Comment Thread for The Resurrection of Jesus - Apologiaphoenix vs Gary

[Gary]

As the pod cast pointed out, ordinarily, there are things that are reprehensible, but there are times when the reprehensible can become justifiable.

I won't use the example that was presented in the pod-cast.

Ordinary circumstances - killing a man and eating him would be immoral, unjust, and vicious. However, I can envisage circumstances where "ordinarily" would not apply.
I can't envisage circumstances where wholesale killing of babies and small children could be justified. So - I'll just assume that my abilities to comprehend and evaluate valid reasons are somewhat less than are God's.

Ok, I understand what you are saying. But still I ask that you consider this:

What if there is a Creator, but that Creator chooses to operate within the laws of nature that he (she or it) created? And for some unknown reason, after creating the universe, the Creator then stepped back and let nature take its course, choosing not to intervene. So the slaughters of little children described in the Old Testament occurred not because our Creator ordered it, but because superstitious people imagined that the Creator had ordered them to do it. Therefore these horrific, barbaric acts are not the moral responsibility of our Creator but of ignorant ancient peoples. Isn't that a much more rational approach to the evidence than to contort your own morality by giving up on your ability to evaluate what is good and what is bad, and defer this decision to an invisible, ancient Hebrew god named Yahweh??

[psstein]

The fundy atheist talking points are getting rather irksome.

I don't think Gary has had a single original thought this entire thread.

[Christianbookworm]

Indeed. Please be more creative, Gary! You're boring!

[Gary]

What if the only other option was to leave them in the desert to die a slow death? The Israelites didn't have the resources to care for those kids and living in Ancient times meant dying young period. Sometimes, you have to shoot the dog.

Dear Wormy,

I would encourage you to go back and read the story of the Amalekites. The reason that Yahweh was mad at the Amalekites is that the Amalekites had refused to allow the Hebrews to pass through their land (as they traveled from Egypt and the Sinai on their way to taking other peoples land in Canaan). Over three hundred years later, Yahweh decides its time to get even. He then orders the current leader of the Hebrews, Saul, to slaughter every man, woman, elderly grandfather and grandmother, teenager, child, toddler, and infant (along with all their animals). How many of these people had participated in the horrific crime of refusing to allow the Hebrews to trespass on their land?

Answer: Zero.

Is it ever moral to kill the distant descendants of people who have offended you; people who did not participate in the original offense??

[Apologiaphoenix]

Drink!

[tabibito]

Ok, I understand what you are saying. But still I ask that you consider this:

What if there is a Creator, but that Creator chooses to operate within the laws of nature that he (she or it) created? And for some unknown reason, after creating the universe, the Creator then stepped back and let nature take its course, choosing not to intervene. So the slaughters of little children described in the Old Testament occurred not because our Creator ordered it, but because superstitious people imagined that the Creator had ordered them to do it. Therefore these horrific, barbaric acts are not the moral responsibility of our Creator but of ignorant ancient peoples. Isn't that a much more rational approach to the evidence than to contort your own morality by giving up on your ability to evaluate what is good and what is bad, and defer this decision to an invisible, ancient Hebrew god named Yahweh??

The discussion did not cover that ground - the premise was that God ordered it. So treating it even as a hypothetical, the answer could only be what I have given. Of course, it may be that someone more competent than I could envisage a plausible scenario that would justify genocide: but it is beyond my abilities.

[Christianbookworm]

The Amalekites did more than just refuse them passage. They attacked the stragglers and did raids on the Israelites. They were a nomadic group that raided others for survival. http://christianthinktank.com/rbutcher1.html

Summary statements:



The case of Amalek does not conform to known patterns of genocide, and therefore cannot legitimately be so called.
Constructing a logical contradiction (disproving God's existence) in this case would be exceptionally difficult (at best).
We have real-life trade-off decisions involving human life that create a presumption against the unilateral application of the "to kill a child is always unjust" without qualification or situational variance.
The Amalekites had a long and violent history of aggression against early Israel (and other nations as well), raiding, plundering, and kidnapping them for slave trade.
The biblical descriptions and accounts about the Amalekite situation have earmarks of authenticity in themselves (e.g. verisimilitude) and control data from the ANE increase the overall credibility of these foreign-descriptions considerably beyond initial 'historical skepticism'.
Nomadic groups such as the Amalekites were violent and terrifying problems all over the ancient world.
The innocents were not guilty of their fathers' sins, and anything that happened to them as a consequence of military action against the warrior class could not be construed as a punishment on the innocents.
There was a solid line of anti-Semitic and misanthropic treachery/behavior by successive generations of Amalekites.
The fate of the innocents was a direct result of the horrible actions of their leaders--the warrior class.
Amalek's acceptance into Israelite society is a clear indication of a non-genocidal military action against a specific location of Amalek.
The military action was designed to completely eliminate the Amalekite presence in the desert, and the only option was wholesale destruction of the warrior/military population.
There were only a couple of options as to what should be the fate of the Amalekite dependents.
There were no options to absorb the people into Israel, and there were no options for welfare, or relief programs in the ANE.
The only two choices were leave them to die slowly/agonizingly or kill them quickly/violently.
People themselves normally chose to die quickly (i.e., in cases of individual suicide or group suicide) rather than go into foreign slavery or lingering torturous death (at the hands of others or at the mercy of the harsh environment and times).
God chose for them to die quickly, rather than the prolonged suffering scenarios of dehydration, starvation, exposure.
The ancients considered suicide/euthanasia for anticipated (but only for certain-to-occur) extreme and terminal sufferings to be morally acceptable.
The amount of atrocity and terror and violence done by the Amalekites to the Israel over those centuries would VASTLY DWARF the actions of Israel in that one final battle.
In modern situations and times, this action against the innocents could likely be considered "war crimes", but in the radically different ANE/desert situation, the label of 'war crimes' would not make sense. [It was much more of a euthanasia-type of action.]
To expect God to do a random miraculous events on a frequent basis in cases like this is unwarranted by the biblical portrayal of God.
The Lifeboat Ethics problem demonstrates the complexity (and emotional difficulty) of big-picture and large-scale governance issues.
The Lifeboat Ethics problem also demonstrates that some types of killing are more humane that others (with application to our case).





So, as in the emotionally-churning alternatives of the Lifeboat, I am forced to say (with heavy heart, but probably not nearly as heavy as God's was that day--judgment has always grieved God--He knows all about the sorrow of governance, believe me) that the swift death of the innocents, in the context of a certain and much-more-suffering death in the desert, was the most merciful and least tragic course of action...



source: above link

[Gary]

Approximately nine months before my deconversion, I attended a Sunday worship service at the church that sponsored my children's Christian school. The auditorium was packed with all the cute little children who gave a singing performance prior to the pastor's sermon. Guess what his sermon was about: The Slaughter of the Amalekites!

He began his sermon by reading the passage in the Bible regarding this story. When he had finished, he closed his Bible, and said, "Now, today this seems really terrible to us to slaughter all these people, especially the little children, but those days were a different time, and therefore it was ok."

As I sat there looking at all those cute little kids up on the stage, I thought to myself, "Is it ever moral to chase down little children and chop their little bodies into pieces??" I squirmed in my pew. The thought made me really uncomfortable. A terrible, forbidden thought entered my mind: "Maybe God (Yahweh) isn't just and good after all. Maybe He is really vindictive, sadistic, and downright evil."

"That just can't be true," I said to myself. "The Bible says that God (Yahweh) is just, merciful, and good. He can't be sadistic and evil. I must trust his judgment."

A few weeks later, I and my two young children were driving in my car listening to children's Bible stories on CD, as was our usual custom. The story on the CD that day was about Noah and the Flood. When the narrator started describing the rain and flooding, my seven year old asked me, "Daddy. Did God drown all the little children too?"

"Yes." I said. "God drowned them because they were evil."

My son replied, "So its ok with God to drown children who are bad?"

"Well, well..." I stammered. "It was different in those days. God wouldn't do that today." (...or would he, I thought to myself).

...Rational thinking was beginning to seep into my indoctrinated brain.

"Little children should NEVER be drowned or chopped to pieces for being 'bad'"

[Gary]

The Amalekites did more than just refuse them passage. They attacked the stragglers and did raids on the Israelites. They were a nomadic group that raided others for survival. http://christianthinktank.com/rbutcher1.html

This same mentality was used to justify the slaughter of little native American babies, boys, girls, women, and helpless old people in the massacre at Sand Creek. "Those evil Indians deserved it!"

There is never any justification for hunting down and slaughtering helpless children, women, and old people.

Never.

[Christianbookworm]

Don't you dare read that whole christianthinktank article! Or the other articles discussing your concerns. And I call horsie poo on the idea of a children's sermon covering the wars in the OT.

[Gary]

Don't you dare read that whole christianthinktank article! Or the other articles discussing your concerns. And I call horsie poo on the idea of a children's sermon covering the wars in the OT.

People who commit atrocities will find every justification they can to excuse their immoral, barbaric behavior. We see it today in the Japanese government's refusal to truly apologize for its brutal war crimes in WWII. We see it in the government of Turkey refusing to describe the mass execution of over one million Armenians in WWI a genocide. And we see it in Christians who refuse to describe the actions of their god, Yahweh, as barbaric, sadistic acts of genocide and infanticide.

[Gary]

The Amalekites did more than just refuse them passage. They attacked the stragglers and did raids on the Israelites. They were a nomadic group that raided others for survival. http://christianthinktank.com/rbutcher1.html

Below is a video of a Christian giving justifications for Yahweh ordering the dismemberment of the little bodies of Amalekite infants and young children by his "chosen" people. Dear readers: Substitute a couple of words in this video and see if you continue to agree that in some situations it is moral and good to dismember the bodies of infants and children with a spear or axe.

For God or Yahweh = Allah

God's people = fundamentalist Muslims

Let see how consistent you are in applying your "objective" moral standards.

And here is a rational response by Sam Harris to the absurd, immoral thinking:

[Christianbookworm]

The scenarios are completely different. The Amalekites were raiders who continually harrrassed settled inhabitants and stole their stuff. Ancient times were a tough time that we don't live in anymore.

[Gary]

The scenarios are completely different. The Amalekites were raiders who continually harrrassed settled inhabitants and stole their stuff. Ancient times were a tough time that we don't live in anymore.

Would you favor slaughtering all the infants and young children of the raiders and marauders of today, such as ISIS? Would it be moral to kill all the little children of these evil people?

[Christianbookworm]

Would you favor slaughtering all the infants and young children of the raiders and marauders of today, such as ISIS? Would it be moral to kill all the little children of these evil people?

We have buttload more resources than the Ancient Israelites ever had, so we could take those kids in and teach them how not to be a fundy.