The saddest thing about the Bible's violence is its indiscriminate character, especially that which is depicted in the Old Testament. Most people who take the Bible literally would rather attack the motives of people who question the Bible's genocide-approving content that seriously grapple with the disgusting immorality of killing every living soul in a nation - sanctioning such destruction because (?) humans are so bad, even young babies?!! Talk about warped morals!
THE BIBLE ADVOCATES GENOCIDE?
by steve2 16 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
-
uwishufish
Did Jehovah realy fly a space ship into the Tower of Bable and the radiation fry the brains of the inhabitances so that their speach was uninteligable?
-
smiddy
Could any reasonably intelligent person honestly agree that every single person, young and old, was deserving of death ,in the various cities where GOD, by whatever name you want to call him commits/authourises genocide to the inhabitants ?
We are so far removed from perfection today ,according to watchtower theology,think of the most sinfull city anywhere on earth and I gaurantee their are multitudes of good honest hearted people living their also who are not deserving of being put to death.And the same would be true thousands of years ago .
I thought raising this subject would be good for lurkers and newbies to ponder .
smiddy
-
BU2B
Good points. I always struggled with this even when I was mentally in. I could never really "Love Jehovah" like I was told to because I found what he ordered done extremely disturbing at best. If I had a human father who did the things "Jehovah" does, I would probably kill him in his sleep. Too dangerous to be kept alive.
-
steve2
The best answer I've ever got to this disturbing question is the one that begins, "Who the hell are you (Steve) " and ends " to dare to question the True God's morality!"
That is the level of thinking the question elicits in the "True" "god's legion of mindless followers. No thanks to "god" for our having human rights to offer some grim protection from absurdly literal Biblical believers.
-
adamah
Of course, the explanation as to why genocide was allowed (or even required) it that Jews didn't consider Gentiles to be members of 'the tribe', and hence Mosaic Law applied only for how to treat one's fellow members of the Mosaic blood covenant (which was ratified in Exodus 24, with Moses splattering animal blood over the crowd, thus binding them to the Law in a covenant to be the chosen ones). So "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (as found in the 10 commandments, and elsewhere in the Torah) didn't apply to blood of the common public enemy spilled during war, and such blood spilled was even given a special term: 'war blood' (Hebrew words are 'deme milhamah', eg 1st Kings 2:5).
Spilling 'war blood' incurred no blood-guilt (damim) for the participants, or for the Jewish community as a whole.
Of course, Xians tried to rehabilitate OT Jehovah as the Father of ALL humanity to sell him to an international audience, a God was really concerned about the lives of ALL peoples of all Nations, regardless of the race, creed, or National origin. Mmmm, yeah, OK?
The funny thing is everyone knows the Philistines, the "bad guys" who always threatened the "good guys" (God's Chosen People) on their Southern coastal border? The Philistines likely were Aegeans, possibly from Crete:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/456536/Philistine
Philistine, one of a people of Aegean origin who settled on the southern coast of Palestine in the 12th century bc , about the time of the arrival of the Israelites. According to biblical tradition (Deuteronomy 2:23; Jeremiah 47:4), the Philistines came from Caphtor (possibly Crete). They are mentioned in Egyptian records as prst, one of the Sea Peoples that invaded Egypt in about 1190 bc after ravaging Anatolia, Cyprus, and Syria. After being repulsed by the Egyptians, they occupied the coastal plain of Palestine from Joppa (modern Tel Aviv–Yafo) southward to the Gaza Strip. The area contained the five cities (the Pentapolis) of the Philistine confederacy (Gaza, Ashkelon [Ascalon], Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron) and was known as Philistia, or the Land of the Philistines. It was from this designation that the whole of the country was later called Palestine by the Greeks.
Adam