One thing i just can't get over in the bible is the way god commands his people to slaughter every man, woman and child when they take a town. [Spirituality & Religion]

@SW-User

Yes, he commands that they do this to every person they find living in the promised land. To many nations. Thousands of people.
No matter how you want to couch it, that's a big deal. That's a lot of dead women and children.
There is no circumstance under which murdering [i]nation-fulls[/i] of babies is justifiable.
Oh, not to mention all the animals that they owned.

[quote]You think the women would forget about killing their men? It had to be done.[/quote]

Then why are there rules for what to do if you want to take a captured woman as a wife?
She has to shave her head, cut her nails and then (because otherwise it's just cruel) you can give her 2 or 3 months to mourn the fact that you murdered her parents.

@Pikachu God even commanded them to kill the animals because they were unclean due to people having sex with the animals. God is right. Just because you don't understand him doesn't make him wrong. You're a mere human and you think you have the right to question the creator?

I disagree with you. God gave life and he has the authority to take it away. If he thinks someone should die, okay, he gave life. Life is his to take. Only he knows what he's doing.

@SW-User

We do indeed disagree.
Having the authority to do something doesn't make you right to do it.

Slaughtering entire nations down to the last child is monstrous, utterly disgusting and morally indefensible.

I can't get past that kind of butchery and it's baffling to me how any loving human being can not only forgive that but call it good and right.

When I first started to read the bible, I was kind of like you. I thought it was monstrous. I thought, if God has all of this power, why not use it to save people instead of destroy them? But I came to the realization that I'm in no position to question God. He is the creator of heaven and earth, he and only he can decide what's good or evil, right or wrong.

As per the Canaanites, they were very evil people. They deserved to die. The women were evil too. They also deserved to die. The Hebrews couldn't afford to raise those kids. The kids had to Die. But also, the Hebrews could not interbreed with the Canaanites because God respected Noah's wishes. If Noah had not declared that Canaan would be cursed, and not dwell in the tents of Shem, it would have been different. Noah did that. Not god. God had to respect Noah's wishes because God is honorable and even if he makes a deal with a man, he keeps it.

@SW-User

[quote] I'm in no position to question God[quote][/quote][/quote]

I only judge him on his deeds and i can't turn that off. I can't decide i'm ok with slaughtering literally thousands of women. I can't decide i'm ok with murdering literally thousands of children for the crimes of their parents.

[quote]The women were evil too. They also deserved to die[/quote]

And yet there were provisions for keeping them alive if you decided you wanted to fuck them.
"
if you see a beautiful woman among them, and you desire her and want to take her as your wife, 12then you shall bring her into your house. She must shave her head, trim her nails, 13and put aside the clothing of her captivity.

After she has lived in your house a full month and mourned her father and mother, you may have relations with her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife."

[quote]The Hebrews couldn't afford to raise those kids.[/quote]

lol of COURSE they could. They were rich and grew richer with each conquest. And what they didn't have, god provided.
Please don't make excuses. If you think it's just to commit genocide because god has sovereignty then so be it but don't make excuses about why it was necessary.

@SW-User That's right!

@SW-User [quote]That's not true. God only commanded them to do that like 2 times.[/quote]
That's OK then. :(

@Pikachu
This was on National Geographic Tv. The burial grounds where infants were buried after being burned alive and sacrificed to their gods.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_ycXk3-XV0]

[quote]if you see a beautiful woman among them, and you desire her and want to take her as your wife, 12then you shall bring her into your house. She must shave her head, trim her nails, 13and put aside the clothing of her captivity.[/quote]

That was not God; that was Moses who allowed them to marry those women. God told the Hebrews not to take wives of the women in the land of Canaan.

Deuteronomy 7:3

Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.

@Pikachu As you can see, those verses contradict each other. One says [b]Do not intermarry with them[/b], and the other says, [b]if you see a beautiful woman among them, and you desire her and want to take her as your wife...[/b]. Moses allowed this because he wanted to ease the burden of the law.

@SW-User [quote]Moses allowed this because he wanted to ease the burden of the law.[/quote]
The bible is "the word of god" so Moses was only saying what god told him to say.

@SW-User

[quote]That was not God[/quote]

Yes it was. Moses only ever delivered the message of the lord.

And the fact that these people sacrificed some of their own children does not make KILLING ALL THEIR CHILDREN ok.

@Pikachu How do you explain the contradiction between these verses?
[b]Deuteronomy 7:3-4

Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me[/b]


[b]Deuteronomy 21:11
if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife.
[/b]

Clearly, in Deuteronomy 7, this is what God commanded. Those are clearly God's words: [b]"for they will turn your children away from following me"[/b]

Deuteronomy 21:11 is what Moses allowed in order to ease the burden of the law given by God.

@Pikachu There's nothing wrong with what the Hebrews did. It was not their burden to raise the children of the Canaanites. God would not have placed that burden on them.

@Pikachu The Canaanites made their own decision to do evil and as a result, God destroyed them all, including the children. It wasn't the Hebrew's responsibility to raise their children.

@Pikachu And God would have been wrong to put that burden on the Hebrews. You're telling me God is going make them go into the land to kill the Canaanites but force them to provide for the kids?
That would be wrong! That would have been a hard burden in those days. They could barely provide for themselves.

@SW-User [quote]They could barely provide for themselves.[/quote]
So why couldn't this god thing provide for them? It's meant to be omnipotent isn't it?

@Sharon Free-will - with free-will comes responsibility. That is the deal. Also, authentic love involves a choice. If God gave us no choice, if he wiped our butts, of course, we would love him and our love would not be authentic. Neither would his.

@Sharon Would you rather have a God that controls us like a video game? What fun would that be? Do you have kids? Would you want to control them like a video game? Would you want to take care of them forever like little baby birds?

@Sharon It's not God's responsibility. After the fall of man, God left us to our own devices and allowed us to do our own thing.

@SW-User [quote]It's not God's responsibility. [/quote]

Cop out. You say this god sent the Hebrews to kill the Canaanites. Why didn't he do it himself? He should also have taken responsibility for the Canaanites' children being orphans by providing for them.

@SW-User

[quote]You're telling me God is going make them go into the land to kill the Canaanites but force them to provide for the kids?[/quote]

YES! Yes i a telling you god should have done at LEAST that!

[quote]if he wiped our butts, of course, we would love him and our love would not be authentic.[/quote]

Sure, because you know how children of parents who whip them have no choice but to love that parent.
lol obviously that's not how love works.

@Pikachu No, I disagree with you. God would not force anyone to take care of anyone else's children. Moreover, the Hebrews would not have taken care of anyone else's kids anyhow. People don't even want to do that today in America, lol. Why don't you petition the American government to bring all of the kids in South America and Mexico here and let us provide for those kids, then I will believe that it would work. What you're saying is unrealistic.

@Sharon [b]You say this god sent the Hebrews to kill the Canaanites. Why didn't he do it himself? [/b]


What does it matter how the job got done? It got done, lol. He did do it himself. He wanted to do it while at the same time, cultivating Israel into a strong nation.

@SW-User [quote]What you're saying is unrealistic.[/quote]
LOL! As you seriously saying it's unrealistic to expect an omnipotent god to provide for children it caused to be orphans? You must have a very strange definition of omnipotence.

@SW-User [quote]He did do it himself.[/quote]
No he didn't, you've just said he sent a bunch of hitmen in to do the job for him.