LanDroid wrote:Flann 5 wrote:
What God does in judgement on human wickedness is not comparable to what a Saddam Hussein does though you might like to think so.
As I mentioned before, the God of the Old Testament frequently ordered wholesale slaughter of entire cities and countries. These war crimes are comparable or even worse than the actions of Saddam Hussein. I don't see how you can think of it otherwise.
There are a couple of separate discussions going on here so I'll try to respond to them separately,so first I'll take the moral objections to the God of the bible.
You couldn't be bothered Landroid, to hear Williams out on his response to your objections and criticisms. You just know that it's obvious that no real moral distinctions can be made between the actions of Saddam Hussein and God. So you dismiss Williams after how many minutes of listening?
There is clearly a difference between Saddam Hussein and God to start with, by definition. You may not believe in a creator God but any critique of the biblical God must at least do so in the framework of that which you are critiquing.
You obviously consider the actions of Saddam Hussein to be "bad behaviour."
Many would agree I think that the allies were morally justified in opposing and fighting against Hitler's genocidal regime on the grounds their actions were morally wrong and needed to be opposed, by force if necessary. Not only that but their surviving leaders were tried for crimes against humanity.
Now you ignore the grounds given in the bible for the command to destroy the Canaanites which includes their burning of their children to death in sacrifice to their gods and moral issues such as bestiality,religious prostitution and others.
On what grounds is God the creator and therefore judge of humanity and the giver of life not justified in judging and even taking their lives?
We hear all the time complaints from some atheists about God's lack of intervention to prevent evil actions by such as Saddam.
LanDroid wrote:
As I mentioned before, he referenced moral problems in the bible, then immediately mentioned those were "different cultures and different times." Evidently Williams believes Divinely sanctioned genocide was indeed moral in those cultures and times. Do you agree?
He wasn't justifying the judgement of the Canaanites on a cultural basis or because it's what those cultures did at that time. No the biblical history is of God choosing the people of Israel and miraculous deliverances and an agreed covenant on this basis.
So it is rooted in historical time and Israel had good reason from their experiences to conclude it was divinely sanctioned.
William's give's a multifaceted response and I think it's fair to consider what these responses are as a package before concluding there can be no reasonable response.
I haven't given them all here but the video is linked on this thread.
I suppose the most difficult problem is the inclusion of children in this judgement. I don't have a good answer for that except that God may have justifying reasons based on omniscience and future knowledge.
As giver of life he can take life as Job put it. And children from a biblical perspective have an eternal existence and there is every reason to believe that would be overwhelmingly good so there's a weighing of these things required.
Paul Copan argues that there is the use of hyperbolic language in the text so that the actual event was not the destruction of everything that breathes.
There is some good basis for this such as the command to drive them out of the land and the threat to Israel that if they practiced the abominations of the Canaanites "the land would vomit them out" in the same way, which we find for Israel in the Babylonian captivity.
I think God can be justified in punishing evildoing and don't use the driving them out as a claim to say that he wasn't justified, but perhaps this was less severe in judgement than appears at first glance.
Here's Copan's talk on it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60iXt47VfJE Does God command Genocide?
LanDroid wrote:Most people agree genocide is no longer a valid means of Divine punishment or correction. This indicates, as you and my signature line imply, that even moral systems supposedly based on Eternal Divine standards "evolve" over time.
However many Christians still seem to hold onto these Old Testament standards, frequently citing the sinful nature of the local population when a natural disaster strikes.
Divine standards evolving? As Williams points out you have God's ideal at the beginning and end. God deal's with Israel as fallen people and Jesus even said that it was because of the hardness of their hearts that they had their divorce laws.
And again sanctioning revolution by Roman slaves was not a good idea for obvious reasons and the principle of the kingdom of God is essentially inner and moral in contrast to the old covenant.
I'm not so sure we are talking about evolving standards. God intervened and judged evil behaviour in the past also as an example that he does do this and will ultimately hold mankind accountable..
So God is not attempting to impose a theocratic system of laws on all humanity. We have commands,the gospel and the promise of future accountability for our chosen actions.
I think all legitimate means are good to improve society and while some 'Christians' sought to use the bible as justification for the horrors of antebellum slavery I think this tells you more about selfishness and callousness in some humans than anything else.
There were Christians who opposed it too.
You can find the same kind of phenomenon in Stalinist Russia with their grim enforced labour in Siberia etc.
We simply can't say anything about natural disasters and I would agree with you that those Christians who do this are often clearly mistaken, and it's unwarranted.