James: "The Effectual, Fervent Prayer of the Righteous Man..."

[Oncedeceived]

An omnipotent, omniscient being has options. Are infants pure evil? What could that possibly mean?

God knows that they will grow up and be pure evil.

 

[Tinker Grey]

God knows that they will grow up and be pure evil.

All of them? Is there nothing theists can't make themselves believe.

 

[Oncedeceived]

All of them? Is there nothing theists can't make themselves believe.

Do you think they would have suddenly after generation after generation suddenly turn over a new leaf?

 

[Par5]

Is it murder if it is in self defense? The OT tells us that these people were terrible terrible people. They sacrificed their own children by burning them to appease their pagan god. They practiced bestiality and incest. The children were abused and we can assume that STD diseases were probably so bad that even their animals had them. It isn't like they had great medical care to take care of it and if they had taken in the children and animals they would have risked their own children's welfare. They generation after generation killed the Jews, young and old, babies, children and the elderly. So while any death of children is abhorrent, in this context it was necessary.

I have to ask though, do you cry out in outrage against millions of babies being ripped from the womb of women today?

God has the authority of life and death and He has the ability to see what affect the Canaanites would have on the future of the Jews and of other people of the time and only complete extermination would eliminate the evil they practiced. Do we like it, no. Did He? Probably not but when a group of people practice the evil they did there was justification for their demise when they won't turn from evil and grow more evil with each generation.

You are right, it was self-defence. They had to fight really hard to defend themselves against those Canaanite infants. I mean, those little blighters were deadly with their pacifiers. They could hit a moving target with deadly accuracy at 20 yards, and as for their baby rattles, one clout on the head from one of those and you are a goner. But it was when those little ones brought out the really heavy artillery that the Israelites knew they had a fight on their hands. The Canaanite babies' weapon of mass destruction, the soiled diaper. Nothing put the fear of god into the Israelites more than the sight of these urine soaked, faeces laden missiles hurtling towards them.
So lets put to bed the notion that these little ones were weak and defenceless. They were ruthless seasoned veterans who didn't know the meaning of surrender. The Israelites had no option but to wipe them out!

 

[Petros2015]

Seriously? An omnipotent being could simply change the Canaanites minds. How would instantly converting them to Jews, say, be an even worse evil.

Whatever happened to the bees anyway? I thought that was part of the original plan so we didn't get into all this genocide stuff...

Maybe 40 years of wandering in the wilderness messed up the whole timing of the thing. Huh.

Exodus 23:28

28 I will send the hornet before you to drive the Hivites and Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.

 

[Petros2015]

Whatever happened to the bees anyway? I thought that was part of the original plan so we didn't get into all this genocide stuff...

Exodus 33:2

Here's another one...

2 And I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

Hmm.

That didn't happen.

I agree, genocide is an atrocity.

...Maybe this wasn't how it was all supposed to go down.

 

[Erik Nelson]

Exodus 33:2

Here's another one...

2 And I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

Hmm.

That didn't happen.

I agree, genocide is an atrocity.

...Maybe this wasn't how it was all supposed to go down.

According to the documentary hypothesis. Both of those verses from exodus derive from the E. Strand. Which supposedly derives from the original? Mushite priests from Shechem in Shiloh in Israel.

 

[Erik Nelson]

No one thinks the race of Jesus is a salvation issue. It's just you. More people think that evolution and deep time are salvation issues. Oh, did that make you chuckle just now? Grasp that chuckle. Consider it. It's exactly what your statements here elicit from me.

You mean nobody except God in heaven?

"Salvation is of the Jews"
John 4:22

 

[Petros2015]

According to the documentary hypothesis. Both of those verses from exodus derive from the E. Strand. Which supposedly derives from the original? Mushite priests from Shechem in Shiloh in Israel.

Interesting.

Documentary hypothesis - Wikipedia

 

[Oncedeceived]

You are right, it was self-defence. They had to fight really hard to defend themselves against those Canaanite infants. I mean, those little blighters were deadly with their pacifiers. They could hit a moving target with deadly accuracy at 20 yards, and as for their baby rattles, one clout on the head from one of those and you are a goner. But it was when those little ones brought out the really heavy artillery that the Israelites knew they had a fight on their hands. The Canaanite babies' weapon of mass destruction, the soiled diaper. Nothing put the fear of god into the Israelites more than the sight of these urine soaked, faeces laden missiles hurtling towards them.
So lets put to bed the notion that these little ones were weak and defenceless. They were ruthless seasoned veterans who didn't know the meaning of surrender. The Israelites had no option but to wipe them out!

Three points here:
1. It was funny even though it is a heart wrenching account.
2. What would you do if your children were killed generation after generation by the same people?
3. Why are you ignoring the fact that without parents who would take care of these infants when they if taken in by the Jews would infect their own children with horrible diseases. Remember the time this was written, there were no medical saves. It truly was survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed in this case.

Why are you dodging my questions about the lack of outrage on your part when women in our day and age are literally having their OWN children ripped and torn from their OWN bodies by their OWN free will?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Exodus 33:2

Here's another one...

2 And I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

Hmm.

That didn't happen.

I agree, genocide is an atrocity.

...Maybe this wasn't how it was all supposed to go down.

...and the plot, immersed in contexts, thickens, doesn't it? Maybe the need to actually 'read' the Bible in full, while paying attention to all of the tiny details that the Jewish minds put in the writings, makes a difference to our final evaluation?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Interesting.

Documentary hypothesis - Wikipedia

...and then there are contexts of another kind, aren't there, even though these contexts we can't say for sure are viable?

 

[Erik Nelson]

Interesting.

Documentary hypothesis - Wikipedia

also


Richard Elliott Friedman.
Who wrote the Bible?
The Bible with sources revealed.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Well, I have never found prayer to be fruitless. Neither did Christ. He prayed even though He knew His task was imminent. He withdrew and made use of the time to pray.

Jesus, who's supposedly god himself, prayed?
To whom? Himself?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Also, my desire to help them would not be contingent upon their religious beliefs.

...or them asking for help, through prayer or otherwise, for that matter.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Okay. But you forget one thing. Every single person that died was a vile sinner, just like you and I.

Moral bankrupcy.

So every single person was deserving of death and an eternity in hell.

So do you tell kids that?
That they deserve to die and then experience an eternity of torture, simply for being a person?

God is under no obligation to save anyone, either from an immediate crisis or from eternal torment. It’s only by His grace that anyone is ever saved at all from anything.

It's also by his "grace" supposedly, that we all "deserve to die and an eternity in hell".

After all, he made the rules. He made the system.
He could have done it otherwise. But ultimately, he set everything up and therefor is ultimately responsible for everything that went "wrong".
He's also the one that "cursed" all of man (and animal) kind, according to the lore, because of the transgressions of 2 humans. He could have chosen to only curse those 2 humans. But he didn't. He felt like condemning not just the guilty, but every single living thing.

So really, we only "deserve" that because... well, because he said so.
He could also not say so.

But he doesn't.

It makes no sense at all. It is moral bankrupcy all the way down.

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

All that, because he made it that way.

As The Hitch used to say: created sick and commanded to be well.

4 But God, being rich in mercy

Rich in mercy??????

Someone who condemns all living things for the transgression of 2 individuals (who didn't actually know better - and that was his doing as well) and who in the process, sets up a system where you supposedly deserve death and eternal torture for the "crime" of being born human...... rich in mercy???????? MERCY?!?!

, because of the great love with which he loved us,

He has a funny way of showing it.

5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- - Ephesians 2:1-5

Sacrifices himself, to himself, to supposedly rectify the mess that he himself created. But it only works if you hold irrational faith based beliefs.

Some "grace". What a mess!

 

[DogmaHunter]

Is death bad in and of itself?

Death is the way good people get to go home and the way bad people quit doing bad stuff.

Why are you concerned more about the 6 million Jews, than the millions dying every day?

If all those 6 million Jews who truly wanted to go to heaven did go to heaven is their dying in a gas champers that significant?

If people did not die, would that tend to hold some back from making a choice to humbly accept God’s charity and thus they would not fulfill their earthly objective?

Our pending death is a humbling reality which can help us be humble, so is humility needed?

There is an estimated 40 million human slaves today (more than at any other time), so what about their prays?

How do you feel about your own pending death?

I love how you seem forced to completely and utterly render life valueless, just so you can defend your side of the fence.

In fact, it's almost a glorification of death. As if: death can't come soon enough.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Only if He was an immoral monster.

I think an excellent case can be made to demonstrate he is, yes.

He's done and ordered things that would absolutely be labeled pure evil if a human leader would do the same.

Like genocide, infanticide, etc.

 

[Hammster]

I think an excellent case can be made to demonstrate he is, yes.

He's done and ordered things that would absolutely be labeled pure evil if a human leader would do the same.

Like genocide, infanticide, etc.

Why is it immoral if the giver of life takes it back? Was there a promise made somewhere?

 

[Steve Petersen]

I think an excellent case can be made to demonstrate he is, yes.

He's done and ordered things that would absolutely be labeled pure evil if a human leader would do the same.

Like genocide, infanticide, etc.

Either that, or he is being GROSSLY misrepresented by the religious.