The bible makes me sick.

[Radrook]

This argument is so ridiculous since gods don't exist anyway. [/B][/QUOTE]

Some people deserve to die.
The problem is that God knows who they are and your trigger happy mindless snickering self-righteous bloodthirsty carpet firebombers don't.


BTW
Since you do not believe in gods then it is rather quaint that you should be accusing God of being rude.

 

[Radrook]

oops!

 

[Doctor X]

Do Not Try to Pick Up Chicks in THIS Herem:

Collins article discusses the herem, ". . . or ban, the practice whereby the defeated enemy was devoted to destruction." There is a "." underneath the "h" for ye purists, indicating het. This section alone makes Collins' article worth a read. Basically, he notes that the various YHWH-ordered smiting of various Somethingorotherakites--such as:

1 Sam 15:3: "Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy (hrm) all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

Apparently YHWH likes bunnies. . . .

Anyways, the herem is not an odd practice. The Moabite Stone erected by the 9th century BCE King Mesha has him squishing "Nebo from Israel" and offering "seven thousand men, boys, women, girls, and maid-servant" to Ashtar-Chemosh. [Text of Moabite Stone is from the ANET.--Ed.]

The point Collins stresses:

The enemy is deemed worthy of being offered to God. [That refers to the argument of Niditch.--Ed.] One hopes that the Canaanites appreciated the honor. Rather than respect for human life, the practice bespeaks a totalistic attitude, which is common in armies and warfare, wherein the individual is completely subordinated to the interests of the group. Niditch is quite right, however, that the ban as sacrifice requires "a God who appreciates human sacrifice," and that those who practiced the ban "would presumably have something in common with those who believed in the efficacy of child sacrifice."

For those who might consider that those "devoted" to YHWH were given light cleaning duties in the Tabernacle, consider Lev 27:29 "No one devoted who is to be utterly destroyed from among men shall be ransomed; he shall be put to death."

References:

Albright WF. "The Moabite Stone," Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, JB Pritchard, Ed., 3rd. Ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Collins JJ, The Zeal of Phinehas: The Bible and the Legitimation of Violence, JBL 120 (2003): 3-21.

Day J. Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Freidman RE. Who Wrote the Bible?

Levenson JD. The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity

Lüdemann G. The Unholy in Holy scripture: The Dark Side of the Bible

Niditch S. War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Schmidt BB. "The Aniconic Tradition," The Triumph of Elohim: From Yahwisms to Judaisms. Edelman DV, ed. Grand Rapids: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995.

 

[Benguin]

What's dresden?
Any god that participates in intentional mass killing is no better than a sicko dictator, and is a sicko dictator themselves, no matter how the mass killing is undertaken. Saying humans do mass killing is no excuse for a god to.

This argument is so ridiculous since gods don't exist anyway.

Dresden was (or rather is) a city in Germany.

The allies carpet bombed it when it was full of german refugees running from soviet forces to the east.

Quite a lot out of controversy exists as to what their motives were, whether it was carelessness, indifference or (as radrook asserts) the deliberate targeting of civilians.

Dresden did have a large number of military hardware manufacturers (such as zeiss jena making gunsights and messhershmit making engines), though evidence does not exist that that formed part of the allied bombing plan.

There seems to have been a belief that victory could be achieved by pounding civilian populations into submission, and demonstrating military superiority. Whether this biblically inspired I do not know. It was certainly something the Axis and Allied powers did with comparable enthusiasm.

Winston Churchill is noted as having stated (after WW2) that he had serious reservations about the value of those bombing campaigns, he certainly knew by then he'd been mislead for most of the early part about the accuracy of targeting and success rates.

There is a bit more here

 

[Radrook]

During the early stages between the war of Britain and Germany only militarily important targets were bombed. These included harbors, arms manufacturing installations, bridges important to transporting troops, airports where fighter aircraft were stationed as well as radar stations.

What happened was that during a certain raid, German pilots became disoriented and mistakenly flew off course. So instead of hitting military targets they hit London residential areas instead.
Since the British assumed it had been on purpose, they immediately began bombing German residential areas.

This of course began an Allied policy that was to end only after the War had finally ended.

 

[Benguin]

During the early stages between the war of Britain and Germany only militarily important targets were bombed. These included harbors, arms manufacturing installations, bridges important to transporting troops, airports where fighter aircraft were stationed as well as radar stations.

What happened was that during a certain raid, German pilots became disoriented and mistakenly flew off course. So instead of hitting military targets they hit London residential areas instead.
Since the British assumed it had been on purpose, they immediately began bombing German residential areas.

This of course began an Allied policy that was to end only after the War had finally ended.

I'm afraid that's not entirely true. They also dropped remaining payload on cities in the east, rather than carry unused bombs back to germany.

Though we're flying massively off topic with that!

Hull was absolutely flattened, and was still being rebuilt when I was there about ten years ago. Other cites suffered similarly, though I'm sure Allies were also playing that game. From a safety point of view, they did not want to land their planes again with weapons strapped to them and, presumably, neither side's pilots would countenance just dropping bombs in the north sea.

 

[Beancounter]

What happened was that during a certain raid, German pilots became disoriented and mistakenly flew off course. So instead of hitting military targets they hit London residential areas instead.
Since the British assumed it had been on purpose, they immediately began bombing German residential areas.

This of course began an Allied policy that was to end only after the War had finally ended.

They must have got lost rather often because as far as I am aware the Blitz was not a one-night affair and it wasn't only London. The "allied policy" you mention above was matched by an equivalent "axis policy".

Pointless tit-for-tat, possibly.

 

[Radrook]

I'm afraid that's not entirely true. They also dropped remaining payload on cities in the east, rather than carry unused bombs back to germany.

Though we're flying massively off topic with that!

Hull was absolutely flattened, and was still being rebuilt when I was there about ten years ago. Other cites suffered similarly, though I'm sure Allies were also playing that game. From a safety point of view, they did not want to land their planes again with weapons strapped to them and, presumably, neither side's pilots would countenance just dropping bombs in the north sea.

I was referring to the beginning of the back and forth bombing of civilian populations between Germany and Brittain. Germany had already bombed civilian populations in Poland even straffing civilians with their Stuka dive bombers. But they did not choose to do that against England because to Hitler, England was special.

But you are right, the thread is goung off topic too far.
Sorry.