women and children for Yahweh and taking home his share of virgins for later.

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  You are camped on the east side of the Jordan waiting for orders to cross into the Promised Land. Moses is nearing the end of his life but he has some unfinished business to take care of before he hands over to Joshua. He announces that he has had an instruction from God to take revenge on the Midianites before he dies.

  The ensuing battle is a complete rout, not one Israelite soldier is killed in return for the complete annihilation of the Midianite army. You return to camp with a massive amount of spoil including tens of thousands of women and children. As you keep guard the commanders go off to report back to Moses. A while later they return with new instructions - Moses is furious about the prisoners of war and wants them separated into groups. The rest of the afternoon is spent separating the youngest girls from the rest of the captives. Its a horrifying task, the cries and of the mothers and the hysterical pleadings of the young girls is very distressing. When its over there are 32,000 girls who your commander says are to be shared out, 16,000 to the army and 16,000 to the rest of the families of Israel.

  Cowering in front of you is a mass of terrified humanity, tens and tens of thousands of women and boys, some are only just too young to have fought with their fathers and brothers, others are just babes in arms clinging to their mothers, blissfully unaware of their fate. Moses’ command from Yahweh is that every one of them is to be put to death.

  As your fellow soldiers unsheathe their swords and move towards the crowd there is a growing cacophony of screams. The women cover their children in a vain attempt to protect them from the massacre. Bodies are being dragged from the heap to uncover babies underneath so they too can be dispatched.

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  According to Perry this is an example of god's perfect balance of justice and mercy in action.
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  cofty

  Here is another actual incident that reflects god's perfection...

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  Moses has died and the leadership has passed on to Joshua. The nation has crossed the Jordan and the city of Jericho was defeated miraculously. The next military target is the city of Ai. Yahweh has assured Joshua that the city will be easily defeated and the army have been given permission to take spoils of war.

  Joshua has a plan and you are assigned to be part of a group of 30,000 of the best soldiers who are to sneak around the back of the city during the night and lie in wait. Joshua leads another section who moves out in front of the city gates towards Bethel. In the morning the men of Ai set out to repel Joshua’s frontal attack but the Israelite army flee with the Canaanite army in pursuit. With the city unguarded your section invades Ai and sets it on fire before marching out to help Joshua surround the men of Ai. The bluff works like a treat and victory is quick and decisive.

  Before anybody gets to search out any valuables there is a job to do. The army is commanded to first go through the city carefully searching every house and execute every last woman and child. As the soldiers of Jah kick doors open they find women and children cowering together pleading for their lives. They hack every last soul to death in cold blood.
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  Apognophos

  With all due respect, cofty, those examples are appeals to sentiment, but they aren't really different from the example that Perry already gave, i.e., the atomic bombings of Japan. I could describe those too in lurid detail, not that anyone wants to hear it. The convenience of the technology allowed the pilots of the two planes to avoid having to personally dispatch all those people, but it's not fundamentally different than if they had individually killed them with swords (except the dying was much slower for many of those victims).
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  AndDontCallMeShirley

  Perry: A government may have to make a distasteful decision to wipe out a community like hiroshima and nagasaki to limit the costlier causalty count of a land invasion against a totalitarian agressor.

  .

  Perry, you do realize that neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki were military bases, don't you? So, innocent people just quietly going about their lives to you are legitimate fodder for A-Bombs, nothing more than bodies worthy of vaporization? Your moral compass is truly f**ked up.

  .

  And, being that you completely ignored my earlier question, by your comment above I can safely conclude you are right on board with monsters in history like Hitler and Pol Pot. The massacre of millions of innocent people, including children, is completely acceptable, because your dickhead god Yahweh has already established the [im]moral precedent sanctioning such atrocities.

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  I guess what it boils down to, the underlying reason why Yahweh does what he does, is this:

  "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent". -Isaac Asimov

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  Since god has nothing to offer to compel most people to serve him, his only choice is to use violence to get his way.
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  AndDontCallMeShirley

  Perry: While we have a personal obligation to love our neighbor and our enemy for that matter, we also have a civic obligation to assist the government in the administration of justice. To the extent that a governments' idea of justice agrees with God, to that extent it will have God's blessing or eventual wrath.

  .

  Very few governments have ever committed any atrocity without simultaneously claiming god's backing and smile of approval on such atrocities.

  .

  Guess what, Perry? Nazis tried to excuse their participation in The Holocaust with a similar excuse as yours, and no one at the Nuremburg Trials bought that lame-assed excuse either. Everyone has a conscience, and you cannot absolve yourself by claiming someone else told you to do something that is morally reprehensible.

  .

  Carl Sagan said it best:

  "The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don’t like that statement, but few can argue with it."
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  never a jw

  Perry: "On the other hand if you accept the dictionary's definition of the word God, then likewise you cannot criticize God because you acknowledge his perfection, which would include his perfect judgments, and his perfect right to display his mercies and judgments according to his purposes, not yours"

  What the dictionary has to say about God are not necessarily God's qualities. He never let us know HIS qualities. Ever since we moved into a scientific age, or at least tried to replace superstition by more natural and rational explanations to phenomena, GOD no longer performs miracles, or talk to humans. Why would that be? i am sure you can come with an explanation, Christians alway have an answer for everything, and they don't seem to care how contradictory those various answers are.

  GOD's "qualities" are as inconsistent as the human minds which created him.