Posted on 09/29/2013 6:19:13 PM PDT by Gamecock
I’ll get right to the point. I think President Obama would have bombed the Canaanites way before God annihilated them. Why am I even bringing up this hypothetical situation? Are statements like this even helpful for us today in our walk with God? For those questions I need to back up a little bit.
I sat at the Credo House, in Heretics Corner, having a very important conversation. A young man who had been a strong believer the last time we met had grown shaky in many of his beliefs. This guy, whom I’ll call Jake, grew up in a very liberal part of the country and was born to liberal parents. His parents are intellectual people who view Christianity to be the opium of the masses.
Jake, slowly but surely, had been worn down by many conversations with atheist family members. Jake and I sat down to discuss many aspects of Christianity he was struggling to believe. After more than an hour and a half of great conversation he finally dropped the bomb. He said, “Alright, this is it, here’s the big one. My family and friends bring this up all the time and I’ve never heard a convincing response. Why is God so unjust in the Old Testament? How can God be loving when he does things like kill the Canaanites?”
It’s a wonderful moment in any serious conversation to get to the real heart of an issue. Jake and I had been discussing issues in the periphery and now we were in the center of what was really bothering him. How does an intellectually honest Christian live with a God who called for the annihilation of the Canaanites? I know some of you reading this will think there is no such thing as an intellectually honest Christian, but please humor me for a bit while I talk nonsense.
Whenever we move into the issue of some of God’s actions in the Old Testament I typically have an image pop into my head. For some strange reason I go back to Thanksgiving. I’ll never forget the Thanksgiving many years ago when I finally was able to move from the little kids table to the adult table. At least at my house growing up we had a big table reserved for just the kids at Thanksgiving. We had another big table for all the grownups. Some cultures have elaborate ceremonies marking the passage from childhood to adulthood. The great ceremony, for me at least, was moving from the kids to the adult table.
I was so excited to move from the little kids table but it did have a distinct drawback. The conversations at the adult table were all about adult topics. If I wanted to sit at the adult table I needed to be willing to have an adult conversation. If you’re willing to criticize God for His actions in the Old Testament, you need to be willing to have adult level conversations.
If you are not willing to have an adult level conversation about God, please do not continue reading this post. Additionally, if you are under the age of 18, please stop reading this post. I’m going to get into some topics I want your parents to preview before you read. Seriously, stop reading if you have a weak stomach or are young.
Okay, I’m assuming everyone reading right now is consciously sitting at the adult table ready for an adult conversation. Here we go.
Before jumping directly into dealing with the Canaanites, let’s take a step back from that particular time and place and observe our world.
Let’s not pretend we live in a white-washed world. We live in a world where terms like Holocaust; Rwandan Genocide; and Darfur, Sudan have meaning. These atrocities were not committed by precocious little kids stealing candy from their sisters. These events were horrific. If my 6 year-old son asks me what happened during World War II, I can only provide a sugar-coated answer. I can only use simple words like good guys fought bad guys. I must hold back my more detailed adult knowledge.
Just last week I heard about an evil causing me to take a few shallow breathes. The details of this dreadful evil are difficult to even swallow at the adult table. Several men in New Delhi, India boarded a public transit bus and started gang raping a young girl. After raping her repeatedly they eventually rammed a metal rod up into her body which brutally ended her life. Four men were arrested and tried as adults. Some additional boys involved in the rape were so young they couldn’t be tried as adults.
Now, New Delhi is known as the rape capitol of India. Rape is common there and the men are usually given the benefit of the doubt. It is quite possible these men could have received a slap on the wrist. How could they get less than the full wrath of India?
I could probably make a case that none of these men would have done this terrible crime on their own. They were overcome by a mob mentality. The power of the group took over and each person lost their head. Yes, these young men should definitely be sentenced to prison but since they experienced a mob mentality there should be some leniency, perhaps.
Based on the knowledge the Indian society gained regarding the details of the crime, however, the young men were sentenced last week to death by hanging. The collective response throughout India was a recognition that justice had been served. When we put God on the stand and try him for being unjust, we need to remember there are terrible deeds happening in 2013 requiring extreme justice.
Let’s start going back in time a few thousand years and analyze the morality of the Ancient Near East. You may have heard of Baal worship. Baal is frequently symbolized in the form of a bull. Why? Because the people recognized the large testicles of bulls. Why did this matter? Well, people who worshiped Baal were many times looking for it to rain. In an agricultural society rain is of utmost importance. Baal worshipers thought they could force the hand of their god and make it rain.
Baal worshipers would get together and have massive orgies. Their hope was to turn on their god and force him to have an orgasm. His semen would fall to earth as rain. Yes, that’s a hard thing for a pastor to preach on Sunday morning to a mixed-age congregation. Remember, we’re at the adult table discussing the morality of God. Here’s an ancient Ugaritic poem:
To the earth Baal rained,
To the field rained ʿAliy.
Sweet to the earth was Baal’s rain
To the field the rain of ʿAliy.
[Side note: I'm not trying to be shocking or overly emotional. I'm just trying to be honest with reality while sitting at the adult table.]
You can see why Moses was so upset coming down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments when the people were “celebrating” after forming a golden calf.
In addition to Baal worship, the Canaanites worshiped a god named Molech. How do you worship Molech? You heat a large statue of Molech up to an insanely hot temperature. You then take a living baby and place it in the hands of the Molech statue until the baby burns to death. Of all the world religions I have studied, the Canaanite worship of Molech is the most frightening. The Canaanites were not innocent people. If that’s how they worshiped their god, you can only imagine how they treated one another.
Do you think the continual burning of children alive, coupled with many other proven “crimes against humanity”, is much better than Syria utilizing chemical weapons in 2013? Many of the proven atrocities from Canaan, Babylon and Assyria would certainly have caught the attention of President Obama if these were countries today. President Obama, interestingly, was elected in 2008 with an anti-war platform.
In no way is my intention to debate if President Obama should bomb Damascus. I simply want to point out that an intellectual lawyer and community organizer was elected in 2008 partly on his insistence that he was clearly against the Iraq war. No one, Republicans and Democrats together, would have accused President Obama as being a war mongering leader. He already, however, bombed Lybia in 2011 and tried to make a case for bombing Syria.
President Obama has come to recognize when an individual is in charge and has reliable information of wrongdoing, it may be necessary in the pursuit of doing good to destroy people. This is adult table conversation. I don’t think President Obama is a moral monster for wanting to bomb a country that is willing to use chemical weapons. I don’t think President Truman is a moral monster for dropping atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 responsible for killing more than 230,000 men, women and children. For some reason Jake’s parents voted twice for President Obama, possibly support the actions of President Truman, but mock God as a moral monster.
There are, however, some incredible difference between President Obama and God. The one difference most applicable in this conversation is that God is all-knowing. He is fully aware of every tragedy. He is fully aware of every horrific event. God does not need to wait for an investigation to be done. He does not need to send in inspectors, he already intimately knows the situation.
India was aware of that horrible gang rape, but God knew every rape that day throughout the world. It is amazing, I believe, that God allows any country to flourish. If any president had full knowledge of every thought and action, he would probably be seeking congress to bomb all countries of the world.
Our observation of the Old Testament, however, seems to paint the opposite picture of God. Yes, God did pull the trigger a couple times throughout history and dropped atomic bombs. Many more times, however, His mercy and patience far outpaced that of humans.
Jonah is an excellent example. God sent Jonah to tell Nineveh that they would be destroyed. The Assyrians were bastards. That’s the easiest way to explain them. They invented ways to torture people. Crucifixion was first developed by them. They are known for conquering countries and then putting giant fish hooks through the cheeks of conquered people and marching them all the way back to Assyria. The Assyrians would have violated the Geneva Convention every day.
Jonah, famously, goes in the exact opposite direction of Nineveh. Why? He knows the type of God he serves. A war mongering moral monster? No. He knows his God is quick to forgive people. He is slow to punish. He is slow to avenge. Jonah doesn’t want Nineveh to have any chance of forgiveness. Jonah wants to fly the Enola Gay over Nineveh. God, however, is more restrained than Jonah. He wants to give Nineveh a chance to repent. The book of Jonah is an adult table book. God forces Jonah, kicking and screaming, to Nineveh and the people repent. The book ends with Jonah wanting to commit suicide because God forgives people who don’t deserve it.
I am convinced, using only evidence from the Old Testament and the news today, that President Obama would have called for the destruction of Canaan long before God gave his assent.
The Caananites killed children. Obama would be funding them, not bombing them.
I doubt that Obama has the wherewithall to even know who the Canaanites were!
All ancient religions were astral in nature. Primitives in our world trying to devise an astral religion from scratch would end up worshiping the sun and moon; the two chieftain gods of all ancient religion were Jupiter and Saturn.
You can convince yourself that "El" meant Saturn by doing google searche on the three terms [ saturn el babylon] and you need to include the term 'babylon' in that to weed out the hits for Saturn car dealerships. The name Yahveh is basically the same word as Jove. 'Baal" meant Saturn.
At some point, Israelites figured out that they didn't need to be worshiping dwarf stars and began worshiping the God (capital G) of the universe who created our living world. Lithuanians, at the opposite extreme, were Still worshiping Odin at the time of the crusades.
The most major Roman religious festival was called Saturnalia; our sabbath is still called Saturns-day.
The three biggest problems most people have with Judaism and/or Christianity are the problem of evil, the theory of evolution, and the book of Joshua.
The story of the Israelite destruction of the city of Ai and the story of the Mongol destruction of Lioyang (Genghis Khan's general Chebe) in North China are baically the same story, tactics all but idential. There's no way to believe that the children of Ai had it coming.
If I thought Joshua was going to show up at the city limits of my own city tomorrow morning, I would in fact be there to greet him, but not with flowers; more like a FAL rifle and all the 308 ammo I could carry...
As the author of life God can take it, and note also that Israel was not fit to be a vast social system for the innocent, and which by destruction were saved from following the path of terminal degeneration, and which He tolerated with much long-suffering.
In addition, the destruction of the Canaanites (which the RC American Bible commentary says were folk tales) was not done simply as a result of a vision as per Muhammad, but after God has abundantly and powerfully manifested His mercy and power, so that there was not doubt who was leading them. As for theodicy, see here .
Doesn’t sound like something a Nobel Peace Prize winner would do, do you think?
Religions have evolved, just as human society has.
As you said, our God evolved from a dark star to a creator beyond our ability to even comprehend.
We accept that our religion is the ‘truth’ , and for each of us it is. However, none of our religions contain the absolute truth. They are all different, and that isn’t really important.
Those who sweat the details are missing the big picture.
Pencil
I am convinced, using only evidence from the Old Testament and the news today, that President Obama would have called for the destruction of Canaan long before God gave his assent.
If Lot had of been there he would have probably got out before Joshua got there.
Religions have evolved, just as human society has.
Jesus came to set us free from religion but most people do not want to be free, they have to be in captivity to some man made religion, that is why almost every thing we are involved in if it be Government or Church is religion.
We have to feel that God understands that what we do or don,t do is some ones fault other than ours.
re: “. . . The name Yahveh is basically the same word as Jove.”
Not exactly. “Yahveh” is a best guess as to the Hebrew word for God’s name. In the original Hebrew, there were no vowels in the written language, only the consonants. The vowels sounds in the text were passed down orally. So, the only written name for God is “YHWH”. His name was considered too holy to pronounce out loud. Because of this, the oral tradition of what the vowels were is somewhat fuzzy. The vowel points used in the Hebrew scriptures today were added after 1000 AD.
My point is that no one knows for certain which vowels were used and so no one knows for certain the correct pronunciation of God’s name. Therefore, the name “jove” has little or no connection to “YHWH”, the Hebrew consonants for God’s name.
re: “. . . The three biggest problems most people have with Judaism and/or Christianity are the problem of evil, the theory of evolution, and the book of Joshua.
The story of the Israelite destruction of the city of Ai and the story of the Mongol destruction of Lioyang (Genghis Khan’s general Chebe) in North China are baically the same story, tactics all but idential. There’s no way to believe that the children of Ai had it coming.”
I agree with you that for many people, the problem of suffering/evil is a big issue, even for Christians. It essentially comes down to human freedom. If man is not free to reject God and embrace His opposite, evil, then man is just a robot. God wants the genuine love of His creation and allowing evil to exist is the price for that love. Remember that according to the New Testament, God became man and willingly endured human evil Himself to pave the way for human salvation.
As to the Canaanite judgement, the children being killed is a tough one for me, too. I have children and now grandchildren of my own and I cannot imagine them suffering for my guilt. But, remember that according to the Old Testament, God had been warning the Canaanite peoples for over 400 years to change their ways or that complete destruction in judgement was coming their way. They never changed and the practices mentioned in the article are pretty accurate. They sacrificed their own children to their gods, sexual perversion was commonplace (homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia, etc.) - all these things have been attested to not only in Scripture, but also in archeological findings.
Also, if God is creator and the giver of life, then it follows that He does have the right to take life as He sees fit.
So, as unpleasant as it seems, there are consequences to sin that affect not only those who commit it but also to our loved ones as well. I don’t blame God for the death of those children - I blame the parents and generations of Canaanites who rejected God’s call to repentance.
It therefore wasn’t just land acquisition that was going on when the Israelites invaded Canaan, they were the instrument of a centuries long proclaimed judgement pronounced against the Canaanite peoples by God.
Ezekiel 18:23
“Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?”
Varmint — good synopsis, but note that Lithuanians didn’t worship Odin. Odin was a Norse god, while the Baltic peoples were infinitely more primitive.
The problem of evil is not a real problem, unless you treat God as a subject of varying form of superior atheistic morality. As said, as the author of life and morality, God can justly take it in being consistent with Himself, and in so doing He allows evil to be done, and effect others, but punishes the former for it, while making evil work for good for those who love the God and the good.
As for evolution, that itself is a problem for evolutionists, who have yet to explain how matter came to be without attributing powers of deity to it, an uncaused Cause that is eternally self-existent. This is too high for me (Ps. 131) but you could discuss it here .
As the book of Joshua and Ai, what is your source? Relative to this type of issue, see here .
Well... i don't feel that way. (oops , sorry about not capitalizing the I. It's the damn computer's fault)
Well... i don’t feel that way. (oops , sorry about not capitalizing the I. It’s the damn computer’s fault)
Obama would be a Canaanite.
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