Re: The war on faith.
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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"?
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No.
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Not exactly a historically accurate statement, chief.
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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.
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vhawk and madnak,
The statement "he advocated slaughtering "bad people" because they had to be purified" implies that God told the Israelites to slaughter the Midianites simply because they were there, they were "bad", and they needed to be religiously "purified". The fact that madnak never mentioned the MAIN REASON that God advocated going to war with Midia is extremely dishonest. He starts using Biblical passages to support a point -- that Christianity is a proponent of violence. Further, he acts like he's sufficiently educated on the subject where if I have to look at a passage because I haven't read it in years, it means I can't possibly be familiar with it and his opinion holds greater weight.
Here is the difference between me and madnak. My religious education focused on one religion, making me extremely familiar with it. Further, the focus was on understanding the scripture or text rather than memorizing it to the point I could recall it 10 years later. Thus, I can generally read a passage that I haven't seen in awhile and understand the context and the underlying meaning. Madnak thinks that because I can't remember specific Biblical verses 10 years after I've read them and thus have to look them up, that I'm unqualified to give an opinion. Given that madnak almost certainly has only glossed over passages and not studied them in depth (many of his posts lead me to believe this), I am certain that, in general, I'm more qualified to give my contextual interpretation than he is. When he argues that because I have to re-familiarize myself with a specific chapter or verse that I'm not really educated on the matter is another joke... at the expense of madnak.
Let me give you an analogy to the Midia vs. Israel battle. I make the statement "So-and-so advocated that the Jews slaughter the "bad Germans" because they had to be purified". Notice that I didn't mention the Germans were systematically exterminating the Jews. Noooo... the only reason the Jews had the right to fight back was because the Germans needed to be purified.
Similarly, Midia was OPPRESSING Israel. When you claim God advocated the "slaughter" of Midia because they were bad, you're leaving out the ENTIRE POINT of why God advocated it. The accurate (in the context of the debate) statement is that "God advocated that the Israelites go to war with Midia because they were severely suppressing the Israelites to the point where they had to live in caves and in extreme poverty". Yes, Christianity advocates violence in this case. It is so obvious that violence is warranted in this case that I assumed that madnak was not absurd and arguing otherwise.
Also, I still do not see where God advocated murdering the infants in this story. Moses may have. Again, Christianity does not worship Moses. And furthermore, in the aftermath of war in those days, I bet this was extremely common for a variety of reasons.
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