If God orders somebody to kill someone else, does that count towards God’s body count?
If so, you’ll have to add in every Canaanite that got massacred in the first half of the Book of Joshua. (And we’re not just talking about enemy soldiers here; Joshua’s army was under orders to kill every man, woman, and child in every Canaanite city they took over.)
http://www.mindkites.com has an article on CARM in their archive entitled “Christian Apologetics” which gives Yahweh’s body count as 813,812, but they don’t document it.
Speaking of CARM, is anyone else here familiar with them?
We’re still only on #2, right? The population of Sodom and Gommorah…Have these cities been excavated? What was their population? Any biblical archaeologists out there?
Nope, there’s no doubt Jesus was a megalomaniacal dillusional schizophrenic who had bouts of homicidal rage. I s’pose that’s why we haven’t had a really good new religion in a thousand years. We’ve learned to put people like Jesus in insane asylums.
Forgive me if I take this question a different way, or dishumurously, but: It depends on what you mean by Kill.
I am sure God ordered many folks “killed” in the old testament, but as far as satan blinding them to the truth of the gospel so they would end up in hell, that counts as worse than being bodily killed, at least to me.
That assumes that the Gospel is true, which it isn’t. What you call the “Gospel” is just a lie of the Demiurge. You see, Yahweh is the demonic creature which tempted Jesus in the desert. Jesus was the snake from the garden of Eden. Ananias and Sapphira count as being killed by Yahweh, because of Paul’s involvement.
Sorry Fretful, I didn’t notice you had taken a real stab at the S&G population. http://www.biblemysteries.com/lectures/sodom/ gives a little info on the archaeology of these cities (very little). Upshot: they haven’t been found for sure, and the population of a cemetary that may or may not be associated with them contains or may not contain 500,000 people buried there over a very long period of time.
Sorry Satan. We’ll have to make an educated guess, like FP’s.
BTW, you could call it the God/Satan Deathmatch: This time it’s personal. Then list the score.
Ooo! Good point. If you read the Bible literally (like a whole lot of modern Christian claim they do) then the tempter in the garden looked more like a lizard- until god found out what he did and took his legs away. And one of his descendence is living in an aquarium tank in my living room.
P.S. It occures to me the the question of whether god was justified in killing the Egyptian first born- Yes he was, they kept the Israelites as slaves and delighted in their suffering-
No he wasn’t 'cause how could tiny babies be guilty of anything
points to a fundumental difference between the ancient and modern world view.
They didn’t have a concept of a discreet individual, seperate from the community he belonged to. The Egyptian babies were guilty because they were Egyptian (the same goes for the children of Jericho. God didn’t kill them but he ordered the hit). In the decadent, Godless modern world we have a different conception of guilt and personhood. We don’t kill children for things their fathers did. And we are horrified when slaughters are perpetrated indiscrimanantly against whole groups for the acts of the few, or the long dead. Of course we could go back to a more Biblical perspective. But I don’t think we want to.
Just one of the reasons I have certain reservations about using the history of an ancient nomadic desert tribe as the ultimate guide to life and morality. But that’s just me.
Satan, sorry if that was at all serious. Put me down for two tee-shirts XL.
Well, all these arguments are fun and all, buuuuuuuttt…we’ve heard everything for about 15 billion to 15 thousand. Is there a definate #? or at least one that will do? Cause damn, I really want one of these shirts, and it ain’t gonna happen while we are in the middle of a theological discussion, aye?