its funny what people believe in

[henry d]

Henry, a few examples, quickly Googled, there are many, many more:

 

Zechariah 14:1-2

 

Behold a day is coming for the Lord, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city

The context here is that Judah has, like Israel walked away from God and they have been warned by many God through the prophets that if they do not turn back then they will be attacked by the Babylonians (and Assyrians/Egyptians) and it is they that will be doing all this to God`s chosen people. God did not chose this for his people, he told them the likely outcome and the siege was as bad, if not worse, than the attack.

 

Deuteronomy 20:10-14

 

“When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you

Deuteronomy is a book that tells the Israelites how to live, Canaan had been getting worse and worse in their depravity, male and female temple prostitutes (Syphilis was rife and archaeologists have found bones that display the effects from that era) first born children were burned alive to the god Molech whom they worshipped, among many others, and it was time for their judgement. That is why they were told how to treat people during and after a battle. Rather than rape and torture the women and children, a favourite method was impaling on metal spikes, they were to take the women and children as slaves. This would be shocking except for the fact that there were laws governing the treatment of slaves and the slaves were well treated (generalisation alert) inthe main. I don`t have time to find and list them as there are many, however they were to be given the Sabbath offlike everyone else they were to be given enough money and goods to live if they were released (just like the Hebrew`s had been given in Egypt where they were slaves) basically they were treated better than any other slaves at that time, possibly even better than they were in their own communities as they were considered chattles.

 

And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... 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. -- Numbers 31:15-18

I know you got this from a Google search but the author had done some pruning and missed out the salient reasons for why they did this. Here`s the basics; the women at Peor had led somee Hebrew men astray and they started to worship other Gods as well as their God, so those who were not virgins were killed to prevent it happening again, the boys were killed as they were likely to endager the inheritance rights of the Israelite men (laws again). Again these girls/women were to be kept as slaves and treated as such (see above)

 

 

just a quick question to a post... I always thought you lot said jesus was the son of god.. and not god.... No, us lot say he is both. The JW`s would say he is "just" a son of God, but both their theology and Christology is flawed due to incorrect rendering of John 1:1 "and the word was God" as they say it is "and the word was a God" they do use the same Greek word as the definitive article (was God) in Mk 12:27, Ro 8:33 and 1 Thess 2:5, along with not recognising the "I am" discourses in Revelations.

Edited October 4, 2013 by henry d

[overandunder2012]

henry you have a lot of interpretations of what the bible means, what makes you think you got it right?

[henry d]

I don`t, I am only standing on the shoulders of giants. Is there a particular interpretation you want to point out?

Next question could be "How do you know they got it right?" possibly because 2000+ years of trying to disprove it has only made it more coherent.

[Blunderbuss]

And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... 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. -- Numbers 31:15-18

 

I know you got this from a Google search but the author had done some pruning and missed out the salient reasons for why they did this. Here`s the basics; the women at Peor had led somee Hebrew men astray and they started to worship other Gods as well as their God, so those who were not virgins were killed to prevent it happening again, the boys were killed as they were likely to endager the inheritance rights of the Israelite men (laws again). Again these girls/women were to be kept as slaves and treated as such (see above)

 

Henry, some very subtle and selective interpretations there. A little historical context of morality or behaviour codes at the time does not justify IMHO a God who would condone, nay encourage, infanticide, war, rape, murder and slavery. The bible is touted as a guide to live by, can you see how someone less educated or well read than you might take these tracts at face value? It happens with the bible and it happens with the Q'ran and we see the appalling results on our TVs every night.

 

I come back to an early point I made, and one which was the final nail in the coffin of my own faith. Do you accept scripture as the word of God (albeit recorded and selectively edited by men with some arbitrary inclusions and exclusions) and accept every word, or do you cherry pick the bits you want to believe and ignore the more outlandish? To me its all or nothing. Cherry picking or even selective interpretation might be a pragmatic solution for some, and is rife in the Anglican tradition I come from, but is a cop out. If you believe, who are you to say which bits of God's holy book you buy into and which you don't? By the way, when I say 'you' I don't mean you Henry!

 

In some ways, I have a a degree of respect for a US bible belt Christian who believes the world is 7000 years old, that dinosaurs never existed and that Noah overcame some difficult logistics to pack every species in the planet on his boat. I could never believe any of those things but there is some consistency there which I respect. When I hear 'Christians' who don't believe in the virgin birth (for example), I think why bother? For me me, the God of the old testament is so deeply unpleasant that my own position on all or nothing is 'nothing'.

[norfolk dumpling]

I'm on the side of no god and nothing in my 60yrs on this planet has given me reason to doubt this. However I try to be good, pay my taxes, be nice to my neighbours (most of them!) and not break the law (too often) and hope if I've got the god bit wrong I might get a free pass BUT nothing that I was taught as a kid about gods power had materialised yet so Santa looks a better bet to me.

[overandunder2012]

I don`t, I am only standing on the shoulders of giants. Is there a particular interpretation you want to point out?

Next question could be "How do you know they got it right?" possibly because 2000+ years of trying to disprove it has only made it more coherent.

i dont care if they got it right to be honest the good book doesnt really light my fire but im just curious that when you explain all this stuff in such detail, how do you know your reading it right and that you understand it correctly.

[henry d]

Critical analysis, try to destroy the argument for it.