Jehovah told to Moses: "....kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man" (page 7)

oppostate

If you carefully read the verses discussed, you can see that God only instructed Moses to take vengeance against the Midianites for the wrong they did to Israel.

Since the Midianites were also Hebrews like the Israelites the battle laws against the Canaanites didn't apply.

Moses wife's family were Kenites that is from Midian.

It is Moses who gets all bent out of shape about the women and children being left alive and then orders to kill them.

It was not a command of God that the children and mothers should be slaughtered.

God did allow this to happen, but Moses was not allowed into the promised land especially for taking matters into his own hands.

Jesus, when discussing about the resurrection, said that Moses is the one that allowed for polygamy and divorce etc. although this was not the arrangement of God from the beginning.

yadda yadda 2

Jehovah told Moses my ass. Nothing but ancient Jewish priestcraft, scary stories made up to frighten the Israelites into behaving properly.

Doh!

hamsterbait

Oppostate -

this incident was NOT why god disallowed Moses entering the promised land. It was for saying that he was giving them water, not God, at Horeb.

and there are plenty of scriptures quoting gods words: " Let not you eye feel sorryetc" Jericho : Kill EVERYTHING, Joshua and Judges are full of these commands.

Stop excusing this vicious petulant psychopathic Sky Fairy.

ballistic

I didn't see this in "My Book of Bible Stories" ???

AndDontCallMeShirley

oppostate: It was not a command of God that the children and mothers should be slaughtered....God did allow this to happen

So what's the difference between ordering it or just standing apathetically by and watching it happen? God didn't have the power to stop it if he wanted to?

No matter how you argue it, god is a dick.

And, hamsterbait is correct. Moses was barred from the Promised Land because he didn't give enough credit to the egotistical, narcissistic, self-absorbed, vain, everyone-look-at-me god, Jehovah.

In a childish tantrum because he wasn't getting enough attention, Jehovah took it out on Moses. God had no problem with infanticide and genocide, but what really pissed him off was Moses allegedly stealing some if His thunder.

BU2B

If you see something horrible happening like a child being abused or raped you had the power to stop it but you choose to stand there and watch, not helping the child, are you much better than the perp? That is believers defence of God. He simply "allows" things to happen. How does that make it any better?

millie210

For many religious people, the "parameters" of what they feel able to question are determined by their existing beliefs.

That is a profiund statement. I think you could take the word "religious" out and it would still be a true statement.

Steve I really appreciate how you look at things from many angles.

It seems that it is like a prism. Things change depending on where you are standing.

I esp. appreciate you being willing to at least discuss something other than the easy conclusion any one can arrive at.

To me, the "truth" ( I am using this word in no way connected to JWs) is worth a hard look.

I am willing to suspend my natural outrage in search of it.

I can always add my human indignation at what my search reveals at any point cant I?

millie210

Thanks for adding to a discussion Oppostate.

Your post jarred an old memory in me about the whole connection to the Canaanite thing.

I guess about 15 years ago I was researching that...it seems (I am qualifying this statement so I wont get leapt on for not being stunningly correct)

it seems, that I remember reading the Canaanites had connections/roots going back to Noah's sons and the way that played out geographically as well as how they were viewed. By viewed I mean in the Bibles context of whether they had worship that was acceptable to God or not.

I don't remember all the details this long after however.

If anyone can educate me on that I would appreciate it.

On a different note,

War involves atrocity. People die. Its not pleasant. Most of us today are enjoying a civil life based on those wars having been fought.

Again. how do you judge the success of a war?

The Peloponnesian War, the genocide of the Khmer Rouge, or to bring it to a more modern context, Hitler, all shaped and changed the human story.

I cannot expect someone (if that someone exists) namely God, to use MY emotional sentiments when he has his own. His own being much more outside the limited context of time and wisdom I am able to use in my short time I have been around.

I don't find the analytical look at what he (the may or may not exist God) did to be threatening. I find it to be - if I can study it- enlightening.

I can always "hate him" later I guess. But first I want to understand.

hamsterbait

In modern times there were people prepared to stand up and protest war.

The Vietnam protesters spring to mind.

Think about the US invasions of the Phillipines, Cambodia (before Pol Pot) Indonesia. There were plenty of protesters. "God" did nothing.

problemaddict

Millie thanks for your response. I enjoy the back and forth. I am very much in a place where I don't know what I think and feel either. I've only not attended a meeting for just over a year. One thing I try not to do however, is squeeze things into a preconcieved way of thinking that may make me "feel better".

When I was an apologiust, I was interested in Gregs work as well. On a more basic level however, I have begun to question the reasonableness of taking the bible literally. Your analogies are apt. Defending ones family, killing domestic animals that are overunnign a community.....these are nuanced problems where context is always fluid.

However, I don't think they are analgous to a divine benevolent creator God. Like you siad, either these things happened or they didn't. The flood is a great example. You have to almost 100% go on fiaht to even consider such a thing happened, THEN you have to accept that God felt that slowly and painfull drowning every man woman and child on earth, as well as all animal life, while the demons that were apparently hanging around got to go back to heaven after causing the downfall of men........was morally ok?

Its simple. If I believe in a moral, personification of love type supreme being, then I do not believe that happened.

If i believe that happened, then I do not believe in a moraly superior personification of love creator God. I cannot be made in Gods image, in the image of the personification of love, and have a greater sense of justice than God in an imperfect state can I?

Jehovah told to Moses: "....kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man"

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