Why is G-d so cruel in the OT?

[cmkeller]

Opus1:

The Bible is the context. I invite everyone to read it see the context for themselves.

Sure…by pointing everyone to your “Skeptics Annotated Bible” page, which cherry-picks “cruelty” stuff.

If anything, you appear to be inventing nonexistent context to justify God’s genocides. For example, regarding the slaughter of the Amalekites, you wrote that:

[T]he verse you quoted describes the reason the nation was deemed to have met that threshold, not the reason why this particular bunch was being killed.

I see no evidence of this interpretation in the Bible, nor does it even make sense to me. You state that attacking the Israelites in the desert pushed the Amalekites past some threshold of absolute evil, such that they merited total annihilation. But the actual people being killed lived 400 years later! None of them had actually attacked Israel!

You see no evidence of this interpretation? Perhaps, then, the original sources should be examined. Here’s G-d’s statements immediately following that original attack by Amalek, Exodus 17:14, 16 - "Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven…He said, “For hands were lifted up to the throne of the LORD. The LORD will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation.”” Clearly, based on this attack, which had been considered a direct assault attempt by the Amalekites against G-d, G-d decided to seal the fate of the Amalekite nation. Sounds to me like it was this attack which put them into the same category to which such societies as Sodom & Gomorrah and the Canaanite nations belonged.

He had higher priorities at that time than carrying this sentence out, but clearly, this was not forgotten, because forty years later, Moses tells the Jews that G-d had commanded (Deuteronomy 25:17-19) - “Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!” So in Moses’s transmission of this, he makes a point of saying that through this attack, the Amalekite nation showed that they possessed no fear of G-d (which meshes well with quote # 1), and therefore the society had to be completely erased from historical memory.

Cut to Samuel 400 years later. He directly references these commandments from the Torah, which themselves indicate that the post-Exodus attack pushed the Amalekite nation past the threshhold. It doesn’t take the Talmud (which I’ve been trying to avoid using in my arguments here) to come up with the interpretation I offered here. It merely takes a reading of the Bible in full context.

The problem with your analogies is that God is omnipotent; man is not.

But G-d is also omniscient. While I’m not going to claim I know how G-d’s calculations look, perhaps we can take one of these analogies and offer an approximation. Ah, here’s one…

If the U.S. were omnipotent during WWII, I think that we would have found better ways to win the war than killing millions of innocent people.

Now, let’s say the U. S. military planners were not only omnipotent, but also omniscient. So they’re actually able to have in mind all the possible ramifications of using the atomic bomb vs. not using it. They’re capable of not only calculating how many lives will be lost during the scope of the continuing World War II if they stay conventional vs. go atomic, but also how many lives will be lost if the effects of the bomb on human beings are never seen (perhaps the world powers will be more cavalier about using them), how many lives will be lost if the Soviet Union didn’t see that Americans are willing to use it against their enemies, how many lives could be lost if the Japanese, having never experienced the horror, decide after their defeat to start their own atomic bomb program…I could probably think of more “what ifs” if I had all day to spend. Then, after tallying all these factors with the absolute certainty in numbers of an omniscient entity, the solution that will lead to the least overall loss of life, worldwide, for centuries to come, is the atomic-bombing of an entire city. Would you still say that choosing that course of action in order to win the war is evil?

6. God kills David’s son.

Again, let’s remember that God isn’t supposed to punish people for others’ sins. And again, God does not follow his own rule. In dealing with David, God punishes both his wives and his son for his affair with Bathsheba.

“This is what the LORD says: 'Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.” (2 Sam. 12:11)

Clearly, this is meant as a punishment for David. But it is David’s wives who are given to other men.

Next, God says to David:

“You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.” (2 Sam. 12:13-14)

We might let God off the hook here by saying that this was merely a prophecy: he was just telling David that his son would die, not actually killing him. But in the next verse, we learn that “the LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.” (2 Sam. 12:15) (The child dies seven days later.)

I believe that God’s action of striking David’s child dead is immoral and contradictory to his own laws.

Well, it’s not “contradictory to his own laws” (you were referring, then, to Deuteronomy 24:16) if the child’s death is a consequence of his parents’ action rather than a punishment for it.

In addition, the issue of the wives is not necessarily cruel to them…there is no indication that it was involuntary on their part. When it actually happens (2 Samuel 16:22), Absalom was on top of the world, and David was a fugitive. So yes, it’s a punishment for David that this would happen, but it’s not necessarily cruel to them.

So that leaves the issue not of how G-d could violate his own rules by killing the baby (that was answered earlier), but why G-d couldn’t find a way to handle the issue without killing the baby. I use the phrase “handle the issue” rather than “punish David” because a thorough reading of the chapter bears out that tthe killing of the baby was not part of David’s punishment! A quick recap of how the conversation goes:

Verses 1 - 4 - Nathan tells David a parable re: his treatment of Uriah
Verses 5 - 6 - David condemns the man in the parable
Verses 7 - 12 - Nathan applies that condemnation to David and pronounces the punishment, mentioning only the matter of the wives.
Verse 13, first half - David immediately confesses guilt.
Verse 13, second half - Nathan indicates that David’s confession was accepted as repentance and he will therefore not be further punished with execution.
Verse 14 - After David’s repentance was accepted, Nathan pronounces that the son born to David and Bathsheba will die.

So why does G-d feel the baby has to die? The reason is given in verse 14: “But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.”

In other words, the presence of this baby will give rise to contempt of G-d. This is, in essence, the same issue as with the baby Amalekites and Canaanites - the presence of this living symbol is an impediment to people’s spiritual well-being. For the protection of others (in the spiritual sense), it was eliminated, not as punishment for David’s sins.

Some probably have no problem with the idea that a woman who tries to stop her husband by fighting by grabbing his genitals should have her hand cut off and be shown no pity.

Just a point - according to Jewish tradition, this and all other punishments that maim (e.g. “an eye for an eye”) are actually monetary payments that correspond to the punishment described. I realize that this is in the Talmud rather than explicitly written in the text of the OT, but I just thought I’d mention it.

As a result of this false information, Pharaoh takes Sarai to be his wife. God is displeased and inflicts “serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai” (Gen. 10:17).

Not as punishment for taking Sarai - they did so in good faith, as you said - but as protection for Sarai so she wouldn’t be forced to sleep with anyone but her husband. As you can see, the Egyptians got the message rather effectively.

And BTW, another translation issue…while the Hebrew word used here can mean “diseases” or “plagues,” it also means “blemishes,” i.e., a major skin rash. (It’s the same Hebrew word as used in Leviticus 13-14) In other words, in the Jewish understanding of this OT story, they didn’t get struck with major illnesses, just with rashes…which would discourage sex and thus protect Sarah.

Num. 5:11-31 relates the test a man can make his wife take if he suspects her of infidelity. Basically, it is a trial by ordeal, as is evident in verses 27:28. But we know that trial by ordeal does not work. Whether a woman’s belly swells and her thighs rot away (or she has a miscarriage; the text is unclear) is not dependent upon her guilt or innocence. It is unfair for God to enact a law which does not work.

First of all, according to a number of stories quoted in the Talmud, it did work. Obviously, this was a miraculous sort of thing, and not a mundane one; it was a valid test only in the Jewish Holy Temple when it stood. So your whole premise goes out the window there.

However, even if we were to say that it didn’t work, it served quite a noble purpose. Look at the ingredients in this “trial by ordeal”: water, dust, and some ink washed off a piece of paper. Hardly poisonous stuff; if the test truly didn’t work, then everyone taking it would be found innocent, not guilty. Nonetheless, if the participants believed in it, it would restore the bonds of trust between the husband and wife, helping repair a relationship damaged by suspicion. Not very nefarious, is that?

But that’s beside the point, as it’s my understanding that, when properly religiously administered, it did work.

Chaim Mattis Keller

[jab1]

*Originally posted by cmkeller *
"The LORD will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation."

That does not sound like a fair fight.

Moses tells the Jews that G-d had commanded (Deuteronomy 25:17-19) - "Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt."

Sounds like they wanted revenge for what was done to them and justified it by convincing themselves God approved of it.

the Amalekite nation showed that they possessed no fear of G-d (which meshes well with quote # 1), and therefore the society had to be completely erased from historical memory.

IOW, ethnic cleansing, genocide, mass murder, annihilation…

**Now, let’s say the U. S. military planners were not only omnipotent, but also omniscient. So they’re actually able to have in mind all the possible ramifications of using the atomic bomb vs. not using it.

< snip >

Would you still say that choosing that course of action [using the A-bomb] in order to win the war is evil?**

I would. If the US War Department had been omnipotent, they could have won the war without killing a single soul. “Omnipotent” would mean they could have done ANYTHING. They could have placed an impregnable shield around Japan and simply waited for them to surrender lest they starve. They could make any landmark simply vanish into nothingness with a single thought. (Imagine a Japanese person waking up one morning and seeing a gaping hole or a flat plain where Mt. Fuji used to be.) They could bring the emperor to Washington in an instant. (Once he got over the shock, I’m sure he’d agree to any demands.) They could have disabled each and every weapon Japan possessed. They could make each and every Japanese simply forget they ever wanted to make war with us. There are any number of scenarios, perhaps an infinity of them, available to an omnipotent being. Killing people would be only one. And yet that’s the one that God picked. All I can say is that God shows an appalling lack of imagination. Hell, Superman could have handled it better!

**So why does G-d feel the baby has to die? The reason is given in verse 14: “But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.”

In other words, the presence of this baby will give rise to contempt of G-d. This is, in essence, the same issue as with the baby Amalekites and Canaanites - the presence of this living symbol is an impediment to people’s spiritual well-being. For the protection of others (in the spiritual sense), it was eliminated, not as punishment for David’s sins.**

So just where did this baby come from if not from God Himself? Why would God create such a child? God creates people He KNOWS will betray Him later? How messed up is that? God does not sound very bright.

[Opus1]

To cmkeller:

Well, just when I thought you had hit your absolute moral nadir, you sink a little lower.

It’s okay to kill an infant because its presence is “an impediment to people’s spiritual well-being”? This is just sickening. This sounds like a Nazi justifying the genocide of the Jews by saying that their very presence hindered the German war effort. I really can’t believe that any moral person would say such a thing. Once again, you engage in special pleading for the Bible. No jury in the world–not even in California–would ever buy this as a case of justifiable homicide:

I just had to kill that week-old baby, your honor. It was self-defense. Had I allowed it to live, it would have impeded others’ spiritual well-being.

I really don’t have the energy right now to rebut all of your other points as to why Yahweh’s mass slaughters were the best possible course of action. Instead, I’ll just point out that Yahweh’s decisions in the Bible sound an awful lot like the Gary Larson school of veterinary medicine for horses:

Diagnosis: attacked the Israelites 400 years ago
Treatment: Kill
Diagnosis: idolatry
Treatment: Kill
Diagnosis: would impede the spiritual well-being of others
Treatment: Kill
Diagnosis: seduced Israelite men
Treatment: Kill
Diagnosis: adultery
Treatment: Kill
Diagnosis: burned incense without permission
Treatment: Kill
Diagnosis: picked up sticks on Saturday
Treatment: Kill

What a wonderful deity.

Don’t worry, I’ll be back to address all of cmkeller’s points individually. The more he defends the Bible, the worse he (and God) end up looking.

[Ben]

If I might say a few words to set the record straight,

Pldennison has brought to my attention an old thread in which Chaim displays a much more moderate view of homosexuality than what I read into his posts here:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=57032

Chaim, I apologize. Had I known more about your stance on homosexuality, I still would have vehemently criticised your defense of the OT genocides, but I would not have argued that you are a homophobe.

-Ben

[quixotic78]

*Originally posted by Opus1 *
No jury in the world–not even in California…

[Chief Clancy Wiggum] Mmm… maybe Texas. [/CCW]

This moment of Simpsons non-sequitir has been brought to you by quixotic78.

[cmkeller]

jab1:

That does not sound like a fair fight.

Well, they started it.

Sounds like they wanted revenge for what was done to them and justified it by convincing themselves God approved of it.

This bit has been re-hashed already. This thread is based on the postulate that the OT is a divine document.

IOW, ethnic cleansing, genocide, mass murder, annihilation…

Yup. What, do you think I’m trying to sugar-coat it? I’ve used at least some of those words elsewhere in the thread.

I realize this thread is almost 300 posts strong, but it really helps to read the entire line of argument sequentially before responding about a specific post.

I would. If the US War Department had been omnipotent, they could have won the war without killing a single soul.

Yes, but you’re limiting your scope. Please carefully re-read the paragraph to which this was intended as a response. It speaks of future ramifications beyond the immediate war. It speaks of overall loss of life for centuries to come. I’m going to re-quote a part of that paragraph that you snipped out to re-emphasize:

Then, after tallying all these factors with the absolute certainty in numbers of an omniscient entity, the solution that will lead to the least overall loss of life, worldwide, for centuries to come, is the atomic-bombing of an entire city.

Those addressed, you did raise a very valid question. However, if you don’t mind, I want to separate your paragraph and switch it around a bit so as to clarify my response:

God creates people He KNOWS will betray Him later? How messed up is that? God does not sound very bright.

This is merely a re-statement of the age-old dilemma of how to reconcile the notion of G-d’s omniscience with the notion of human free will. It’s not really germane to this debate, and has been discused in previous threads, so I’m not going to bother addressing it here.

However, in the specific instance we’re talking about, G-d definitely created the baby after David slept with Bathsheba. If David’s act was going to cause contempt for G-d, necessitating the removal of any reminders of that, why would G-d make a baby out of that?

So just where did this baby come from if not from God Himself? Why would God create such a child?

Valid question. The Bible does not directly address that question (there’s no verse that says “G-d made this baby because…”), so that leaves the matter to speculation. And of course, even if we can guess at one or more aspects of the baby’s existence, it would be impossible to say that those are the only reasons; they’re just the cones we can think of. Based on what the Bible does tell us about this baby, there are two avenues for exploration of this question:

1. Nathan does not declare that the child will have to die until after David confessed and was forgiven for his sin. Perhaps, had David not confessed and instead tried to justify his actions, as Saul had, David would have, like Saul, been deemed unworthy of kingship and then the baby would not have been a symbol creating contempt for G-d. (I point you to I Samuel 15:13-21 for the counter-example of Saul)

2. When Nathan leaves, the baby immediately falls ill and lingers on for a week before dying. During that time, David engages in a strict regimen of self-degradation and prayer in the hopes that the child might be spared. Perhaps part of the child’s reason for existence was to test what David’s reaction would be, whether he would even try to save the kid, whether he’d be resigned to it, whether he’d be so callous as to just be relieved that he’s not losing his kingship over it.

Opus1:

Well, just when I thought you had hit your absolute moral nadir, you sink a little lower.

I’m pleased to be put by you in the same category as G-d.

Once again, you engage in special pleading for the Bible.

Indeed I do. Human beings are not prescient enough to calculate future effects, or knowledgeable enough about the inner workings of the soul to be able to determine whose continued existence would or wouldn’t cause harmful long-term effects. G-d by the OT definition is. As long as we’re dealing within the precondition of the OT being a true and divine document (and arguing against that is a digression we had already agreed to drop), to compare what would be justifiable for a man to do and what is justifiable for G-d to do is meaningless.

As long as G-d explains (within the context) why his actions are beneficial in the large picture despite the short-term cruelty involved therein, labeling him as a cruel being is inaccurate. If you’re unwilling to agree with the justifications offered, then what you’re doing is in effect argiung over the results of calculations, and on the side opposite you is (once again, within the context) the one who actually knows all the formulas, the values of all the variables, and the outcomes of all the potential alternative scenarios.

I’ll just point out that Yahweh’s decisions in the Bible sound an awful lot like the Gary Larson school of veterinary medicine for horses: <snip>

Come on, you know this isn’t true. Yes, he does prescribe the death penalty for certain sins; yes, there are a few societies against which he commanded genocide. And, as evidenced by my continued participation in this discussion, I’m not even attempting to downplay those. However, the huge majority of sins in the OT are not punishable by death, and all societies other than the 8 specific ones mentioned for genocide (the 7 Canaanite nations and Amalek) the Israelites are specifically commanded to approach peacefully, and, in the event that the opposing nation responds belligerently, to only kill the militarily-able men.

I’m not under any illusion that you’ve got a balanced view of the Bible, but at the very least, stick to facts about it rather than engage in hyperbole.

Ben:

Ah, yes, one of my favorite debates. Apology accepted. But where, exactly, did pldennison weigh in on this matter? I haven’t seen him around recently.

Chaim Mattis Keller

[jab1]

In this thread, where most of the participants were throwing tomatoes at Libertarian, Ben accused you of being homophobic and pld came to your rescue.

[Opus1]

I’ve stated several times before that this argument is for the audience. Cmkeller has already made up his mind, as have I. He believes that God is all good, and that the Bible accurately records the acts of God. So there’s really no room for debate: every atrocity in the Bible has some good explanation, and must in the end be for the greater good, by definition.

So, for the time being, I’m not going to rebut his latest explanations. I invite anyone reading this to read what he has written, and decide for yourselves whether you think that a good God would kill an innocent infant so that it wouldn’t impede others’ spiritual development, or order the genocide of 8 different tribes of people.

Instead, I’m going to keep posting more Bible atrocities and injustices, and let cmkeller keep explaining why they are justifiable. An on-line acquaintance of mine who is active in what one might call “evangelical atheism” has stated that many people have been turned off to fundamentalism by hearing all the excuses used by believers to justify their beliefs. This whole thread started when jayjay stated that he wants to be a Christian but can’t stomach the atrocities of the Old Testament. And Icerigger stated that s/he is physically sickened by the idea that stabbing pregnant women is proper. So there appears to be some merit to this idea.

Without further ado, here are some more acts of the merciful, all-good Yahweh in the Old Testament:

In Numbers 16, we are told the story of certain people who challenge the Aaronite stranglehold on the priesthood. Among them are Dathan and Abiram. God kills not only them, but their families as well, a gross violation of the idea that people should only be punished for their own sins:

Dathan and Abiram had come out and were standing with their wives, children, and little ones at the entrances to their tents. Then Moses said…“If the LORD brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt.” As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah’s men and all their possessions. [Num. 16:27-32)

I contend that it is unfair to kill a man’s family, especially his “little ones” for his own sins.

Another instance of God doing this same thing can be found in 2 Chr. 21:12:19

“This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: ‘You have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat or of Asa king of Judah. But you have walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and you have led Judah and the people of Jerusalem to prostitute themselves, just as the house of Ahab did. You have also murdered your own brothers, members of your father’s house, men who were better than you. So now the LORD is about to strike your people, your sons, your wives, and everything that is yours, with a heavy blow. You yourself will be very ill with a lingering disease of the bowels, until the disease causes your bowels to come out.’”…After all this, the LORD afflicted Jehoram with an incurable disease of the bowels. In the course of time, at the end of the second year, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great pain.

Again, I contend that it is wrong to punish Jehoram’s wives and children for his deeds. Furthermore, I think that God is unnecessarily cruel in giving Jehoram a lingering bowel disease that caused him “great pain.” I would call two years of a horrible bowel disease cruel and unusual punishment. I fail to see what this torture accomplished, although I’m sure cmkeller will have a nifty explanation as to why a quick and painless death would not have served as well as a lengthy, painful bowel disease.

There are many more instances in the Bible in which God orders torture. Certain punishments in the Torah, for instance, specify the means by which the guilty are to be punished. The two most popular ones are stoning and burning, both of which can be quite slow and painful. As I’ve stated earlier, I think it’s cruel to execute people for homosexuality, adultery, or talking back to their parents, but that aside, other means of death such as hanging are instantaneous and relatively painless. At the very least, God could have stated that the execution must be as painless as possible, allowing for advancements in technology through the centuries. But instead, he specifically requires burning and stoning.

[cmkeller]

jab1:

Ah, the BBQ Pit. I don’t hang out there, but I see it might be advisable for me to start. Then again, if my behavior on this board has earned me such able defenders as pldennison, I indeed might not need to.

I guess civility does get you somewhere. Thank you, pldennison!

Opus1, I’ll get to your post after the weekend.

Chaim Mattis Keller

[Liberal]

Opus

You and I haven’t hooked up in the course of this thread, but I wanted you to know that I have followed your discussion with Chaim and that, while I’ve known and respected Chaim for quite some time, I have acquired here a great respect for you. I know by your demeanor and tone that you truly hold your convictions, that you despise what you see as cruelty, and that you honestly don’t believe that any other intellectual interpretation is possible. I accept your view as valid and arguable.

As far as I can tell — correct me if I’m wrong — you’re speaking from a world-view of atheism. That is, you’re attributing to the Entity in the Old Testament qualities that are materialist in nature. But let me ask you this. If you were to suppose, for the sake of argument only, that God is not necessarily cruel, and that the Old Testament represents the narrow views of men who did not really understand what God was up to, would it assuage your anguish at all if you discovered that, from some other point of view, any perceived cruelty was mitigated countless times over?

Let me give you a for instance. Take the story of the fellow with the bowel infection and consider two views.

Viewpoint of little man in desert:

“Well, I guess that showed him! Two years of torture is what he deserved for his sins. And fuck his family! He should have thought of them before he crossed me and my God.”

Viewpoint of the Eternal Kingdom:

“Welcome home, my child. For your suffering, I give you all that I have for all of eternity. The little man who taunted you will be your servant when he arrives. Please forgive him as I have.”

“Wow, thanks! Now that it’s over, it seems like no time at all! Was that you who made my bowels hurt?”

“No, my love. That was nature. The little man doesn’t quite yet know one from the other. I give rain and sunshine to the good man and the evil man alike. Sometimes evil men prosper on that earth, and sometimes good men suffer. But both the prosperity and the suffering there are short-lived and illusory. Ah, look down there! See the little man? He is still fighting his little battles and calling out my name, even as you watch from blissful Paradise. Truly, the first shall be last, and the last first.”

[jab1]

*Originally posted by Libertarian *
**Was that you who made my bowels hurt?"

“No, my love. That was nature.”**

“But didn’t YOU make nature? Didn’t YOU make my body and the diseases that afflict it?”

“Uh, uh… How DARE YOU question the Lord Who Made thee? To Hell with you, you impertinent whelp!” KA-BOOM!!

[Liberal]

I see.

[jab1]

Okay, so I used my sig file more than once. I won’t do it again. But please remember that you are not a moderator.

[cmkeller]

Opus1:

Looking over your most recent post, one quote sticks out at me:

I would call two years of a horrible bowel disease cruel and unusual punishment.

What, G-d is supposed to use the U.S. Bill of Rights as his standard for punishment?

What next, you expect him to support freedom of religion?

Clearly, you measure G-d by the contemporary standards for inter-personal human conduct. By this standard, if you were posting this during the 1920s, you’d be condemning him for creating the laws of nature that allow grapes and hops to ferment.

Human laws are, for the most part, constructed so as to inflict the least unnecessary harm due to doubt of incorrectness. This concern is absent when the judge/jury/punisher is omniscient.

Now, you also cynically say the following:

although I’m sure cmkeller will have a nifty explanation as to why a quick and painless death would not have served as well as a lengthy, painful bowel disease.

Of course I do. And so do you, although you prefer to leave out these parts, as so often before in this thread. Jehoram was a seriously evil creep. He killed all of his brothers…and this was after his rule was firmly established, not in some process of struggle for the crown. He emulated the evil ways of Ahab his father-in-law rather than the righteous ways of his father Jehosaphat and his grandfather Asa. Clearly, this is a guy deserving of punishment. I don’t have G-d’s spreadsheet in front of me, but it doesn’t shock me that G-d thought a clean death would be too good for such a guy.

Now, back to addressing your post from the beginning:

So there’s really no room for debate: every atrocity in the Bible has some good explanation, and must in the end be for the greater good, by definition.

And on your side, every act of cruelty is clearly an atrocity, by definition, and cannot possibly be justified, even if the recipients were extremely evil or even if the alternative would have resulted in greater evil to the world as a consequence.

Instead, I’m going to keep posting more Bible atrocities and injustices, and let cmkeller keep explaining why they are justifiable

Not quite. Only the reader can decide whether or not he thinks it was justifiable. As I said earlier, I don’t have a divine spreadsheet in front of me, and neither do you or the “audience” of this thread.

What I am doing is presenting that context. In every case you’ve quoted, there’s clearly a statement in the OT as to why the person in question was punished, killed or afflicted. It was never without reason, and I don’t even have to stretch into the Talmud to find the reason, nor did I have to invoke such unprovable (i.e., from Biblical verses) elements as the afterlife (which clearly exists according to the OT). Whether or not one think it’s a good reason (obviously, to you, none ever is) depends on the degree to which one is willing to admit one’s lack of knowledge of the consequences of the alternatives. But to hear you say it, G-d comes out like a homicidal maniac.

An on-line acquaintance of mine who is active in what one might call “evangelical atheism” has stated that many people have been turned off to fundamentalism by hearing all the excuses used by believers to justify their beliefs. This whole thread started when jayjay stated that he wants to be a Christian but can’t stomach the atrocities of the Old Testament. And Icerigger stated that s/he is physically sickened by the idea that stabbing pregnant women is proper. So there appears to be some merit to this idea.

There might be, but I have a feeling most of those who were turned off never did hear the “excuses” (or, as I like to call them, reasons) but rather, merely heard the end result with no context around it…sort of like on a certain website you’re very fond of linking to.

Without further ado, here are some more acts of the merciful,

…to those who deserve mercy, and to those whom showing mercy to would not ultimately lead to harm…

all-good

…to the world at large…

Yahweh in the Old Testament:

In Numbers 16, we are told the story of certain people who challenge the Aaronite stranglehold on the priesthood.

Ooh, they’re challenging the “Aharonite stranglehold!” They must be good guys! Defenders of democracy! :rolleyes

Among them are Dathan and Abiram. God kills not only them, but their families as well, a gross violation of the idea that people should only be punished for their own sins:

Dathan and Abiram had come out and were standing with their wives, children, and little ones at the entrances to their tents. Then Moses said…“If the LORD brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt.” As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah’s men and all their possessions. [Num. 16:27-32)

I contend that it is unfair to kill a man’s family, especially his “little ones” for his own sins.

It certainly would be, but of course, as always, you leave out a significant bit. Here it is, in verses 23-26 of that same chapter: “Then the LORD said to Moses, Say to the assembly, `Move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.’” Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. He warned the assembly, “Move back from the tents of these wicked men! Do not touch anything belonging to them, or you will be swept away because of all their sins.” Everyone, including the wives and children (there’s no indication that we’re talking about infants who can’t understand and/or can’t walk) was warned that standing with Dathan and Abiram would cause them to be considered included in their sinfulness. Considering that these same folks, yes, even Dathan and Abiram’s families, saw Moses on Sinai, transmitting the Torah from G-d, they knew that their choice was between obeying a man’s words or G-d’s word. They chose, of their own free will, to stand with their man in defiance of G-d’s word.

And to underscore that point (that the families were punished on their own account of rebellion and not simply due to association with the rebelling family-head), Korah’s own children did not die (Numbers 26:11 - the KJV is more faithful to the Hebrew original than the NIV).

Again, I contend that it is wrong to punish Jehoram’s wives and children for his deeds.

And again, as with the above folks, they were punished for their own sins, not for his sins. Verse 6 clearly blames at least one of his wives for enticing him to sin - “He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD.” The punishment of the wives and sons was, as the verse said, also applied to the entire nation. (a phrase that you didn’t bother bolding) Jehoram led them astray. He got the worst punishment, for leading them to sin, but following him to sin was their own choices (and in the case of that wife referenced earlier, her inducement).

or talking back to their parents,

The “rebellious child” described in Deuteronomy was not merely a back-talker.

but that aside, other means of death such as hanging are instantaneous and relatively painless.

And indeed, for some sins, hanging is the prescribed punishment. See Deuteronomy 21:22.

At the very least, God could have stated that the execution must be as painless as possible, allowing for advancements in technology through the centuries. But instead, he specifically requires burning and stoning.

Yes, he does. As in the case of Jehoram, there are some crimes that in G-d’s eyes cannot be punished merely by simple loss of life. For others, such relatively painless deaths as hanging or non-deadly punishments are prescribed.

Chaim Mattis Keller

[Opus1]

I’ve been gone on vacation for a week, so please excuse the lateness of my reply.

Upon returning, I see that cmkeller has topped himself once again. He writes that:

Human laws are, for the most part, constructed so as to inflict the least unnecessary harm due to doubt of incorrectness. This concern is absent when the judge/jury/punisher is omniscient.

So in cases in which there is absolutely no doubt about the guilt of the defendant (e.g., we have a videotape, twenty eyewitnesses, DNA evidence, and fingerprints), torture is acceptable? I find this line of thought odious.

I–and hopefully most others–believe that most modern, Western democracies have outlawed torture not out of fear of torturing an innocent man, but out of the recognition that torture is an inherently immoral punishment. Otherwise, we would simply require a higher standard of evidence before invoking torture, not ban it entirely.

But apparently Yahweh in his omniscience believes otherwise, and who am I to disagree, since we all know that the clay pot has no right to question the potter?

On defending God’s punishment of Dathan and Abiram’s families, he writes:

(there’s no indication that we’re talking about infants who can’t understand and/or can’t walk

Sigh. Apparently my ten different English bibles all lost something in the translation from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English, probably with a stop in Swahili along the way for good measure. They all translate the word “taph” as either “little ones,” “little children,” or “infants.” And my HarperCollins Study Bible notes on Num. 16:27-33 that “these verses express the belief in corporate guilt and in the family as the extension of the (usually male) head of the family.” And Strong’s even notes that the word “taph” may derive from “the tripping gait of children,” something not often associated with teenagers, but rather little kids. But I’m sure they’re all wrong, and that the “little ones” killed were actually 18 and 19 year olds, right?

In defending the torture of Jehoram and the painful deaths ordered elsewhere in the Bible, we get this lovely statement:

As in the case of Jehoram, there are some crimes that in G-d’s eyes cannot be punished merely by simple loss of life. For others, such relatively painless deaths as hanging or non-deadly punishments are prescribed.

In other words, some things are so bad that torture is an appropriate punishment. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all thought this way?

And what crimes are so bad as to merit a non-painless death?

Prostitution by a priest’s daughter (Lev. 21:9)
Mediums and spiritualists (Lev. 20:27)
Working on the Sabbath (Num. 15:32-36)
Lying about one’s virginity to one’s husbands (Dt. 22:21)
Marrying both a woman and her mother (Lev. 20:14)

Fair punishments all.

Let’s see what else the divine Yahweh has up his sleeve in terms of punishments. We already discussed Abraham’s passing off of his wife as his sister to Pharaoh, but now he tries the same trick with Abimelech. This time, instead of giving diseases to Pharaoh’s household (not as punishment, mind you, but only to stop them from touching Sarah), we learn that:

The LORD had closed up every womb in Abemelech’s household because of Abraham’s wife Sarah. (Gen. 20:18)

Quite fair. Next time I lie about something, I fully expect God to prevent the family members of the man to whom I lied from conceiving, until I pray for God to restore their fertility.

Now, since God never punishes innocent people, I’m sure that what he was really doing was not a punishment at all. Rather, God knew that Sarah could not conceive while staying with Abimelech, because having sex with Abraham would betray the truth of their relationship. Sarah would feel quite jealous if anyone else conceived, so God closed up every other woman’s womb to make her feel better. Or something like that.

In another unique display of justice, God sends bears to maul 42 young men who make fun of Elijah by calling him a “baldy” (2 Kg. 2:23-24). Once again, I’m sure that the rabbis have an elaboration on the story in the Talmud, in which the boys were actually doing all sorts of other things and even threatening bodily harm to Elijah, leaving God no choice but to send bears to maul them. Fundamentalist Christian Gleason Archer presents a similar defense, comparing the young men to a wandering street gang.

Excellent material can be found in the prophets as well, but that’s for another time.

[Opus1]

Just saw Lib’s post, so here’s a quick response.

I am of the opinion that the Bible was written by ignorant men who attributed everything they saw to their tribal god, Yahweh, just as the Assyrians and Moabites did. Thus all illnesses (like bowel diseases and leprosy) and natural disasters were seen as punishments for sin. This view is still prevalent in the NT, although Jesus disagrees with it.

I also think that many of the stories in the Bible never happened at all, but were rather polemical fictions, but that’s a different ball of wax entirely.

Would it assuage me to learn that those who suffered were recompensed eternally? Sort of. It would make things better, but not perfect. Just as a book with an awful first chapter and a spectacular next 500 pages would still be an imperfect book (and therefore the product of an imperfect author), an eternity of bliss does not mitigate a lifetime of pain, suffering, injustice, etc.

There’s a good parable on the Internet Infidels website entitled “The Five Policemen.” A woman is attacked and raped, and five policemen sit by and watch, doing nothing. Each has his own excuse (didn’t want to interfere with free will, wanted to allow others to do a good deed, etc.), and the excuse of one is that after the attack, he whisked the victim off to an island paradise where she will now live comfortably and happily for the rest of her life. I don’t think such actions exonerate the policeman for his nonintervention, any more than heaven should exonerate God for the suffering he allows to flourish on Earth.

Also, if we believe the Bible and cmkeller, Jehoram isn’t going to heaven.

[Edlyn]

Opus

Thanks for responding. Did the policemen love the woman? Did they heal her suffering — that is, did they wipe it away as though it never happened — when they took her to the paradise? Might it be that neurological suffering is morally neutral and that there is a more significant kind of suffering due to its permanence? Does a good parent make her child’s life absolutley free of suffering, discipline, and consequence?

[Liberal]

Note: That was I, and not Edlyn, who posted above.

[Captain_Amazing]

*Originally posted by Opus1 *
Furthermore, I think that God is unnecessarily cruel in giving Jehoram a lingering bowel disease that caused him “great pain.” I would call two years of a horrible bowel disease cruel and unusual punishment. I fail to see what this torture accomplished, although I’m sure cmkeller will have a nifty explanation as to why a quick and painless death would not have served as well as a lengthy, painful bowel disease.

Opus,
I’m still trying to figure out the problem here. The bible says that Jehoram deserved what he got. If you don’t believe that, why do you believe G-d gave him the disease? Would you object to the story if it was rewritten to take out G-d?

“Jehoram became king. He then killed his brothers, and other people who might have claimed the throne. Then Edom rebelled. He led an army against them, but they trapped him. He fought his way free, but was unsuccessful in putting down the rebellion. He encouraged worship of the Canaanite gods. Then the Phillistines and Arabs raided him and sacked the palace, taking away all of his wives and heirs except for one. Then he died of stomach cancer. Nobody was all that upset that he died.”

Is it that you find what happened to him particularly objectionable?

[jab1]

We wouldn’t even be having this discussion if God has just seen fit to create perfect people. By “perfect people,” I mean people who would ALWAYS have chosen, of their own free will, to do the right thing. They would have been tempted to do the wrong thing just as we all are, but perfect people would have freely chosen to resist that temptation every single time.

By this criteria, even Adam and Eve were not perfect. If they had been perfect, an army of serpents could not have convinced them to eat the Forbidden Fruit.

The fact that we are not perfect is just one more bit of evidence that either we were not created by God or that we were created by an imperfect one.