The astonishing part to me is not so much the assertion that genocide can indeed, sometimes, be good (this has been claimed before, albeit not by people who have gone down in history as the greatest humanitarians), but the claim which usually accompanies it: that this moral system which makes this claim is higher and better than others and, more, that it is (whatever this may mean in the present context) “objective.” Quite obviously it is not higher and not better; if it is “objective” in any relevant sense, that isn’t helping the case for it.
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@thoughtful I watched it, ironically having just taught on the same subject to my OT students earlier in the day. I thought both speakers (who are friends) did a good job laying out the options and addressing them from a more conservative perspective. But there was nuance and pastoral sensitivity. It’s a tough issue we (conservative Christians) should not treat lightly. (BTW Charlie Trimm is a real expert on the subject…wrote a 700 page book on ANE warfare. He gives good nuance to terms like “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.”)
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I watched it, and I win my bet. God is not a bad person. Option 1 declares that God doesn’t exist and therefore is not bad. Options 2-4 give various justifications for God not being bad. They do not so much as consider the option that God does exist but is bad. Since they don’t consider it, there’s nothing to reject. Also, they say almost nothing about the Flood, the greatest case of genocide in the bible, directly done by God.
Which option did you like, and why?
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The eschatological explanation as that explains God’s character. I also gave that explanation for Leviticus 25 and slavery. I also give that explanation for the flood.
Exactly the point I am making… in this particular case, no plan would have worked… the people needed to change over time through reforms.
Where? When? Perhaps you could repeat these explanations or at least point to them.
Where does this “seperate” standard of good originate from?
Does it originate from your charecter? Or is it a magical “good” hanging around somewhere without any basis for it to exist? Ideas of “good” and “bad” need a mind for it to mean anything.
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"Gentiles being grafted into the kingdom of Israel."
It is hard to see how Psalm 2 in any way relates to this.
Isaiah 14 seems to be more about the Iraelites turning the tables on their oppressors than incorporating them.
Philimon
The reason I asked was because I’d read that Onesimus’ slave status had been challenged (principally by Allen Dwight Callahan writing in the Harvard Theological Review).
In any case, there is no need to get into the weeds on that issue, as even if he was a slave, Paul is calling for an exception for a specific and “dear brother” slave, rather than objecting in any way to the general rule of slavery.
Galations 3
This seems to be only very tenuously related to your “so there are no more nations outside of Israel.” It seems to be talking more about the difference between slave and free no longer mattering, rather than calling for the emancipation of slaves (or for Gentiles to gain the legal status of Jews).
Also, do you believe the world would be more moral without any belief in God?
It is an answer, merely an empirical answer from somebody who values evidence.
I don’t see religion as inherently particularly moral or immoral, but rather suspect that people read their own morality or immorality (including authoritarianism, xenophobia and other bigotry) into it.
Communism
Please do not conflate Communism and Atheism. They are NOT the same thing.
There have been communists who were not atheists. (Wikipedia even has a list of Christian communists.)
There are a great many atheists who are not communists.
Communists regimes need not be anti-theist, and I’ve seen nothing to date to suggest that communist Yugoslavia had any particular penchant for persecuting religions.
However communist regimes that concentrate power into a single despotic leader tend to wish to destroy any potential rival powerbase – be it religious, ethnic or whatever. This is why you see persecution of not just religions but also ethnic minorities in both the USSR under Stalin and in China today.
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Fact is that communist Governments are the only governments in the history of the world where professed atheists held all power.
Your reference to “christian communists” are beside the point.
That argument has more holes than a sieve.
The fact of the matter is that any regime that concentrates power into the hands of a small group is likely to be problematical. That is regardless of whether the hands are Christian (Fascist Italy, Fascist Spain, Pinochett’s Chile, the Argentinian Junta), Buddhist (the Myanmar Junta and to a lesser extent the Thai Monarchy) or Muslim (the Saudi Monarchy, the Gulf State monarchies and the Iranian theocracy). Communism just happens be the member of this toxic group that is atheist.
When atheists are given constitutionally constrained power, they act no differently than anybody else in the same position. Ask Julia Gillard.
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I wan’t making an argument, just stating a historical fact.
It was an implicit argument, made by taking a single fact out of its wider context.
Communist regimes have historically been atheist. So what? Right Wing dictatorships and juntas have historically been Christian. Those individual facts, in isolation, don’t really tell us anything.
If you weren’t trying to make the implication atheist=bad, then why did you bring up your isolated “historical fact”?
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Because you seem to be avoiding it with the claim that there are other communists also.
How is this avoiding it:
Communists regimes need not be anti-theist, and I’ve seen nothing to date to suggest that communist Yugoslavia had any particular penchant for persecuting religions.However communist regimes that concentrate power into a single despotic leader tend to wish to destroy any potential rival powerbase – be it religious, ethnic or whatever. This is why you see persecution of not just religions but also ethnic minorities in both the USSR under Stalin and in China today.
Communist governments by definition result in power being concentrated in a few hands.
So do right-wing dictatorships and juntas.
You didn’t answer my question. No eschatological explanation, no explanation of God’s endorsement of slavery, and no explanation of the genocide of the Flood.
That’s a whole additional subject that we don’t need to get into. I’d say, briefly, that there is no objective moral standard separate from human experience of the world and human characteristics as evolved, social animals. How does this line of argument advance your proposition?
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This would be true if God did not exist.
Now re-imagine the situation considering that God exists.
In such case, we would have an objective moral standard based on Gods unchanging nature.
Why? I don’t see how that follows.