Stratos wrote on Sep 8^th, 2015 at 6:31pm:


Stratos,

OK, i'll play.





.





RESPONSE

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Leviticus 18:24
Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:
25  And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.
26  Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:
27  (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;)



Stratos,

The God of the ancient Israelites clearly hated the people of those nations.

I would offer, that your argument might go along the lines of;

'The God presented in the Old Testament, the God of the ancient Israelites, is a stupid and very cruel God, for commanding Israel to annihilate all of the people of all of the nations of the land of Canaan. And even if those nations were full of murderers, did their women and children deserve to be slaughtered too?'

QUESTION;
Scenario;
A sheep farmer discovers the lair of wolves that have been destroying his sheep.

Is the farmer going to shoot and destroy only the adult wolves, and allow the whelps to live [and perhaps care for, and feed the wolf whelps, until they attain adulthood] ?

No, i don't think so.

The farmer is going to kill the adult wolves along with the whelps.



Why so ?????

Because, a wolf is a wolf.

A wolf, has the nature, of a wolf.

It is a predator.




I suggest a 'comeback' line;

'But Yadda the people of those nations were not animals !'

No they were not.

They were human beings.

But the God of the ancient Israelites had determined that their evil and wickedness was so pervasive, that all of them needed to perish.

Harsh ?

Yes.

But was it justified ?

Righteous ?

The God of the ancient Israelites clearly thought that it was.



MORE.....

Stratos wrote on Sep 8^th, 2015 at 6:31pm:




Stratos,

I would offer, that your argument might go along the lines of;

"Ah, but even if we presuppose, that all of the people those nations were all/mostly murderers, we can clearly see [by what the God of the Israelites commanded] that the God of the Israelites is no better than, the murderers in those nations!"

Stratos,



Why so ?

Well, let us examine some of the laws of God, which had been set up to govern those very same Israelites.

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As the bible itself testifies;

The ancient Hebrews had no sanction from their God, to murder or to harm, those who were not Hebrews.

The ancient Hebrews had no sanction from their God, to oppress or to harm people, because they were Gentiles.



+++

Exodus 12:49
One law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.

Exodus 22:21
Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him...

Exodus 23:9
Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger...

Leviticus 19:33
And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.
34  But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself...

n.b.
.....and thou shalt love him as thyself

Leviticus 25:47-49
[these verses clearly speak of [and reveal that it was entirely 'lawful'] for Hebrews [themselves] to become bond servants [slaves], to prosperous strangers living among the Hebrews.]

Deuteronomy 1:16
And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.

Deuteronomy 10:17-19

For the LORD your God... loveth the stranger, ...Love ye therefore the stranger:

for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 24:17
Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow's raiment to pledge:
18  But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing.

Deuteronomy 27:19
Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger...



Stratos,

I would argue that the demonstrated and clear intent of such laws [above] [laws which were being imposed upon the Israelites, by the God of the Israelites], would tend to create a society which warmly accepted, and treated as equals, before the law, even peoples who were not Hebrews/Israelites.



Deuteronomy 4:6
Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.
7  For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?
8  And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?





++++++++





Hey Stratos, people like you, people who hold the views which people like you hold, NEED TO REPENT, to the spirit of God.

It is easy, you just say something like this, in your heart;
"Dear God, my creator, i am sorry for all of the mistakes, and for all of the poor choices that i have made in my life. Please, please forgive me! I want to be guided by YOUR loving, nuturing spirit. Please help me."


Hey Stratos, what was Jesus message to the world, to all men ?

John 4:24
God is a Spirit:...

This, was also Jesus message to all men --------- >

Isaiah 55:6
Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
7  Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.





Psalms 25:8
Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way.
9  The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.
10  All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.
11  For thy name's sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.
12  What man is he that feareth the LORD? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.

Love God, Keep his commandments = Christian

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1435998745/0#0

Stratos wrote on Sep 9^th, 2015 at 11:47am:


A slight change in the context of your senario;

If the same farmer found a family killing his sheep children [or found that the family intended to kill his children], and in the absence of a structure of lawful protection [i.e. a functioning justice system, with an enforcement arm,   i.e. effectively, living in a lawless 'environment'], would the farmer be justified to kill them all?


Stratos,

I believe that my response/answer would be different to yours.

Stratos wrote on Sep 9^th, 2015 at 11:47am:


There is a reason.

Search it out.

There is an reason, which seems apparent to me, if you have studied the 1st 5 books of the bible.

Myself, i am assuming that their death was required [and commanded],      because of their status,       due to the conduct of their [previous] owners.

Yadda wrote on Sep 9^th, 2015 at 11:53pm:


This right here is nuts.Yadda wrote on Sep 10^th, 2015 at 10:06am:


Religion is a buffet Yadda.  Not everyone is devout, not everyone is a fundamentalist, and not everyone ascribes to the cartoonish villain you seem to think being a Muslim necessitates.  Most people just have their own beliefs and go on their own way and live their lives. 

I could easily use scripture to say that Christians support slavery, that Jews support racism, but this has almost zero correlation with reality in which these beliefs are treated with the contempt they deserve, and in the same way that pretty much every Muslim I have ever met treats the sociopaths like suicide bombers.

Also most Christians don't seem to agree with your stance that genocide is ok, and murdering babies is a good thing.  See where fundamentalism gets us?  Nowhere.

Yadda wrote on Sep 9^th, 2015 at 11:30pm:


You have completely changed your argument into something completely different.

I gotta ask Yadda, if this fantasy scenario actually happened, would you be perfectly ok with murdering the entire family, including infants and then their pets for good measure?  Because that is basically what you are saying

Yadda wrote on Sep 10^th, 2015 at 10:51am:


You said that your God thinks it is just.  Do you agree with that?

Yadda wrote on Sep 10^th, 2015 at 10:51am:


my bad, I misread

I'm going to play devil's advocate

I don't know but I have a theory which could be the reason Canaan (humans and animals had to be totally obliterated)

The Canaanites rampantly practiced incest, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality.

Just looking at one of these perversions (bestiality) I imagine that Canaan was riddled with cross species viruses. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the entire population of Canaan were carriers of self created, incurable (6000 years ago), cross virus  diseases like syphilis influenza etc etc. etc..

The extract below is from a a Gov site


Cross-Species Virus Transmission and the Emergence of New Epidemic Diseases SOURCES OF NEW EPIDEMIC VIRUSES IN HUMANS AND OTHER ANIMALS

The major sources of new human viral diseases are enzootic and epizootic viruses of animals (149). We likely know only a small fraction of the viruses infecting wild or even domesticated animals (16, 18, 112, 139). The risks of such unrecognized viruses are highlighted by the emergence of SARS coronavirus (CoV), hantaviruses, Ebola and Marburg viruses, Nipah virus, Hendra virus, and human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and HIV-2, all cross-species host switches of established enzootic viruses that were unknown before their emergences into humans (40, 143, 145).

Today when we have outbreaks of cross species diseases, Govts around the globe carry out a mass extermination of the animals responsible.

Avian influenza, swine influenza a couple of examples.

Human beings have to be quarantined.

So maybe there was a higher purpose, the Bible says the Canaanites had become so filthy and depraved the earth had to vomit them out.

It was no good talking to the Ancient people about viruses and cross transmission, which we all understand today, these were Ancient illiterate simplistic people at the beginnings of the civilization we know today.

So the entire Canaan population (animal and human) had to be destroyed to save mankind.

I don't have a problem with God deciding to destroy his own creation - whenever and wherever He chooses.

What I can't reconcile with is having men do His "dirty work" for him - as was the case with the Biblical canaanites.

Slaughtering babies to "prove" yourself in the eyes of God just doesn't cut it for me.