so I'm saying, if what I remember is correct, it is likely when god says "God smite Amalek" it might be only a portion of Amalek.

On a side note that might end up being not so much a side note... did any of this actually happen? I took to Wikipedia (so advance warning on that) to learn more about the Amalekite situation and came across this:

"Saul's successful expedition against the unidentified "city of Amalek," in the plain (1 Sam. 15) resulted in the capture of the Amalekite king, Agag. In Judges 6-8 in the story of Gideon, the Amalekites and the Midianites are said to have amassed a visible army of at least 135,000 encamped against Israel."

135,000 soldiers, in Bronze Age Mesopotamia? That number seems extraordinarily high.

"The consideration of imperfect information was mainly meant to be a counterfactual to the notion that the people surely would have died, and not the central point to my objection. "

OK -- but then, presumably you would now admit that, since these particular killings WERE ordered by God, who had perfect information, your objection to CA's point fails, and therefore, a legitimate reason to have ordered the killing of the children would, in fact, have been the fact that they would have died? (Not that WE can know they would have, but since there is the substantial probability, and God would have known, the mere possibility stands as a defeater to the positive claim that God was definitely unjust here, even ignoring the other point I'm about to address).

That other point is: ever since the fall, every human has deserved punishment and death at the hands of God. You may disagree, but at least that's Christian theology, so you can't charge inconsistency if we use it. God is not a governor whom we choose to follow -- you may not "care for a leader who ignores his own commands" in a human context, but you don't really get to choose whether you're beholden to God or not.

And in any case, you're not even right. Plenty of states do take on themselves the right to kill while forbidding it to their citizens. People follow them no problem, by and large.

to be fair the greeks did inflated military numbers as well.

I am assuming there is truth to it. but as I said earlier, the story of God telling Saul to kill everything is likely an explanation of why Saul later was defeated by the Philistines and died in battle.

*did inflate

or just inflated!

"Was the World Trade Center a Genocide because 1000+ Americans were killed?"

I'd say that was the stupidest and most insulting thing you've ever typed here...

But then, once you've openly condoned genocide, hard to top that.

You are REALLY going to go that route?

NO, 1,000 doesn't = 6,000,000...

But hey! Guess what, Historian SC?

THE WTC ATTACKS DIDN'T NEARLY WIPE OUT THE AMERICAN POPULATION!
IT DIDN'T NEARLY DESTROY A WHOLE LANGUAGE!
IT DESTROY MORE THAT 50% OF THE TOTAL AMERICAN POPULATION!

It's an insult to the victims of the Holocaust to DARE make such an analogy to try and justify your own bigoted genocidal rants...

And it's an insult to the memory of the WTC victims to shamelessly use them in a false dichotomy you KNOW is false.

"I'd say that was the stupidest and most insulting thing you've ever typed here..."

Why?

I am saying the bible says a localized group of Amalakites was killed like a localized group of Americans was killed in the WTC. The WTC was awful and horrible but it was in no way genocide.

Hitler attempted to kill every Jew he could. Exterminate them. I am saying that was not the case in the bible story

"
THE WTC ATTACKS DIDN'T NEARLY WIPE OUT THE AMERICAN POPULATION!
IT DIDN'T NEARLY DESTROY A WHOLE LANGUAGE!
IT DESTROY MORE THAT 50% OF THE TOTAL AMERICAN POPULATION!

It's an insult to the victims of the Holocaust to DARE make such an analogy to try and justify your own bigoted genocidal rants...

And it's an insult to the memory of the WTC victims to shamelessly use them in a false dichotomy you KNOW is false. "

Have you lost your fucking mind? Why would i insult holocaust survivors memories, my entire family old enough to have been alive at the time are holocaust survivors.

What im saying, dimwit. Is that the biblical story seems much less like the holocaust than an individual attack. You calling my version of events a "Genocide" is like calling the WTC a genocide.

I made my point very clearly the last point. There was no slighting either the WTC attacks or the Holocaust. I SEVERELY resent you suggesting their was. You've gone off the deep end Obi.

"Have you lost your fucking mind? Why would i insult holocaust survivors memories, my entire family old enough to have been alive at the time are holocaust survivors."

As were my family at the time...granted my grandfather was a Jew in the Munich with the US Army and not in Auschwitz, but still...

"What im saying, dimwit. Is that the biblical story seems much less like the holocaust than an individual attack. You calling my version of events a "Genocide" is like calling the WTC a genocide."

No...

When God says kill EVERYONE of a certain ethnicity...man, woman, child, baby, EVERYONE...and Saul does it with the exception of the King...

That is genocide, by its most basic, textbook definition.

That an Amalekite pops up later is either:

1. Inconsistent writing in the Bible (and that wouldn't be the sole instance, now, would it?)

OR

2. A few survived...

But some survived the Holocaust and Armenian Genocides as well, so that some survived a genocide does NOT mean that it was not a genocide in its intention, execution, and definition.

"I SEVERELY resent you suggesting their was."

I SEVERELY resent your trying to take the moral high ground when you're OK with something that's by every rational definition a genocide, OK with the babies being killed in this scenario, OK with the elderly being killed, and THEN trying to pull in the WTC attacks from nowhere with no reason other than to try for a false equivalence, as even in the warped, wicked mind of those terrorists, they were not attacking thinking they were killing every last American, whereas God clearly SAYS to kill them all, to spare none, on the basis of their ethnicity and their religious beliefs.

You do NOT have the moral high ground here.
At all.
Whatsoever.
You lost that rather permanently in this discussion when you OK'd the BABIES dying...

"You do NOT have the moral high ground here."

You make extremely personal attacks on my life then falsely claim I am denigrating WTC and Holocaust Victims when I did nothng of the sort. A fucking catfish would have the high ground on you

"
When God says kill EVERYONE of a certain ethnicity...man, woman, child, baby, EVERYONE...and Saul does it with the exception of the King..."

No Saul, kills the king too, so that means everyone right? So why is there an Amalakite who claims to have killed Saul years lter. If he killed everyone as the bible says, why are there still Amalakites around? Why later does the tribe of Simon fight a war against the Amalakites? Obviously they weren't targetting all amalakites if they successfully killed everyone yet there are still Amalekites left. If you would have read before telling me I am attacking WTC victims and Holocaust survivors you would have seen this.

"2. A few survived..."

Then why did the bible say they were all dead when in the same book later brings them back in?

"But some survived the Holocaust and Armenian Genocides as well, so that some survived a genocide does NOT mean that it was not a genocide in its intention, execution, and definition."

Yet no neo Nazi would claim all were kille. The bible claims everyone god told the Israelites to kill was dead, yet in the same book there are still Amalekites running
around.

"God clearly SAYS to kill them all, to spare none, on the basis of their ethnicity and their religious beliefs."

If that was the case, and all were dead, then why were more of the "ethnic group and religion" still around in the same book.

"As were my family at the time...granted my grandfather was a Jew in the Munich with the US Army and not in Auschwitz, but still..."

????

What the fuck does that even mean.

"You make extremely personal attacks on my life then falsely claim I am denigrating WTC and Holocaust Victims when I did nothng of the sort. A fucking catfish would have the high ground on you"

What personal attack have I made...

Other than to say you've said that killing babies and genocide is acceptable which, in the context of this discussion, you HAVE.

"No Saul, kills the king too, so that means everyone right? So why is there an Amalakite who claims to have killed Saul years lter."

I refer you to my previous answer for this...

EITHER the Bible--GASP!--has an inconsistency in it...which, you know, is the case several other times in the Bible, as happens with a collection of stories written by primitive men over hundreds of years and then subjectively translated into thousands of languages over thousands of years...

OR...maybe a few lucky Amalekites had slipped off to the bathroom and missed the genocide.

I kid a bit there with #2 in my language, but I think the point is made, either it's an an consistency by the author, or, simply, a few survived.

"Why later does the tribe of Simon fight a war against the Amalakites? Obviously they weren't targetting all amalakites if they successfully killed everyone yet there are still Amalekites left."

I REPEAT...YOU DO NOT NEED TO KILL *ALL* OF A RACE TO COMMIT GENOCIDE AGAINST SAID RACE...

Given our shared background, YOU should know that (and I'd think, of ANYONE, should be more sensitive to how devastating and INEXCUSABLE a genocide that kills even only 50% of a people is...!)

"Then why did the bible say they were all dead when in the same book later brings them back in?"

AGAIN...Inconsistency or a few just got away...TAKE YOUR PICK!

It's YOUR book...is the fact the Bible isn't consistent REALLY a damn shock?!

"Yet no neo Nazi would claim all were kille. The bible claims everyone god told the Israelites to kill was dead, yet in the same book there are still Amalekites running
around."

I'm repeating myself now...inconsistent or a few survived...this isn't hard...take your pick...inconsistent or a few survived, those are the choices here...

"If that was the case, and all were dead, then why were more of the "ethnic group and religion" still around in the same book."

*SIGH*

See...all of the above responses.

"What the fuck does that even mean."

It means I'm as Jewish as you are and my family would've been in danger of dying in the Holocaust, too, if not for the lucky fact they'd left for America before that and, as I say, my grandfather even served in the US Artillery during the war and shelled Munich.

So don't pull the background card on me, please...

"EITHER the Bible--GASP!--has an inconsistency in it...which, you know, is the case several other times in the Bible, as happens with a collection of stories written by primitive men over hundreds of years and then subjectively translated into thousands of languages over thousands of years...

OR...maybe a few lucky Amalekites had slipped off to the bathroom and missed the genocide.

I kid a bit there with #2 in my language, but I think the point is made, either it's an an consistency by the author, or, simply, a few survived."

Or Amalak meant the City of Amalek and not the whole people as the attack was on the city alone. Either way, I don't know what was meant and niether do you. Still no reason to go where you did.


"maybe a few lucky Amalekites had slipped off to the bathroom and missed the genocide."

Again, then why didn't the writer of the same book think it was odd that despite what he said earlier there is an amalakite running around? Again it could be an inconsistency, It also could mean not all of Amalek was targeted. I can't be sure, you can't b sure.

"I REPEAT...YOU DO NOT NEED TO KILL *ALL* OF A RACE TO COMMIT GENOCIDE AGAINST SAID RACE..."

Look at him backpedal, isn't it wondrous. Obviously Obi, from the book (if we are in your realm of critiquing the bible on its own terms) The Israelites had no desire to kill all amalakites because their goal was accomplished with the slaughter of the king. Everyone they set out to kill was dead. How were there enough Amalakites to fight a war later on? Pretty liberal use of the term Genocide.

"Given our shared background, YOU should know that (and I'd think, of ANYONE, should be more sensitive to how devastating and INEXCUSABLE a genocide that kills even only 50% of a people is...!)"

Hitler set out to kill all the Jews and failed. The Israelites succeded at their goal yet there were still Amalakites, not the same at all.

"
It means I'm as Jewish as you are and my family would've been in danger of dying in the Holocaust, too, if not for the lucky fact they'd left for America before that and, as I say, my grandfather even served in the US Artillery during the war and shelled Munich.

So don't pull the background card on me, please... "

So they aren't holocaust survivors even though you said they were.It just keeps getting better. I'll pull the "background card" all I want when a dpshit like you pretends I am denegrating the holocaust when I in no way was. It was your retarded reading of my post that even allowed you to suggest it.

Obi, you claim that the Torah has inconsistencies. But what is the reason of stating it in a secular forum such as this? Why not clarify this matter with a Rabbi? Choose one you like and have a talk with him about what seems out of order. Either you'll convince him to become an atheist or start growing a beard ;-)

Obi writes, <<EITHER the Bible--GASP!--has an inconsistency in it...which, you know, is the case several other times in the Bible, as happens with a collection of stories written by primitive men over hundreds of years and then subjectively translated into thousands of languages over thousands of years...>>

Yeah, sorry to impinge upon your worldview, Obiwan, but the 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls prove conclusively that the versions that have come down to us are the same books with just minor copying errors. Those statistics you find on Wikipedia about the thousands of errors are slanted: If one error was made and we have 100 copies of that version, certain interested parties count it as 100 errors, rather than just one. Sure, some of the Bible's original language is in question, but even then we have an early Greek translation that it can be checked against (the Septaguint, or "The Seventy"), and between those ancient sources there are very few substantive points of difference. And yes, you are repeating yourself, as you say.

As am I, apparently. Repeat away--you have that right. :-)

@Mujus +1, by the way yeah I'm really from Iowa and yeah I have a real front porch and yeah, I'm serious, you're welcome to drop by any time you're passing through. Not that you're likely to just be passing through southeast Iowa, but hey....

"Why not clarify this matter with a Rabbi?"

Because he thinks he is god

@Putin - I took a look at what you wrote about morality. Something about "collective conscience". So am I obtuse or is that a fancy way of saying "popular opinion" or "peer pressure"? In that case, how is the morality of the collective conscience any less whimsical than the will of a divine being who would at least have the advantage of omniscience? And since the collective conscience appears to have decided that Stalin was a monster, why aren't you on board with that? By what right and what standard to you stand above the collective conscience?
Sorry for the question barrage, I'll cut it short now.

*do you stand above

"Obi, you claim that the Torah has inconsistencies. But what is the reason of stating it in a secular forum such as this? Why not clarify this matter with a Rabbi? Choose one you like and have a talk with him about what seems out of order. Either you'll convince him to become an atheist or start growing a beard ;-)"

1. I HAVE a beard...a goatee and mustache, actually, I shave it down to one--but dam it, I've taken all forms of other slander, but I WILL NOT be questioned on a lack of facial hair! :p

2. It's simply plot/character elements that are inconsistent.

It's no deep spiritual "why doesn't this seem right?" sort of a question...it's just literally inconsistent is all...

And that happens in the best of works ("Frankenstein," some have pointed out, has a possible inconsistency in its timeline of events) and with the best authors...I'm sure there are parts of Homer, Dante, Milton, and yes--gasp!--even Shakespeare that are not fully consistent (a famous example with Shakespeare comes from none other than "Hamlet;" part of Hamlet's first great soliloquy is recorded, depending on the version you read, as either "that this too, too sullied flesh should melt!" or "that this too, too solid flesh should melt!" both of which obviously have their own connotations you can take away from it...this comes from our having multiple Quartos of the play and of course the First Folio that was published in 1623, 7 years after his death, so obviously far past the point he could've ever said which was the version he wanted...if he even WANTED only one version, remember, it's a play written in an era when plays were written and re-written very fast, it's possible both versions were used and acted and so both could be valid.)

We're all HUMAN, we make mistakes...and especially back in the days before spell-check and editors and lower literacy, these were more apt than ever to slip in and go unnoticed.

But the Bible purports NOT to be authored by a human being, but be God's word through the hand of Man.

THUS, it creates the problem of inconsistencies itself:

When there's a mistake from a supposedly-all-perfect God, you have a problem:

Either God was imperfect and contradicted himself, in which case, well, he's not perfect, OR he allowed people taking dictation of his holy word--if you will--to mistake what He said, and so allowed a contradiction, which doesn't seem consistent with a perfect writer OR God.

BUT, if you accept the Bible is nothing more than a collection of old myths written by a collection of old authors in the deserts of the Middle East thousands of years ago...well, then not only do the contradictions seem more natural, they seem more reasonable, and don't matter so much, after all, if we expect ANY era of human history to be prone to mistakes and inconsistencies, it's those eras that are earliest, as is the case here.

So it's really the religious that create the Problem of Inconsistencies for themselves:

That "Hamlet" or "Frankenstein" has possible or confirmed inconsistencies doesn't bother me...Shakespeare and Shelley were (to bring in a long-overdue author for a thread that's gotten so religiously-charged) but "Human, All Too Human."

God doesn't get that excuse.

And now that I've invoked him, and since it seems altogether appropriate, to paraphrase old Nietzsche:

"It is curious that, when God chose to become an author, he chose to learn Greek--and that he did not choose to learn it better."

If the Bible is written by God, there is no excuse for inconsistencies if he's all-perfect.
If the Bible is written by Man, than there are plenty of excuses, and it doesn't matter so much.

"Yeah, sorry to impinge upon your worldview, Obiwan, but the 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls prove conclusively that the versions that have come down to us are the same books with just minor copying errors. Those statistics you find on Wikipedia about the thousands of errors are slanted: If one error was made and we have 100 copies of that version, certain interested parties count it as 100 errors, rather than just one. Sure, some of the Bible's original language is in question, but even then we have an early Greek translation that it can be checked against (the Septaguint, or "The Seventy"), and between those ancient sources there are very few substantive points of difference. And yes, you are repeating yourself, as you say."

1. One error is one too many for a purportedly ALL-PERFECT God

2. Really? You'd invoke the Dead Sea Scrolls, and recently-unearthed Bible-age apocrypha? If ANYTHING that shows what a construct that book is, how a great many Gospels--up to 20, in fact--were circulating in the same period as the 4 in the Bible (which are all written after the fact as well, so they're not eye-witness, they're removed, just like these not-allowed-in-Gospels) and many other books that didn't make it..."John" actually almost didn't make it in, and "The Gospel of Peter" nearly did, it was a last-minute question which got in and which did not.

There's an excellent BBC Documentary called "The Lost Gospels" on this, I recommend it (and it's done by a PASTOR, Mujus, so not to worry, it's not an atheist-fest...if anything, it's a celebration of how much this man loves the Bible and Biblical-era texts and examines how it was these texts were left out, and why. Go check it out.) :)

"Because he thinks he is god"

Don't insult me THAT cruelly, SC...

I know I'm not a great writer, but I can best THAT hack!

;)

(Before everyone gets up in arms, yes, there are good, well-written stories in the Bible, but I agree with Penn Jillette...I think the quickest way to become an atheist for many IS to actually read the Bible...some like yourself, SC, and Mujus and FlemGem, you might take stock of it, but many, MANY will read that and say "900 years, these people lived??? REALLY? And...and you REALLY sold your birthright for...food? And...and to go back a bit...the Apple, God, really? You couldn't have left well enough alone? Or just kept the snake out, or kept him from turning evil? And...and you make Moses talk about circumcision and dietary advice on the eve of Passover, no great, big, MLK-style "Make it to the Mountaintop" speech, no, this is the time for advice on mutilating baby's penises and on the importance of what and what not to eat? And...and wow, it's wrong to kill the male babies of the Israelites, but the Egyptians and Amalekites are both fair game? And you'll REALLY punish to the third and forth generation? You'll have it in your Bible "suffer not a witch to live?" And give laws for how to sell your daughter out for servitude and possibly prostitution, not say it's wrong, but say HOW to do it? And leave matter such as sexual equality, anti-slavery rhetoric, anti-racism rhetoric, not say the world is round, leave all that be...but you'll go into GREAT detail about the ins and outs of not planting different crops side by side, and place the treatment of women right alongside the treatment of oxen? REALLY? I'm sorry, but read that, and try to believe it...

Most people today, I'm betting, will NOT--that's why atheism is growing so fast in the UK, and even here in America...it'd be the fastest growing "religion" if it was one...lowest polls put it at 8-12%--already more than Judaism and Buddhism, possibly more than Islam--and the highest polls put it at 20-25%, at which point it starts to challenge some of the Christian sects themselves...

The history of literacy and scientific advancement:

The more literate and scientifically advanced we've become, the more secular and less religious we've become.

Trace it through the ages...as one goes up, the other, almost always, goes right down...)

^And to close...

SC, you say *I* spend all my time doing this...

ALL THAT, those long, long posts...

Less than 20 minutes to type.

I just type a lot and type it quickly.

So why not clarifying it with a rabbi...? If the plot seems to be inconsistent to you and yet to thousands it seems to be just right shouldn't you be talking to them? I mean, we can "shout" out here in the formus for as longs as we can but it's hardly studying or seeking to understand the truth. That's why I deeply suggest - find yourself a rabbi who seems intelligent and ask him about what seems wrong and inconsistent. A face to face conversation is the best option here...

"So am I obtuse or is that a fancy way of saying "popular opinion" or "peer pressure"?"

No, it is not 'popular opinion'. Popular opinion changes like the wind blows. What I mean is more like a moral zeitgeist and is far more reflexive/habit forming than 'opinion'. There is an element of peer pressure to it, but that's not it either. It's not only externally enforced but internalized as something intrinsically just. So it is not whimsical, because it is deeply ingrained, which is why social change is so difficult, because moral attitudes are 'sticky', with a period where there is serious overlap between old & new moral attitudes on an issue, like say sexual orientation.

"And since the collective conscience appears to have decided that Stalin was a monster, why aren't you on board with that?"

That's a historical question, and we have a different view of the historical record there (and contrary to your view, the whole world isn't on your side on that, either past or present). There's not really a dispute over basic moral questions.

Since when have religious professionals been dependable sources of information on anything?

Maybe since our understanding of Greek and Hebrew language came out of Biblical scholars research?