A tough Bible question for Veterans of the "word"

[Soma-Sight]

How do you reconcile the Christ God of Love and peace with THIS verse of infant abortion and genocide!?

3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy [a] everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' " [/b]

 

[Orthodox Christian]

Re: A tough Bible question for Veterans of the "word&qu

How do you reconcile the Christ God of Love and peace with THIS verse of infant abortion and genocide!?

3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy [a] everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' " [/b]

Hello my friend:
Ever hear the name 'Haman?' He was the guy who provoked Ahaseurus to kill all of the Jews. The story is found in Esther.

Now guess what lineage Haman came from?

He was an Amelkite.

Saul had spared some of the Amelekites, and they were a scourge against the people of Israel thereafter.

For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

But what do I know? I'm just an Orthodox Christian, and they tell me here that I don't know the bible. :wink:
hollah
James

 

[Quath]

I think the story would have gone differently if the children were brought into the tribe of Israel. No death and no extra killing.

Why is peace, compassion and compromise not the standard solution of the Old Testament?

Quath

 

[Theophilus]

Job 38
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:

2 “Who is this who darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?

3 Now prepare yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer Me.

4 “ Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.

5 Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?

Job 40

1 Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said:

2 “Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him?
He who rebukes God, let him answer it.â€Â


Its hard to understand Gods ways when you can not see things from eternity.

 

[Quath]

Its hard to understand Gods ways when you can not see things from eternity.

It is also hard to reconcile that Jesus is suppose to be a prince of peace; he is suppose to be God; and in the Old Testament, God does not try to bring peace.

It seems that the Bible is just saying that the ends justify the means.

Quath

 

[Orthodox Christian]

Its hard to understand Gods ways when you can not see things from eternity.

It is also hard to reconcile that Jesus is suppose to be a prince of peace; he is suppose to be God; and in the Old Testament, God does not try to bring peace.

It seems that the Bible is just saying that the ends justify the means.

Quath

Ethical dilemma:
If one who has foreknowledge has the opportunity to kill Hitler in 1929, does one do so?

Harder question: If one is aware that ancestors of Hitler's the are the well-spring from which dozens of Hitlers arise, does one wipe out their people?

Does one shoot down a plane filled with 280 inocents to save 10,000 lives?

Hard questions.


In the New Testament times, people have grappled with the so-called 'just war' theory. This is deeply problematic as well.

Atheist or Christian, pat answers don't cut it.

 

[Quath]

Ethical dilemma:
If one who has foreknowledge has the opportunity to kill Hitler in 1929, does one do so?

Harder question: If one is aware that ancestors of Hitler's the are the well-spring from which dozens of Hitlers arise, does one wipe out their people?

Does one shoot down a plane filled with 280 inocents to save 10,000 lives?

Hard questions.

Yeah. Good hard questions. Steven King's "The Dead Zone" looks a little into the idea of what it would mean to go back and kill Hitler and if such a thing should be done. Did we learn from Hitler and that learning stop people from a worse Hitler from coming into power? Very good and tough questions -- for a limited human.

Where I disagree is that God is bound by such a limitation. God makes Joshua into a Hitler. He makes Moses into a Hitler (or empowers Moses to act like Hitler). Was the the only way to get something done? With a human trying to control global events over time, maybe so. But God is free to meddle as much as He wants to gain any outcome He wants.

So say God wanted to stop a group of Hitlers coming to power. With a flick of a finger, He could give these Hitlers heart attacks and they never come into power. He could make their parents infertile. He could harden or soften their heart (as He did to Pharoah) to make them do as He wished.

So with all these choices, why did God chose to have children killed and wars started? The only purpose that I can divine is that God wanted to show how meaningless lifereally is. That the death of a child or a person doesn't mean much. But if that is the message, then abortion should not be thought of as bad.

Or maybe it is like the idea that you can feed someone or teach them to fish. But if that is the case, God is teaching the skills of war, not of compromise, treatys and compassion. That is teaching someone to rob for food instead of hunt for food. So I see this as a bad analogy as well.

Quath