How should I face Old Testament violence?

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Tom
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10 Dec 2009, 4:14 pm

I fell out of Christianity and the church i was attending about 2 years ago after going through bad times and losing interest. I started reading atheist and anti-Christian books like Dawkins and Hitchens. I admit that when i came to these books i was looking for justification and reassurance that leaving the religion and stopping belief was the right thing.

The parts of the books that really resonated with me the most were the condenmnations of the old testament and the warlike israelites being commanded by God to ramsack cities, kill children and capture girls for their wives.

While struggling with these issues and trying to make my mind up, I read some christian books and websites defending these passages with arguements such as,

the israelites were so hard and violent in the environment they had to survive in that God met them where they were at, talked down to them in their own language, did the best he could with their situation and culture to keep them alive, etc.

Or, they had no choice, it was such a tough environment they had to be so ruthless,

But to be honest I found it really hard to accpet these defenses, I could understand if it was just war, but I can't believe God could order the capture of girls for wives after their families were killed, etc. When I read those parts it just sounds like a violent army using God to excuse what they wanted to do. I just dont find the defenses convincing.

I am currently going to church and chatting with very liberal/progressive type Christians (all my previous friends were evangelical) but i dont know how they usually take these issues as i have not yet asked them.

ruveyn
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10 Dec 2009, 5:33 pm

Tom wrote:

The ancient Israelites were as nasty as Muslims are today. Once they got settled in, built or took over cities and got rich and prosperous they went to squash-rot, as have many other nations when they got prosperous. The neighbors ate their lunch and the Israelites were eventually driven and scattered all about. The rest is history. Being beaten up and scattered was actually good news for the Jews, because it toughened them up and when dispersed they could no longer be wiped out. That is why 3200 years after Abraham there are still Jews. Where did the Roman Empire go? Where did the Persian satraps go?

The history of the Jews can be summarized thus: They tried to kill us and the didn't succeed. Now, lets go eat.

ruveyn

TheOddGoat
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10 Dec 2009, 7:52 pm

I think this comes down to:

You win the lottery: God did it!

Massive abomination: God didn't do it.

Just superstition. If god has all the "omni-properties" he's solely responsible for everything, so nothing really matters because there's no longer any definition and everything is a grey blur of righteousness and amorality (everything and its opposite are equally moral if done by a god that only does good things, and if it does everything then everything is good. If it is the first cause, then by definition it caused everything and it would also know all future events resulting from the original formation).

An extension of good luck, bad luck.

We massacred a village and raped some women: God did it for us and commanded it! Lets write this down in our book about god!

We found some delicious berries and ate them because they were seemingly designed to be appetising but they killed half of us: God didn't do it. Don't bother writing it down in our book about god.

Just some warriors boasting about how proud they were and that it couldn't have gone any other way. God is a kind of hyperbole in your examples I think.

phil777
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10 Dec 2009, 9:05 pm

Following Ruveyn's logic, Jews should also survive the fall of the American "empire" :p (if you did not get the reference, broaden your cultural horizons, there is a movie and even a book iirc named as such).

Sand
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10 Dec 2009, 11:58 pm

phil777 wrote:

No doubt under the current administration the American empire is sliding and seemingly aiming at turning the USA into an economic third world country with crumbling infrastructure, inferior health systems, education aimed at the elite, suppressive police and military structures, a huge gap between the very rich and the growing poor, totally corrupt officialdom, diversions from economic realities with violent entertainments and delusive religious practices etc. but Jews, like all the rest will probably survive if survival is assumed a worthwhile goal.

ruveyn
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11 Dec 2009, 2:43 am

phil777 wrote:

I have no doubt of it. One thing that Jews have learned in the past 3200 years is Survival. The Egyptians did not kill us off (back in the time of Moses), nor the Assyrians, nor the Babylonians, nor the Persians, nor the Germans.

The bastards tried to kill us off and they failed. Now lets go get something to eat.

ruveyn

LiendaBalla
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18 Dec 2009, 12:04 pm

I can't believe it either. A few things in the Bible are like that. Despite "thou shalt not kill" in his ten commandment, Moses had rules that certain people be stoned to death. It's better to only hold onto the ten commandments and what Jesus said.

FaithHopeCheese
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18 Dec 2009, 1:28 pm

I have always thought of the Old Testament as being a historical perspective, and the New Testament as being 'Christianity'... I like Ruveyn's thoughts on it, though.

This link is kind of funny:

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/sword.html

No wonder you're confused.

history_of_psychiatry
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18 Dec 2009, 1:55 pm

The bible (like all other religious texts) is just a book of fables, myths and dogma written by a bunch of uneducated nomads. Don't dig too deep into it. Whatever the ultimate truth is, it is far greater than some religion (or all religions combined for that matter). You want to find truth? You'll find it from within and not from some ancient book.

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ruveyn
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18 Dec 2009, 2:06 pm

phil777 wrote:

Short of a cosmic catastrophe that wipes out humanity totally, some Jews will survive, one way or another. One thing we have learned over the years is survival.

ruveyn

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18 Dec 2009, 2:11 pm

this isn't an answer to the question, but if you would like to learn more about the
old testament, Yale has a load of content online from one of it's courses on the
topic here: LINK

That includes video and audio from a load of lectures.

I haven't seen it, but I have no doubt whatsoever that it will be very well presented
and informative. It might help you answer your original question.

oppositedirection
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19 Dec 2009, 7:25 am

I thought the difference was that prior to Christ humanity were by nature sinners but after Christ's offer of salvation humanity basically played by another set of rules. The world basically made people pre-christ sin because they lived in a world of death and suffering. However, once Christ had shown the world the true meaning of love by taking on all of human sin then God expects more.

Basically, prior to Christ "Forgive them, for they know not what they have done" stands but after Christ it does not, because now they know what they have done. I think I read something like that years ago...

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qaliqo
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19 Dec 2009, 10:04 am

*descends from the sky*

Tom wrote:

The parts of the books that really resonated with me the most were the condemnations of the old testament and the warlike Israelites being commanded by God to ransack cities, kill children and capture girls for their wives.

Always bothered me, too. I left the church but kept the tasty bits for philosophical and spiritual continuity. All of these things were commonplace everywhere until the last sliver of human history; in its socio-historical context it appears to be a typical response of attributing every good idea to God. Knowable God≈knowable universe, ergo God≈universe, ergo IF NOT having a homeland AND seeing someone with a nice homeland THEN God wants one to take the land. Just to be contrarian, why does Dawkins think we shouldn't kill groups of people and take all their stuff?

Tom wrote:

Or, they had no choice, it was such a tough environment they had to be so ruthless,

That's the gist of the Lord's Resistance Army, a modern day group that makes boys kill their parents and holds young girls and old women to be raped to death. Hobbes was right about the state of nature: life tends to be nasty, brutish, and short. That said, it is all a beautiful tapestry whether you find the presence of self-aware intelligence divine or mundane; I don't understand when male wolves and mustangs kill other mothers' young, but they do, and so do our monkey uncles.

Tom wrote:

I can't believe God could order the capture of girls for wives after their families were killed, etc.

First, God has never ordered anyone to do anything, many are called and few chosen. Is it better or worse than killing the girls? IFF treated with dignity, being allowed to live is at least a mercy, right? We all exist at the whim of forces beyond our control. Not defending any particular behavior, just playing devil's (God's?) advocate here.

Tom
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19 Dec 2009, 11:50 am

Thanks Galigo, that was interesting post.

Awesomelyglorious
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19 Dec 2009, 12:15 pm

qaliqo wrote:

Just to be contrarian, why does Dawkins think we shouldn't kill groups of people and take all their stuff?

I don't even know where to look for that, however, there are a large number of reasons that he coudl give.

Quote:

That said, it is all a beautiful tapestry whether you find the presence of self-aware intelligence divine or mundane; I don't understand when male wolves and mustangs kill other mothers' young, but they do, and so do our monkey uncles.

Not really. It is an absurdity.

Quote:

Well.... I don't know that there is a binary of this kind of strength here. Frankly, if one accepts the notion of a Calvinist God who hardens those whom he chooses and redeems those who he chooses, then NONE of this seems to make much sense. It is all an appeal to an unknown will.

qaliqo
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19 Dec 2009, 1:40 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

...there are a large number of reasons that he could give.

Sure, there always are. Can you name a couple? I'll admit that I can't...

Quote:

Not really. It is an absurdity.

Yes, an absurdly beautiful tapestry. Kafka and Monty Python were both existentialist. Absurd can be a good thing, too.

Quote:

Frankly, if one accepts the notion of a Calvinist God who hardens those whom he chooses and redeems those who he chooses, then NONE of this seems to make much sense.

The Calvinist God comes with a lot of the obviously false baggage of Judeo-Christian dogma; throw out the afterlife, assume that people are eternal in the sense of being a constant from outside space and time, it all makes sense, some people always were/are/going to be Hitler and some were/are/going to be Gandhi and the vast majority will not be so obviously good or evil, but always just what they are, once one "steps outside".

Quote:

It is all an appeal to an unknown will.

You are exactly correct in my estimation., it is all an appeal to an unknown will. Read any Crowley? He clarifies a lot of spiritual thought and muddies a lot of rational thought, but on the whole books like Magick Without Tears offer a great deal of insight into the good, the bad, and the ugly. My whole take away on will is that IF NOT a single will at work on/in the entire universe THEN will is a perception to which no thing corresponds. Can I prove it? No. Am I more than suspicious that all is one? Yes.

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