Re: The war on faith.
[ QUOTE ]
From wikipedia:
"The Biblical account of the battle between the Midianites and Gideon[16] asserts that the Israelites suffered at the hands of the Midianites for a space of six years. The Midianites seem to have been then a powerful and independent nation; they allied themselves with the Amalekites and the Kedemites, and they oppressed the Israelites so severely that many were obliged to seek refuge in caves and strongholds; Midianite raiders destroyed crops and reduced them to extreme poverty.[17]"
So... uh, yeah. Do you see how this is different than the statement "he advocated slaughtering "bad people" because they had to be purified"?
[/ QUOTE ]
No.
[ QUOTE ]
Not exactly a historically accurate statement, chief.
[/ QUOTE ]
vhawk covered this. The Wikipedia article in no way contradicts me. I know you have trouble being logical, but if you could just try to explain how this in any way contradicts my statement that'd be great. Shouting "the Midianites were bad! Therefore madnak was dishonest!" isn't making it easy to discuss anything.
Are you objecting to my use of quotations marks? If so, let me explain. I don't think evil exists, so I try to enclose "evil" and "bad" in quotation marks to make it clear I'm not referring to them. I sometimes leave out the quotes for rhetorical effect, and I probably shouldn't. But I'm not trying to say the Midianites weren't actually "bad," just saying that "bad" is a concept I don't subscribe to. Of course the Midianites did horrible things according to most sane standards.
Or maybe you're combining the resistance against the Midianites with the offensive against the Midianites? If so you should note I'm talking purely about the latter. Invading the Midianite lands, burning their nation, and killing all the people isn't a defensive act. Certainly killing the women and children wasn't. This was agression taken to "punish" (purify) the Midianites for their earlier wickedness (they were "bad").
|