Why should I believe in a God who commands a man to kill a mother and her children?

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Luke_K

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I can accept that God has the right to kill people.
I can accept that God lets people kill other people.
But I cannot accept that God can command a human to corner a mother and her children in her home and slaughter them with the sword.

I am talking about 1 Samuel 15 and Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. In 1 Samuel 15, Samuel says that God commanded Saul and his soldiers to go doom the Amalekites, killing men, women, children, and infants. Now, I know the Amalekites were, as a tribe, evil, and they were a menace to Israel. But the expressed purpose is to punish them for attacking the Israelites when they came up from Egypt (this is shown in vs. 2 and 6), which was an event that occurred numerous generations ago. This by itself bothers me as an unjust expressed purpose for dooming a tribe (punishing children for the sins of their parents and what-not).

Regardless, if God wants to kill some humans, that’s his prerogative. He does it numerous times in the Bible including the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Egyptian firstborns and army, David’s illegitimate child, Sennacherib’s army, Ahaziah’s soldiers, sending two bears to maul 42 boys/young men, among others. Why didn’t he do it to the Amalekites, or at least their non-combatants? Why command humans to do it?

Can you imagine the scene? Place yourself in it. You have killed the defenders of the city and now enter it to kill the civilians. You reach the entrance to a house, sword drawn, perhaps bloody from an earlier kill. You bust down the door and enter to see a mother clutching her newborn in the corner, with her 7 year-old daughter hugging her for protection. The mother cries and pleads for you not to harm her or her children. You stop for a moment, overcome with repulsion at what you are about to do. But no, you have to do it. God commanded you to. So you proceed to slice the mother down with your sword, with the daughter screaming in horror. Then you kill the girl and the baby, having fulfilled God’s command of doom. You then proceed to the next house…

Other examples are found in Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. In Deut 20:10-18, Moses tells the people they can attack generic cities, killing all the males but taking the women and children as booty, but to kill every soul in the cities that belong to the “doomed” nations. So at Jericho, they kill every person young and old. They do the same at Ai, commanded by God to do so (Joshua 8). The same is done to Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir, and Hazor (Josh 9:28-11:15). Imagine the same grisly scene done at each of these cities.

This is insane. I can’t believe it. Can any Christian? If you think you can, try convincing yourself when you are in the presence of a little child or a mother holding her baby.

Convince yourself that if you were an Israelite soldier back in the day, killing that mother and her child is what God would have commanded you to do and what you would have done. I tried this myself when I was picking up four little girls from apple-picking, and it destroyed my faith in the Christian God.

So my questions are:
  1. If I were an Israelite soldier back in the day, would it have been okay for God to command me to slaughter a mother and her children with my own sword, and would I have to do it?
  2. Why wouldn’t God just kill them quickly and painlessly himself?
  3. If you want to do some exegetical handiwork to explain away this stuff, can you explain why God even had it written down this way in the Bible?
 
I do not question God on this particular matter. However, I have questioned this matter as it pertains to various philosophical implications, and Catholics have always come up woefully short in their attempts at explanation.
’
In short, when people die at the hands of man in these matters, it is objectively contrary to infalllble doctrine.

I’ll now sit back and enjoy my popcorn.
 
If it makes you feel any better, there are scholars who posit that the conquest of Canaan wasn’t a series of violent massacres, but was accomplished through trade and intermarriage. However, scholars, being scholars, like to argue over the evidence…

But I’d also be interested in an explanation.
 
My :twocents: -

I do not know why God ordered it. Given that it occurred more than 2000 years ago, I cannot even begin to fathom the circumstances surrounding these things. Attempting to superimpose my understanding onto peoples more than 2 millennia can only produce confusion and difficulty.
To me this is why we have an Old Testament and a New Testament. An old covenant and a New Covenant.

The God that I worship is the God of Love. The God who sent His Son to die for us. (and I don’t understand that either 🤷)

Peace
James
 
GOD is both mercy and “justice”. HIS mercy is deep and forgiving, but HIS justice is swift and terrible. Only GOD knows why HE brings forth HIS mercy or justice.

As HIS creatures, we are very limited in knowing HIM and therefore we superimpose our emotions upon HIM so that we can meet HIM were we are - this is easy but not proper in building a realtionship with HIM. We must trust that since HE is GOD, we cannot judge HIM, HIS actions of mercy or of justice. HE does not have to explain, and we have no right to expect an explanation of either.

You only need to mediate on the fact that you are not GOD, to release your anxiety over what GOD has done, or will do in the future and hopefully open yourself to receiving GOD as HE is, not as you want or need HIM to be.
 
… my dear friend ,

… my view is new , and perhaps controversial i know , but briefly in the beginning man only had free will to do gods will which is love , no freedom to do good or evil , the knowledge of good and evil came from satan and not god , once adam and his descendants had the forbidden knowledge them and our entire world and universe and all in it were changed intoi the oppposite oif reality – from just love everything became good and / or evil …

… but man though he thinks he does and appears to have the freedom to choose good or evil is still only allowed to choose to do gods will , but god granted mans wish and gave him the fruits of his desires – he made man subject to the devil largely , and made man evil and prone to evil , and made man and everything good and evil , and extra subject to the devil , but in reality there is nio such thing as good and evil – it is a delusion or the loss oof reality or garden of eden …

… and because man cannot do good or evil god has made good and evil sort of real , but they are only real outside of reality , in reality they don’t exist at all , it is a punishment and a curse this sataniic knowledge of good and evil , god is rubbing our noses in it to teach us a lesson and he is fixing the problem at the same time , in fact the problem was fixed so instantaneously it is like nothing even went wrong , this is reality – nothings gone wrong , it just takes so long to fix from our point of view because we must experience change gradually unfolding of necessity – we cannot exp our whole eternity all at once …

… so outside of reality in this delusion god can do anything , in reality this can never happen , and further : because man is incapable of good or evil as they don’t really exist god has to sort of create or instigate good and evil as man desired , it is a temporary punishment and curse we’re in , this is all a delusion , in reality man is perfectly natural , sinless and love and does make mistakes but small ones and learns quickly…

…, good and evil are just acting and not at all human , we are just supposed to love , man is the oppoosite of reality in every way , and you cannot have good without evil and vice versa , so god must create evil in ways so good can exist , and greater evils for greater goods to exist , this is the fruit of this wonderful forbidden knowledge of good and evil satan gave us so we can be like god …

… man is totally to blame for these horrific things , man chose it and god accommodated him and is rubbing his nose in it to teach him a lesson , the problem will soon go , i thuink the curse and punishment will end soon , the church perhaps unwittingly is working to solve the problems so we go back to the garden of eden which is reality – eventually …

…this is brief , there’s tons more to this but this is the story , man is to blame because he cannot choose good or evil but can only do gods will , good and evil don’t really exist – there a delusion and seem real i know but they are not , and god must initiate and create good and evil so man can have what he wanted , but also note all that happens in this delusion is not real at all being outside reality , in reality all is perfect love for us and nothing bad or evil , hope this helps you understand it a bit ??? …

… may god bless and love you 👍🙂 ,

… john …
 
Warrior1979 said:
I do not question God on this particular matter. However, I have questioned this matter as it pertains to various philosophical implications, and Catholics have always come up woefully short in their attempts at explanation.
’
In short, when people die at the hands of man in these matters, it is objectively contrary to infalllble doctrine.

I’ll now sit back and enjoy my popcorn.
Click to expand...
Recommend:
  1. Read Job 30-42…God himself will answer you questions, but only after you answer his questions first.
  2. Enjoy the popcorn…but I recommend that you don’t take anymore bites out of that apple…it always leads to trouble…really bad trouble.
Pax Christi
 
Julian0404 said:
GOD is both mercy and “justice”. HIS mercy is deep and forgiving, but HIS justice is swift and terrible. Only GOD knows why HE brings forth HIS mercy or justice.

As HIS creatures, we are very limited in knowing HIM and therefore we superimpose our emotions upon HIM so that we can meet HIM were we are - this is easy but not proper in building a realtionship with HIM. We must trust that since HE is GOD, we cannot judge HIM, HIS actions of mercy or of justice. HE does not have to explain, and we have no right to expect an explanation of either.

You only need to mediate on the fact that you are not GOD, to release your anxiety over what GOD has done, or will do in the future and hopefully open yourself to receiving GOD as HE is, not as you want or need HIM to be.
Click to expand...
I tend to agree that God’s ways are not our ways and that ultimately we cannot question Him, but just for the sake of argument…
  1. So basically an Israeli soldier who would still refuse to do this would have the right to be killed by God and/or his fellow Israelis?
  2. Would YOU do this if asked to by God?
  3. Is this on the same level as Abraham and Isaac?
Thoughts to ponder. The poster DOES bring up many things worth thinking about.
 
… i just want to add to my post a few spots above : satan promised the knowledge of good and evil would make man like god , in addition to all said by me prior , man becomes god when he can kill other men – man killing man is his own fault , when man sought and got the knowledge of good and evil this was a normal consequence , this forbidden knowledge is outr greatest curse , it’s a curse and punishment this forbidden knowledge from satan of good and evil …

… god has fixed it before it went wrong though , it just takes so long for us because we must experience our history unfold slowly , we cannot exp our whole eternity all at once – this is an illusion , so this mess whilst seeming very real is not – it’s a delusion , it’s like we were in the most beautuful day dream and all of a sudden it became the most horrific nightmare , we will get that beautiful daydream back though …
 
Christians interpret the Bible in the light of Christ. If Christ wouldn’t do it, then the Christian shouldn’t do it.
 
Luke_K said:
I can accept that God has the right to kill people.
I can accept that God lets people kill other people.
But I cannot accept that God can command a human to corner a mother and her children in her home and slaughter them with the sword.

I am talking about 1 Samuel 15 and Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. In 1 Samuel 15, Samuel says that God commanded Saul and his soldiers to go doom the Amalekites, killing men, women, children, and infants. Now, I know the Amalekites were, as a tribe, evil, and they were a menace to Israel. But the expressed purpose is to punish them for attacking the Israelites when they came up from Egypt (this is shown in vs. 2 and 6), which was an event that occurred numerous generations ago. This by itself bothers me as an unjust expressed purpose for dooming a tribe (punishing children for the sins of their parents and what-not).

Regardless, if God wants to kill some humans, that’s his prerogative. He does it numerous times in the Bible including the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Egyptian firstborns and army, David’s illegitimate child, Sennacherib’s army, Ahaziah’s soldiers, sending two bears to maul 42 boys/young men, among others. Why didn’t he do it to the Amalekites, or at least their non-combatants? Why command humans to do it?

Can you imagine the scene? Place yourself in it. You have killed the defenders of the city and now enter it to kill the civilians. You reach the entrance to a house, sword drawn, perhaps bloody from an earlier kill. You bust down the door and enter to see a mother clutching her newborn in the corner, with her 7 year-old daughter hugging her for protection. The mother cries and pleads for you not to harm her or her children. You stop for a moment, overcome with repulsion at what you are about to do. But no, you have to do it. God commanded you to. So you proceed to slice the mother down with your sword, with the daughter screaming in horror. Then you kill the girl and the baby, having fulfilled God’s command of doom. You then proceed to the next house…

Other examples are found in Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. In Deut 20:10-18, Moses tells the people they can attack generic cities, killing all the males but taking the women and children as booty, but to kill every soul in the cities that belong to the “doomed” nations. So at Jericho, they kill every person young and old. They do the same at Ai, commanded by God to do so (Joshua 8). The same is done to Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir, and Hazor (Josh 9:28-11:15). Imagine the same grisly scene done at each of these cities.

This is insane. I can’t believe it. Can any Christian? If you think you can, try convincing yourself when you are in the presence of a little child or a mother holding her baby.
http://www.holycomforter.com/Customer-Content/holycomfortervienna/CMS/images/Mother_And_Child.jpg
Convince yourself that if you were an Israelite soldier back in the day, killing that mother and her child is what God would have commanded you to do and what you would have done. I tried this myself when I was picking up four little girls from apple-picking, and it destroyed my faith in the Christian God.

So my questions are:
  1. If I were an Israelite soldier back in the day, would it have been okay for God to command me to slaughter a mother and her children with my own sword, and would I have to do it?
  2. Why wouldn’t God just kill them quickly and painlessly himself?
  3. If you want to do some exegetical handiwork to explain away this stuff, can you explain why God even had it written down this way in the Bible?
Click to expand...
It is a story told, retold, and finally probably written thousands of years ago by a group of people that believed that God specifically and audibly spoke to them. People attributed, and they still do, events and actions to His commands.
For some of the few people who have read the OT and could be described as literalists, they accept it by saying it was God’s will or try to rationalize it. They have varying degrees of success but it is probably not a big issue to them. Christians by and large hardly deal with OT stories in church. It does not come up much at all.
Some Christians read it and see it as a largely (and there are varying degrees to which people view it as fiction or not) fictional account of how a group of people interacted with God.
Some Christians just never think about it either way.
It sounds like you are a nonChristian person evaluating the Bible with a presupposition of it being literal which puts you in my first category. I have never taken it that literally since i was a little boy.
I was seven and I had a blue book with Bible pictures and stories. Something bothered me and I asked my mother about it. She said, and I remember this fairly well, “some of those thiings happened and some of that was just pretend stories people told.”
When I asked her how to tell, she laughed. I must have interpreted that as “good luck with that” and I suppose all these years later I have the same attitude.
 
Lancer said:
Recommend:
  1. Read Job 30-42…God himself will answer you questions, but only after you answer his questions first.
  2. Enjoy the popcorn…but I recommend that you don’t take anymore bites out of that apple…it always leads to trouble…really bad trouble.
Pax Christi
Click to expand...
More non-answers, as expected.🙂

I don’t question God on the matter, because the answer is blatantly obvious. The problem with the blatantly obvious answer it runs afoul of other Church dogma, which is the reason that explanation hasn’t been forthcoming.

I have always taken the position that God has the freedom to do whatever He pleases whenever He pleases, and everything follows. If contradictions arise with dogma/doctrine, God is always given the benefit of the doubt.
 
… god cannot kill any human beings full stop , but man listened to satan and wanted the knowledge of good and evil to be like god , and so god accommiodated man and god had to appear to be good and evil which means he can kill a human being , and man now is like god able to kill human beings too , this is the wonderful knowledge of good and evil we got from satan …

… but all this takes place in a delusion outside of reality – which is the garden of eden , none of this is real although it seems so , it takes place outside reality like stopping the clock whilst this mess goes on and is sorted out , so none are killed at all because what happens outside reality in thius delusion is not real at all , it cannot happen in reality at all , this horrific nightmare man brought upon himself will return to the beautiful daydream eventually again , this is the correct answer dear friends …
 
John_Russell_Jr said:
… god cannot kill any human beings full stop , but man listened to satan and wanted the knowledge of good and evil to be like god , and so god accommiodated man and god had to appear to be good and evil which means he can kill a human being , and man now is like god able to kill human beings too , this is the wonderful knowledge of good and evil we got from satan …

… but all this takes place in a delusion outside of reality – which is the garden of eden , none of this is real although it seems so , it takes place outside reality like stopping the clock whilst this mess goes on and is sorted out , so none are killed at all because what happens outside reality in thius delusion is not real at all , it cannot happen in reality at all , this horrific nightmare man brought upon himself will return to the beautiful daydream eventually again , this is the correct answer dear friends …
Click to expand...
This doesn’t explain the situation of God carrying out his plan through the hands of man, and how the Church would recognize this particular situation. I can, however, find plenty of references of man performing these actions being objectively a mortal sin.
 
This moral dilemma has never been totally resolved within Judaism. However, there are some answers. I would refer you to The Edah Journal and, in particular, the paper written by Eugene Korn titled “Moralization in Jewish Law: Genocide, Divine Commands and Rabbinic Reasoning,” which addresses the specific question you pose regarding the Amalek and Canaan genocides. The author presents four possibilities: (1) the notion that G-d’s command supersedes human normative moral demands; (2) the concept of divine command morality, that there is no real contradiction between human morality and G-d’s commands since G-d defines and establishes the correct human moral norm, and only G-d knows the ultimate reasons; (3) the acceptance of the contradiction between G-d’s religious imperative and human moral standards, in which the latter overrules the former; and (4) the application of human moral reasoning to justify the moral correctness of G-d’s command. The third perspective is regarded as heretical, while the first and second are not entertained by rabbinical tradition; however the second is justified according to Christian thought. Rabbinical tradition attempts to resolve the issue by means of the fourth idea. The argument is spelled out in the article. You can access The Edah Journal on the Internet.

Further, it has been pointed out that in the Oral Law of Judaism (Midrash), Moses disobeys G-d when G-d commands him to annihilate a whole people. Moses protests by asking whether he should kill both sinners and non-sinners, the latter including women and children. There is a tradition in Judaism of conversing and even arguing with G-d. The same applies to Saul’s decision to spare some innocent people and animals, in defiance of G-d’s command.

There are still other interpretations, by Maimonides most notably, that the injunction of killing is the murder of immoral behavior, and not the genocide of a whole nation. Another viewpoint interprets the action on a spiritual rather than physical level and is not to be taken literally. Finally, the idea has been proposed that many of the stories in the Hebrew Bible are intentionally exaggerated to demonstrate G-d’s authority to the Jewish people and deter the practice of idolatry.
 
Meltzerboy,

Thank you for your response! I’ve found the more troubling scripture explained so eloquently by rabbis and Jewish writers. Without a Jewish background, I doubt I would be able to try and study the Bible.

:hug1:
 
Warrior1979 said:
This doesn’t explain the situation of God carrying out his plan through the hands of man, and how the Church would recognize this particular situation. I can, however, find plenty of references of man performing these actions being objectively a mortal sin.
Click to expand...
… my dear friend ,

… it is a very big story my theories incl this , but maybe this will help further , all is thought emanating from the god whio is the ultimate good thought , god is the ultimate dreamer too , god was having a beautiful daydream but the things in his dream are real unlike ours , then man spoiled gods beautiful daydream , and gods dream turned into a horrible nightmare …

… the beautiful daydream took place in consciousness but the horrible nightmare occured when demons and man interfered with gods beautiful living daydream , and we are currently in nthe horrible nightmare – the horrible nightmare is not reality at all but just a figment of imagination , all that happens in this nightmare is not real although it certainly seems so to us , and the nightmare was for but an instant with no time passing at all , god fixed it instantaneously but to us it takes so long because we cannot experience our whoile eternity or even a vchunk of it all at once …

… but god immediately fixed the nightmare although it seems to take forever for us , and the beautiful daydream cointuinues like nothing ever went wrong – this is reality , all this mess is a delusion or non - reality , a nightmare and not real , we will experience the beautiful daydream again soon and it will be like nothing went wrong at all …

… so it is not real that god or man kills man or any evil , sin ior anything contrary to the will of god exists , it’s just part of the nightmare that will disappear as quickly as it came – instantaneously , change and time do not exist by the way – they are an illusion , and a necesity to us as we must experience our whole eternity gradually unfolding , but all change in gods creations has already taken place from all eternity , god is in " now " and must do all his creativity " now " and not over time as we think , there can be no time with god , it is an illusion change and time …

… god has fixed all negatice problems and all contrary toi his will always and like nothing went wrong at all , we just don’t experience the instantaneous fixes for reasons mentioned , god is so smart he never loses , there is tons mnore to these theories of mine if you want to know – just ask dear friend , what do you think ??? …

… may god bless and love you 👍🙂 ,

… john …
 
OrdinaryMelkite said:
I tend to agree that God’s ways are not our ways and that ultimately we cannot question Him, but just for the sake of argument…
  1. So basically an Israeli soldier who would still refuse to do this would have the right to be killed by God and/or his fellow Israelis?
  2. Would YOU do this if asked to by God?
  3. Is this on the same level as Abraham and Isaac?
Thoughts to ponder. The poster DOES bring up many things worth thinking about.
Click to expand...
But just for the sake of arguement your going to argue against GOD anyway and against the belief you state otherwise - that is not “arguement for the sake of arguement” that is yourself debating yourself.

No, the poster does not bring forth many things worth thinking about. The poster in fact declares she voluntarily choses to violate the First commandment and stand in opposition to GOD and HIS mercy becasue she cannot get her head and heart around the “what’s” that GOD performed in the O.T. Fine, if she wishes to be an atheist, she has a myriad of arguements to embrace that will lead her into perdition - this is just one of them.
The premise of her argument is - why can’t GOD be more human, like her, so that she can put HIM through the filter of humanity and judge HIM? - She does not understand GOD, so she judges HIM to be wrong, because she, and humans would be judged wrong doing what is being done in the O.T. -
This arguement, if entered into, automatically reduces GOD to less than GOD because you are arguing why GOD is not weaker, less, smaller, subject to some other authority - i.e. ALL human? GOD cannot be any of those and it is not worthy to ponder what GOD cannot be because GOD is ALL in ALL.
 
Luke_K said:
Can you imagine the scene? Place yourself in it. You have killed the defenders of the city and now enter it to kill the civilians. You reach the entrance to a house, sword drawn, perhaps bloody from an earlier kill. You bust down the door and enter to see a mother clutching her newborn in the corner, with her 7 year-old daughter hugging her for protection. The mother cries and pleads for you not to harm her or her children. You stop for a moment, overcome with repulsion at what you are about to do. But no, you have to do it. God commanded you to. So you proceed to slice the mother down with your sword, with the daughter screaming in horror. Then you kill the girl and the baby, having fulfilled God’s command of doom. You then proceed to the next house…
Click to expand...
Imagine this scene.
  • You want to succeed in business, so…
  • you stop by your parish,
  • make a vow to God,
  • the priest who witnesses your vow brings out a statue shaped like a part of the male anatomy, puts it on the altar, and reverently incenses it,
  • you have sexual relations with the priest right there on the floor in front of it,
  • you conceive a child,
  • nine months later you bring the baby back,
  • the priest puts it in the arms of a statue of St Nicholas patron saint of children,
  • he pulls a lever,
  • the arms pivot down and drop the baby into a furnace under the floor,
  • everybody cheers and whistles and rings bells and beats trashcan lids to drown out the screams,
  • and on your way home you stop by the bank and take out a business loan.
  • Done.
From the baby’s point of view, I think a practically instantaneous death by a stab to the heart at the hands of an Israelite isn’t so bad after all.

From the mother’s point of view, on some level I think she knew she had it coming.

I think they all did.
 
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