by Spectrum 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
So why couldn't that same angel wipe out the bad Canaanites overnight, and then make the land safe from wild animals, etc., so that "God's people" could take over the promised land?
So Israelites could practice violating the 6th commandment? It's funny how quickly a JW will bring up "thou shalt not kill" when speaking of today's military.
Because the Israelites were directly instructed by God to act as executioners of his righteous judgments against demon-worshiping peoples, whose worship included gross sexual immorality and child sacrifice.—Deuteronomy 7:1-5; 2 Chronicles 28:3."
Yuck! All I can say after reading this thread is, "I don't like Jeehoober."
Blondie, That was right to the point of the JW thinking and reasoning.
Still if anyone were to give it more than a few minutes thought we all know they would see it for what it was genocide of innocent people in the name of religion.
Of my course I have to wonder too just how much of the bible is historically accurate. Did the Jew's actually do any of the stories in the bible. We'll probably never know for sure unless science can come up with a way to see the past through time travel. Wouldn't that be cool to actually travel back and observe. Of course then that brings up all kinds of other set of problems. LOL
Balsam
It's political propoganda from many centuries later...from a time when the Canaanite origins of most of the Jews had been long forgotten. This is apparent even from comparing the book of Judges with Joshua, in that one book presents the wars as complete annihilation and the other presents them as far from successful. These are stories that reinforced nationalist ideology at a time when they faced threats from other foreign powers. One can compare the military propaganda of Assyria and Egypt to find tales of enormous casualties wrecked on opponents even when there were defeats.
Leolaia,
That could very well be true but I think the point is that the bible sets this up as divine killing and destruction which is then adopted by jews, moslems and christian as a good thing. Their acceptance though immediately exposes them as apologists for such attrocities and as such must be rejected if you have any sense of justice and love in you.
Makes me realise how truly unquestioning I was, even though I thought of myself as a critical thinker.
How I swallowed all that GUFF is unbelievable.
How I swallowed all that GUFF is unbelievable.
Couldn't agree more with that statement!! Spectrum, maybe it's old hat to say this now but have you read 'Jehovah Unmasked' by Nathan Merritt? If not i recommend it to you. Some of it has to be taken with a pinch of salt IMO, but it's also very enlightening too. The Insight book estimates that the number of people killed in just the first 7 nations the Israelites came across was 3 million. Again.....3 MILLION!! As i've said on similar threads, there is NEVER, NEVER any excuse for killing children and babies. Why did god make them do it? Did he? Or did a genocidal human leader poison the minds of impressionable minions to carry out his perverted cause?? Hmmm....Hitler wasn't the first by a long chalk.
Peace
Lowden
So, if child sacrifice was so bad in itself, then what did this thing about testing Abraham suggest? Also - was not nailing christ to the cross a child sacrifice in a sense ( I know, he was at least 30, but still the son of God...). Also, the Israelites fought some pretty vicious wars against people who did not sacrifice children - maybe they just worshipped cows or some such.
Double standards, anyone?
James
Yessiree, double standards alright. I understand about punishment, i administered it to my children at times when they were younger, when they needed a sharp tap in the right direction. But this...THIS IS THE WORK OF AN EEEEVIL GOD! No argument.
Peace
Lowden
*Applause for Leolaia*
I like what lowden said there about the Insight book - three million local inhabitants slaughtered by one million Israelites (I believe that's the commonly asserted figure) in one of history's most colossal ethnic migrations, a vast, violent, destructive demographic shift larger even than the horrific flight of ethnic Germans before the Soviet armies in 1945, larger than the enormous movements of people over the borders of India and Pakistan after the 1947 partition, maybe on a par with the great Indo-Aryan migrations of the Bronze Age! Pretty dramatic stuff.
Of course what the Bible doesn't tell you is how Jehovah subsequently tampered with all the archaeological evidence to deliberately make it look like ancient Israel was nothing but a dirt-poor backwater with a population of only a few hundred thousand people, perpetually subject to domination by richer and more populous civilizations in Mittani, Egypt, or Anatolia. Or how he erased all the material evidence for the Exodus and conquest (since none exists now) and then went so far as to plant evidence that directly contravenes the account in his own inspired writings, just to throw us off and test our faith in his divine judgement.
Read Redford and Finklestein. The genocides never happened. They are fiction. It's a moot point - or at least it would be if the insane fundie lunatics of the world didn't insist on applying this falsified "history" to our own time.
