MrsFoundit
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Why are we assuming that God wants the lives of the babies saved?
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Is God Entitled to Take Lives?
- Thread starter thomas_t
- Start date
Why are we assuming that God wants the lives of the babies saved?
You've forgotten that thomas and I have split off to have a different conversation.
Please feel free to chime in if you have something relevant to add to the discussion.
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However, my point is not that something happened differently in the past. Here you get me wrong.
I'm saying that a world containing an angel nanny mission visible to all would be different in structure today.
My point is also, once God establishes such an angel nany mission, it would never stop. As is the case for your scenarios 2 and 3, in my opinion.
good point. But a period of many years in which no single woman has a baby in an entire country... this is altered creation, already. My opinion.
When inhabited creation started in Genesis 1:27, it was the very next verse that stated "and be fruitful".
I conclude, a creation that has an unfruitful people for years is not the creation we live in.
Thomas
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MrsFoundit
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Are you making a relevant point here, or just wasting space with rhetoric?
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thomas, I'll reply a bit later as I'm a bit busy at the moment. But first I'd like to say something.
I tend to be a little sharp when disagreeing with people. When people are pleasant to me, I am pleasant to them. When people are rude to me, I tend to be short with them. And when people say something stupid, I often just tell them that they said something stupid. This is not something I'm particularly proud of, and is perhaps not the best way of proceeding.
So I'd like to thank you for being so cordial. This conversation, unexpectedly, is turning out to be actually genuinely interesting.
Excuse me now. I'll respond to your points in a while.
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MrsFoundit
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There is also no reason to regard this as an act of a kinder and fluffier God.
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Larniavc
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I think part of this is incorrect.
We have no idea that (2) is correct. The evidence would suggest he did not wish to save the babies.
Because if he wanted to he could. So the conclusion would appear to be that he chose not to save the babies.
And if I read the distinguished opposition correctly: that’s fine because he is God (which then becomes the circular reasoning you pointed out up thread).
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hi Larnievc. Thank you for the comment.
I agree with you, of course. I'm just showing what happens if you assume that God did want to save the babies: you end up at a logical dead end.
thomas is claiming God didn't save the babies because He couldn't have. I'm showing that He could have, and so obviously the only reason they were slaughtered is because He didn't want to.
As you say: if He wanted to, He could have. It's that simple.
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MrsFoundit
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So you are ignorant of military moral standards, ok. That is at least in alignment with your faulty definition of "murder".
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nice.
oh - something else came to my mind for you to consider: the Cannanites weren't completely obliterated: Bible explains in Judges 3:3.
@Tom 1 explained that the Canaanite city dwellers were obliterated only.
So, some population exchange between city dwellers and the rest was still possible days before the Israelites came.
If God singled out one group to be obliterated years ahead of time, rendering all women from within that group infertile, as you suggest... then you don't have the exchange that was possible to have occured in the real scenario!
The Midianites, as mentioned in Numbers 31, weren't obliterated either. So I conconclude: there might have been some kind of population exchange between the obliterated groups from among the Midianites and the rest, days before the attack!
Thomas
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First of all: not necessarily. The Bible is full of miracles which should have left indelible traces in history, and haven't. Second, God could simply hide them. The babies are simply vanished by their angelic guardians, leaving nobody the wiser. Perhaps the soldiers are even left believing that they killed the babies.
The point is, God can do anything. If He wants to save babies, He can.
But let's address the point you made:
Alright. Let's assume you're right.
Again, why is this a problem?
So the world knows that angels exist and that God is real. So what? Why does this logically make it impossible for God to save the babies? I'm not seeing a reason here.
First, how do you know? Can you prove it would never stop? I'm not seeing how that would be even likely, much less certain.
And second, again, so what? Yes, if you are right, we would be living in a vastly different world. But if we assume that God exists, why is a world in which He shows His power indisputably a logical impossibility?
I agree such a world might be different to the one we live in today. I'm just puzzled why you bring it up.
No it's not. It's altered events in the world. Just like God did when He parted the Red Sea, sent fire down to Elijah, rained manna down from Heavensent His only son to Earth to preach - and so on, and so on, all through the Bible. God intervenes in human affairs all the time, often with drastic consequences. This would be no different.
Well, except that it would be uncharacteristically merciful and farsighted of God.
That is a very weak argument. First, it is not "a creation" that is unfruitful, it is a tiny band of people, or maybe even just one person. Second, what's wrong with God changing His mind? "be fruitful and multiply" was advice, or possibly a command, but not a law of the structure of the universe.
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Frankly, it seems more likely that whoever wrote the Bible needed a convenient antagonist to keep the story moving along.
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MrsFoundit
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Not automatically no. It is an entitlement inherent to God, but we do not anthropomorphise God, nor do we form our assessments of God entirely from a fragment of a story, hence it is not circular reasoning.
If God were a figment of human imagination, your objections to God taking life would be valid, but that is because in such a case it is actually a human decision.
In a Christian world view God is not a figment of human imagination, nor is God a human.
From the OP:
"God made lives, he can take them, too. Even if it's the lives of entire peoples.
God shouldn't be restricted to keep the same laws that humans (should) keep, I think."
People should not destroy the earth. To say God should not destroy the earth is anthropomorphism.
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There is some difference between 'following legitimate orders given by God' and following orders given by man, as ligitimate as they may be (I'm not advocating Nazi killings, here).
I don't buy your special pleading argument.
God is like a referee that can send people off. Humans can't (shoudn't).
Thomas
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Oh, this post escaped me....
However, a visible continuous angel presence would alter the world. God could do it, but it would alter the world in its structure.
4 was planned from the beginning of the world.
2 - good point. That was an invitation from God for a special people. God's chosen people. Things are special for them, in my opinion. God was with them all the time. This people is an exception. I think this exception - God 's presence with one people all the time - might also have been planned long before the earth was created.
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that was not my point, my point was that the angel nanny mission would still exist today. Once in place, parents from everywhere would come and drop their children there. As I said in #205
I assume that without love that's visible for the babies (real physical affection) babies can't survive in this world.
However, a visible continuous angel presence would alter the world. God could do it, but it would alter the world in its structure.
1 and 3 have altered the world for a short instance. Afterwards, the world remained as it was. Structurally.
4 was planned from the beginning of the world.
2 - good point. That was an invitation from God for a special people. God's chosen people. Things are special for them, in my opinion. God was with them all the time. This people is an exception. I think this exception - God 's presence with one people all the time - might also have been planned long before the earth was created.
nothing. Here we are talking about changing the structure of the world.
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Nihilist Virus
Infectious idea
It's an expression of incredulity. You said that God has the same nature in both the Old Testament and New Testament.
I don't recall God ever being a pillar of fire or smoke in the New Testament, or being a trinity in the Old Testament, or "burning with hatred" in the New Testament.
Come to think of it, God isn't a trinity in the New Testament either. Lol. 1 John 5:8 is a forgery if I recall correctly.
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