I have been asked by several people to expand upon my lack of belief in the supernatural and/or deities. I expect this page to grow as time goes on as i intend to dump all of my thoughts, questions and arguments here, for all to see. I WELCOME debate, questions and comments. Please, if i have gotten something wrong or if my logic is flawed, please let me know. I cannot promise that our conversation won’t end up here for public consideration, though…
I’ll deal mainly with Christianity for a while… it is the religion that i have to deal with the vast majority of the time in my daily life and in my social circle.
Xians (Christians) claim that their god is omniscient (all-knowing, past, present and future), omnipotent (able to perform any action, infinitely), and omnibelevolent (without “sin” or “evil”; all good in all ways all the time). I shall be using the Bible for examples of my questions/arguments.
First off: the claim that God is Good.
GE 6:11-17, 7:11-24 God is unhappy with the wickedness of man and decides to do something about it. He kills every living thing on the face of the earth other than Noah’s family and thereby makes himself the greatest mass murderer in history.
EX 12:29 The Lord kills all the first-born in the land of Egypt.
EX 17:13 With the Lord’s approval, Joshua mows down Amalek and his people.
NU 16:27-33 The Lord causes the earth to open and swallow up the men and their households (including wives and children) because the men had been rebellious.
NU 16:35 A fire from the Lord consumes 250 men.
NU 16:49 A plague from the Lord kills 14,700 people.
NU 21:3 The Israelites utterly destroy the Canaanites.
NU 21:6 Fiery serpents, sent by the Lord, kill many Israelites.
NU 21:35 With the Lord’s approval, the Israelites slay Og “… and his sons and all his people, until there was not one survivor left ….”
NU 25:9 24,000 people die in a plague from the Lord.
NU 31:9 The Israelites capture Midianite women and children.
NU 31:17-18 Moses, following the Lord’s command, orders the Israelites to kill all the Midianite male children and “… every woman who has known man ….” (Note: How would it be determined which women had known men? One can only speculate.)
NU 31:31-40 32,000 virgins are taken by the Israelites as booty. Thirty-two are set aside (to be sacrificed?) as a tribute for the Lord.
DT 2:33-34 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Sihon.
DT 3:6 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Og.
DT 20:13-14 “When the Lord delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the males …. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves.”
DT 20:16 “In the cities of the nations the Lord is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes.”
DT 21:10-13 With the Lord’s approval, the Israelites are allowed to take “beautiful women” from the enemy camp to be their captive wives. If, after sexual relations, the husband has “no delight” in his wife, he can simply let her go.
JS 6:21-27 With the Lord’s approval, Joshua destroys the city of Jericho men, women, and children with the edge of the sword.
JS 8:22-25 With the Lord’s approval, Joshua utterly smites the people of Ai, killing 12,000 men and women, so that there were none who escaped.
JS 10:10-27 With the help of the Lord, Joshua utterly destroys the Gibeonites.
JS 10:28 With the Lord’s approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Makkedah.
JS 10:30 With the Lord’s approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Libnahites.
JS 10:32-33 With the Lord’s approval, Joshua utterly destroys the people of Lachish.
JS 10:34-35 With the Lord’s approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Eglonites.
JS 10:36-37 With the Lord’s approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Hebronites.
JS 10:38-39 With the Lord’s approval, Joshua utterly destroys the Debirites.
JS 11:21-23 Joshua utterly destroys the Anakim.
JG 1:4 With the Lord’s support, Judah defeats 10,000 Canaanites at Bezek.
JG 1:6 With the Lord’s approval, Judah pursues Adoni-bezek, catches him, and cuts off his thumbs and big toes.
JG 1:8 With the Lord’s approval, Judah smites Jerusalem.
JG 1:17 With the Lord’s approval, Judah and Simeon utterly destroy the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath.
JG 3:29 The Israelites kill about 10,000 Moabites.
JG 21:10-12 “… Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword and; also the women and little ones…. every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall utterly destroy.” They do so and find four hundred young virgins whom they bring back for their own use.
1SA 7:7-11 Samuel and his men smite the Philistines.
1SA 11:11 With the Lord’s blessing, Saul and his men cut down the Ammonites.
1SA 14:31 Jonathan and his men strike down the Philistines.
1SA 14:48 Saul smites the Amalekites.
1SA 15:3, 7-8 “This is what the Lord says: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass ….’ And Saul … utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.”
2SA 5:25 “And David did as the Lord commanded him, and smote the Philistines ….”
2SA 8:13 David slew 18,000 Edomites in the valley of salt and made the rest slaves.
2SA 10:18 David slew 47,000+ Syrians.
2KI 6:18-19 The Lord answers Elisha’s prayer and strikes the Syrians with blindness. Elisha tricks the blind Syrians and leads them to Samaria.
2KI 19:35 An angel of the Lord kills 185,000 men.
IS 13:15 “Everyone who is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their … wives will be ravished.”
IS 13:18 “Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children.”
EZ 6:12-13 The Lord says: “… they will fall by the sword, famine and plague. He that is far away will die of the plague, and he that is near will fall by the sword, and he that survives and is spared will die of famine. So will I spend my wrath upon them. And they will know I am the Lord, when the people lie slain among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every spreading tree and every leafy oak ….”
EZ 9:4-6 The Lord commands: “… slay old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women ….”
Now, the apologist’s answer for these passages is a weak and hypocritical one. Their answer is (paraphrasing): “That when man kills it is murder, and the 10 Commandments forbid us from doing so… however, God himself is not privy to the Commandments and thus, when he kills it is, by definition of Him doing it, a GOOD act.”
This ‘answer’ gives me the willies… the implications are astoundingly troublesome. God can do whatever He wants.. because no matter how heinous the act is in OUR eyes, if HE does it, it makes it Good… but only for him. This is both a cop-out and extremely hypocritical. Another implication of this ‘answer’ is that whatever God tells you to do is Good.. because He told you to do it. Marry an 11 year-old girl and have relations with her? As long as it was commanded by God. Commit genocide on an entire ethnic population? As long as it was a God-given order, it was a Good act.
By any rational stretch of the imagination, these acts are NOT Good.. no matter WHAT the voices in your head said. God rules may be good for God, but we humans down here in physical reality have to live with the pain, suffering, loss and anguish such actions cause. With a good God like that, who needs Satan?
For additional reference (and really neat-o Lego pictures) i suggest perusing the Brick Testament. It covers many of these God-approved massacres.
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