The "Horrific God" Charge

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
we only know the hebrew's side of the story.

Could it be that only [b]combatants were singled out in the slaughtering ?
Some scholars say this could be the case.

you make an intriguing concept, but there are some flaws with it.

first, let's develop the context.

1 sa 15:2 - 3 the hebrew tribal deity is out for vengeance once again, i point out that you only have the hebrew-biased version of the story.[/b]

we only know the hebrew's side of the story.

Like we only have the Hebrew side of the story about herioic King David's adultery and murder ?

Like we only have the Hebrew side of the story in God being so disgusted at Israel that prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are FILLED with divine words of chastizement, forsaking them, punishing them, sending them AWAY from the Promised Land and off to Babylon ?

You mean like we only have the Hebrew side of the story on those accounts too ?

you make an intriguing concept, but there are some flaws with it.

first, let's develop the context.

1 sa 15:2 - 3 the hebrew tribal deity is out for vengeance and he orders saul to exterminate the amalekites... to "utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. "

that seems definite right there already: kill.everything.that.moves.

" The Amalekites attacked the Israelites without apparent provocation as they were travelling during the Exodus (Ex 17:8). [b] "When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind" (Dt 25:17-18). " Glenn Miller [/b]

1 sa 15:4 so saul raises 210 000 troops (WOW!). did i say wow already?
i mean wow. this is quiet a feat considering the average army of the area consisted of several thousand warriors, with a few thousand more in auxiliaries. even rome at the height of its power would have had difficulties raising that many troops on a whim to settle some petty tribal dispute.

A nations witnesses an act of another nation being led by God out of Egypt, miraculously across the Red Sea, and astoundingly through the wilderness for 40 years only to attack them from behind in a most cowardly way.

I don't think God regarded it only as a tribal dispute though it is mentioned what they did to the tribe. By the time we get to First Samuel God is dealing with a fiercly unrepentant nation.

"The revenge was in fact punishment from God on an unrepentant nation. As noted above, they were given ample time to change their ways. While it was the descendents of the original attackers who were punished, they led the same evil lifestyle that their ancestors had (and possibly one that was worse - in dealing with evil nations in the OT, God often withheld punishment until their wickedness reached a particularly high level). Furthermore, it was God who was avenging the Israelites, not the Israelites themselves. God, who has perfect knowledge, wisdom and justice, has the authority to avenge; humans, including the Israelites, do not have this authority." - Glenn Miller

1 sa 15:5 -- and saul does as ordered, but not quiet. he's a bit greedy and wants to keep the animals. after all, animals = wealth. and the king, probably to ransom him or use him as bait to capture the remnants of the amalekites who slipped through his fingers.

Never heard the "bait" theory. If the remaining people lived outside of the fortress they would probably have their own animals.

Me:

The "city of Amalek" (1 Sam. 15:5) was probably a fortified military eencampment.

You:
no. the politics of the region consisted of 'city-states.' amalek would have been a typical walled city with outlying farmlands. when invaders approach, the farmers take their livestock and flee, either behind the protection of the city walls, or to another, friendly city.

Paul Copan says the Amalekites were a nomadic people.

in the case of amalek there seemed to be another tribe holed up in there but they were allowed to go free without harassment.

Somehow one way or another, some had to have gone free. Agag, had a descendent still alive to fight Israel another day another way in the book of Esther. And other Amalekites existed for David to be able to pursue them latter in the book of First Samuel. So we should to understand the intructions of the utter destruction of them to have some unrecorded but understood limits.

me:

I showed that they were not totally exterminated though a story makes it sound as if only their king Agaq was the only one left alive. He wasn't the only one left as others lived to relentlessly oppose Israel on another day.


genocide is a tough gig. people get away in the confusion of the slaughter.

It wasn't genocide. The details of the event would not match in all respects those wars designated in the 20th and 21rst Century as genocide. Though the punishment was harsh we should also compare the Amalekites' defeat to modern designated "genocides" :


". Even in the little section on the Amalekites, the description of the situation doesn't even come close to what we consider 'genocide' today. Most (but not all) things considered genocide today involve groups internal to the country in question, and they were either killed outright by their own government (sometimes slowly through torture and abuse) or deported to a place of sure-to-kill-them environment.

Academic definitions of genocide exclude combat deaths and noncombatants that die as a by-product of military action. It generally denotes the deliberate killing of someone solely because of their indelible group membership (indelible is the term used for race, ethnicity, nationality etc.--that characteristics that are 'indelible'😉. [For one of the major authorities on this subject, see the work of R.J. Rummel ...


The government of the Ottoman Empire deported two-thirds or more of its estimated 1-1.8M Armenian citizens during WWI. They were forced into the deserts of present-day Syria, and most died due slowly to starvation and dehydration. This was an internal group that was forced out of the country into the desert to die.

The Nazi genocidal actions against the Jews, the Roma, etc. were also initially targeted at internal people.

During WW2, the government of Croatia killed an estimated 200-350K of its internal Serbian citizens.

Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia killed 31% of its own population, apprx 2 million people (although some of this would be considered 'democide' and based on 'delible' characteristics such as political alignment, instead of 'genocide' proper).

In Rwanda, between 500k-1M of the Tutsi ethnic group (all internal) were killed by the Hutu ethnic group (fighting had been going on between them for some time).


Notice how extremely different these are from the case of the Amalekites:

They are NOT an internal group.

They are NOT a minority group.

...

They are never under the government control of Israel.

They are not pursed and hunted in other countries for extermination.

- Glenn Miller [/b]

Some manner of assimilation of Amalekites seems to have taken place in the case of Second Samuel 1:2-8,13 . The young man who ran to tell David of the news of Saul's death was an Amalekite.

To be fair I should add that David had that man killed. It seems though that his offence was not that he was ethnically an Amalekite. Rather David is angry at him because he assisted (or at least said he did) in the suicide of "the Lord's anointed".

David ALWAYS regarded Saul as God's ordained and anointed king. For anyone, Israeite or other to not respect the divinely ordained king was wrongdoing in David's eyes (2 Sam. 1:11-16) .

" .. And David said to him, Your blood be upon your head, for your mouth has testified against you, saying, I have killed Jehovah's anointed." (v.16)

By modern definitions "genocide" would have been this assimilated Amalekite's execution simply because he was an Amalekite. David would have asked him nothing but would have killed him immediately after the young man said he was the son of an Amalekite stranger.

I have reason to believe that had this young man NOT told of his assistance in the suicide of Saul, he simply would have been ignored as an assimilated Amalekite coming to David distressed about Saul's defeat.

me:

Can I believe every man, woman, and child had been literally exterminated by Saul at the instructions of the prophet Samuel ? Can I assume that for 250 years the survivors had no sheep, oxen or other cattle left after they were all utterly destroyed ?


you:

according to what we have written in the bible, they did kill every man, woman and child in the city. or at least they tried. some would inevitably get away and some could have flown from the city before the invaders got there.

True, concerning that battle.
As a careful student of the Bible I have to always consider not only what was written but what else was written, to get a fullest possible picture.

I am not saying that I know no women or children were killed.

me:
The last remaining Amalekite, Agag, must have had a descendent. For Haman the Agagite was there in the book of Esther to carry out his nefarious plots against the Jews.

you:
hehe. "nefarious plots against the jews." hehe. nothing nefarious about the hebrew plot of committing genocide. once again, i point out that you only have the hebrew-biased version of the story.

And once again I point out that the so-called Hebrew version of MOST of the Old Testament is largly NOT FLATTERING a picture of the success of God's "chosen people". Read the curses warned to come upon a disobedient Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 28. Compare those warnings to the bulk history elaborated in the Old Testament. It often ironically appears that their own enemies could not have written a better propoganda about how Israel failed God at being the "chosen people" .

Originally posted by LemonJello
Okay, so let us return to the subject of, for example, God's sanctioning genocide; or His directing the slaying of babies. He does do such things within the biblical accounts, right? So, according to you, He was right and just to do such things not because whatever He does is simply definitive of rightness and justice, but rather because doing those thi ...[text shortened]... t there were reasons, independent of God, that made this right and just? If so, what are they?

The only thing that comes to mind on why God would want everyone slan would
be keeping blood lines pure. During that time knowing one's father and family
was of great importance, and some practices of other people had diseases may
have been brought into blood lines had those children grew up as children of
families. The stress that was placed on those things makes that something God
was trying to preserve. Since the adults were going to be all killed off sparing
the children would have done damage to the blood lines. Beyond that I have not
thought of anything that would make that serve any purpose.
Kelly

Originally posted by googlefudge
[b]"I've said that the creator gets to do what the creator wants."

Yes, but that means nothing other than might makes right and has no moral value whatsoever.

"I've said that unlike man God isn't trying to figure out anything and wondering
what will happen next if things go abc or xyz. So seeing the beginning from the
end gives God a persp se that want no part of it get their
way too."

This is actual gibberish.[/b]

Then stop reading my posts, I will not be bothered.
Kelly

Originally posted by jaywill

This theistic rejoinder interprets "arbitrary" as "whim or vacillating will"and says basically God does not act on whim or vacillating will. Fair enough, but what then does God act on when declaring something good? Principles? Principles of which God is, or is not, the author? Which is it? The dilemma remains in either case.

Its a tho g.
I can't see how proposing that no God exists does a whit to solve the problem.

I can't see how proposing that no God exists does a whit to solve the problem.

I wouldn't propose that the idea that no God exists, does a whit to solve the problem. And with that I pay you my respects.

Originally posted by KellyJay
The only thing that comes to mind on why God would want everyone slan would
be keeping blood lines pure. During that time knowing one's father and family
was of great importance, and some practices of other people had diseases may
have been brought into blood lines had those children grew up as children of
families. The stress that was placed on those t ...[text shortened]... nes. Beyond that I have not
thought of anything that would make that serve any purpose.
Kelly

Thanks for your response.

But this does not make much sense to me. Isn't God supposed to be really powerful? Can't He figure out some way to successfully purify blood lines without resorting to mass infanticide? That sounds like a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Like, literally.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Then stop reading my posts, I will not be bothered.
Kelly

It was only the last paragraph that was gibberish where you seemed to give up using
coherent sentence structure or punctuation.

The rest of it was not gibberish, just wrong.

Originally posted by JS357
[b]I can't see how proposing that no God exists does a whit to solve the problem.

I wouldn't propose that the idea that no God exists, does a whit to solve the problem. And with that I pay you my respects.[/b]

I wouldn't propose that the idea that no God exists, does a whit to solve the problem. And with that I pay you my respects.

Amen, Okay and thanks. And I suspect I aggravate you latter though.

Without looking back over earlier posts, I can't quite remember what your particular concern in all this is.

Remind me please.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Thanks for your response.

But this does not make much sense to me. Isn't God supposed to be really powerful? Can't He figure out some way to successfully purify blood lines without resorting to mass infanticide? That sounds like a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Like, literally.

Yes, but if you study OT you'll find God spends a great deal of time tellng
them about the difference between the Holy and common, and He stressed a
great deal about family lines. We know who was born into what house and
so on. They had a part to play in how they responded to God and the Law.
Kelly

Originally posted by googlefudge
It was only the last paragraph that was gibberish where you seemed to give up using
coherent sentence structure or punctuation.

The rest of it was not gibberish, just wrong.

Whatever I don't care if you want be a spell checker on this site be one,
I'm quite sure I'm not perfect in every post I write. Typically I write here
shortly after I wake up or right before bed. If there was some point that
confused you, asked about it. I'd been more than happy to try and correct it,
but if you just want to cry that your not seeing perfect sentence structure
here, stop reading my posts we will both be happy.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Whatever I don't care if you want be a spell checker on this site be one,
I'm quite sure I'm not perfect in every post I write. Typically I write here
shortly after I wake up or right before bed. If there was some point that
confused you, asked about it. I'd been more than happy to try and correct it,
but if you just want to cry that your not seeing perfect sentence structure
here, stop reading my posts we will both be happy.
Kelly

I don't care about perfect spelling or perfect sentence structure.

However that last paragraph you wrote, that I said was gibberish, doesn't not-have perfect
sentence structure or spelling (actually it was probably spelled correctly) it just doesn't
make sense.
I care about the rules of grammar only in as much as that the words typed actually come
together to make a coherent whole.
This isn't a case of not understanding your point, it was that what you said didn't make sense,
I have no idea what the point was.
This is all I meant.

This is the part I am talking about,

"So love as it isn't worked out but instead
human selfishness is has a spoiled quality to it. God is working out our failures
towards something must better, and those that want no part of it get their
way too."

It may just be me but I don't want to guess what you were talking about here, and this doesn't
make any sense.

VoidSpirit wrote:

"nefarious plots against the jews." hehe. nothing nefarious about the hebrew plot of committing genocide.

VoidSpirit is comparing the plot of Haman, an Amalekite in the book of Esther, to the warfare methods of the Hebrews in Exodus, Joshua, and First Samual. So let's look at the sarcastic suggestion here that they are equivalent.

What Israel did to the Amalekites was at the instruction of God through Moses and latter through Samuel. Left to themselves without any command from God, we really don't know what they would have done with or to the Amalekites.

Israel's warfare methods do not display the "bloodthirsty massacres" of "xenophobic relish" leveled by, say, atheist Richard Dawkins.

The aftermath of the victories recorded over Canaanites in Joshua are nowhere as "bloodthirsty" as the annals of the ancient Near East empires of the Hittites and Egyptians of the second millennium BC. Joshua 's descriptions also do not sink to the level of the horrors described by Aramaen, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, or Greek military exploits in the first millennium BC.

Ie. the Neo-Assyrian annals of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) brags on about empalying on poles with pleasure vanguished foes. Others were proudly flayed of their skin alive. They boast of piling severed heads in heaps and gouging out the eyes , cutting off ears and limbs of victims to proudly display them around the city.

We don't see barbarism like that in the Canaanite invasion of the Hebrews.


The number of battles Israel fought to and within Canaan were usually defensive. Ie. the Amalekites attacked the traveling Hebrews (Exod. 17:8). The Canaanite king Arad attacked and captured some Hebrews (Num. 21:1). The Amorite king Sihon refused to let the Israelites pass peacefully and attacked them instead (Num. 21:21-32; Deut. 2:26-30). King Og of Bashan came out to meet the Hebrews in battle (Num. 21:33; Deut. 3:1). Israel counteracted the Midianites' calculated scheme to destroy Israel through strategic idolatry and immorality (Num. 31:2-3; compare 25; 31:16). The five kings attacked Gibeon, which Joshua defended.

In this last case the Hebrews defended a Canaanite tribe because they had a peace pact with them (Joshua 10:4)

While we have the charge of the "horrific" God leading xenophobic slaughterers into Canaan the facts suggest important caveats:

The Hebrew kings had a reputation among some Gentiles as being merciful (First Kings 20:31). God prohibited the Israelites from conquering other neighboring nations - ie. Moab and Ammon (Deut. 2:9, 19), Edom (Deut. 2:4-5; 23:7). In the latter case this done in spite of the fact that the Edomites had earlier refused to assist the Israelites (Num. 20:14-21; compare Deut. 2:6-8). And God would not allow the Israelites to conquer beyond what God had ordained for them and land grabbing was not permitted.

" ... all sanctioned Yahweh battles beyond the time of Joshua were defensive ones, including Joshua's battle to defend Gibeon (Josh. 10-11). Of course while certain offensive battles took place during the time of the Judges and under David and beyond, these are not commended as ideal or exemplary. We've also seen that fighting in order to survive wasn't just an adventure; it was a way of life in the ancient Near East. Such circumstances weren't ideal by far, but that was the reality." Paul Capon

All things considered the warfare tackets orgained by God for the Israelites were less "horrific" than those for many typical ancient Near East empires.

Originally posted by jaywill

I wouldn't propose that the idea that no God exists, does a whit to solve the problem. And with that I pay you my respects.

Amen, Okay and thanks. And I suspect I aggravate you latter though.

Without looking back over earlier posts, I can't quite remember what your particular concern in all this is.

Remind me please.

My concern is that horrific acts occurred and the storytellers -- propagandists, I would say -- said God ordered or allowed it. No matter whether I am a theist or nontheist, I don't buy the idea that any god worthy of the name would order, command, or sanction such horrific acts. And some apologists want to say they weren't really that horrific, maybe no women or children were killed. Come off it, guys. Mass indiscriminate killing of the losing tribe was not uncommon. We even rationalize carpet bombing, collateral damage, etc. ourselves. That aggravates me but it's not coming from you in particular.

Originally posted by JS357
My concern is that horrific acts occurred and the storytellers -- propagandists, I would say -- said God ordered or allowed it. No matter whether I am a theist or nontheist, I don't buy the idea that any god worthy of the name would order, command, or sanction such horrific acts. And some apologists want to say they weren't really that horrific, maybe no women ...[text shortened]... ateral damage, etc. ourselves. That aggravates me but it's not coming from you in particular.

test, 1,2,3

Originally posted by jaywill
test, 1,2,3

I had a Rick Perry/Herbert Cain moment and mixed up the discussion I am having with you, with another one.

The whole thing about whether a thing is good because God says it is or God says it is good because it is good, is the Euthyphro dilemma. I suggest that Plato described it better than I can and if you are interested and haven't already read about it, you look it up.

Originally posted by JS357
I had a Rick Perry/Herbert Cain moment and mixed up the discussion I am having with you, with another one.

The whole thing about whether a thing is good because God says it is or God says it is good because it is good, is the Euthyphro dilemma. I suggest that Plato described it better than I can and if you are interested and haven't already read about it, you look it up.

Okay.

The only thing I recall reading by Plato was the Trial of Socrates (?), which I found fascinating.