The war on faith.

[Matt R.]

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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.

[Matt R.]

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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").

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Um, you have to combine the resistance with the offensive to make any sense at all. If the Israelites only "resist", they continue to live in caves and watch as Midianite raiders continue to destroy their property. God didn't say "It is time for the Israelites to rise up against Midia!! Defend your borders!.... but don't attack them back! Let them continue to raid your lands as you please and keep living in caves! Let them do whatever they want!"

War back then was not like war is now. For them to be "free" of the oppression they had to invade Midia, otherwise they would keep coming. Sure, by today's standards Moses took it too far in a moral sense. But, what he did (given Israel's circumstances) was probably 100% standard in those days.

[MidGe]

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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.

[Matt R.]

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That's where you claimed to get your education from. Also, you seem to lack knowledge of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and you didn't even know who the Midianites were before you looked it up. This is bread-and-butter stuff if you're looking at Christianity from different perspectives.

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I've addressed my "lack of knowledge" of those books in a previous post. And yes, I got my education from a school affiliated with the Catholic church. Not a single one of my teachers were nuns or religious fanatics. They were all extremely grounded in fact and history. You cannot, I repeat CANNOT, claim that the education I received was biased because the teachers I learned from were affiliated in some way with with the church. This is like saying that religious education from a Ph.D. in religious studies at Notre Dame is biased because he's affiliated with a Catholic school. It's just utter nonsense.

As for your "biology" analogy. No, it's more like me having studied biology, yet after 10 years away from the field I have to look up some of the properties of cytoplasm because I haven't seen it for so long. Yet another failed analogy in an attempt to rationalize your distorted view that you have a "superior" education in religion.


The rest of your long reply appears to be manipulating my wording to claim I said stuff I never said, or at the very least taking something I said to the absolute extreme and thereby distorting the meaning. There are several points that can be addressed by simply re-reading my old posts without trying to stretch the meaning to how you see fit.

A couple small points.... A lot of your arguments seem to be against the actions of Moses. I never claimed Moses was perfect. Again, a lot of his actions were probably "standard" back then (no, I'm not saying that means they were okay, which I'm sure you will pretend I did). Just because a character in the Bible did something does not mean Christianity views it as morally right today. The Bible tells a lot of stories... sometimes people did bad things... imagine that!

The rest of your post I don't feel like delving into. Most of it is utter nonsense that I've already addressed.

[Matt R.]

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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.

[madnak]

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This is like saying that religious education from a Ph.D. in religious studies at Notre Dame is biased

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Any education from a single source, in any field, is biased. This is particularly true where religion is concerned.

You obviously never studied the atheist position on Christianity. I doubt you studied the Muslim position on Christianity, or the Jewish position on Christianity, or the Buddhist position on Christianity, the academic position or the apologetic position or maybe even the Protestant position.

My analogy rephrased: This is like studying the behavior of elk in the wild for 10 years, and then claiming you have an education in biology. An education in biology means you've studied life in its full diversity, from the molecular level to the global level. If you know what a cell is, but not an ecosystem - or vice versa - your education in the subject is lacking.

Now, if you think elk are the best species on the face of the earth, nothing else is even worth studying, that's cool. You can just study elk. But when you claim to have an education in biology, you'll get called on it. You have an education in elk (in this case in the Catholic interpretation of Christian scripture), not in biology (religion).

[Matt R.]

I am familiar with the atheist position on Christianity. And the Muslim position, and the Jewish position, and the Buddhist position, and the academic position and maybe even the protestant position. No, I'm not an expert. But I'm familiar. Nice try though.

So, you seem to know a lot about my education. You must AT LEAST know what specific school I went to. I won't insult your intelligence by asking you to confirm the name of the school.... I mean, you HAVE to know right? I mean, if you don't, you DO know that not every school has the exact same education right??

Also, you seem to know a lot about what I've read on religion outside of Catholic school. In particular, you seem to conclude that I've read nothing. May I ask how you know my reading habits?

The statement that Jesus was somehow an advocate of violence is just complete and utter nonsense. This is true in a Christian, Muslim, Judaic, Hindu, academic, and historical sense. Anyone who says otherwise is a complete loon. I may not be an expert on every single nitch of Christianity, but I know enough where I can confidently argue against this nonsense.

[madnak]

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As for your comments that I'm "bad at logic"

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I'm referring to your own post in the vegetarian thread. I admit it was below the belt.

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Try taking an upper level math class and asking the professor to construct every single proof he does from the axioms from the first day of class.

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Funny. My math teacher actually derives every formula before he teaches it, and will derive anything if asked to do so. He believes this is critical to a proper math education.

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either that or they really are over your head

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Again, if killing infants and women is okay according to your morality, then your morality is definitely "over my head." I believe that anyone who enslaves and brutalizes, slaughters and plunders, or tortures and humiliates people (especially children, who are innocent almost by their nature) is a cruel and violent person.

[Matt R.]

Hrmm... I just have to continue a bit because this is just so retarded.

So, I went to one Catholic school from kindergarten through 8th grade. Then to another high school for 4 years. Thus you conclude my religious education is biased because it's from "one source" (whatever that means).

So, you've got a Professor with a Ph.D. in religious studies. He happened to get his B.S. from the same school as his Ph.D. All of his education was from "one source" (whatever that means). Thus he is uneducated about religion and is completely biased.

Please tell me you now comprehend that your argument against my education completely fails.

[Matt R.]

Oh, the vegetarian thread. You mean the one where Rduke, the guy who is a researcher in evolutionary biology, agreed with me?

If you couldn't fill in the gaps in my argument on your own, it's not my problem. I'm not here to educate you. Thanks for being an [censored] though.

As for your math teacher, I'm sure if you continually asked him to derive the same [censored] day after day from the definitions from day 1 he would get a little irritated eventually. Especially if you started calling his education into question if you didn't understand something.

Killing infants is not okay with my moral code. If that's what your argument boils down to, well then it was nice debating with you.