How could you justify that God killed all firstborn children in Egypt? (page 2)

prologos

one could argue that it was pay-back-time for the genocide of the boys of israel (which Moses escaped),

but why dwell on these stories? it is not good bedtime reading for children. or adults.

Finkelstein

Just some more fictional mythological stories told by the ancient Hebrews to establish power and relevance to their own specific god.

To be truthful the bible is full of this kind of stories and they have pretty much the same original intent.

prologos

Finkelstein so true, it is hoped that future generations will not bother to stufy Goebbels, Pravda, Mao, Fox,- for clues to the secrets of the universe.

Zordino

You can't. Thankfully its just a fairy tale.

smiddy

iHow can you justify God/Jehovah/Yahweh`s committing genocide among so many nations ? Simply because they were living in a place he designated for the Israelites ? Unbeknown to them ?

The killing of all the first born children of Egypt is just a drop in the bucket compared to his other crimes against humanity .

smiddy

RichardHaley

So why did these children die for the sins of their fathers?

(Ezekiel 18:20) 20 The soul that is sinning—it itself will die. A son himself will bear nothing because of the error of the father, and a father himself will bear nothing because of the error of the son. . . .

(2 Chronicles 25:4) . . .And their sons he did not put to death, but [did] according to what is written in the law, in the book of Moses, that Jehovah commanded, saying: “Fathers should not die for sons, neither should sons themselves die for fathers; but it is each one for his own sin that they should die.”

Biblical evidence of new-lite principle.

Rattigan350

They would be dead by now already, so what difference would it make?

prologos

rattigan: speaking of dying anyway:-- true, in the STORY, they would die anyway because of the talking snake, but these deaths were NOT just anyway, they were caused by the lack of blood ---

(on the door frames of their parent's houses). so:

how do you justify concocting up a story like that?

BSW: The Israeltes would have died ANYWAY too, if they would not have been supplied with vittals from Egypt in the first place.

This seems to be a recurring theme here. I just keep wondering why (mostly atheists) keep thinking that believers need to justify anything that God does. Counting myself as a believer in God, and in the scriptures, I never even ask myself these questions. And certainly God doesn’t need to justify His actions to us anymore than our earthly fathers need to justify themselves to their young children in paying their taxes or making them eat broccoli instead of cake. The only difference is that God gives us more free agency than our earthly parents. Which brings us to Pharaoh.

Pharaoh had the free agency and the obligation to free the Israelites. God could have forced him to, but He didn’t. And if he and his court refused to release the Israelites from their forced labor, then the Lord chose to turn up the proverbial heat. As my dear old dad used to say, “You can lead a horse to water, and you can’t make him drink; but you can hold his head under the water until he damn well wish he had!”

When people and animals die, they simply move on to a different location. It’s only the grief of loss for those who remain behind that makes it so unbearable. And the Egyptians had it coming. The Lord warned them and forewarned them. It was only when they saw the southernmost part of the Israelites’ anatomies did they wish they had drunk the water rather than in refusing it. And they didn’t remain humble for long.

Now if there’s no God, all of this is undoubtedly fiction. In that case, the deaths of the eldest are as meaningless as the deaths of the youngest, so in that case there’s no argument to be made. But if the God of the Bible lives, then He has provided a way for all of us to find fulfillment in this life, and in the next. And don’t buy into that JW nonsense about when you’re dead, you’re dead; that the Lord resurrects people only to blow them to smithereens. Charles Taze Russell and the other leaders of the WTBTS simply bought into that miserable doctrine because when it was coined by the Adventists, they didn’t know any better. If God exists, then He is merciful, kind, just, all knowing, all powerful. Anytime the doctrines of men violate that, they either don’t know the details in why God does what He does, or they’ve got it wrong. In regard to the firstborn in Egypt, I believe it’s much more of the former than the latter. The spirits of those who passed on are now in the same place as those who were passed over. And it’s the perceived injustice of God that angers many of His critics today. And that misperception comes from an ignorance of all the details surrounding the event and/or the false teachings of men. And the WTBTS is responsible for its share in the latter. That’s why the scriptures state that when all of this is over, and we know all the facts, that “every knee shall bend and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.”

No one can change the minds of those who are determined to accuse God, but to those we have to justify nothing. Time will take care of that.

.

Cold Steel

Jehovah hardened Pharoah's heart to keep the Israelites enslaved......then punished him for doing so. If the story is real, and that is a big IF, then Jehovah is an a#$hat!

Yes, quite so. But I believe that is in error. The Bible didn't come to us in perfect form and there are numerous errrors. Jesus prayed to the Father that He would not lead us into temptation, but later the scriptures state: "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." (James 1:13) So why did the Lord allegedly say, "...lead us not into temptation"?

God would not be JUST if He hardened someone else's heart and caused them to do evil, for it is not in His nature to tempt men to do such.

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How could you justify that God killed all firstborn children in Egypt?

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