What about the ethiopians the hebrew god slaughtered, and the young women they took as sex slaves. Oh but he wpas endorsing genocide to warn against it...right.

Nobody tries to wipe somebody out for 230 years. And you are arguing in favor of genocide. Amalekites had it coming, right. Self defense. Nollte argued the same thing with the Germans.

Wow, CA, way to tell off Obi. But... watch your blood pressure, eh? ;-)

I didn't really enjoy Shakespeare very much in freshman English class, but I certainly wouldn't try to act like an expert on it and I definitely wouldn't mock and rail against people who do read and enjoy Shakespeare. I also realize that maybe freshman English class isn't the time and place in life to make a final decision about whether or not Shakespeare is any good - it's hard to care when your teacher fast-forwards through the sword-fighting scene when you watch Romeo and Juliette. Maybe if I had had a better teacher I would have appreciated it more....cause are you serious, the best part of the play for a 14-year-old boy and you fast-forward? Do you WANT him to hate Shakespeare? And let's take Othello - there's that scene at the end where he smothers Desdemona or whoever with a pillow and then, after being smothered, she gives a soliloquey before she dies? Dies of suffocation? After talking? And this guy is the greatest playwright in the English language? He doesn't understand how freaking BREATHING WORKS!!!

But maybe, just maybe, if I had an adult conversation with someone who loves Shakespeare I could at least gain an appreciation for that person and who they are and what Shakespeare means to them. Maybe I could even learn to appreciate a sonnet. If I was willing to listen and learn a little bit. Maybe.

Bottom line. The Amalak myth was created to explain why the Israelites lost a huge battle against the Philistines which pretty well fucked them for a generation and left their king dead on the battlefield. It also conveniently led to the rise of David, who many believe the earlier books of the bible was written to defend.

The argument is, yes Saul was supposed to whipe the Amalekites out, but Saul, although he won a great victory, didn't so now we are paying for it. Now David go fuck the Philistines up.

So this is what we are arguing about.

And Obi, I'm still waiting to hear about the massive colonies Europeans held in Africa. I still have yet to see an answer (your wikipedia was not an answer) or you admitting to being wrong.

And yes the allies meant to kill German babies. The accidently firebombed munich, and thought that was so fucking cool that they purposefully attempted to create the same conditions in Munich at dresden and again created a fireball that encompassed the better part of an entire city. Including german babies

Flem: "@AWB - you think Jesus was crucified because he was sticking to the goals of the elites? Better read the story again......"

You're absolutely right. I think that modern-day Christians need to read the story again. Especially the Sermon on the Mount and the parts about the Pharisees.

CA: "Right. It was the Bronze Age and this was an instance of them being established since there weren't any yet. If you read the story you'll see that God specifically denies the Hebrews any spoils of war from this and gets pissed off when they don't obey."

"Rules of war" are as old as war itself, and war is probably older than god. War is communication. No god is necessary to explain this phenomenon (not that that stops anyone from invoking god's name at this or any other opportunity).

SC: "And Obi, I'm still waiting to hear about the massive colonies Europeans held in Africa."

You mean these?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_European_colonies#Africa

AWB-

We are talking about during the 17th and 18th century

to review Obi stated confidently that Europeans conquered Africa and then enslaved the population. The only problem is that his timeline is about 300 years off

Aaaaand now I have 20 other responses people wringing their hands trying to explain away why genocide is acceptable (which is honestly never a discussion I thought we would honestly ever have here, I mean, even if we left alone the old "two wrongs don't make a right" expression...I'm sorry, but...

You expect me to believe this God is SO powerful that he created the universe...

But his best solution to this is kill every last women, child, and elderly person, essentially punishing the innocent with the guilty???

You are HONESTLY saying that's justice?
He couldn't, oh, I don't know, just give them parents, or make them non-hostile, and--
"But that would violate free will, Obi!"--
Yes, and so was hardening Pharaoh's heart, and he didn't have a problem doing THAT!

I'm sorry, you CANNOT justify genocide...ever!

I'm honestly torn between utter shock and utter revulsion here...I get that some here are theists, and want to defend God and the Bible, fine, that's fodder for many, many, MANY discussions, but...REALLY?

You're REALLY willing to condone genocide...EVER?
Not just killing combatants...
Not just destroying villages and towns and males...
But killing women, children, children, babies, and people who cannot hurt you...
THAT is justifiable...EVER???

It may be trite to quote him here, but I think the Hitchens quote fits:

"To get normally-smart people to say stupid things, to get normally good people to do wicked things, THAT takes religion."

I mean, NO ONE would be defending this--be honest about this!--if it wasn't "God" who condoned this genocide.
No one!
You'd all be as abhorred as I am!

No one would DARE say that they had to kill BABIES...ever...or the elderly...EVER...or non-combatant women...EVER...

No one would say that.

And no one else would sy it was justified because the Amalekites fought the Israelites first...we would ALL still say, if this happened today, that the children of the Amalekites deserved to live, their children and babies and elderly and the innocents...

We'd look for people like the Red Cross or UN medical and social assistance groups to provide aid in the midst of this unspeakable tragedy.

You all say a war with the Amalekites is just.
Fine.
I do not disagree.
But WAR and GENOCIDE are completely different things.

You have yet to give one good, reasonable, civilized reason--and I don't want to hear about "taking it in the context of the time," killing a baby based on who its parents were was and is wrong in any era without exception, REGARDLESS of what social custom might have been, there is a difference between social custom and law and what's RIGHT, and it is NEVER right to kill a baby, a BABY for goodness' sake, how on EARTH can any of you possibly justify killing a 6-month year old??? I know I'm really harping on this and that was probably the biggest single outburst of rage I've ever had on this site in my last post, but YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT GENOCIDE BEING CONDONED AND MORAL AND IT BEING OK TO KILL A BABY OVER ITS ETHNICITY, THAT'S INSANE!--as to why killing the BABY is OK. EVER.

You've justified the war...
You've justified killing people fighting in the war...

You have NOT justified, in the slightest, killing people who are NOT involved, and anyone who says "they're involved by virtue of their being that ethnicity"...!!!

I either must be deaf or you must be, because, I have to ask to that--do you HEAR yourself?

You, people who presumably believe in a loving God and a moral God but, even beyond that, people who are, in all measurable respects, generally loving and moral I'm sure in your own lives...

You people are saying that genocide--is OK!
That killing women--is OK!
That killing the sick, who cannot even get out of bed, much less fight--is OK!
That killing the elderly, who have done you nor can do you any harm--is OK!
That killing children who have never once hurt you, nor can they--is OK!
That killing a BABY...

A baby that, by virtue of its being a baby, would not have even been alive for when the Amalekites attacked over those many, many years most likely...

A baby that has just barely begun to open its eyes and breathe and take its little fingers and try and feel the world around it...

THAT is someone worthy of death, and not only death, but a brutalized death via genocide?

...

What sort of monstrous talk is THAT???

I will go back and read those responses to my outburst more in full, but I have to reiterate that point, because, apparently, that's not a point that's taken for granted and...

And I never believed it wouldn't be, that genocide OR the slaughter of little babies who can't even walk and talk yet wouldn't BOTH be condemned as universally wrong actions.

I am immensely surprised that we need to apparently talk about this...anyway, that as the longest parenthetical statement ever...)

But BEFORE I read those responses more in full...and very possibly lose whatever shred of hope for humanity I have left...because between that and people in Bible Lit class yesterday arguing with me that they would TOTALLY count a genocide that happened TODAY that included the brutal slaughter of women, the elderly, and babies as morally just and a GOOD thing--a GOOD thing?!--if God told them to do it...

Whatever leniency I was starting to get for The Bible as Literature just went out the window when people make statements like THAT.

I am usually fine with other people having other views, even if I debate them fiercely, because we all have a right to them, and difference of opinion creates the very debates I love, but...

That might have been the one time I really really felt beyond disgusted and sincerely incensed at such a speech...condoning genocide and the killing of babies, and *I* am immoral because I say that such things are wrong, full stop? Not even that I oppose Israelites fighting Amalekites--fine, whatever, have a war, if that's what you really want--but simply that I expect that people living near Los Angeles, California, in the United States of America, in this, the year 2012, in one of the largest democracies in human history...

To have people say Genocide was EVER just...on, of all days...

YOM KIPPUR, THE DAY OF ATONEMENT AND REMEMBRANCE, which I still treat with respect even as an Atheist Jew because, frankly, that's an aspect of Jewish culture and even Judaism I think that IS good, the idea of taking a day to step back and do that sort of thing, that really is a good idea, so I still respect that day...

But on Yom Kippur, to have people advocating and justifying genocide and saying it's OK?

My non-belief in the afterlife aside, to use the expression--

Somewhere, Anne Frank just shook her head with the most immense sadness and dismay imaginable.

Now, where was I?

Oh, yes, the end of this parenthetical)

"I still have yet to see an answer (your wikipedia was not an answer"

How...?

AWB gave evidence just now anyway, another link, but still...

Santa, the Wikipedia link I shared with you HAD the Europeans conquering parts of Africa and enslaving Africans in the 1700s...???

Obi, it didn't say a single thing about any part of Africa being conquered by anybody. If it did, quote JUST that sentence.

Yom kippur was yesterday you ignorant fuck.

"Santa, the Wikipedia link I shared with you HAD the Europeans conquering parts of Africa and enslaving Africans in the 1700s...???"


Obi, you dumbshit, Europeans orchestrated the slave trade from coastal towns and forts. They didn't conquer anything. They traded with powerful warlords, muslim and animist mostly, who brought future slaves to those towns/forts where they were traded to merchants who brought them to the new worlds. It is completely false to state the Europeans conquered africa and enslaved africans.

Just admit you are wrong

"A baby that has just barely begun to open its eyes and breathe and take its little fingers and try and feel the world around it..."

Reading your saccharine prose makes me want to kill it myself

"Who conquered Africa, sir?
Who?
WHO?

I'm sorry, but that's where the slaves came from...there's a reason they're now called AFRICAN-Americans...

WHO conquered Africa, sir?

Who?

Who other than people of the Christian faith conquered and sold these people in Africa?

Hm? "

"WE HAD AFRICAN AND HAITIAN SLAVES AT THE REVOLUTION!!!

And who conquered HAITI?

CHRISTIANS!

Necessarily, they were Christians, get over it! "

Just to refresh everyone's memory

I can see the influence of the Baja Men in that first post

"Yom kippur was yesterday you ignorant fuck."

I KNOW, the incident I was referring to occurred yesterday (that is, Wednesday.)

You can insult me and call me a bad Jew and whatever else...

But DO NOT insult me so fa as to think after 20+ years of upbringing I don't known when Yom Kippur is! >:(

Oh so you just happened to have talked about a relatively obscure bible passage yesterday in class from the book of Samuel, that just happens to be one of the only bible passages you know and bring up with ridiculous frequency. Then you go on to gut wretchingly appeal to the meaning of Yom Kippur when you didn't even observe it and the straw-man, i mean christian who *supposedly* (it didn't really happen) made the comment obviously doesn't observe it. Typical obymoron bullshit.

And where are the European Powers' african Empires in the 17th and 18th centuries Obi? I'm waiting

Or, perchance, are you wrong?

The gap between the secular and relogious understanding of life is so vast that we all really need to be patient to each other if we want to have a productive conversation.

This has little to do religious and secular, this is about arrogant, blowhard stupidity masquerading as enlightened liberal argument from our friend Obi.

"And where are the European Powers' african Empires in the 17th and 18th centuries Obi? I'm waiting"

I ANSWERED!

AWB answered!

You ahve had TWO people answer that damn question already!

You can dislike the answer or like it, but damn if I'll have you speak like I haven't given an answer and AWB didn't...

We answered it!

Agree or disagree, those are your choices, not "Stubbornly repeat the same thing over and over again," that has a roll in just about every OTHER part of the theist's argument, but not here.

"This has little to do religious and secular, this is about arrogant, blowhard stupidity masquerading as enlightened liberal argument from our friend Obi."

THIS has to do with the fact that:

1. You either can't read or refuse to acknowledge the fact AWB and I answered your question twice and

2. Some people here seem to be making inhuman and altogether reprehensible statements such as, oh, condoning genocide, saying it's acceptable just as long as you hear a voice that says so, or doing it "for God," and that it's perfectly OK to kill the elderly, the sick, the defenseless, women, and BABIES!

"Reading your saccharine prose makes me want to kill it myself"

Reading statements like that makes me hope people like you are never allowed anywhere NEAR children...

You did not. And you couldn't because there is no way that the Europeans conquered Africa that early. It simply isn't true and is not up for argument. Its a false statement

This is the problem with you. There isn't a debate here. There are facts. Europeans DID NOT conquer Africa that early. This isn't one of your literature papers where you can say anything. That is a false statement. Here is what you posted.

"The Atlantic slave trade is customarily divided into two eras, known as the First and Second Atlantic Systems.
The First Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans to, primarily, South American colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires; it accounted for only slightly more than 3% of all Atlantic slave trade. It started (on a significant scale) in about 1502[39] and lasted until 1580 when Portugal was temporarily united with Spain. While the Portuguese traded enslaved people themselves, the Spanish empire relied on the asiento system, awarding merchants (mostly from other countries) the license to trade enslaved people to their colonies. During the first Atlantic system most of these traders were Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly during the era, although some Dutch, English, and French traders also participated in the slave trade.[40] After the union, Portugal came under Spanish legislation that prohibited it from directly engaging in the slave trade as a carrier, and become a target for the traditional enemies of Spain, losing a large share to the Dutch, British and French.
The Second Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans by mostly British, Portuguese, French and Dutch traders. The main destinations of this phase were the Caribbean colonies and Brazil, as European nations built up economically slave-dependent colonies in the New World.[41] Only slightly more than 3% of the enslaved people exported were traded between 1450 and 1600, 16% in the 17th century.
It is estimated that more than half of the slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted from Africa.[42] The British were the biggest transporters of slaves across the Atlantic during the 18th century.[43]

"It is estimated that more than half of the slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted from Africa."

Note it says NOTHING about a christian/European African Empire. NOTHING. It talks about the slave trade which was done through african middlemen not through interior empires. Europeans in no way "conquered Africa this early"

So how the hell does it apply to your statement about a Christian/European African Empire.

So again ass hole, find me something that supports your claim or admit you were wrong.

I am doing this for a reason, I am seeing how far you will go before you admit you were wrong.

At this point your denial seems to be bordering damn near to pathalogical.

By the time of European colonization of the interior, slavery was majorly outlawed. Slavery in Africa was in fact begun by Muslim traders on the East coast of Africa. When Muslims brought these slaves to Europe, it encouraged the first European traders (Portuguese and Spanish) to begin their slave trade.

And there never was a "Christian/European/African Empire. That is pure fantasy.

to be fair he never said that second part. I was asking for any collection of Christian/European Empires that would make Obis statement true. He said that Christians conquered Africa during the slave era. I never meant that he believed that there was a unified "Christian/European African Empire" although after his statements on the topic, i wouldn't necessarily be surprised.

"Note it says NOTHING about a christian/European African Empire. NOTHING."

I am not saying they conquered the whole of Africa, Santa, I am not so casual and crude with my language (unlike others...and I don't take the immature step to insult my fellow debaters time and again with sound and fury for lack of being able to signify anything substantial in a defense of genocide...again, unlike others.)

My point is:

THEY WERE THERE. In some capacity, they were THERE, as the quote says, already taking slaves.

I could care less about empire...

What was my stated point, Santa?
Hm?
Way back when this thread wasn't about you defending genocidal creeds and spouting nonsense about my not answering you when I in fact answered you as full as I required for my point...

Don't you remember what that point is?

Here, I shall remind you--

That Christians CANNOT claim a great moral victory on the grounds of slavery for 1. Believing in and keeping holy a book that keeps that practice wholly intact and endorses it and 2. (HERE'S THE VITAL ONE) That despite it not being true of the Founders...

MOST SLAVE HOLDERS, SLAVE BUYERS, SLAVE TRADERS, AND SLAVEWORKERS WERE...

CHRISTIAN!

So while the Abolitionist movement and their figures THEMSELVES may be celebrated here, this is NOT a triumph of Christian values, since it was CHRISTIANS who started the African slavery mess in America in the first place!

"It is estimated that more than half of the slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted from Africa.[42] The British were the biggest transporters of slaves across the Atlantic during the 18th century.[43]"

CHRISTIAN!

British, French, Portuguese...that's CHRISTIANS buying, selling, and capturing these people!

And that's ALL I claim or care to claim!

I could care less about whole played the Eddie Izzard Game of Flags and said "This is our country, *WE* have a flag, you see"...

I simply claimed that Christians began the mess they take credit for ending and...

They did!

Christian slave traders/buyers/sellers/workers, Christian Abolitionists.

They began the mess, they ended it.

Simple as that.