Re: The war on faith.
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Also, I still do not see where God advocated murdering the infants in this story. Moses may have.
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My earlier reply (anticipating your response [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ):
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I would also note that besides ordering a genocide, your monster of a god was not even capable of taking rersponsibility for it. Oh no, perversely, he asked the Israelites to do his dirty job for him, therby forcing them to transgress their own humanity. Also, i guess, when he will be brought to be judged, by loving human beings, he will probably claim he did not do it and those Israelites will say they only followed orders.
Your view of god seem really sick and perverse.
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And yes, according to the bible account god ordered the murder of male infants. Go back and read relevant passages.
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Hi MidGe,
First of all, I would like to thank you for your civility. I know how much you hate religion, and yet you still managed to be respectful in your posts in this thread.
As far as your reply goes (sorry I ignored it, but I was focusing on replying to the poster who seems to feel the need to make the debate personal).... I can only say that I would like to see the passages in question.
*Disclaimer* I read the passages very quickly, so I could be wrong. I've had a lot of work to do, and the amount of time I've invested already in this thread is silly. That being said, I don't recall God ordering the murder of infants. He spoke with Moses saying it was time to exact vengeance. Sure, vengeance is a very aggressive way of saying "fight your oppressors", but in the context of this passage the word vengeance appears to mean exactly that -- it was time for Israel to go to war with Midia for 6 years of extreme oppression. Vengeance in this context isn't exactly like getting back at someone for hurting you years ago. Israel was CURRENTLY being constantly raided by the Midianites and forced into extreme poverty.
As for your assertion that God ordered the murder of infants in Midia... from my reading I think it was Moses who ordered it. God simply gave the directive to fight back.
Also... I don't really understand why you think God wasn't "taking responsibility". It was Israel's responsibility the whole time to fight off the Midianites... God just told them the time was right.
Also, let me just point out again that I'm not a Bible "literalist". If the Bible by chance does (in its proper context and everything) advocate some immoral action, that doesn't automatically mean I think the action is NOT immoral. The Bible was written by humans... only inspired by God. I'm not someone who says everything written in the Bible must be morally "correct" in every day and age... and is equally applicable today as it was when it was written. I just want to empasize one more time that my religion's primary source is Christ... he did not advocate infantacide which means that even if a 4000 year old scripture does I am still okay with being a Christian.
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