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Post by timoneill on Oct 20, 2011 20:03:26 GMT
Depends how you define "genocide"; it also assumes that the Amalekites etc. were sitting around the campfire making daisychains when those evil Hebrews turned up. That sounds suspiciously like what Serbian nationalists whine at me when I mention Srebrenica - "Oh, but it's not like the Muslims in Srebrenica were all sitting around singing Kumbaya". That doesn't justify the cold blooded massacre of non-combatants including teenagers. And the Serbs had the decency to keep the murders to men and boys over a certain age. Yahweh supposedly had no such scruples. When the mighty Kalamity Kraig uses Serb apologist style arguments to justify a level of horror that even the Chetniks baulked at, you're way down in the moral mire. I thought we were talking the Dawkins Bogey Man tackling the arguments of Kalamity Kraig on this matter? Kalamity Kraig is a fundamentalist who uses his slippery rhetoric to justify massacres just as the vile Serb apologists do. But apparently it's all okay because Yahweh ordered the children's brains to be dash out and Yahweh is good. Or something. In case anyone is unfamiliar with this rather horrible little bedtime story from the "Good Book": Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” Yep, while you're exterminating every single man, woman and infant, make sure you kill all the donkeys as well. For this pleaseth Yahweh. But Saul didn't carry out Yahweh's bloodthirsty orders to the letter: But Saul and the army spared Agag and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely, but everything that was despised and weak they totally destroyed.So Yahweh sends Samuel to get Saul to do the killing properly: Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. 18 And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; wage war against them until you have wiped them out.’ 19 Why did you not obey the LORD? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD?” Then Samuel shows Saul how it's done: Saul replied, “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD your God.” So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshiped the LORD.
Then Samuel said, “Bring me Agag king of the Amalekites.”
Agag came to him in chains. And he thought, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.” Sorry Agag - that's not how Yahweh rolls: But Samuel said,
“As your sword has made women childless, so will your mother be childless among women.”
And Samuel put Agag to death before the LORD at Gilgal. Charming stuff. But Kalamity Kraig says this is not only all literally true but also all A-Okay as well. And he can't work out why many of us reject this as rather nasty and primitive Iron Age remembering of some Bronze Age atrocity with the tattered tinsel of religion draped over it.
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Post by bjorn on Oct 21, 2011 7:25:48 GMT
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Post by timoneill on Oct 21, 2011 8:05:43 GMT
And you don't have to be an atheist to find this vile nonsense from Craig repugnant: Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God's grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven's incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.I'm sure that made the infants of the Amalekites feel much better as the holy servants of Yahweh smashed their brains out.
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Post by bjorn on Oct 21, 2011 10:56:32 GMT
And you don't have to be an atheist to find this vile nonsense from Craig repugnantBut you may be an atheist to believe that Dawkins' excuse has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Craig has destroyed his antitheistic arguments in the The God Delusion, in several books and articles in philosophical publications. Some bystanders my find it hard not to think that "Dawkins of course has consistently balked at debating Craig, presumably because he doesn’t want it to be publicly revealed that his arguments haven’t the slightest ability to stand up to rigorous analysis. It wouldn’t look good on his CV."Remember that Dawkins originally refused to debate Craig back in 2007 or something, long before he was told by Stephen Carr about Craig's reply to a question on the cananite passages. Dawkins will have a rather hard time to counter the impression that his present excuse is a later rationalization.
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Post by turoldus on Oct 21, 2011 14:01:28 GMT
Both Craig and Dawkins would do well familiarizing themselves with the recent findings of biblical archeology. There was probably no massacre to begin with, which is a problem only to literalists and people who mistake the Bible for a manual in history of the Middle East.
That being said, I'm always surprised at how outrage and indignation are central parts of the atheist mindset. How - Christian from them.
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Post by timoneill on Oct 21, 2011 19:47:25 GMT
Both Craig and Dawkins would do well familiarizing themselves with the recent findings of biblical archeology. There was probably no massacre to begin with, which is a problem only to literalists and people who mistake the Bible for a manual in history of the Middle East. I'm pretty sure Dawkins is at least vaguely familiar with all that. But it's Kalamity Kraig who is defending a literal interpretation of these rather ugly folktales of a nasty Middle Eastern godling. So it makes sense to take his justification of dashing out the brains of infants in the name of the Christian "God" (the same being, allegedly) at face value and note that it is vile. There's something wrong with being outraged and indignant at a man who uses weaselly rhetoric to justify the massacre of babies in the name of his "God"?
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Post by unkleE on Oct 21, 2011 21:15:28 GMT
I think discussions like this illustrate how easily we all become tribal in our behaviour, as if belief or disbelief in God can be reduced to the level of English football fans: "Our guy'll smash your guy, because your guy sucks!"Craig's "empty chair" tactic seems puerile to me, while Dawkins' changing reasons don't sound very honest. But why should we follow them in this? For a more nuanced view from a christian philosopher who disagrees with Craig's OT views, see Victor Reppert's comment.
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Post by elephantchang51 on Oct 22, 2011 4:34:42 GMT
Surely it is entirely up to Dawkins who he chooses to debate and why,as it is for anyone.There is something unpleasantly voyueristic behind the increasingly frenetic demands of some theists to see these two men,who appear to have little respect for each other,verbally brawl for their warped entertainment.
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Post by turoldus on Oct 22, 2011 9:09:29 GMT
There's something wrong with being outraged and indignant at a man who uses weaselly rhetoric to justify the massacre of babies in the name of his "God"? No. But that's one of many things they inherited from the Christian mindset.
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Post by timoneill on Oct 22, 2011 20:16:15 GMT
There's something wrong with being outraged and indignant at a man who uses weaselly rhetoric to justify the massacre of babies in the name of his "God"? No. But that's one of many things they inherited from the Christian mindset. Ummm, sorry, but Christianity could have died in the dust in the Third Century like a lot of other odd little Middle Eastern mystery cults and I'd still be perfectly capable of seeing that killing babies is a rather nasty thing.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2011 21:10:39 GMT
Ummm, sorry, but Christianity could have died in the dust in the Third Century like a lot of other odd little Middle Eastern mystery cults and I'd still be perfectly capable of seeing that killing babies is a rather nasty thing. I don't know, Tim; history is very unpredictable. I different kind of sociocultural background that would then emerge would have also inculcated you with a different set of moral prejudices than the ones you now hold. EDIT: A philosopher and an atheist Daniel Came, who already chastised Dawkins for refusing to debate with Craig, criticizes his latest excuse: www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/oct/22/richard-dawkins-refusal-debate-william-lane-craig
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Post by timoneill on Oct 22, 2011 23:08:46 GMT
Ummm, sorry, but Christianity could have died in the dust in the Third Century like a lot of other odd little Middle Eastern mystery cults and I'd still be perfectly capable of seeing that killing babies is a rather nasty thing. I don't know, Tim; history is very unpredictable. I different kind of sociocultural background that would then emerge would have also inculcated you with a different set of moral prejudices than the ones you now hold. I'm struggling to think of a sociocultural background where these moral prejudices would have people consider murdering babies a good thing. I can't see that society lasting very long. Morals being perfectly practical and rational things, not dictates handed down by invisible beings, after all. Great that this discussion has given the petty cowards another excuse to smite my karma though. Very "Christian". I'm sure your Jesus will forgive that small-minded vindictiveness.
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Post by unkleE on Oct 23, 2011 8:02:24 GMT
I'm struggling to think of a sociocultural background where these moral prejudices would have people consider murdering babies a good thing. I can't see that society lasting very long. Tim, do I take it that you would see killing babies to be wrong in virtually any circumstance, and you would be as opposed to anyone who said otherwise as you are to WL Craig? BTW, have you read the offending article by Craig, and do you think Dawkins has quoted fairly and representatively from it?
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Post by sankari on Oct 23, 2011 11:57:12 GMT
I'm struggling to think of a sociocultural background where these moral prejudices would have people consider murdering babies a good thing. That pretty much describes a whole swathe of ancient societies, particularly Bronze Age ones like the Assyrians, who were notorious for their violence. Even the Greeks and Romans had no qualms about infanticide. And yet, they did. The Neo-Assyrian Empire dominated the known world for nearly 300 years. The Macedonian Empire lasted for >600 years and the Roman Empire enjoyed >500 years.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2011 18:50:21 GMT
I'm struggling to think of a sociocultural background where these moral prejudices would have people consider murdering babies a good thing. I can't see that society lasting very long. I found a short web article on the history of infanticide that says the following: In 1978, Laila Williamson, an anthropologist of the American Museum of Natural History, summarized the data she had collected on the prevalence of infanticide among tribal and civilized societies from a variety of sources in the scientific and historical literature. Her conclusion was startlingly blunt:
"Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunters and gatherers to high civilization, including our own ancestors. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule."
Infanticide has pervaded almost every society of mankind from the Golden Age of Greece to the splendor of the Persian Empire. While there are many diverse reasons for this wanton destruction, two of the most statistically important are poverty and population control. Since prehistoric times, the supply of food has been a constant check on human population growth. One way to control the lethal effects of starvation was to restrict the number of children allowed to survive to adulthood. Darwin believed that infanticide, "especially of female infants," was the most important restraint on the proliferation of early man.This doesn't appear to me as valid in the light of contemporary thinking on the origin of morality, which is naturalistic and reductionist in orientation. In his moral behaviour, man is mostly led by the nonrational factors like emotions, instincts, drives. Morality is explainable (or explained away, depending on your perspective) with evolved psycho-physical properties of humans. Our sense of morality is definitely innate and harwired, but this doesn't save us from moral skepticism or gives us any reason to think that morality can be rationally justified.
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