Why does God favor Israel and slaughter other nations?

[cerad2]

He doesn’t have to ask. He made them and gave them life and can take it back whenever he wants. He doesn’t have to ask you if you want to die or not. He can take your life any time he wants and by any means he sees fit.

So where exactly does free will fit in if god can do whatever he wants to us? Remember that free will is your argument not mine.

Who asked 50 million infants in the USA since 1970 if they wanted to be sacrificed? Who asked them if they wanted to be cut apart with wires and vacuumed into jars, their body parts hauled off to infectious waste facilities to be burned, so that their mothers and fathers would be inconvenienced. Before we start blaming God for genocide, we had better look in the mirror.

Again, free will is your argument, not mine.

 

[cerad2]

The archaeological evidence of wide-scale sacrifice of children by the Canaanites, their relatives the Carthaginians, and other non-Jewish tribes in the middle-east suggests that the Canaanites, who sacrificed their infants in the hopes of material prosperity practiced evils of such a horrible nature that God would quite probably have cause to eradicate them. This was conducted at a level that even horrified the Romans (including Plutarch, Tertullian, Orosius, Diodorus Siculus and Philo), who were no slouches themselves at infanticide. The descendents of the Carthaginians are trying to whitewash the evidence of infanticide:

post-gazette.com/pg/05146/510878.stm

But the evidence seems pretty good for a satanic death-cult centered around the murder of babies throughout the middle-eastern crescent, whether that be through worship of Moloch, Tanit, Ba’al, or Cronus, in which babies were burnt alive, often in a metal statue of one of the gods or goddesses, as archaeological excavations of the mass graves of the children have proven.

If that kind of thing doesn’t deserve intervention, what does?

Might want to check your time lines. The Israel genocide of Jericho took place around 1400bce. Rome really didn’t get started till around 800bce or so. Same for Carthage. Basic history.

And sure, God could have intervened. Just stop the sacrifices.

 

[cerad2]

You misunderstood what I said. I did not say that free will justifies genocide. There is a couple of things wrong with that assertion. First, we are not talking about genocide but about war. Genocide is the holocaust durng WWII where innocent people were rounded up and murdered for being a certain race. War is where 2 countries or tribes fight each other, usually for goods or resources. In the case of the Israelites conquering the Canaanites there were cases where villages surrendered and did not fight and these were spared. In cases where they did fight there was war.

You might want to look up the term genocide. I think you may be a bit confused by what is being talked about.

The directive to wipe out the inhabitants of those who fought was not motivated out of racial hatred but to drive out the inhabitants from the land so that Israel could occupy tue land for God’s kingdom. A land that previously inhabitated by people who morally corrupt. And to keep this corruption out of Israel it was necessary to drve them out. And, it also means that if your enemy is completly wiped out then you dont have to keep fighting them as they recover and regroup. So there is a military tactical advantage.

What does this do? It creates fear in the hearts and minds of the enemies of Israel. And it brings great reverance to the name of God among all the Canaanites in the land. Who is this God who drives out the enemy of his people. Nothing can stand before him and live.

Israel had the ark of the covenant before them in battle. It was because of the Lord that they could defeat them. When they sinned against the Lord they would lose until they repented.

In those times war was a reality of life, not a freak occurrence. To equate the war brtween Israel and their enemies with genocide shows a lack of understanding.

But we are still talking about the lord god all powerful master of the universe right? The best plan he could come with was kill them, kill them all? Seems strange.

 

[Nate13]

haha your talking about the Israelite’s who made a golden calf to worship not but just a little after God had come and saved them from slavery under the Egyptians and performed multiple miracles displaying his power. God is working with the equivalent of babies spiritually. You expect more from your 18 year old child than you do from your 1 month old right? As a father you would go to much greater lengths to keep bad influences out of a young child’s life as opposed to your older children correct?

Asking the Israelites to adopt the Canaanite’s who were not guilty would be like asking a 3 year old kid in today’s time to take care of a 1 month old child.

In terms of free will here is my response. Without free will we are incapable of loving God. If you don’t believe think of how you would feel if you were put in an arranged marriage and every single choice within the marriage is dictated for you towards the goal of making whoever you were married to happy. Love requires free will. If you have a family I’m sure you know this.

 

[Warrior1979]

The Israeli’s slaughtering the Canaanites, in particular the children, under God’s direction, creates philosophical issues. According to the Catholic Church, there is no justification for killing children…period, the end. Any attempt to try to justify Israeli’s slaughter will run square into well established Catholic dogma.

Furthermore, it gives the appearance of that morals have not been consistent over time. In order to establish that they have, one has to demonstrate how babies are guilty and worthy of murder. Any argument made for this event would be applicable today, if morals are indeed consistent.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Might want to check your time lines. The Israel genocide of Jericho took place around 1400bce. Rome really didn’t get started till around 800bce or so. Same for Carthage. Basic history.

That isn’t a timeline problem, cerad. It just indicates that ritual infanticide was a long-standing practice. The Tophet of Salammbó has about 20,000 urns containing the charred bodies of children (from fetuses up to 2 year olds) (Kermit Gosnell would be proud) that were deposited from 400 BC to 200 BC, in an area that covers about an acre and a half. Textual evidence that this was a common practice in Jericho is in the Old Testament.

As both the Canaanites and the Carthaginians derived their pantheon of gods and goddesses from the Phoenician culture of Canaan, they shared similar practices and beliefs, and it would be likely that this would include propitiary child sacrifice. The Phoenicians were calling themselves Canaanites as far back as the 14th century BC, so yeah, to answer your question, we’re talking about the same culture (see the Egyptian Amarna Tablets, written in cuneiform, which date from that period and refer to the Phoenicians as Canaanites). That would put them right before your date of 1400 BC.

To my knowledge, there hasn’t been any discovery of the remains of Canaanite sacrifice from that period, which is about what we would expect - it would be unlikely that the cremated remains of an infant would survive since the time of the Canaanites unless preserved in an urn or vessel (which was the practice in Carthage). We have textual corroboration, obviously.

The fact that numerous Roman commentators described the practice at a much later period simply demonstrates how pernicious and long-lived this practice was (it’s still with us, in fact.). If, as the philosopher Robert Humphrey said, the two constants of a healthy human society are that 1) the members value their own lives and 2) they value the lives of their children even more, a society that sacrifices its own children for material gain can only be described as disordered, and I would say, satanic.

The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (writing about 60 BC) mentions this was not a new practice, but that the Carthaginians were now purchasing and sacrificing the children of those outside of their tribe: “In former times they (the Carthaginians) had been accustomed to sacrifice to this god the noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing children, they had sent these to the sacrifice…There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.”

Cleitarchus, a court historian for Alexander the Great wrote circa 301-310 BC that in the city of Carthage “There stands in their midst a bronze statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames of which engulf the child. When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier. Thus it is that the ‘grin’ is known as ‘sardonic laughter,’ since they die laughing.”

Plutarch wrote that “… the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums so that the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people.”

Rabbinical traditions passed down through Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki agree with that description of the noise used to drown out the screams of the infants, and hold that "Tophet is Moloch, which was made of brass; and they heated him from his lower parts; and his hands being stretched out, and made hot, they put the child between his hands, and it was burnt; when it vehemently cried out; but the priests beat a drum, that the father might not hear the voice of his son, and his heart might not be moved."

Others sites containing the burnt remains of children have been found in Amman, Tyre, Sardinia, Sicily, and the island of Motiya, off the coast of Sicily, where the charred bones excavated from the Tophet sacrificial sites are almost all male children (indicating a more valued sacrifice) and show no signs of disease, indicating they were unlikely to be the remains of natural deaths. J.B. Hennessy’s excavation of burnt child remains at Amman are dated to 1400 - 1250 BC, which would fit well within your timeline, cerad.

If you’d like to research this more, cerad, you could look at Shelby Brown’s “Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in their Mediterranean Context” (JSOT/ASOR Monograph Series, vol. 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991); .
Joseph Greene’s Punic Project Excavations: Child Sacrifice in the Context of Carthaginian Religion: Excavations in the Tophet, American Schools of Oriental Research; Lawrence E. Stager and Samuel R. Wolff, *“Child Sacrifice at Carthage: Religious Rite or Population Control?” *Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1984;

And sure, God could have intervened. Just stop the sacrifices.

Apparently, He did. God can act through his moral agents, which can include angels and those humans under His command.

 

[trdchubi]

Ok. So here I am the most powerful being in (and out of) the universe able to not only leap mountains in a single bound but to create them as well. Can I possibly come up with a way to make people behave without slaughtering them all? Hey I know. Each time someone tries to sacrifice a child I’ll appear, stop the sacrifice and tell them not to do that any more. That should work.

You know he can do what you suggest, but He chose not to. God works differently. He sees the future. He sees what in store for His people. He sees what is in people’s heart and minds. He is not a reactive super hero, dealing only with what is at hand.

As what was said already here, Life is a privilege. It came from God. He owns Life. He gave it to you freely and He can take it away when He please. On this premise He chose the actions against the pagans because he already saw us in the future. He saw the future generation after us. He did what is necessary for the greater good of all mankind which includes YOU and ME.

Okay, now let say God did preserve the pagan people so to please those who judge God for His ‘cruel’ actions. Assuming they did worship Him, do you think it will be easy on the part of God?

God will have to contend with their pagan practices. He has to deal with their extreme stubbornness towards spiritual change. He has to compete with a combo of lukewarm-halfhearted attitudes towards Him and other local dieties. He needs different sets of prophets from different groups so they can bring God’s message to their respective people. Now that will be hectic, chaotic or just plain disastrous.

One of the good things about God is He knows the virtue of FOCUS. He knows His priorites. He chose One people and preserve them. The Jews where stubborn people, and it took a lot of time for them to understand God. It took them millenniums to comprehend what God is saying.

How much more for those pagan tribe who has had an established set of pagan rituals and practices? Maybe it will take them forever.

God knows it. He has His own TIMELINE for man’s salvation. He cannot allow the preservation of these people for these few simple reasons.

 

[Warrior1979]

You know he can do what you suggest, but He chose not to. God works differently. He sees the future. He sees what in store for His people. He sees what is in people’s heart and minds. He is not a reactive super hero, dealing only with what is at hand.

As what was said already here, Life is a privilege. It came from God. He owns Life. He gave it to you freely and He can take it away when He please. On this premise He chose the actions against the pagans because he already saw us in the future. He saw the future generation after us. He did what is necessary for the greater good of all mankind which includes YOU and ME.

Okay, now let say God did preserve the pagan people so to please those who judge God for His ‘cruel’ actions. Assuming they did worship Him, do you think it will be easy on the part of God?

God will have to contend with their pagan practices. He has to deal with their extreme stubbornness towards spiritual change. He has to compete with a combo of lukewarm-halfhearted attitudes towards Him and other local dieties. He needs different sets of prophets from different groups so they can bring God’s message to their respective people. Now that will be hectic, chaotic or just plain disastrous.

One of the good things about God is He knows the virtue of FOCUS. He knows His priorites. He chose One people and preserve them. The Jews where stubborn people, and it took a lot of time for them to understand God. It took them millenniums to comprehend what God is saying.

How much more for those pagan tribe who has had an established set of pagan rituals and practices? Maybe it will take them forever.

God knows it. He has His own TIMELINE for man’s salvation. He cannot allow the preservation of these people for these few simple reasons.

These same arguments can also be applied to the modern world. Why doesn’t the Church reflect this in their dogma?

 

[trdchubi]

These same arguments can also be applied to the modern world. Why doesn’t the Church reflect this in their dogma?

If I get it right, what you are trying to say is the church should likewise impose capital punishment just like God did to cleanse itself from the corruption of modern pagans and heretics?

 

[Warrior1979]

If I get it right, what you are trying to say is the church should likewise impose capital punishment just like God did to cleanse itself from the corruption of modern pagans and heretics?

First, how do babies become pagans and heretics?

Second, your statement implies that the Church and God are separate. I would need to know if you believe this is the case before I know how to answer.

 

[fisherman_carl]

You might want to look up the term genocide. I think you may be a bit confused by what is being talked about.

genocide:
"the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. "

War:
“is a state of organized, armed and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties[1][2] typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality.”

When Israel encountered villages that surrendered they did not kill them but spared them. Thus, extermination of a race was not the prime directive. Rather, conquering the land for Israel was the prime directive.

But we are still talking about the lord god all powerful master of the universe right? The best plan he could come with was kill them, kill them all? Seems strange.

I think that the reflection of God’s judgment was one that was based on God’s consequent will, including the punishment of the Canaanites for refusing to repent of their evil actions, as well as a reflection on Israel’s level of maturity and their mentality which was effected by the times and culture that they lived. God revealed himself to Israel progressively. At some point God’s consequent will kicks into effect when an unrepentant sinner refuses to repent.

Perhaps it wasn’t God’s perfect will that innocent children should be harmed but it was part of his allowed will in order to effect his consequent will of punishment of the Canaanites and to bring his first born children into the promised land. God’s perspective is eternal. Thus, we can not fully understand it. We can safely assume that if there were any innocent children that were killed they would not be treated unfairly in the after life.

Every person born is born under the sin of Adam. This is called original sin. Ever since then all mankind has fallen due to sin. The flood of Noah wiped out all in the land without prejudice. But, as we know death is not really the end. Thus, God’s eternal judgment goes beyond this mortal life. God, who is the author of life has the right to judge all life. We on the other hand do not have that right.

God determines when we are going to die. He holds our very existence in his hands. Thus, we need to trust his judgment is better than ours.

 

[Nate13]

First, how do babies become pagans and heretics?

Second, your statement implies that the Church and God are separate. I would need to know if you believe this is the case before I know how to answer.

God’s blessing of Abraham did not only affect Abraham but his descendants as well. Might it possibly go the other way as well? Meaning the curse of God not only has an impact on the one who is guilty of the sin, but can as well on their descendants? The idea of original sin already embraces this ideal. The sin of one man affected us all. In the same manner the death of one man, enabled salvation for all. I think its curious that we have no problem with God blessing the line of Abraham or the line of David for the actions of one man, but have a problem when the blessing becomes a curse. All of sudden God goes from being benevolent to being unjust. I think the answer to this whole mess is to simply state that in the Old Testament God blessed and cursed the descendants of individuals because of their actions. This follows the fact that God dealt with the Jewish people materially. When they were loyal he made them powerful and gave them great wealth. When they were not loyal he made them the slaves of other nations. They received their rewards and curses here on Earth for their actions. The idea of eternal life back then was to have a great and never-ending line of descendants. The ultimate curse to a person of that time was to have your line ended.

 

[Nate13]

"27 As Samuel turned to leave, Saul caught hold of the hem of his robe, and it tore. 28 Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to one of your neighbors—to one better than you. 29 He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind.” "

1 Samuel 15: 27:29

End of story. For added affect this passage comes right after God commands Saul, via Samuel, to go destroy the Canaanites. God does not change his mind. To say otherwise is to deny the inspired Word of God. Therefore any apparent place where it appears that God has changed his mind should make us question whether we really understand what is going on there.

 

[Warrior1979]

God’s blessing of Abraham did not only affect Abraham but his descendants as well. Might it possibly go the other way as well? Meaning the curse of God not only has an impact on the one who is guilty of the sin, but can as well on their descendants? The idea of original sin already embraces this ideal. The sin of one man affected us all. In the same manner the death of one man, enabled salvation for all. I think its curious that we have no problem with God blessing the line of Abraham or the line of David for the actions of one man, but have a problem when the blessing becomes a curse. All of sudden God goes from being benevolent to being unjust. I think the answer to this whole mess is to simply state that in the Old Testament God blessed and cursed the descendants of individuals because of their actions. This follows the fact that God dealt with the Jewish people materially. When they were loyal he made them powerful and gave them great wealth. When they were not loyal he made them the slaves of other nations. They received their rewards and curses here on Earth for their actions. The idea of eternal life back then was to have a great and never-ending line of descendants. The ultimate curse to a person of that time was to have your line ended.

The blatantly obvious question is why doesn’t the Church support this today?

 

[Nate13]

The blatantly obvious question is why doesn’t the Church support this today?

thesacredpage.com/2006/10/dei-verbum-and-divine-pedagogy-part-1.html
thesacredpage.com/2006/10/dei-verbum-and-divine-pedagogy-part-2.html
thesacredpage.com/2006/10/dei-verbum-and-divine-pedagogy-part-3.html

#5 at this link would be good to listen to for sure
ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?seriesID=-306548622&T1=Scott+Hahn

 

[cerad2]

From: bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15255357

They reveal missing bone from his skull and damage to a part of his brain after a machete sliced through Allan’s head and neck in an attempt to behead him; he was castrated by the witch doctor. It was a month before Allan woke from a coma after being dumped near his village home.

"Cerad:

Why can’t God just stop the sacrifices?

Apparently, He did. God can act through his moral agents, which can include angels and those humans under His command.

Guess it’s still a work in progress. Still have no idea how a god stopping a machete would turn me in to a robot.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

From: bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15255357

Guess it’s still a work in progress. Still have no idea how a god stopping a machete would turn me in to a robot.

One can make the logical fallacy of arguing that a a world could somehow be created that reconciles free will and lack of suffering, and further argue that, somehow, if we cannot see any evidence of such a world, why that must show that there cannot be a God. Or, one can look to the commands of Christ to see how we should act to prevent such evils from happening to our fellow men. If you believe such actions are evil, as they manifestly are, what actions have you taken to prevent them, personally?

If you don’t want to see evil, then do more good.

 

[Nate13]

@cerad
I don’t understand why this is so hard. Why is it impossible in your mind for God to have created humans with free will? If we didn’t have free will and the ability to chose wrong we would be SLAVES. God gave us free will and he has the power to take it away. However, if he took it away to try to stop an evil deed he would also take away our ability to love Him. When God doesn’t step in and prevent humans from committing awful deeds its not because he isn’t capable of stopping it, but because taking away our free will would be an even worse result.

 

[cerad2]

@cerad
I don’t understand why this is so hard. Why is it impossible in your mind for God to have created humans with free will? If we didn’t have free will and the ability to chose wrong we would be SLAVES. God gave us free will and he has the power to take it away. However, if he took it away to try to stop an evil deed he would also take away our ability to love Him. When God doesn’t step in and prevent humans from committing awful deeds its not because he isn’t capable of stopping it, but because taking away our free will would be an even worse result.

Try telling that to a young child castrated by a witch doctor. And are you familiar with the church’s doctrine on heaven? Is heaven populated by robots? Will kids still be tortured and buried alive even in the afterlife?

Can’t have it both ways.

 

[Nate13]

Try telling that to a young child castrated by a witch doctor. And are you familiar with the church’s doctrine on heaven? Is heaven populated by robots? Will kids still be tortured and buried alive even in the afterlife?

Can’t have it both ways.

The difference between the afterlife and now is our knowledge of God’s love and what he has done for us. Thus on Earth people reject either what they don’t know or don’t understand many times. Anytime we do something wrong that is grave sin, with knowledge that God has said it is wrong, and full will to do it anyways we commit a mortal sin that will send us to hell if we don’t seek forgiveness. The same thing applies when we die. We will be given full knowledge of our sins against God and if we aren’t prepared to turn away from those forever we will go to Hell. The difference at that point though than when we are on Earth is we will have full knowledge of how our sins offend God. There are no excuses at that point because you will know what is right and wrong, you will know the fullness of God’s love, and any rejection at that point will condemn you to Hell because there will be nothing preventing you to exercise your free will. Being in Heaven would be like continuously choosing to receive 1 million dollars over and over again for eternity. It is a choice that we make for eternity to love God. Every choice we make is not only the choice to do something but is at the same time a choice not to do everything else besides what we chose. You chose God for eternity and in doing so chose not to spend eternity away from God.

Think of it like this. Is there not a difference between you coming up to me and telling me that I will do whatever you ask of me for eternity, and I coming to you of my own free will and choosing to do that?