I literally just sat there with my mouth open. Sometimes the delusional mind of JWs takes steroids.
It was during the Draw close to Jehovah study where they praise the Mosaic law and how perfectly wonderful it was. You should have seen the almost giddy attitude the conductor had and the comments from the audience. The source material was bad enough, but the comments went even further.
One brother said something to the effect of, "In modern wars we see civilians involved in the conflict getting raped and killed, it was not like that with Jehovahs army, they only killed when Jehovah told them to. They were pagans so they deserved to die!" WTF?? What a contadiction. He drew a comparison to modern wars that involve civilians, trying to say that Jehovahs not like that, yet they went from city to city killing everyone man and beast!
I also did not like that they claimed that the Israelites did not rape. While they may not have done it on the spot, in many cases the virgins were forced to marry the very soldiers they just witnessed kill their parents and siblings. They could pick out those "beautiful in form" "all who they chose" What if she did not want to have sex with her new husband? He wouldnt force himself on her would he?
Another comment went something like this- "We see armies of the past like the Gauls, Mongols, Attila the Hun. They went from city to city brutalizing people and slaughtering them and taking the women. Jehovahs army was loving. They offered surrender and only killed them if they refused!" WTF?? I must have missed where they gave the cannanites the chance to surrender.. In fact as I recall, Joshua got pretty pissed when the Gibeonites devised their plan to avoid being slaughtered like animals!
Even when I believed, such comments would seem to me to come from mentally comprimised persons.
In the paragraph it said that unlike other armies of the time, they did not engage in wanton slaughter!! How do they figure that? No explanation for that one..
It was sick to see people in the 21st century justify such stone age thinking. The whole lesson was sick. They praise a law that advocated slavery, torture and capital punishment for disrespecting your parents. JWs really want to be under the law so bad, they wish they could be. They enjoy living under the modern day talmud of the WT.
On the bright side, many did not raise their hands and I suspect a good portion had the same thoughts I did. I know for a fact that many JWs struggle with the barbarism of the OT. I know I did. Unlike other religions, the GB do not try to forget about the barbarism, they highlight it and praise it as good!