Lyfe
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Is the God of the Old Testament Evil & Genocidal? The Flood & Annihilation of The Canaanites and Sodom and Gomorrah
I am beginning this thread by referencing a certain dialogue that took place in another thread, because this issue ought to have context and clarification. I just wanted to address these matters, because I see these points being mentioned all the time. The first thing we have to consider in fairly judging these events is context. Here is the dialogue...
I am beginning this thread by referencing a certain dialogue that took place in another thread, because this issue ought to have context and clarification. I just wanted to address these matters, because I see these points being mentioned all the time. The first thing we have to consider in fairly judging these events is context. Here is the dialogue...
Here is my response...If you read the Old Testament from a literalist perspective, it's Deity seems to be pretty much genocidal, and doesn't even limit the killing of enemies to actual combatants.
Its lazy and even intellectually dishonest and irresponsible for anyone claiming to be fair and reasonable to judge such matters without proper context. God had allowed the practices of Canaan, Sodom and Gomorrah, and even the antediluvian(pre flood) world to run their courses for thousands of years. In fact God had dealt with them in the apex and height of their moral debauchery by putting an end to them. We judge God in doing this, yet what would life be like for you and your children if they were born into these cultures if that were continuing to decline? Consider a society so bad that its common for men to forcibly enter into a home and commit r*pe toward other MEN, yet this is this was exactly the state of affairs in Sodom and Gomorrah(Genesis 19). Had God not put an end to this culture and was allowed to continue what quality of life would we experience if this had become the norm for us? Would you want you or your kids to grow up in such a world? God commanded the Israelite's to exterminate the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. This was a culture that centered around worship of evil gods that demanded human and child sacrifice. The Canaanites were a people of savagery and war that oppressed other surrounding nations. If God had not put an end to them they would have afflicted other peoples and continued to throw their people and children in the sacrificial fires of Molech. I will ask again is Is God unjust for ending peoples that were oppressing and annihilating others? Or, was he preserving and sparing future generations from being victims of devastation and despair to the aforementioned evil? There is coming a time in the future where at the apex of sin and evil God will too put an end to it as a reset, but before he does judge the world in such fashion he gives it hundreds and even thousands of years to repent....to the contrary if you read the old testament and apply the right context it will reveal that humans were the ones that were really genocidal. Is God unjust for ending peoples that were oppressing and annihilating others? Or, should he have let those oppressors multiply and continue in their evil and allowed them to spread and infect their ways to other tribes to perpetuate more devastation/despair in human lives? Isnt the world crying out for God to end evil? He has and he is accused of being genocidal rather than being seen as preserving and sparing future generations from being victims of devastation and despair to said evil. Can you imagine how evil and wicked we would be if God hadnt put an end to Canaan? Do you have kids? There is a good chance their fate would have been the fires of molech. Do you really wanna live in such a world where God had not ended the wickedness of Canaan and allowed it to flourish? God gave these wicked societies and cultures hundreds and sometimes even thousands of years to run their course. Then he put an end to them.
If we want to consider who's genocidal look at the human race. How come you judge God as being genocidal, but dont come to the same conclusion with man? If you judge according to the same standard and without partiality then what conclusion are we left with in man? If we are consistent with your judgment then man must be genocidal too and thus evil...
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