If God asked you to kill someone from another group, would you?

[Toro]

The question hasn't been "if you believe God told you to kill"

The question is "If God Told You"

If you are a TRUE Christian and following the will of the Father then the answer should be "YES"

the question isnt "if some random yahoo said "kill" and you have no evidence of it being God neither in ones convictions it is clearly not in line with the question.

IF it is OF GOD for whatever the reason the only sane choice is to obey regardless of what the world says.

The question doesnt ask "if your toaster commands you to murder people will you" it states IF God told you to do so.... meaning you ran it through your discernment and the spirit in you says yes it is a command from God.

It doesn't necessarily mean you HAVE to murder someone...... maybe as with Abraham it is simply a means for one's willingness to obey. Doesn't mean that God would not provide another option once you chose to obey. Such as God did with Abraham in the ordered sacrifice of Isaac. Genesis 22.

The question also does not ask how likely do you believe God is to ask you to kill.... which is also key as to not make those that wish to obey the Father not look like raging psychopaths.

In which my answer is, not very likely God would ask such a thing. But IF He did and the command is TRULY of the Father... its better to obey the Father than mans own perverted morality.

 

[CrystalDragon]

The question hasn't been "if you believe God told you to kill"

The question is "If God Told You"

If you are a TRUE Christian and following the will of the Father then the answer should be "YES"

the question isnt "if some random yahoo said "kill" and you have no evidence of it being God neither in ones convictions it is clearly not in line with the question.

IF it is OF GOD for whatever the reason the only sane choice is to obey regardless of what the world says.

The question doesnt ask "if your toaster commands you to murder people will you" it states IF God told you to do so.... meaning you ran it through your discernment and the spirit in you says yes it is a command from God.

It doesn't necessarily mean you HAVE to murder someone...... maybe as with Abraham it is simply a means for one's willingness to obey. Doesn't mean that God would not provide another option once you chose to obey. Such as God did with Abraham in the ordered sacrifice of Isaac. Genesis 22.

The question also does not ask how likely do you believe God is to ask you to kill.... which is also key as to not make those that wish to obey the Father not look like raging psychopaths.

In which my answer is, not very likely God would ask such a thing. But IF He did and the command is TRULY of the Father... its better to obey the Father than mans own perverted morality.

And you say senselessly and brutally killing someone isn't "perverted morality"?

 

[Toro]

And you say senselessly and brutally killing someone isn't "perverted morality"?

Who gave you morality but God?

Funny, those things society deems "good and moral" are commands of God. We are perfectly okay with "obeying" them as long as we can spout peace and rainbows and not have to raise a finger but the moment that things arent sunshine and bunny rabbits we know better than God.

If one doesn't trust that whatever God says to do and claims their own morality is HIGHER than the one that has authority to say what IS and IS NOT moral and good..... then you put yourself and your morality above God.

So yes, perverted morality.

If you do not trust God and His reasoning to tell you to do such a thing...... how can you trust Him with your salvation?

If you would not kill and it was clear to be the will of the Father.... then you find yourself on the opposite side of Jesus' command.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul."
"If you love me you will do the will of the Father."
Also, "why do you call me Lord Lord and not obey?"

What one claims they would or would not do is a question of faith and NOT morality. If you do the will of the Father you are on the side of good.... even if you do not understand...... Lean not on your own understanding.

If you want to take obeying the very creator of good, just and righteous things.....and hold your morality and "wisdom" higher than that of God..... thats between you and God.

I am not a sociopath nor a psychopath...I offer love and kindness to people I meet... but you want to claim it is in fact of God and I present to you truth of what it is you refuse to do, nothing more.

I have NO desire to "senselessly or brutally" kill anyone and I do not hear voices from my toaster or microwave.

 

[Far Side Of the Moon]

So how is anyone justifying being Christian and still disobeying God if He actually asked you to shoot someone ? And if you really believe God to be omnipotent, wise and perfect what the difference would it make if He asked you to shoot children, your wife, your dog or anything else?

I'm going to be blunt. A god that would want me to go around harming people just because he said so isn't a god Is want to serve. But thank God, the Lord isn't like that.

 

[Far Side Of the Moon]

Well God no longer asked people to do that and also says murder is a sin. So won't have to worry about it. If God "did" ask me I'd probably just go admit myself to a psychiatric ward since I know God wouldn't ask me to do that.

Double for me. He asked Abraham for a reason because he knew FSOTM couldn't do it.

 

[ChristianFromKazakhstan]

(Feel free to move this if it should be in Ethics and Morality instead.)

Now before you say "God would never do that!" keep in mind that in the Old Testament, there were several times where God commanded entire cities to be destroyed and killed, including the infants. And disobedient children were sometimes stoned to death due to not following the Fourth Commandment (at least of the group commonly called the Ten Commandments. So as much as we may try to ignore it, if we go by the Bible there was a time when God commanded those things.

So even if you say God wouldn't do that now, it's clear he did at one point (and thus he could again since he's the same through time, right?). So, would you be willing to draw a heavy metal sword down upon the tiny body of an infant newborn if God commanded it? Even disregarding modern times, say if you lived in that time period and God asked you to do that, or stone disobedient children in your family or group. Would you do it?

Religious people of ALL religions kill every day. If you visit countries like Iraq, Afghanistan or Yemen etc. etc, they are convinced that Christianity murders their people every day in the form of US soldiers etc.

 

[John Hyperspace]

No, I wouldn't do that. I'd say, "Oh I get it, this is a test of character, and you're wanting to see if I'm just a mindless automaton who follows whatever orders without question. You're wanting to see if you and I are genuine friends, or, if my motivation is fear-based" then if God said "No, but I'm serious" then I'd respond "How long is this test going to go on anyway?"

 

[Dawnhammer]

People seem to have very high opinion on themselves in face of authority. I hope it is warranted. There has been actual experiments made of this and the results are pretty sordid.

Milgram experiment - Wikipedia

TLDR - "They measured the willingness of study participants, men from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience; the experiment found, unexpectedly, that a very high proportion of people were prepared to obey, albeit unwillingly, even if apparently causing serious injury and distress. "

If those are the results in controlled non life threatening situations imagine what could happen if you were in pain, distress or starving and you believed authority figure talking to you was God......

 

[aiki]

Satan likes to use people to rile up the Lord's true followers with inane questions like this.

Why is the question inane? I get that you feel that it is, but this, by itself, doesn't make the question of the OP inane.

If you actually had the HOLY SPIRIT in you...He would already settle this matter in your heart and mind.

You'd already know the ins and outs of WHY God did what He did in the Old Testament.

Pagan nations who did immoral practices were despised by the Lord.

What the Israelites were commanded to do to said nations is no different then what the Lord did when He flooded the earth and destroyed the WICKEDNESS therein as well.

Is The God of Isael on trial here?

How corny.

Interesting theological and philosophical questions are not "corny." I don't see anyone putting God on trial in this thread, either. Some posters seem to have a rather watery allegiance to God, maintaining fidelity to Him only so long as He doesn't run contrary to their fluffy, harmless (and unbiblical) conception of Him. Perhaps this thread will help such people to think twice about who they understand God to be and prompt them to take up a more biblical view of their Maker. Really, I can't think of a more important discussion to have. If we go wrong about God, we go wrong very, very badly; for He is the Ground of All Reality and the fundamental Source of All Truth.

Selah.

 

[aiki]

People seem to have very high opinion on themselves in face of authority. I hope it is warranted. There has been actual experiments made of this and the results are pretty sordid.

Milgram experiment - Wikipedia

TLDR - "They measured the willingness of study participants, men from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience; the experiment found, unexpectedly, that a very high proportion of people were prepared to obey, albeit unwillingly, even if apparently causing serious injury and distress. "

If those are the results in controlled non life threatening situations imagine what could happen if you were in pain, distress or starving and you believed authority figure talking to you was God......

Is this what you think was happening in the OT when the Israelites went to war with their neighbours? Were they just caught in the grip of the effect you describe above? Or was God actually directing them as the OT indicates?

Selah.

 

[Dawnhammer]

Is this what you think was happening in the OT when the Israelites went to war with their neighbours? Were they just caught in the grip of the effect you describe above? Or was God actually directing them as the OT indicates?

I wouldn't presume to know what the ancient Israelites thought. That comment was for the modern people living in luxury never before seen and devoid of some harsher realities people faced in the time period you describe.

 

[RDKirk]

As has been mentioned before, a whole lot of Christians are already willing to kill and applaud killing merely because other men tell them to, or other men have defined conditions in which homicide is socially sanctioned. Why shouldn't those Christians, at least, be willing to kill if they knew without doubt that Almighty God told them to?

 

[2 know him]

(Feel free to move this if it should be in Ethics and Morality instead.)

Now before you say "God would never do that!" keep in mind that in the Old Testament, there were several times where God commanded entire cities to be destroyed and killed, including the infants. And disobedient children were sometimes stoned to death due to not following the Fourth Commandment (at least of the group commonly called the Ten Commandments. So as much as we may try to ignore it, if we go by the Bible there was a time when God commanded those things.

So even if you say God wouldn't do that now, it's clear he did at one point (and thus he could again since he's the same through time, right?). So, would you be willing to draw a heavy metal sword down upon the tiny body of an infant newborn if God commanded it? Even disregarding modern times, say if you lived in that time period and God asked you to do that, or stone disobedient children in your family or group. Would you do it?

As followers of Christ we cannot and if hellfire is my end then let me go willingly.

 

[SolomonVII]

We don't have any statistics on how many children were stoned by their parents, or witches burned, etc. etc. as per OT law. The number could very well be 0.

There is very little evidence of how Hebrews in the period after the Exodus waged their wars either. There is archeological evidence that that period in the Levant was very disruptive, and it would be surprising if the eventual victors of those battles did not wage their battles with the same ruthlessness as other people did. These were the days before our own, where lions and lambs are lying down together, after all.
While the Bible is neither a history book nor an instruction manual, it does introduce the idea of Sacred history and moral development through spiritual struggles with the deeply opposing ideals that it so often holds up for us to follow.
What kind of sacred history would it be, if were were to remain on the same moral plane as bronze age people of early Biblical times? To remain at that stage of development would be as if 5000 years of Biblical instruction have led us nowhere at all.
And yet human nature remains constant. We have to deal with a world where evil is as often as not the norm, and the balance between justice and mercy remains elusive.

We are at least at the place in our moral development where child sacrifice and holy war and jihad have become rather unthinkable propositions except for the most evil among us. The Bible stands as a reminder that this was not always this way, and the peril of other religions on the rise warn us that any progress that we have made can be erased in a generation, if we are not vigilant.

 

[aiki]

We are at least at the place in our moral development where child sacrifice and holy war and jihad have become rather unthinkable propositions except for the most evil among us.

Really? I don't see that humanity has come very far along at all in its moral development. Child sacrifice happens on a scale now that dwarfs anything that ancient history could boast. Of course, it isn't called child sacrifice anymore but abortion and the sacrifice isn't to some pagan god but to the self-interest of women. The twentieth century has seen greater wars than anything in the past, too. The human penchant for violence and lust for power has not abated any, as far as I can see. We may be more sophisticated in how we go about satisfying our evil propensities, but human wickedness is no less virulent now than it was in the Bronze Age.

Selah.

 

[RDKirk]

Really? I don't see that humanity has come very far along at all in its moral development. Child sacrifice happens on a scale now that dwarfs anything that ancient history could boast. Of course, it isn't called child sacrifice anymore but abortion and the sacrifice isn't to some pagan god but to the self-interest of women. The twentieth century has seen greater wars than anything in the past, too. The human penchant for violence and lust for power has not abated any, as far as I can see. We may be more sophisticated in how we go about satisfying our evil propensities, but human wickedness is no less virulent now than it was in the Bronze Age.

Selah.

Let's limit the "we" to those who are following God.

We already know that the Bronze Age believers in God were a hard-hearted, stiff-necked rabble who had no chance to meet God's higher moral standard...so He made compromises for them rather than give them something they'd simply have to ignore. With the Mosaic Law He could say, "What I have commanded is not too hard for you," (and He did say that).

There is nothing we can say about the moral advancement of those who do not follow God. If the world in general was going to improve following their own human nature, there would never have been a need for Christ.

 

[SolomonVII]

Really? I don't see that humanity has come very far along at all in its moral development. Child sacrifice happens on a scale now that dwarfs anything that ancient history could boast. Of course, it isn't called child sacrifice anymore but abortion and the sacrifice isn't to some pagan god but to the self-interest of women. The twentieth century has seen greater wars than anything in the past, too. The human penchant for violence and lust for power has not abated any, as far as I can see. We may be more sophisticated in how we go about satisfying our evil propensities, but human wickedness is no less virulent now than it was in the Bronze Age.

Selah.

So, is it your contention that 5000 years of the Bible has made us worse off?

 

[aiki]

So, is it your contention that 5000 years of the Bible has made us worse off?

The Bible hasn't existed for 5000 years. Regardless, it is not by any means clear that humanity has been markedly improved over the last five millenia. Is humanity worse off? No. It is fundamentally unchanged, though. And if Scripture is anything to go by, humanity is going to worsen or throw off present restraints in its pursuit of wickedness.

Selah.

 

[aiki]

Let's limit the "we" to those who are following God.

Why?

We already know that the Bronze Age believers in God were a hard-hearted, stiff-necked rabble who had no chance to meet God's higher moral standard...

Oh? Do we know that? I don't think that the inability of OT believers in God to perfectly obey His Moral Law in and of themselves was any greater than that of Christian believers today.

There is nothing we can say about the moral advancement of those who do not follow God.

Except, perhaps, what I have said, which is that there has been no real advancement at all.

If the world in general was going to improve following their own human nature, there would never have been a need for Christ.

Of course.

Selah.

 

[RDKirk]

Oh? Do we know that? I don't think that the inability of OT believers in God to perfectly obey His Moral Law in and of themselves was any greater than that of Christian believers today.

Apparently Jesus disagrees with you, hence the Sermon on the Mount and Hebrews 8.