Why all the bother with the Flood

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There are many examples in the Bible where God seems to go through much manual work to achieve an end. For example he has Noah build an ark for many years, assembles all the animals, floats around for 40 days while drowning all of humanity etc. Why not just simply vaporize everything and start over instead of such a long convoluted process? The same could be said for the slaughter of the Canaanites. Why employ the Jews as proxies to manually slaughter the Canaanites? They could have been destroyed humanely and instantaneously by God. It all seems very much like manual labor for an Omnipotent.
 
KevinK said:
There are many examples in the Bible where God seems to go through much manual work to achieve an end. For example he has Noah build an ark for many years, assembles all the animals, floats around for 40 days while drowning all of humanity etc. Why not just simply vaporize everything and start over instead of such a long convoluted process?
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Because we messed things up ,so we had to do the reparation . Ecclesiastes 7:29 See, this alone I found, that God made human beings straightforward, but they have devised many schemes.
KevinK said:
The same could be said for the slaughter of the Canaanites. Why employ the Jews as proxies to manually slaughter the Canaanites?
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KevinK said:
They could have been destroyed humanely and instantaneously by God. It all seems very much like manual labor for an Omnipotent.
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The Sins of the Canaanites​

Wisdom 12:3 Those who lived long ago in your holy land 4 you hated for their detestable practices,
their works of sorcery and unholy rites,5 their merciless slaughter of children,and their sacrificial feasting on human flesh and blood.These initiates from the midst of a heathen cult,6 these parents who murder helpless lives,you willed to destroy by the hands of our ancestors,7 so that the land most precious of all to you might receive a worthy colony of the servants of God.8 But even these you spared, since they were but mortals,and sent wasps as forerunners of your army
to destroy them little by little,9 though you were not unable to give the ungodly into the hands of the righteous in battle,or to destroy them at one blow by dread wild animals or your stern word.10 But judging them little by little you gave them an opportunity to repent,though you were not unaware that their origin was evil and their wickedness inborn,and that their way of thinking would never change.11 For they were an accursed race from the beginning,and it was not through fear of anyone that you left them unpunished for their sins.
 
KevinK said:
There are many examples in the Bible where God seems to go through much manual work to achieve an end. For example he has Noah build an ark for many years, assembles all the animals, floats around for 40 days while drowning all of humanity etc. Why not just simply vaporize everything and start over instead of such a long convoluted process?
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The Noah story doesn’t end with the rainbow. Read Genesis 9. The whole point of the story, it seems, is to teach us that you can’t get rid of sin by getting rid of ‘sinners’; each of us has the propensity to sin, and each of us has to make our own choice whether to sin or not.
KevinK said:
The same could be said for the slaughter of the Canaanites. Why employ the Jews as proxies to manually slaughter the Canaanites?
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Umm… exactly which Canaanites did the Israelites slaughter?
 
The flood is just the first example of cleansing water…the symbolic cleansing water reprats over and over… Christ’s baptism in the Jordan; the “living water” from the well drawn by the Samaritan woman; blood and water that flows from his side at the crucifixion; our own baptisms.
 
There are some good answers here already, but also consider this: God is omniscient, He experiences the entirety of time from outside of it. Trying to explain His decisions in a way we can grasp with minds which are not omniscient and are tethered to time is tricky work.
 
What do you mean “which” Canaanites and what has that to do with my question?
 
I don’t understand how your responses address my question. Free will?
 
Humanity had the free will to do good or to screw it up. God respects free will. You want to know why God didnt “manually do something”. The answer is because God respects our free will.

As to you questioning the motives of God, don’t put Him to the test
 
KevinK said:
Why employ the Jews as proxies to manually slaughter the Canaanites? They could have been destroyed humanely and instantaneously by God.
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If God went and destroyed them that would disrespect the free will of the Jews in this case. Also God doesnt just go and kill people
 
You don’t understand my question and are answering something else. My question has nothing to do with why God punished, but how (i.e. why so complicated). Anyway thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut.
 
KevinK said:
What do you mean “which” Canaanites and what has that to do with my question?
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I’m trying to understand what you’re referring to, by talking about “the slaughter of the Canaanites.” Care to elaborate?
 
What do you mean free will of the Jews? God ordered them to kill the Canaanites. Regarding “God doesn’t just go and kill people”, do I have to provide examples?
 
If God ordered them, they were not exercising free will, they were following orders.
 
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