If you're bothered by god murdering innocent children, you must have a "critical heart"

by OneEyedJoe 28 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Vidiot

  "Many atheists criticise the Bible and seek to cast Jehovah in a bad light, perhaps objecting to Jehovah's many commands to the Israelites to kill every man woman and child in certain surrounding nations. How wonderful it is that Jehovah had the Bible written in such a way that we can discern that anyone raising such criticism simply does not have the proper heart condition."

  This almost seems like something you'd find on the "Jehovah's Trumpet" satire site.

  "So if you're bothered by genocide, or the murder of innocent infants, it's simply because you have a critical heart and aren't deserving of salvation."

  If the sanctioning of genocide and the murder of innocents is what one requires to deserve salvation, I'll pass, thanks.
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  OneEyedJoe

  Can somebody give me the physical reference to what literature the OP's quotes are from?
  

  Sorry, it was sloppy of me to leave that out.  It was from "Draw Close To Jehovah" Chapter 18, paragraph 17.  You can get it on the cult website.
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  James Brown

  Ecclesiastes says with Wisdom comes sorrow.

   
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  sparrowdown

  @Vidiot - "if the sanctioning of genocide..........is what one requires to deserve salvation, I'll pass, thanks."

  xactly!
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  Cold Steel

  What proof do you have that the atrocities in the bible were done by God, or that the Canaanites were evil? The self serving accounts written by the Israelites? Of course they claimed the Canaanites were evil, all warring nations demonize the enemy to make it easier to brutally kill them.

  Well...history for one. How do we know there was a Troy, or Mycenae? How do we know that Jerusalem wasn't destroyed in 607 B.C.? We know quite a bit about their religion and we know that it was popular with the young people in Israel's ranks. There were plenty of infants to sacrifice because of the sexually profligate nature of their fertility rites. These religions spread throughout the region and were still popular in ancient Carthage when the Romans declared war on them; and after three major campaigns, the victorious Roman soldiers knocked down the city's walls, killed or sold into slavery its people and sowed the entire region with salt so that nothing would grow. On the other hand, the Greeks and Romans of the times didn't sacrifice people to the gods. And many of their laws, combined with the laws instituted in the Mosaic law, were adopted by the founders of the U.S. Constitution into its laws and practices.
  

  Newsflash! According to archaeology the Israelites actually were Canaanites. The Bible says god abhors human sacrifice and child sacrifice. What about all of Egypt's first born in the ten plagues? What about Jephthah's daughter (show me where it says she served at the the temple). What about Jesus' human sacrifice? You need to free your mind and let your neocortex work to see the Bible is one huge contradiction. 

  Only if you don't know much about it. Regarding Jephthah's daughter, show me where she was offered as a human sacrifice. Jephthah certainly knew about the law of Moses and the Lord's strict laws against it. Still, here's an apologetic article on it if you truly are interested in it. (Sadly most people who begin their posts with the term "Newsflash" tend to be only interested in flinging out objections.) Regarding Jesus' sacrifice, that's what all the animal sacrifices pointed to down through the years, particularly the lamb without blemish. God is a God of justice and mercy. Justice demanded a blood sacrifice if mercy was to be shown.

  As Jesus explained, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." Also, see Isaiah 53.

  
  

  
  
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  Cold Steel

  Cofty: Your approval of infanticide is morally repugnant. You are a great advert for the cult of Mormonism.
  

  I do not approve of infanticide. And even if I did, in your view it could not be morally repugnant because there is no God to set the standards of morality. Also, I am a great proponent of Mormonism. If there is no penalty or eternal consequence, there is no law. As the Book of Mormon prophet Alma wrote:

  Now, how could a man repent except he should sin? How could he sin if there was no law? How could there be a law save there was a punishment? Now, there was a punishment affixed, and a just law given, which brought remorse of conscience unto man. ...if there was no law given—if a man murdered he should die—would he be afraid he would die if he should murder? And also, if there was no law given against sin men would not be afraid to sin. And if there was no law given, if men sinned what could justice do, or mercy either, for they would have no claim upon the creature? But there is a law given, and a punishment affixed, and a repentance granted; which repentance, mercy claimeth; otherwise, justice claimeth the creature and executeth the law, and the law inflicteth the punishment; if not so, the works of justice would be destroyed, and God would cease to be God.  —Alma 42:17-22

  If there is no God, then there can be no law; so where else can the law come? From men. But men aren't consistent in their laws or moral outlooks. In the Canaanite religions, it was okay to commit infanticide and to combine it with torture and to have orgies as part of the religious order. If there's no God, then the laws of men could be reprehensible to me, but A-Okay with our society. In either way, Cofty, what gives you the right to set the precepts of morality? Or to condemn the infanticide of the Canaanites? I could feed kittens to bulldogs and who could condemn it if I thought it was okay? The only way man instinctively knows right from wrong is through the Light of Christ, which is given to all men. And you condemn the author of that light which you misuse to judge God which is the greatest irony of your argument.

  Godsend+: If God is all powerful, why doesn't He....?
  

  Oh, yes, this is the card all atheists play to show that God is evil because He doesn't put an instant end to all suffering. One only need to read the scriptures to understand. God cannot and will not rob man of his free agency. No matter what happens on Earth, no power here can cause us permanent harm. We're here for a reason and must use our moral agency for either good or evil. "That every man may act in doctrine and principle...according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment." He cannot stop evil any more than Satan can stop good. "Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light." Thus, it is up to us to establish righteousness on the earth and if we fail to live up to that end, we are accountable, not God. 
  

  
  
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  BluesBrother

  From the c/d rom "Draw Close chapt 18

   But in these descriptive accounts, the Bible does not always spell out all the details. (John 21:25) For example, when the Bible tells of God’s judgment, the information provided may not answer our every question. Jehovah’s wisdom is seen even in what he chose to leave out of his Word. How so?
  17 The way in which the Bible is written serves to test what is in our heart. Hebrews 4:12 says: “The word [or, message] of God is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit . . . and is able to discern thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The Bible’s message pierces deep, revealing our true thinking and motives. Those who read it with a critical heart are often stumbled by accounts that do not contain enough information to satisfy them. Such ones may even question whether Jehovah really is loving, wise, and just.
  18 In contrast, when we make a careful study of the Bible with a sincere heart, we come to see Jehovah in the context in which the Bible as a whole presents him. Hence, we are not disturbed if a particular account raises some questions to which we cannot find immediate answers. To illustrate: When piecing together a large puzzle, perhaps we cannot at first find a particular piece or we cannot see how a certain piece fits in. Yet, we may have assembled enough of the pieces to grasp what the complete picture must look like. Similarly, when we study the Bible, little by little we learn about the kind of God Jehovah is, and a definite picture emerges. Even if we cannot at first understand a certain account or see how it fits in with God’s personality, our study of the Bible has already taught us more than enough about Jehovah to enable us to see that he is unfailingly a loving, fair, and just God.

  
  
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  OneEyedJoe

  I do not approve of infanticide. And even if I did, in your view it could not be morally repugnant because there is no God to set the standards of morality. Also, I am a great proponent of Mormonism. If there is no penalty or eternal consequence, there is no law. As the Book of Mormon prophet Alma wrote:
  

  The assertion that god is required for morality is completely unsupported.  infanticide is wrong not because god says so, but because I myself was once an infant and I wouldn't much have liked to have been killed.  If you need a penalty or eternal consequence not to behave like an evil person, then that just means you're an evil person and a wuss.

  If there is no God, then there can be no law; so where else can the law come? From men. But men aren't consistent in their laws or moral outlooks. In the Canaanite religions, it was okay to commit infanticide and to combine it with torture and to have orgies as part of the religious order. If there's no God, then the laws of men could be reprehensible to me, but A-Okay with our society. In either way, Cofty, what gives you the right to set the precepts of morality? Or to condemn the infanticide of the Canaanites? I could feed kittens to bulldogs and who could condemn it if I thought it was okay? The only way man instinctively knows right from wrong is through the Light of Christ, which is given to all men. And you condemn the author of that light which you misuse to judge God which is the greatest irony of your argument. 
  

  I, for one, am quite grateful that men aren't consistent in their laws and moral outlooks.  If they'd stuck with it, then rape would still be a viable way to choose your wife (read your bible, if an isrealite rapes a woman he gets to marry her and she has no say) and we'd be stoning people to death because their father stole a robe.  There are certainly many laws that I find reprehensible, but other support.  why is that proof that god exists?  Everyone has the right to determine their own morality, just so long as it doesn't interfere with the reasonable rights of others.  

  You make a blind assertion that instinctive morality can only come from god, I make the evidence-based assertion that instinctive morality comes from evolution.  Species that didn't have some instinctive desire to help each other out and not kill their own kind likely went extinct pretty quickly.  It doesn't take much thought to conclude that morality is an important aspect of human (and many animals') nature and without it we would not have survived as a species.  What evidence do you have that god is the origin of morality?  Just going to stick with your argument from incredulity?
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  cofty

  Cofty, what gives you the right to set the precepts of morality?

  You are an apologist for a god who ordered the cold-blooded murder of thousands of infants.

  If you need to ask why that is immoral you are beyond all hope.

  Real ethics requires that we first dispose of any notion of a divine law-giver.