Genocide

Who are we to judge God?
God will have Mercy on whom He Wills it. We all die. If they go to Hell, then all the Israelites did was shorten a brief life of sin here. If they go to Heaven, they hastened them to an eternal reward.
What we cannot do is look at God as one of us and ask how is this fair. It would not be fair for a human to will such things, but we are speaking of God.

[delete]

Nooj said:

Taking the genocide to its logical conclusion only devalues human life. It doesn't matter if you kill someone, that's what you're saying. Kill them all and let God sort them out.

Click to expand...

No, I am saying it matters a great deal WHOM is saying kill them all.

Nooj posted in message #65 of this thread:

Taking the genocide to its logical conclusion only devalues human
life. It doesn't matter if you kill someone, that's what you're saying.
Kill them all and let God sort them out.

Click to expand...

Greetings.

While all of human life together has no relative value compared with
God Himself (Isaiah 40:15,17), it still does matter if one human
murders another human (Exodus 20:13). Under the Old Covenant,
God's commanding the Israelites to kill the Canaanites was not
genocide, or the murder of an entire people by humans, but rather
was God's own capital punishment of the Canaanites for their
unrepentant sins (Deuteronomy 9:3-5). Under the New Covenant,
not only is murder still strictly prohibited, now one cannot even hate
other humans (Matthew 5:43-48, 1 John 3:15). While governmental
police and judicial authorities are given authority from God to employ
violence against criminals (Romans 13:4), Christians are not allowed
to ever employ violence against anyone, even in self-defense
(Matthew 5:39, 26:52, 1 Peter 2:20-23).

Nooj posted in message #65 of this thread:

God created Adam and Eve even though he knew that they and all
of mankind would become sinful, because God wanted to have
vessels of his mercy and vessels of his wrath (Romans 9:22-23).

Click to expand...

For his glorification?

Click to expand...

Yes, insofar as God is glorified when people see his mercy and his
wrath revealed (Romans 15:9, Revelation 15:4). The glorification of
God is more important than anything (Revelation 4:11, 1 Chronicles
29:11, Matthew 6:13b), including infinitesimal humans.

Nooj posted in message #67 of this thread:

Our lives are meaningless before the Christian God.

Click to expand...

No life is meaningless before the Christian God, for every life serves
to glorify him whether as a vessel of his mercy or as a vessel of his
wrath (Romans 9:22-24).

Nooj posted in message #67 of this thread:

You wouldn't have a problem if God destroyed everyone on Earth
today.

Click to expand...

Even if God did destroy everyone on earth today, we could not have
a problem with that, for then we would be making infinitesimal, sinful
people more important than the infinite, holy God.

Nooj posted in message #67 of this thread:

You'll allow him to commit any atrocity.

Click to expand...

Nothing God does is an atrocity; everything he does is righteous
(Deuteronomy 32:4).

Nooj posted in message #67 of this thread:

Take the example of the potter and the pot. If the pot has feelings,
a consciousness and if you believe in it, a soul, does the potter have
the right to destroy the pot without its consent?

Click to expand...

Yes. Even though humans have feelings, a consciousness, a soul,
as the Creator of humans God still has the right to do with them
whatever he wants (Romans 9:21-24). We have to remember that
compared with God's infinite Consciousness, infinitesimal human
consciousness is less than bacterial consciousness compared with
human consciousness. And before we jump to deny any form of
feeling or consciousness to bacteria, how do we know that they
don't have some form of feeling and consciousness which we
cannot detect with our current science? Don't bacteria try to move
away from things that are harmful to them? And if bacteria could
have some form of feeling and consciousness, should scientists still
be allowed to create colonies of bacteria in petri dishes and kill off
some of them to show the strength of their latest bactericide, to
the glory of those scientists?

Nooj posted in message #67 of this thread:

Is it not possible that God can sin against his creations?

Click to expand...

No, for as Creator, God has the right to do with his creations
whatever he pleases, just as a novelist can do with the characters
in his novels whatever he pleases, no matter how much they seem
to him to have "taken on a life of their own". And we are even more
evanescent than characters in a printed novel, for we cannot even
continue to exist apart from God's continually maintaining us in
existence (Acts 17:28, Colossians 1:17). We are like mere ideas
maintained in existence within the mind of God, ideas with which he
has the right to do whatever he pleases.

Nooj said:

Precisely. Our lives are meaningless before the Christian God. You wouldn't have a problem if God destroyed everyone on Earth today. You'll allow him to commit any atrocity.

Take the example of the potter and the pot. If the pot has feelings, a consciousness and if you believe in it, a soul, does the potter have the right to destroy the pot without its consent? Is it not possible that God can sin against his creations?

Click to expand...

Well I would say the potter has the right to do whatever he wishes with his pot including smashing it. While I might not like it if I was a pot or if I was a collector and valued this particular potmaker' pots, I would have no right to call what the potter is doing to the pot an atrocity, whether I was a pot or not.

The pot is not in a position to judge the potter. And if God did indeed command the Israelites to kill them all, we are not in a position to either second guess that command, judge it or label that act an atrocity.

And yes it is impossible for God to sin, even against his own creation.

Nooj said:

You wouldn't have a problem if God destroyed everyone on Earth today. You'll allow him to commit any atrocity.

Click to expand...

Allow? You are talking as if we invented God, wrote His story, and can re-invent Him in any way we wish. None of that is true.

Take the example of the potter and the pot. If the pot has feelings, a consciousness and if you believe in it, a soul, does the potter have the right to destroy the pot without its consent? Is it not possible that God can sin against his creations?

Click to expand...

It is impossible for God to do wrong. Biblically sin equals falling short of the glory of God. Is it possible for Him to offend us? Of course; many are offended. Jesus said "Blessed is he who is not offended in me."

Nooj said:

I'm sure God has a maximum amount of glorification already. I don't think God needs any more from us.

Click to expand...

God desires each and every individual in humanity to have right relationship with Him. That is "glorification". My "glorification" of Him is not a substitute for yours.

We're not candles to be snuffed out at the whim of God. We're not objects. The potter/pot analogy is a poor analogy.

Click to expand...

It's God's own analogy.

A better analogy would be parents and a child. The parents make the child, but it'd be wrong for the parents to kill the child. Or do you not think so?

Click to expand...

But you see, parents and children are of the same order of being. God is not on the same level as we are. His thoughts and His ways and His perceptions and His wisdom are all higher than ours, because He Himself is higher than we are, in the same way that you're higher than a cockroach.

Kapiche?
tal

Nooj posted in message #70 of this thread:

I'm sure God has a maximum amount of glorification already. I don't
think God needs any more from us.

Click to expand...

Greetings.

It's not that God needs glory from us, for God doesn't need anything.
But it is to his pleasure to be glorified, and he created everything for
his pleasure (Revelation 4:11). And because his Consciousness is
infinite, he can never max out on pleasure. Also, the glory that God
gets by his work on the earth is not just the glory that we give him
(e.g. Romans 15:9), but also the glory given to him from all of the
angels in heaven (even the fallen), who can better realize (or be
forced to admit) how great God's wisdom is by watching what he's
doing on the earth with the church (Ephesians 3:10).

Nooj posted in message #72 of this thread:

That sort of view of human life is nihilistic

Click to expand...

The correct view of human life is nihilistic, but only in the sense that
all of human life together is innately worth less than nothing
compared with God himself (Isaiah 40:15,17).

Nooj posted in message #72 of this thread:

A better analogy would be parents and a child

Click to expand...

The Bible uses that analogy for the relationship between God the
Father and the elect. Even though the lives of the elect have no
innate worth compared with God himself, he still loves the elect
dearly as his own children (1 John 3:1). It's like a boy living on a
huge chicken farm finding a stray chick hopping on his front porch.
He picks it up and starts to take care of it, feeding it by hand with
a teaspoon; making a little, comfy bed for it in a shoebox; and
carrying it around with him wherever he goes. After few days of
seeing this, one of the farmhands calls out, "Hey, kid! You know
how much that chick is worth? About five cents. Would you love a
nickel like you love that chick? Come here and I'll give you a dollar
for it."

"No!"

"Okay, how about ten dollars."

"No way! I wouldn't give him up for a hundred dollars!"

"A hundred? Okay, tell you what [taking out his wallet], I'm gonna
give you everything I've got, a hundred fifty dollar for that chick."

"No! No! No! I wouldn't give him up for the whole world! He's my
friend. I love him!"

Nooj posted in message #72 of this thread:

The parents make the child, but it'd be wrong for the parents to kill
the child.

Click to expand...

God doesn't kill his own children, but in his love for them has done
everything to save them (Romans 5:8). But God doesn't consider the
non-elect to be his children, but the children of Satan (John 8:41-47,
Matthew 13:38-42, 1 John 3:8-10).

Nooj posted in message #74 of this thread:

Even if I am 'higher' than a cockroach, what makes you think it's
okay to step on one?

Click to expand...

Greetings.

We don't need to step on cockroaches, but can instead rid our
homes of all of the obvious food sources (e.g. crumbs, dirty dishes,
dirty kitchen counters, floors, and cupboards; pet dishes with food
and water in them all of the time) and habitats (e.g. stored paper
bags) which are attracting them. Cockroaches should then leave on
their own accord, looking for food elsewhere. There may also be
natural sprays which we can purchase which cockroaches find so
unpleasant they will want to go someplace else.

But in the case with God and man, God doesn't just want sinful man
to go someplace else, for God is omnipresent (Psalms 139:7-8); there
is no place sinful man could go where God would not have to be
disgusted by his filthiness. Also, God is perfectly just (Deuteronomy
32:4), and so he cannot let even the slightest unrepentant sin go by
without it ultimately being judged and punished (Matthew 12:36).
Also, it is God's right as Creator, and his desire, to make some men
vessels through which he might make his wrath and power known
(Romans 9:21-22).