Why does God not stop the evil?

[Dave Ellis]

"Third world nations do horrible things, blame it on my own misunderstanding of the Bible!" Is not a valid argument. People in these areas do horrible things w/o Christianity too. It has nothing to do with this thread. Or are there war criminals from these events participating here? Somehow I don't think you've really had any opportunity to cross-examine them.

Yugoslavia was not a third world country. It was a modern European republic with a rich cultural history before descending into civil war.

Either way, it's irrelevant. You wanted examples of Christians committing genocide, and I provided two major examples within the last two decades. If your religion was one that promoted nothing but peace and harmony, it shouldn't matter where you are in the world, it should promote peace and harmony. Instead, there's been countless genocides throughout history carried out in it's name.

No, its not. This is at least a valid thing to discuss for this thread, so I'll give you credit where it is due, but your logic here is utterly flawed. You are the one making the positive claim, I will let you explain it in whatever way you can first, and I've emphasized the objectionable part so no more of this playing dumb nonsense.

If you disagreed with a particular genocide, would you have any reason whatsoever to deflect criticism or make excuses for the perpetrators of the genocide?

Those actions are actions in defense of the genocide. To refuse to denounce a genocide, and make excuses to defend it, is a tacit approval of it.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Yugoslavia was not a third world country. It was a modern European republic with a rich cultural history before descending into civil war.

Either way, it's irrelevant. You wanted examples of Christians committing genocide, and I provided two major examples within the last two decades. If your religion was one that promoted nothing but peace and harmony, it shouldn't matter where you are in the world, it should promote peace and harmony. Instead, there's been countless genocides throughout history carried out in it's name.

A bit off topic... For many older people who came from the former Yugoslavia, the connection between cultural and religious identity is very strong. My grandmother was baffled by the notion of a Croat who attended a non-Catholic church. "So he isn't a Croat?", she asked. "No. He is. He just isn't a Catholic", I explained. A similar way of thinking seems prevalent among some Americans. "He isn't a Christian? Then he isn't an American-loving patriot."

 

[Tiberius]

It seems to me that if there is any external morality of any kind, it would be testable.

Think about it - anything that is objective is testable. 1+1=2 is objective, because anyone can test it themselves and they always get the same answer. Einstein's relativity is objective, because anyone can test it and they will always get the same answer.

So it seems to me that any objective thing will yield identical answers to different people when it is tested.

So how can we test morality in this way?

 

[horrace99]

If God doesn't exist there is no need for spiritual growth.

if God does not exist then prove it with 100% evidence

 

[Archaeopteryx]

It seems to me that if there is any external morality of any kind, it would be testable.

Think about it - anything that is objective is testable. 1+1=2 is objective, because anyone can test it themselves and they always get the same answer. Einstein's relativity is objective, because anyone can test it and they will always get the same answer.

So it seems to me that any objective thing will yield identical answers to different people when it is tested.

So how can we test morality in this way?

That's my question as well. Assuming that objective values exist, then if they are to make any practical difference to our moral thinking and behaviour, we must find a way of coming to know them.

 

[seeking Christ]

You wanted examples of Christians committing genocide

Almost:

Now what I want to know is where are all these supposed Christians that are "fully in favor if genocide?"

I wanted to know where they are. Apparently they're not on this website, which was my point. I don't think you've had the chance to cross-examine any of these people you're talking about, so your claim about what Christianity "promotes" rings pretty hollow. I think what you're discussing is war, not the latest campaign for Church growth that their Sunday school teachers came up with, ya know?

If your religion was one that promoted nothing but peace and harmony, it shouldn't matter where you are in the world, it should promote peace and harmony. Instead, there's been countless genocides throughout history carried out in it's name.

This is a lame argument. You have people being human, engaging in the worst aspects of humanity. You have all sorts of compounding factors, but in context of this thread you're making it out like these people did these things because of the gory stories in the OT. That's simply wrong, and I think you know it. The only application here is you seem to be paranoid that Christians are out to get you because we think everybody else should be killed because of the Amalekites, and that's just utter nonsense. Not a scrap of logic there.

When people want to do bad things, its more a question of finding the way to do it that holds them up. If you have a Nation rising up against another, it's not because of Christian preaching, it's because of geo-political conditions. Christianity cannot eliminate war. Many of our members are pacifists and I've never touched a gun, but Ben Franklin was a big pacifist until he had to fight to survive. He wound up being good at his supporting role.

If you disagreed with a particular genocide, would you have any reason whatsoever to deflect criticism or make excuses for the perpetrators of the genocide?

I'm sorry what?

Those actions are actions in defense of the genocide. To refuse to denounce a genocide, and make excuses to defend it, is a tacit approval of it.

You may spell it o s c a r m a y e r but its still bologna. Neither do you have power to determine other people's approvals or anything else. Your implied or tacit approval claim has no substance to it, neither can you make any connection between a story and real life. You're trying to do an end run around the text, but then you forfeit any ability to rely on said text for any purpose.

If you want to ignore the text altogether and just focus on horrible things that happen in the world fine, but then leave the text out of it. If you want to use the text, you need to apply yourself to understanding it, which you haven't begun to do.

So, what are you trying to do here?

 

[seeking Christ]

My grandmother was baffled by the notion of a Croat who attended a non-Catholic church. "So he isn't a Croat?", she asked. "No. He is. He just isn't a Catholic", I explained. A similar way of thinking seems prevalent among some Americans. "He isn't a Christian? Then he isn't an American-loving patriot."

These cultural religious ties were never as strong in the US as they were in Europe. You do have a valid point though, that those wars weren't fought simply over religion.

 

[Dave Ellis]

The inherent weakness of subjectivism is that under it, and if everyone were a subjectivist, there would be no justifiable basis for adjudicating between opposing moral views.

This is simply wrong, and this is the sticking point in which you are failing to see our side of the argument.

Personal opinions are not equal in any regard, morality based or not.

If someone came to you, and claimed the were abducted by aliens, had lunch with them while orbiting saturn, then they took him for a spin around neptune before dropping him off at earth for dinnertime, you would not believe him. His personal opinion is not supported by anything reasonable.

Now, when it comes to morality, there are a number of concepts we can generally agree on as a people. For example, Life is generally preferable to death, pain should be avoided whenever possible, etc. It's understandable those views would be present within our species as failure to have them would significantly lessen our chances of survival in the wild. Likewise, with our empathic nature, we can relate those values onto other people.

For example, if you see a guy whack his hand with a hammer, you flinch because you understand how much that must have hurt to the other guy. If a close family member of a friend passes away that you didn't know personally, you still feel sad for your friend. Without empathy, both of those instances would be met with complete disinterest.

Now that we have established human nature and empathy exist, we can go about developing morality. Because of empathy, it just simply makes sense to us to live by the golden rule (which was not original to Jesus I may add). And as most humans have similar thought patterns when it comes to moral issues, we as a society have a fairly similar moral view for the most part. We have good reasons why we consider things moral, and we have good reasons why we consider things immoral. They usually have to do with demonstrable harm of some sort.

Now, we go to an exception from the rule, a sociopathic serial killer. He believes killing is fine. Is he moral?

We have plenty of reasons why he does not fit in to what we as a species consider moral. He is doing great harm to innocent people, which cause most people by empathy to feel sick. We can relate to the harm he is causing, and we can put ourselves in the place of the victim to understand what they must have been feeling prior to being killed.

Likewise, we know the killer is acting out of greed or self-interest, which we also know is not particularly moral behaviour as we see the effects of it on other people as well.

So, in short, most mentally healthy people have extremely good reasons backing their opinions that the serial killer is displaying extremely immoral actions.

On the flip side, the killer may think it's moral just because.

Those are not equal opinions. One is backed by good justification, vs one that has no justification whatsoever.


This argument you keep raising that all opinions are equal is simply flawed. Subjective opinions are rarely equal in any field, especially morality.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

These cultural religious ties were never as strong in the US as they were in Europe. You do have a valid point though, that those wars weren't fought simply over religion.

But religion does play a part in the ultra-nationalism at the heart of these conflicts.

 

[seeking Christ]

Actually, you never answered it.

I told you it had been asked already, and I had answered it already. That should be your clue to read through the thread a bit to see what you had missed, which I also told you directly to do.

Snipping this out won't fill you in nearly as well, but your questio was about genocide so here:

genocide is an anachronism. The connotations and even dictionary definition we have today, was not the intent then nor even an existing concept.

So far we have God intentionally limiting His power by giving His dominion away, to us (heckuva responsibility, eh?) God Himself personally finding reproach for any possible solution, and -

several other compounding factors we haven't even begun to address yet. (The flood, Nephilim mythological half human half demon hybrids starting to spawn all over again after the flood)

the basic point is to immerse an ancient people in very classic moral dilemma. One thing you can't ignore is there is NO physical evidence to confirm any of this ever happened, and all evidence we do have suggests nothing like this ever happened. You also can't ignore that regardless how many different ways a Christian may look at this, these are Jewish stories and they teach that God never commanded any of it. I don't find that to be a final answer for me, but
you might be content with it?

 

[seeking Christ]

But religion does play a part in the ultra-nationalism at the heart of these conflicts.

Of course. And if we were to try to determine exactly what that role was, we would find it as individual as ... the individual. Just like with anything else.

So what we have on our hands in these instances is NOT a question of "oh lets read about the Amalekites and then go kill everything that moves," but a highly complex geo-political situation that broke down into war, which is always tragic. And if the outbreak of war resulted in genocide on some predictable basis we might be able to tie that into the concern in this thread, but we CAN'T. Genocide wound up being committed in specific instances, based on factors apart from religion.

Now if you want to say you wish there weren't gory stories in the OT? Well I'd be all for that, but that's not the reality either of us have to deal with.

 

[Dave Ellis]

This is a lame argument. You have people being human, engaging in the worst aspects of humanity. You have all sorts of compounding factors, but in context of this thread you're making it out like these people did these things because of the gory stories in the OT. That's simply wrong, and I think you know it. The only application here is you seem to be paranoid that Christians are out to get you because we think everybody else should be killed because of the Amalekites, and that's just utter nonsense. Not a scrap of logic there.

Nice strawman, however I never argued that the Christian genocides in Yugoslavia or Africa were related in any way to the Amalekites. In fact, I never said anything tying the modern Christian genocides to anything in the Bible, OT or NT at all.

I said some Christians are still in favour of religious genocide, you wanted examples, and I provided you with some.

When people want to do bad things, its more a question of finding the way to do it that holds them up. If you have a Nation rising up against another, it's not because of Christian preaching, it's because of geo-political conditions. Christianity cannot eliminate war. Many of our members are pacifists and I've never touched a gun, but Ben Franklin was a big pacifist until he had to fight to survive. He wound up being good at his supporting role.

I would assume a religion that preaches "Thou shalt not kill", or "love thy neighbour" would be rather adept at ending war.

p.s. I'm not sure why you brought up Ben Franklin... he was a self proclaimed Deist, he wasn't a Christian.

I'm sorry what?

I thought it was a fairly straightforward question... If you disagreed with a genocide, would you have any reason to stick up for the perpetrators of that genocide?

Yes or no will do.

You may spell it o s c a r m a y e r but its still bologna. Neither do you have power to determine other people's approvals or anything else. Your implied or tacit approval claim has no substance to it, neither can you make any connection between a story and real life. You're trying to do an end run around the text, but then you forfeit any ability to rely on said text for any purpose.

If you want to ignore the text altogether and just focus on horrible things that happen in the world fine, but then leave the text out of it. If you want to use the text, you need to apply yourself to understanding it, which you haven't begun to do.

So, what are you trying to do here?

So, by the same logic, I'm assuming you also believe Holocaust deniers, or Holocaust revisionists aren't defending the holocaust or the actions of the Nazis.

Any reasonable person would draw the conclusion that a person who defends the actions of mass murderers, supports those mass murderers to some extent.

There are many instances described in the Bible of your God ordering the Israelites to carry out actions that by any definition (apart from the one you apparently use) are genocidal. Therefore, under the same logic anyone who defends that genocide is a supporter of it.

If that reality makes you uncomfortable, then stop worshipping something that ordered the mass slaying of infants.

 

[Dave Ellis]

I told you it had been asked already, and I had answered it already. That should be your clue to read through the thread a bit to see what you had missed, which I also told you directly to do.

Snipping this out won't fill you in nearly as well, but your questio was about genocide so here:

gen·o·cide

/ˈjenəˌsīd/
Noun

The deliberate killing of a large group of people, esp. those of a particular ethnic group or nation.



God: Hey Isrealites, go kill all of the Amalekites, man, woman and child.



Please explain to me how God's command does not fit the definition of Genocide.

 

[seeking Christ]

[QUOTE=Dave Ellis

 

[seeking Christ]

Please explain to me how God's command does not fit the definition of Genocide.

Please explain to me which part of anachronism you fail to understand.

 

[Tiberius]

if God does not exist then prove it with 100% evidence

You're the one making the claim. You do your own homework.

But as it is, we have never yet come across something that can only be explained by the activity of a god.

 

[seeking Christ]

But as it is, we have never yet come across something that can only be explained by the activity of a god.

Who is this "we?" Speak for yourself.

 

[Tiberius]

Almost:

Now what I want to know is where are all these supposed Christians that are "fully in favor if genocide?"

If a Christian commits genocide, wouldn't it be safe to assume that this particular Christian is also in favour of genocide?

I'm sorry what?

I may be wrong (and forgive me for answering on your behalf, Dave), but it seems to me that Dave is saying, "If you think genocide is wrong, would you have any reason to defend the people who commit genocide?"

In other words, you think genocide is wrong. Person A goes and commits genocide. Would you have any reason to say, "Hey, let's not be too harsh, maybe he had good reason to commit genocide" or defend him in some other way?

You may spell it o s c a r m a y e r but its still bologna. Neither do you have power to determine other people's approvals or anything else. Your implied or tacit approval claim has no substance to it, neither can you make any connection between a story and real life. You're trying to do an end run around the text, but then you forfeit any ability to rely on said text for any purpose.

I'm sorry, but if you think that Action X is bad, and yet stand by and allow it to happen when you could have stopped it, then obviously you don't think it is too bad.

 

[Tiberius]

Please explain to me which part of anachronism you fail to understand.

Are you saying that such acts were perfectly fine back then?

because it seems to me that the example of god's actions does indeed fit the definition of genocide.

 

[Tiberius]

Who is this "we?" Speak for yourself.

We = humanity. Specifically, those Humans that investigate the world to find out how it works.