To set the scene a little bit… For those who have seen “The 10 Commandments”, one can easily pictured the righteous Moses pleading his case to Pharaoh and saying, “Let my people go!” Pharaoh was a bad man and brought the plagues upon himself and his country. We were led to believe that Moses was a good man who gave up his cushy lifestyle being raised as an Egyptian prince when he avenged a slave being brutalized by an Egyptian. After hiding in exile, he returned following God’s calling to lead the Hebrews back to their rightful place in Israel.
Moses had received “the law” and 10 commandments from God Almighty and was in the process of leading the Jews to the Promised Land. Here’s a little piece that you didn’t see in the movie. The following is unedited straight from the King James Version of the Bible. Numbers Chapter 31:
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people.
3 And Moses spake unto the people, saying, Arm some of yourselves unto the war, and let them go against the Midianites, and avenge the LORD of Midian.
4 Of every tribe a thousand, throughout all the tribes of Israel, shall ye send to the war.
5 So there were delivered out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand of every tribe, twelve thousand armed for war.
6 And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand of every tribe, them and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war, with the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow in his hand.
7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.
8 And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.
9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
10 And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.
11 And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.
12 And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho.
13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
For those of you confused, let me translate…
Verses 1 – 6: God has a beef with the Midianites and tells Moses to go to war. Look, God has his reasons so I wouldn’t bring him to trial on any of this. War is war and there is a different code of ethics. They raise an army of 12,000.
Verse 7: They slew all the males. OK, getting harsher. They didn’t take a single POW? No one surrendered? Still, it is war.
Verse 8: Naming some of the people who were killed.
Verse 9: This one is important. The Jews had killed all the men (we’ll just assume that they were all combatants). Now they take all the women and children as captives. They also take all their cattle and goods for themselves.
Verses 10 – 12: They destroy the cities and bring the captives to Moses.
Verses 13 – 16: Moe is angry that the Jews took captives? This is where the war crimes really kick in.
Verses 17 – 18: I’m going to reprint it again here. Follow along with me:
“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
Moses commands his army to kill every male CHILD and all of the women who are non-virgins. As for the virgins, they are now to be kept as sex slaves for the Jews! Seriously, I can’t make this stuff up. God, through Moses, just commanded genocide. The rest of the chapter rambles on about how to purify the army after the massacre and even more importantly, how to split up the goods stolen from the Midianites.
Anyone see the irony here? At a Passover Seder, there are endless readings about the suffering of slavery while in Egypt. Now that they’ve been freed, the Jews go out, massacre an entire people, and
57 comments:
I can see why they killed the women who weren't virgins, probably because God didn't want the Israelites to commit adultery. But where do you get the sex slaves part from in the passage?
@dan
Line 18, and the women, keep them for yourselves.
What a loving god and loving followers..."I can see why he had the non virgins killed"...
@ MasterJediDan
You can see why they killed the non-virgin ladies? That's more than twisted, guy. The "war" was over; they won. And a last order to kill off non-combatants? By that account, Viking history is more civil than biblical history.
Also, try not to be so naive. The virgins weren't assimilated into Judaism by friendly talk and flowers; they were captives. Captives = slaves in ancient history. And yes, captors have sex with captives.
Line 18 says keep the women for yourselves, probably as slaves or servants, not sex slaves. Atheistwager just kind of got that out of reasoning, not from what it says.
It may not say it directly, but it hints heavily in that direction.
Dan has a point. You can't use reasoning if religion is concerned. What were you guys thinking?
So keeping them as servant-type slaves is fine, but sex slaves is not?
To me, the 'sex-slave' part is a slightly worse form of an already abominable action/condition. Sex slave or not, they're still slaves.
Slavery, genocide and infanticide are the important points here, not what kind of slave they were.
--Rob
MJD, I have enjoyed your partipation here thusfar. I realize that you are young and I'll take a wild guess that you have religious parents. Fine. You want to believe this stuff and haven't lived on your own yet. For the most part, you have been pretty moderate. However, you are COMPLETELY out of line here.
From the way I see it, there are three ways heterosexuals can commit adultry.
Number 1: A married man has sex with an unmarried woman
Number 2: A married woman has sex with an unmarried man
Number 3: A married man and a married woman have sex with each other
Well, number 2 and 3 are out since any of the survivors are no longer married because all of the men have been MASSACRED.
That leaves us with number 1. So God endorses the slaughter of the non-virgins because he doesn't want the Israelites to be tempted? Are they not going to be tempted by the virgins?
Dan, I want you to think long and hard before you respond. You are way out of line.
OK, thank you for the explanation. Yes, my parents are religious, but they don't really have much influence on me. Right now I'm trying to figure out life, so I'm trying to see if the Bible is really true.
To address the point, you have to read the passage in context (i.e. the surrounding chapters) (which I did just now). The king of the Midianites was afraid as heck of the Israelites, because they had escaped from Egypt and defeated a few groups of people. So he asked Balaam to mess up the Israelites. Balaam got the Israelites to commit adultery with the Midianite women. So God's reason for killing all of them is because they commited sexual immorality with the Israelites and caused God to unleash His wrath on the Israelites as a result of their immorality. God wasn't too happy that the Midianite women had seduced some of the men of Israel, so He had the women who had had sex destroyed. The reason that the Israelites didn't use the captured Midianite virgins as sex slaves is because God was never happy when His people intermarried with other cultures (because, of course, the other cultures had false gods, and would cause some of the Israelites to fall away from their belief in the true God).
I found the whole killing of the male children to be the most abominable part, personally. There is quite simply no way to justify killing thousands of children who have commited no crime. Also, I somehow doubt that every Midianite woman commited adultery with an Isrealite man, or even that a large fraction of them were at all involved in the event. Killing everyone for the licentious actions of a few hundred at most smacks of childish vengeance, not divine wrath. I could respect (though not love) a deity that was veangeful and not afraid to unleash it's power, but these are the actions of a three year old.
Of course the other way out of this is to accept that the bible is allegorical, and that it was written by men who interpreted the word of god through the events of their own time. This would seem to be the logical thing to do considering the egregious contradictions and errors found in other parts of the book (e.g. pi=3.0, the two different versions of Genesis, etc). Then there is the fact that the bible was translated from hebrew to greek to english, and books have been added and removed at different times (gospel of Judas, anyone?). The story invalidates only biblical literalism, not christianity itself.
You can take the Moses story as allegorical, as soon as you can tell me why you shouldn't also take the "Jesus Resurrecting" story as allegorical.
"God wasn't too happy that the Midianite women had seduced some of the men of Israel, so He had the women who had had sex destroyed."
So because some women seduced some men, all the women must die? What about the men? If God is fair and just, shouldn't he order Moses to then kill all the men who committed adultery?
Being an atheist, I agree that the Jesus story is probably also a parable. As a philosophy minor, though, I was adhering to the principle of charity. Always go up against the strongest possible form of your opponent's argument; to defeat a strawman is useless.
Religion recognizes God as governor of the universe. The one who sets the rules and the penalties for breaking such. Atheistwager got it right when he said “God has his reasons so I wouldn’t bring him to trial on any of this”.
This is divine wrath. Other examples are “The Flood” and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the past and Armageddon in the future.
Since life is a gift, we might lose it if we are ungrateful.
Instead of killing all the hedonists, Mosaic Law allowed virgin captive women to be spared as wives, not slaves (Deuteronomy 21:10-13). An exception from prohibition concerning foreign wives, since there would be no religious or social connection with the pagan nation. There were no heathen in-laws for the Jew to mix with, after the battle.
These books of the Bible are historical, not allegorical.
Oh, I agree that the Isrealites probably did lay waste to the Midianites. It has been shown that the Old Testament is pretty good when it comes to broad historical happenings; which empires and cities rose and fell, which army invaded where and so on (discounting the occasional flub like Moses parting the Red Sea...it's a mistranslation of "reed" sea, meaning either the Nile river delta (3 ft deep) or a swampy lake). I just doubt that God was the one that commanded them to do it; both because I don't believe that that god (or any other, for that matter) exists, and because the christian god is intended to be a loving deity. More like what happened is the Isrealites killed an awful lot of people and then said "we had to, God told us too," which has been a sadly repeated justification for most of history. Seems whenever someone wants a war or genocide, they always give "God told me too" or "It's God's will" as an excuse.
oh, and sorry for the habitual misuse of "too." I'm tired; just finished a bio project...
@ molly
If it makes you feel any better, God did destroy the men too.
No, I'm not a big fan of your fictions god destroying anyone frankly.
Notice verse 2 begins “Avenge”.
Verse 16 identifies the trouble.
Directed by Balaam, Moabite and Midianite women seduced Israelite men into phallic worship. Since idolatry
was a capital crime in that nation, God started cleaning his own house, first. (Numbers 25:1-5)
As a result, the “plague among the congregation of the LORD” (end of verse 16) caused 24,000 Israelites to lose their lives. (Numbers 25:9).
Imagine you live in a bad neighborhood, until the hoodlums are forced out. Life on the street gets much better, when someone in authority, enforces the law. Loving, merciful, call it what you may, your situation improves.
Just like a parent or big brother, a loving God stands up for his own. Those following God’s law were thankful, when the trouble makers, both Israelite and pagan, were eliminated.
@ MasterJediDan
I can see why they killed the women who weren't virgins, probably because God didn't want the Israelites to commit adultery.
Huh? I'm trying to put it in the context of modern times. Suppose you have a foreigner of a race with whom you have some age-old conflicts as a neighbor who is widow and the reason of her being a widow is you killed her husband. So now if God ordered you to kill her too because you might be tempted and commit adultery, would you listen to Him? How about you telling God you're not that stupid?
There are other instances of genocide on gods behalf written in the bible. The bible does not condem war, quite the opposite the bible glorifies war. This the root cause of the religious obsession with genocide throughout history. God wants it... god instructs it... so therefore the slaughtering of babies children, men, women, goats, cows pigs etc.. well it's perfectly ok.
Bible Bull needs to be slaughtered.
Psalm 11:5 says: The LORD examines the righteous and the wicked. He hates the lover of violence. (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
Only on God’s say so, is war ever OK (Job 34:10-12).
The irony is that later on God would sacrifice his own son for us to believe. It seems that during Moses time people didn't have all that trouble believing in God. Especially a God who never appeared before them. And that is not just following the 10 commandments. They were instructed by God to perform horrible atrocities.
What kind of people would sleep at night knowing that a few hours ago they murdered women and children. Of course I can't really understand what the standards of life would have been during that time, but still it's quite impressive to see how easily those people were convinced to do those things.
I thought that Christ taught the world that peace and love were the ultimate goods for mankind. It's easy to see how contradicting that is compared with the passage described above.
I don't even know why we're debating a couple of passages of a fictional novel.
ahem...much dancing around the issue, but no one has given a good reason to murder all of the male children yet...
@ gopackgo
Because it's a fictional novel millions of people use to guide their daily actions. Because many of our politicians use it to guide their policy decision; decisions that affect all of us. Because it has been used countless times as a justification for genocide, murder, rape, and pillage. Trust me, if the Scientologists were this powerful, we'd all be having a go at Dianetics too.
@ bible student
So how about those Crusades? Or that whole Inquisition thing? Or the current war in Iraq?
@ molly
God never endorsed those wars anywhere in the Bible, neither did He personally tell anyone to start those wars. Yes, they were done in His name, but it doesn't mean that He told people to start them.
@ bible student
You repeatedly quote the bible (god's word/command) as justification for itself (god's word/command). You can't legitimize a source with the source.
@ Molly
I’ll repeat, unjust wars, authorized by man, are not God’s fault.
We are created in God’s image, not to look like him, he has no body, he is a spirit.
We do have the same make up, in that we share his attitude in reasoning. God invented the ideas of truth and justice. We hate being slandered. Like him, we don’t like to be deceived or persecuted.
Most of us are happy to let others know how we think. We are proud of our reasoning. When someone takes the time to try and understand we grow closer to that person.
God inspired 40 writers over 1600 years to explain himself. If you feel anger, please direct it at one who deserves it.
Many today, would be happy to share what they have learned, with you.
@ super zombie
Look here! Bible ideas without citations. Happy?
Y*W*H is definitely a war god, no doubt about that. But I do take exception to your reading of a couple of specifics here.
With respect to the sex slaves comment, I'd likely back off your assertion there, as it is unfounded. In a world where slavery is as common as walking upright, you cannot assume that every slave was used for sex. But in the end, you can be pretty sure that these female children we assimilated.
Then the killing of the women - somehting was said there about a plague. Think some type of STD. In a world before pennicillin (yes, it works), destroying the diseased was the best sure fire way to control an epidemic. Harsh, yes, but effective.
This may seem like the Hussein defense, but it will get better.
You need to finish putting this story in context to really appreciate the nuance of the story. In a world where gods are many and cultures are savage, a nation without a homeland must constantly fight to preserve itself.
The Israelites had just spent countless years in slavery, since just after the time of Joseph to Moses. These were an oppressed people, looked upon as weak by all the other peoples of the time and needing to establish themselves.
All available land in the Middle East was already occupied, so they had to go around fighting for their space. They needed to 'clear' land, as it were, and ensure that no one would mess with them afterwards (kindof a modern Israel thing here, too, look up the 10 days war). The best way to do ensure a lasting peace was to show that you would kick butt if challenged, and seeming crazy bloodthirsty at the outset would make sure folks would just clear you a path. Peace through strength - a detente, as it were.
Now to tie in the godly function of this bloody tale, it was even better, in these primitive times, to go around claiming that your god was more powerful than anyone else's. And taking action against your tribe would be seen as an affront to your god. And an affront to your god would be met with a merciless rampage.
To wit - the Israelites claimed that their god had delivered them from Egypt and had destroyed the pharoah's army in the process. And the Angel of Death had wiped out the sons of Egypt (much the same as the pharoah had done to the Israelites years earlier.
Now, to apply your modern sensibilities and ethics to a stone age story and condemning them for not complying with your ethical views would be like expecting them to use a computer to blog about their experiences in the desert and condemning them because they didn't. It is a logical non-sequitor.
Their contemporaries were bloody cultures as much as they were. Atrocities were committed in the name of probably hundreds of gods. They cannot be held to a higher standard than their contemporaries on that level. Two things which had not even been conceived of yet are atheism and democracy.
Walk in their shoes for forty years eating matzos and see how you feel about it then.
@ bible student
Guess I struck a nerve. That's ok. You restructured your argument. By that you just shifted your perception. Am I happy? Eh, close enough.
@ MJD
Judges 14:19 "And the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he went down to Askelon and slew thirty men..."
(referring to Samson having the power to defeat the Philistines)
Exodus 15:3,4 "The Lord is a warrior, the Lord is His Name. Pharaoh's chariots and His army He has hurled into the sea."
Deut 20:1 "When you go to war...Do not be found faint hearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them. For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight..."
I Samuel 15:3 "Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."
And that isn't even counting all the times God commands an individual murder.
@ bible student
I'm not angry at god, to do so would be to believe in him/her/it/. I don't. I get angry at people who poorly defend the religious beliefs they cling to so strongly.
@ molly
As I already said, God didn't endorse the Crusades, the Inquisition, or the Iraq war. If you want to prove to me that He did, then find in the Bible where it says that it's ok to torture those who don't believe in God...
@ MJD
They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)
@ Molly and Gopackgo
Molly:
You can't say that, everyone here respects your opinion as an atheist but you can't just blatantly say that God is not real, because you cannot prove it! You can say that you don't believe in God all you want but you have no right to say he's not real!
And to Gopackgo:
The bible is not a fiction Novel, there is a lot of evidence to support the truth of many bible stories, obviously not all of them are supported by facts but you can't just say that something supported by factual data is fiction!
So, next time you two decide to post I recommend that you choose your words a little more carefully, before you really start to offend people and loose any amount of credibility that you've been granted in this blog!
@ molly
You are taking the verse out of context, as most people do when they look at the Bible and are very confused. This was just after Israel had turned away from idol worship (one of many times). They all made a covenant with God that they would follow Him and turn away from their false gods. From looking at the context of the passage, they were to kill those who did not turn from idol worship, which is addressed in the FIRST commandment God gave Moses "You shall have NO OTHER gods before ME". God didn't take idol worship lightly. So if you were in Israel and you were worshipping idols even after your friends had done everything they could to show you the truth, you weren't going to be looked upon with great favor.
MJD,
They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)
Am I stupid or does that statement not mean; If you fail to believe in me, then, you will die.
What sort of context do we need to read the bible in?
If this book is read literally, as most books are, then could it not induce a potentially psychotic mind to falter over the edge and become psychotic?
Does the bible's ideas, somehow, influence the instances of genocide we see in the past?
It's possible for anyone to proclaim god told them to kill millions of people; then write it in a book.
Schizophrenics often proclaim to hear voices in their own heads.
Indeed, a logical explanation could be that the Israelite leaders were all schizophrenics acting upon "voices in their heads". They then co-ordinated the writing of this book to justify their own madness. Obviously, all in the name of God.
Anyway, just a thought.
Sorry I cannot read it IN context, dammed logic.
Since it has not happened yet Proverbs 2:21,22 is still prophecy. It says, “The upright will inhabit the land, and men of integrity will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.”
The Bible, God’s only declaration to mankind, starts and ends with man in paradise. Pretty much saying, that he has no reason to change his mind.
One of my wife’s favorite sayings when disciplining our son was, “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.”
God, as a loving parent, can say the same thing. He has more right , when it comes to life and death, than any man or woman. He can even resurrect someone who he remembers well.
Though distasteful to some, Armageddon removes from our world, those who won’t respect God.
Water on the floor can cause a fall, but there is a remedy for this. There is no reason to rave on about the spill, clean it up! "Voices in their heads" have also been attributed to demons. With so much Satanic influence in world, why blame a book that most folks won’t read and understand.
@ klej
Pardon me, but it seems that Molly has just as much right in saying that god doesn't exist as you do in saying that god does exist. Your claim can be no more proven than hers, in fact many people would say that there is far more evidence supporting her claim than there is supporting the actual existence of god.
Bible Student:
If god is so willing to exert his parental love why then have so many other religions been allowed to run rampant? Why would god not have stopped them all in their tracks before they had a chance to gain such widespread influence? I mean if "he" really is as powerful as the bible shows him to be why have holy wars ever even been an issue?
@ KLEG society
I can say whatever I want. Welcome to America, free speech, all that jazz.
We weren't discussing why I don't believe in the Bible, we were discussing the violent actions of god in the Bible. I feel no need to demonstrate to you my reasoning for saying your god isn't real.
Further, saying I don't believe in him/she/it/they is no different than saying he/she/it/they isn't real. If I was acknowledging that god was real, then I would believe in him.
@MGD
Look sparky, I didn't read it out of context. I just supplied the evidence I needed to back up disprove your claim.
You said "find in the Bible where it says that it's ok to torture those who don't believe in God..."
And I did.
Now you want to change your story later in the game and try to justify god's reasoning.
@ bible student
"One of my wife’s favorite sayings when disciplining our son was, “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.” "
This is a horrible thing to say to a child. You have no right to bring him/her out of the world. That's murder, and in this country you go to jail for a long, long time. Is your wife striving to be Andrea Yates?
@ molly
It's not said in sincerity, it's just joking. You and the rest of the atheists, on the other hand, seem to be bent on becoming the next Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. You mercilessly kill thousands of babies every day and label it as "a right." Some right for the innocent people who die. In the process, we have killed future scientists that could have even been able somehow to prove evolution to be true. And yet you continue to slaughter innocent millions who could have made a difference in today's world.
Well, this discussion has become a little less civil than when I left it, as is apt to happen when we talk about the big questions. To both sides: I think a hell (pardon the expression) of a lot more would come out of actual arguments than slinging pejoratives at each other. Molly: calm down, dammit! You don't convince people of something by yelling at them, you just close their hearts and minds forever! MJD, the whole Stalin and Mao killed people because they were atheists argument is awful thin. Their religion was communism, which though it said it was atheistic, really had just replaced "God" with "the State." The real harm is from dogmatically beleiving in something when there's evidence against it, and that is something anyone can be guilty of. Also, where did the abortion stuff come from? Not all atheists are pro-choice, just as not all christians are pro-life. It also has nothing to do with the argument at hand, and while it is an important issue, it belongs in another thread.
@ kej society
God isn't real. I define real as here next to me typing or next to you at your job/home or even at a bar drinking a pint. That is my operational definition of real.
If God was real, then you wouldn't have to believe in him/it/her, right?
And also the bible is fictional because it suggests a story that is without basis in reality. The bible promotes and requires faith. Faith is not reality. If the bible was reality then you wouldn't need faith.
@ MGD
I'm sorry, but how did we get to baby killing here?
I can't speak for anyone else here but I personally have never killed a baby. I don't like people that kill babies (as evidenced by my response to bible student).
@ zesty
If you think you stand any chance of changing these peoples minds, you haven't been around many. I'm not here to change anyones mind. I have no vested interest in "converting" them to atheism. Frankly, I could not care less. I merely enjoying pointing out the fallacies of their beliefs.
I'm the sort of guy who doesn't mind tilting at the occasional windmill :)
@ Molly and Warren
What I'm saying is that molly has no absolute proof that God does not exist! She can say she believes that God doesn't exist but she has no overwhelming evidence to prove that God does not exist! I wasn't saying anything in regards to her right to free speech just that she can't be justified in saying that God does not exist! So no she can't say that!
@Superzombie
Well if you can justify a nonbelief in God by using your own definition of a word then the same can be done for me! If I define being real as having some qualities in which God has, then God is real!
And to your second question:
I believe that the Eiffel tower exists even though I have never seen it in person, so does that mean it doesn't exist because I only believe it does? No, to put it simply!
And No the Bible is not fictional because it's original writers were people from the relative times that these stories took place, other than the creations of the universe.
And yes you're right Faith is not reality that's why it's faith, and that's why Christianity is a religion not a science! Also you're wrong in saying that something isn't real because it uses Faith, like I aid earlier, just because I only have a belief that something exists does not necessarily mean that it doesn't! Believe me, I'm a philosophy minor, I know this to be absolutely true!
Example:
I've never seen a one hundred dollar bill with my own two eyes, or held one however, I still believe that they exist! And they do, to the best of my knowledge, so there is an example of something that requires faith and does exist!
@Klej Society:
"I've never seen a one hundred dollar bill with my own two eyes, or held one however, I still believe that they exist! And they do, to the best of my knowledge, so there is an example of something that requires faith and does exist!"
The difference is that we have evidence that it does exist by way millions of images, first-hand eye-witnesses, hundreds and thousands of books all corroborating that both the Eiffel Tower and the 100-dollar bill exists.
Whereas with the case of god, we don't have anything like that. We only have faith, and a 'feeling'.
Otherwise you're right. Technically we cannot affirm that there is or there isn't a god. We can only express our belief and the reasoning for it if we want to be politically correct and respectful.
We cannot, as someone else said, judge the biblical folks by our modern standard of morality. But by that note, we cannot use the Bible as our moral guide as well... what is the moral note of this particular story? That it is ok to go to war, kill everything living, if god says so?
Or in a similar note offer your daughter and wife to strangers, so that your guest maybe spared? What moral values does a story like this passes on to the reader?
The moral set of today is much different than in those times, women were viewed as properties mostly... just recently they're were given the right to vote, in some parts of the world... for crying out loud! Imagine what was like back then... how can we take moral values from stories like this?
Well.. enough with the rant... I didn't mean to be disrespectful, if I seem to be by the choice of words, then I apologize.
The Bible is just a big book of contradictory fairy-tales. Hell, even Jesus is found to contradict himself.
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The Atheist Perspective
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