A bloodthirsty god?

[gnostic]

I don't see the God of the bible to be a nice god. There is something horribly unfair and bloodthirsty with this god.

One example is this.

When Saul was king, Samuel, the prophet and the last Judge, gave God's order to the king.

Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over His people Israel. Therefore, list to the LORD's command!
Thus said the LORD of Hosts: I am exacting the penalty for what Amalek did to Israel, for the assault he made upon them on the road, on their way up from Egypt. Now go, attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike, men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses!"

Why does a god want to or need to punish generations of people that were not directly involved with what happened to the Exodus?

The war against the Amlekites in Moses' day (Exodus 17:8-16) was fought and won.Why punish the Amalekites centuries later?

It would seem that God can hold a very long grudge against people.

I don't remember where exactly in the bible, but it say something like children shouldn't have to pay for the sins of the father, and the father shouldn't have to pay for the sins of his son.

Certainly God don't practice what he preach, reach: and can be as pettily mean and vindicative as any human. :fight:

Is there really any justification for the genocide of the Amalekites?

 

[gnomon]

There were a lot of bloodthirsty Gods back then.

 

[gnostic]

How many of these bloodthirsty gods do you know that have demanded a genocide of a whole kingdom?

Beside this is a Biblical Debate, so I have chosen something from the bible, which have nothing to do with other gods. Please stick to the topic.

 

[Green Kepi]

Okay...this is just my opinion that I've formed thru study but...like everything I've been reading in these Forums..."just my opinion". However, I think God had to do it for a reason. His Plan, once man and woman screwed things up with that "mess-up" in the Garden, was to pave the way for the Messiah to come and save mankind. During all this, Satan tried his best to stop it and still does. When the angels came down and mated with earthly women, the union produced some strange soulless beings. To me...this is why God would wipe out a whole nation of people...including women and children. Noah wasn't perfect...but his lineage was. This was why only his family was saved from the second flood. Then when the Messiah came along...things changed. The Old Law was done away with and the "eye for an eye" thing...was put aside. Okay...there's a lot more but in the effort to save time and space...what do you think so far?

 

[3.14]

people liked killing people better if a god ordered it so they said to profets
yo we need a good reason to kill someone, and there like ok wel just say god told us to do it
happend alot back then

 

[Riverwolf]

I've noticed similar things in Joshua, where YHWH told Joshua to slaughter people who did nothing against the Jews. This is how I interpreted those parts of the Bible:

And God said: Here, I now declare this land your land. So make sure to kill everyone you see and destroy everything they own so they can never live in harmony with you, because that will cause you to do bad things. Don't worry, they aren't anybody special.

One argument was that the Canaanites sacrificed humans to Baal, but the people being sacrificed wanted to do it for the most part. It was considered the highest honor at the time. Understand that I do not condone human sacrifice at all. But I think that they could have preached and preached and preached instead, while destroying the shrines. That's not something I condone either, but it's better than genocide.

 

[logician]

The xian bible is a book of stories, mostly fiction, the gods represented change with the telling of the stories.

 

[Melissa G]

God of the OT, Judaism: Bloodthirsty, hate filled, revengful. Taken literally when necessary

God of NT, Christianity : Love, Forgiveness, Salvation. Ignored when necessary.

Melissa G

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

God of the OT, Judaism: Bloodthirsty, hate filled, revengful. Taken literally when necessary
God of NT, Christianity : Love, Forgiveness, Salvation. Ignored when necessary.

Superficial generalizations. Disregard as worthless.

 

[Dunemeister]

This and other threads explore the possibility of theodicy, which is basically the attempt to exonerate God in the face of the evil apparent in creation or evil done at his hands or by his authorization.

As a Christian, I find this among other passages deeply troubling. But the real issue, for me at least, is the question of God's attitude toward his creation and the people that populate it. And to answer that question, my controlling image is the cross. There, God demonstrated his love for all of humanity and made a full disclosure of his character -- nonviolent and longsuffering. Yes, this observation must be held in tension with passages as we see here. But in the end, we are looking through a glass darkly, as they say. We know only in part, and what we do know we're apt to confuse. In the end, we can only place ourselves at the mercy of the Creator, whether he is a tyrant (as you may fear) or a benevolent father (as you may hope). What other option -- assuming the existence of a creator -- are open to us?

 

[Riverwolf]

This and other threads explore the possibility of theodicy, which is basically the attempt to exonerate God in the face of the evil apparent in creation or evil done at his hands or by his authorization.

As a Christian, I find this among other passages deeply troubling. But the real issue, for me at least, is the question of God's attitude toward his creation and the people that populate it. And to answer that question, my controlling image is the cross. There, God demonstrated his love for all of humanity and made a full disclosure of his character -- nonviolent and longsuffering. Yes, this observation must be held in tension with passages as we see here. But in the end, we are looking through a glass darkly, as they say. We know only in part, and what we do know we're apt to confuse. In the end, we can only place ourselves at the mercy of the Creator, whether he is a tyrant (as you may fear) or a benevolent father (as you may hope). What other option -- assuming the existence of a creator -- are open to us?

That's really true. If YHWH were real and, as his followers claim, the only god, there's really nothing we can do. If he were a tyrant intent on eradicating humanity from existence save for his own supporters, then fighting him would be useless. I personally doubt that he is a tyrant myself. I personally think that, just like us, the gods mature and grow with time, and these decisions were simply made by a young and immature YHWH. He himself admitted to doing something wrong when he said he'd never flood the whole world again, unless you believe that he meant he'd never have need to again.

 

[Father Heathen]

It's hard to accept God and rebuke Satan when it's hard to make the distinction between the two.

 

[Riverwolf]

It's hard to accept God and rebuke Satan when it's hard to make the distinction between the two.

In the old days, there was no distinction. The gods, or even the one Sky God of many names, had two sides: a loving side that wanted to protect humanity, and a hating side that wanted to destroy humanity.

 

[gnomon]

How many of these bloodthirsty gods do you know that have demanded a genocide of a whole kingdom?

Beside this is a Biblical Debate, so I have chosen something from the bible, which have nothing to do with other gods. Please stick to the topic.

True.

I just have a hard time attempting to use a sole piece, such as the Bible, as the primary talking point without additional context of the people who wrote the text and the relative values of their culture compared to those around them.

I do admit that I find this story to be horrifying and does not lend much sympathy towards the religious beliefs of the Hebrew people from that time. I don't hold enough biblical knowledge to give any further comment so I leave it to folks such as yourself, A_E and Jay.

Should be some interesting reading.

 

[Dunemeister]

I personally think that, just like us, the gods mature and grow with time, and these decisions were simply made by a young and immature YHWH. He himself admitted to doing something wrong when he said he'd never flood the whole world again, unless you believe that he meant he'd never have need to again.

That may let YHWH off the hook (in a way), but it's not the view of YHWH in scripture. There, YHWH is the one and only creator of the universe. And one of the things scripture tells us about God is that he doesn't change. He may change his mind about doing good or evil to someone or a group, but he doesn't change in the sense of "mature" or "develop". So from a biblical perspective, we're back where we started.

Another useful way to motivate a theodicy is to recall that the OT law was a "schoolmaster" designed to prepare the people of God to receive the messiah, that person who would reveal God most accurately. In order to get to that point, to get a nation of Bronze Age pagans to shed their pagan ways and to carry forward God's program of blessing all nations, God may have had to do some things which, although back in the day nobody would have batted an eye, we have difficulty stomaching them.

All of this was ultimately to get things to reveal the messiah, whose work would actually put into effect that program which his people failed to implement fully. In doing so, God reveals himself fully, and we learn that God abhors violence and desires mercy rather than sacrifice (thereby ending blood sacrifices and all other sacrifices and killing in God's name).

In other words, it helps to look at redemption history as that, history. It's a progression not only of revelation, but of a project. What was necessary at earlier stages in that project are not necessary now; we may even see them as counterproductive and even evil.

But there you go. My two and a half cents.

 

[gnostic]

I don't see how the messiah have anything to do with the time of OT, between Moses and Saul's genocide of the Amalekites. There were no prophecy of the messiah in Moses' time, which I can recall.

How does the genocide of women and children prepare the Israelites to receive the messiah, which in this case, Jesus?

Why would a god want to punish the Amalekites for what happened in the past, couple of centuries before Saul's time?

Did God not give order for the slaughter of Amalekite women and children?

 

[gnostic]

The xian bible is a book of stories, mostly fiction, the gods represented change with the telling of the stories.

I don't see this statement to be helpful contribution to the thread.

 

[Melissa G]

Superficial generalizations. Disregard as worthless.

In your opinion, which doesn't actually count for very much. Everything I just wrote is true, Read some history, you seem to have blinkers on

Melissa G

 

[logician]

I don't see this statement to be helpful contribution to the thread.

Other than the fact it is most certainly true, and you disagree with it?

 

[Autodidact]

Okay...this is just my opinion that I've formed thru study but...like everything I've been reading in these Forums..."just my opinion". However, I think God had to do it for a reason. His Plan, once man and woman screwed things up with that "mess-up" in the Garden, was to pave the way for the Messiah to come and save mankind. During all this, Satan tried his best to stop it and still does. When the angels came down and mated with earthly women, the union produced some strange soulless beings. To me...this is why God would wipe out a whole nation of people...including women and children. Noah wasn't perfect...but his lineage was. This was why only his family was saved from the second flood. Then when the Messiah came along...things changed. The Old Law was done away with and the "eye for an eye" thing...was put aside. Okay...there's a lot more but in the effort to save time and space...what do you think so far?

Are you saying that the Amalekites were strange soulless beings? Do you have any Biblical support for that?