# God: Just kidding, killing is AOK with me. And here's a list of people to whack! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 29, 2011, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324 "2011-06-29T22:41:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/81 "2011-06-30T14:59:46Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Perhaps the Amalekites should’ve thought of that. The alleged Amelekite offense against the Israelites occurred centuries before the ordered genocide. It also can’t justify the infanticide. You can’t save this passage from barabarism, so why are you trying? Why can’t you just admit that a body of literature written 2600 years ago might be a little backwards in its morality? Do you believe that the Bible is morally perfect in every respect? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/82 "2011-06-30T15:01:55Z")
> [@These are my own pants](#): > > I think it’s silly to attack or defend the mores of a bronze age soceity based on the mores of today. It’s perfectly valid to attack them when they are still held up as a perfect, inerrant moral guide for today. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/83 "2011-06-30T15:05:21Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > A man who forces himself on a woman would be put to death. False. It was no crime for a man to rape his own wife or slave. Rape was a property crime. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/84 "2011-06-30T15:08:02Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > The irony is that Evangelical Christians tend to take the smiting and smoting HaShem more literally and without context more than Jews do. > > But the “Jews are evil - look at this stuff!” has been part of Christianity’s assault on Judaism. Many Christian teachings say that the Jews have distorted their own bible and it’s up to the Jesus-loving Christians to figure it out and weed out evil. :rolleyes: Give it a rest with your persecuted posturing. Nobody has said “Jews are evil,” and the Hebrew Bible is Christian scripture too. Criticism of the Hebrew Bibles has fuck all to do with antisemitism or with any commentary on modern Jews. That’s just an attempt to poison the well. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/85 "2011-06-30T15:09:13Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > I still don’t understand how ‘God’ came to equal ‘peace loving hippie activist’. That was mostly Paul’s doing. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/86 "2011-06-30T15:16:55Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#): > > The Israelites who authored the Torah were incredibly ethnocentric. Adonai chose them instead of any other culture for no particular reason. They had a mandate to obliterate the Canaanites and take over their land for no reason. The whole book of Joshua is an orgy of ethnic cleansing, and others have pointed out eg the disgusting story where Saul is dumped on for being too lenient to the Amalekites. > > The rabbis mitigated these stories by inventing bad things the enemies of Israel had done to make them deserve it, which is a sign of progress IMO – “we killed them all because they did bad things” is still awful, but it’s better than “we killed them all because FUCK YES, IN YOUR FACE!!!”. But the cultures that produced the Torah were radically ethnocentric – as was every other culture at the time. > > What Torah does do is affirm that it is required to love the foreigner in your midst – but it’s talking about assimilated aliens living as Israelites and participating in Israelite religious practice, not ones practicing their own religion. Those ones get speared through the stomach. It is a progressive text for its time and can be a stonkingly beautiful work of literature, which is why I still choose to engage with it, but it is legitimately horrible in many places. I agree with every word of this. The Bible is the collected literature of an evolving and changing culture. It’s not monolithic or consistent in its moral outlook or in its view of God. It changes. It can be as transcendent in some areas as it is barabaric in others. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/87 "2011-06-30T15:18:05Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > That was mostly Paul’s doing. Well, actually, the Pharisees (with whom Paul allegedly studied) had something to do with this too. Even Jesus quoted Rabbi Hillel. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/88 "2011-06-30T16:18:17Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > It says to try to make peace. You really need to [read this](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0881255750/friendofaishhat/) before you start talking about the Hebrew Bible. You really need to go here: [http://www.starfall.com/](http://www.starfall.com/) before you post about anything at all. It does NOT say to try to make peace. It says to “proclaim peace,” which is perversely defined as enslaving the people of the cities that surrender, and killing the men and enslaving the women and children of those that don’t. And that’s only if they live far from the land you want to live on. "15 Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations nearby. 16 Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you, 18 so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the LORD your God. " If they had the temerity to be born and raised, for generations, on the land you want, then you are to kill every man, woman, child, and infant of them. You are NOT to try to make peace, or even “proclaim peace,” with them. It is nothing less than a call for genocide. Entire nations are to be wiped out, and the only reason is that they have been living for centuries on the land that the voices in Moses’ head tells him are promised to the Israelites. And enslaving the former occupants, or expelling them, is not good enough, because any survivors might lead Israelites away from the One True Religion. That is what the passage quoted by the OP says. It makes me physically ill to think that anyone would try to justify it. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/89 "2011-06-30T16:40:03Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > If a man rapes a married woman, you kill him. Correct. But if he rapes a virgin, he can then marry her. So if some disgusting old geezer wants a pretty, 16-year old wife, all he has to do is rape her. Oh, and pay her father 50 shekels (Deut 22:28). Women are property. The law has nothing to do with protecting women; it is all about protecting the line of men. If you rape a married woman, you cast doubt on the paternity of her husband’s sons. Death penalty. If you rape a virgin, you damage property that her father could have sold (Ex 21:7). Pay a fine and marry her. Of course, this assumes that the rape took place outside the city. If you rape a betrothed virgin _inside_ a city, she must be stoned to death. The fact that she didn’t scream loud enough for people to hear is proof that she wanted it (Deut 22:23). ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/90 "2011-06-30T16:51:41Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > it still referred to an alleged event that had happened centuries earlier and says that God ordered the Israelites to kill babies for something their remote ancestors had done hundreds of years before. It’s a patently stupid and inane justification, and you can’t save it. But it is in perfect accord with the Christian doctrine of Original Sin. So all these claims of anti-Semitism when people call the ancient Israelites barbaric is a red herring. The entire Bible, Hebrew and Christian, is morally disgusting. And I see that we agree about rape in the Hebrew Bible being a property crime, but it’s too late to edit my earlier post, that cites the same verses you did. ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/91 "2011-06-30T17:19:06Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Oh for the love of God, you’re talking about tribes that lived 3,000 years ago, long before the fucking Hague ! All the more reason NOT to base a moral system on those people/events/situations. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/92 "2011-06-30T17:52:58Z")
> [@Spiff](#): > > All the more reason NOT to base a moral system on those people/events/situations. These guys want it both ways. They want the Ten Commandments posted in schools and courthouses, and cite Leviticus as justification for discrimination against gays. Then, when defending the genocides of Moses and Joshua: “Hey, you can’t judge ancient Israelites by modern standards of morality! Everybody was like that 3000 years ago! They didn’t know any better! You’re anti-Semitic!” ---
**Author:** ![humanafterall](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/humanafterall/32/19654_2.png) [@humanafterall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/humanafterall)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/93 "2011-06-30T18:28:18Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Out of curiosity – you do know the OT famously prescribes eye-for-an-eye punishments, including execution for murderers, right? That, like the man said, it’s not _“Thou Shalt Not Kill,”_ but rather _ **“Thou Shalt Not Murder”** _…? That is said to be the _actual_ translation of that Commandment. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/94 "2011-06-30T19:49:55Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > Because if the Israelites were pacifists, they’d get no where. Where did it ever come about that religion = pacifism? > Babies are the responsibilities of their parents. Believing that it is wrong to deliberately slaughter noncombatants is not equivalent to pacifism. If it were, 99.99% (or more) of our armed forces would be pacifists. Now, doing this kind of thing was quite common at the time, but you’d think that an actual God would be beyond it. But God is exactly as moral as the person writing the story - interesting, that. I understand why the story was written - a downtrodden nation like reading how big and tough they were back in the golden age. As for the babies, God as father of us all could have taken care of them somehow. Being omnipotent means you can’t whine about the job being too tough. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/95 "2011-06-30T20:14:33Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#): > > (As a side note, I do get a bit annoyed with the “the god of Jewish people is a [fill-in-the-blank litany of unmitigated horrible attributes] - thank goodness the Christian god is so nice and laid-bank and friendly and loving!” dualism. It is antisemitic even if it isn’t explicitly referring to Judaism.) Well, the Christian version of God has never actually done anything, has he? He supposedly somehow installed himself in a human body and got himself killed before doing much of anything, and sometime in, the future he will rapture people, but that is about it. So, no wonder anyone saying nasty stuff about God has to quote passages where God did something. Not that it matters, since these massacres never actually happened. You might as well condemn Tolkien’s family for the wholesale slaughter of orcs. Alexander the Great, who came after, only destroyed cities who were being obnoxious, and relatively speaking was considered a caring guy. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/96 "2011-06-30T20:20:43Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > What do you mean we didn’t lift a finger? We ran like hell! 😃 Now that’s not quite true. By the time it was tie to leave Egypt, the Hebrews were able to walk out ina calm, dignified fashion, though there was likely the occasional pause for the Bronze-Age Semitic equivalent of raspeberry flinging. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/97 "2011-06-30T21:09:46Z")
> [@brocks](#): > > They want the Ten Commandments posted in schools and courthouses, and cite Leviticus as justification for discrimination against gays. I’m not sure where you are (it’s different in Israel, of course, because of the Orthodox stranglehold), but in my experience this tends to be more characteristic of conservative Christians than Jews. The Ten Commandments (or Ten Declarations) aren’t privileged in Jewish discourse. A sect during the development of early rabbinic Judaism did start to elevate them over the rest of the five books, but the rabbis slapped that thinking down fairly hard and fast. I’m quite angry that in the UK same-sex marriages are not permitted to be performed by any religious authority, thanks to the Church of England, even though every Liberal and Reform synagogue I know of, and many Masorti ones, would be happy to perform them. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/98 "2011-07-01T03:36:47Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Well, let’s start with Zechriah 14:2: > For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the **women ravished** ; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. The prophesy in which Israel will fall to her enemies and the women will be raped? Isn’t that in Isaiah as well? How is that God telling the Hebrews to rape? > [@](#): > > The following passages all contain incidents of God telling Israelite men to capture women as sex slaves (and not always in battle. The first passage tells the Israelite men to simply go out and kidnap women from Shiloh as they go out to an annual festival for no other reason than that the Benjamites don’t feel they have enough wives to go around. > [@](#): > > Judges 21: 10-24 Where women are spared and married. > [@](#): > > Numbers 31:17-18 Where women are spared and married. > [@](#): > > Deuteronomy 20:10-14 …and we covered that. (Btw, Deut. is a matter if repeating all that has been said here…) > [@](#): > > Deuteronomy 21:10-14 Where women are spared and married and given a mourning period. If they do not marry, they go free. > [@](#): > > Judge 5:30 (“…a woman or **two** to each man.”) I’m not familiar with this passage. Are you? Just through your distorted Catholic lens? > [@](#): > > Then there’s this little gem where God tells David he will give David’s wives (plural) to David’s neighbor and have the neighbor rape them in front of him (II Samuel 12:11-14) God did not have his wives raped. > [@](#): > > "Thus says the LORD: 'Behold, I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. “In sight of the sun” or “in public” is generally a euphanism for consent, though I’m not sure exactly if God was saying what he could do or what he _may_ do. > [@](#): > > You clearly haven’t studied the Bible very much. I have. Not very well. > [@](#): > > Let me educate you. No thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/99 "2011-07-01T03:39:44Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Well, actually, the Pharisees (with whom Paul allegedly studied) had something to do with this too. Even Jesus quoted Rabbi Hillel. I tried to make that point once with Hillel and you said that it doesn’t matter since Jesus is a fable. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324/100 "2011-07-01T05:04:25Z")
> [@CitizenPained](#): > > The prophesy in which Israel will fall to her enemies and the women will be raped? Isn’t that in Isaiah as well? > > How is that God telling the Hebrews to rape? How the fuck is it NOT? > [@](#): > > Where women are spared and married. > Where women are spared and married. Nope, kidnapped and raped, kidnapped and raped, but you know that. You can’t possibly believe your own bullshit. > [@](#): > > Where women are spared and married and given a mourning period Kidnapped and raped. > [@](#): > > If they do not marry, they go free. That’s not what it says. It says the guy can let her go if he gets tired of raping her. > [@](#): > > I’m not familiar with this passage. Then read it. > [@](#): > > Are you? I cited it, didn’t I? > [@](#): > > Just through your distorted Catholic lens? I’m not Catholic. I have never been Catholic. Where are you getting “Catholic” from I am an atheist, dude. I have no lens. I don’t have to scramble to defend the indefensible the way you do. > [@](#): > > God did not have his wives raped. God threatened to, so what’s the fucking difference? > [@](#): > > “In sight of the sun” or “in public” is generally a euphanism for consent No it isn’t. It just means in daylight, in public sight Did you google that or something? It’s a load of shit. > [@](#): > > though I’m not sure exactly if God was saying what he could do or what he _may_ do. God was making himself pretty clear. He meant what he said. What’s the point of trying to make excuses for it? > [@](#): > > Not very well. Quite well, actually. I have a shiny little degree to prove it. You’re in over your head here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-just-kidding-killing-is-aok-with-me-and-heres-a-list-of-people-to-whack/587324.md?page=6)