There is much that can be said about passages such as this. I think that you need to look at these passages in light of many others. In most cases where the Lord does something, he sends and angel. He does not then say that they angel did that thing, like destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, but says that he destroys it.

Take note of one of the first battles that the israelites faced. When Moses had his hand raise they were winning, but when he put it down they would begin to lose. I believe that prayer is not something that we should do just to make ourselves feel better or just to build our own character, but actually has power and allows certain things to happen. It can allow God to be able to do things that he normally would not be able to do because of free will.

I also think that the topic of free will is a very extensive subject. I do not believe that it is cut and dry. I do not believe that every decision that we make is a free will decision throughout our lives. But that the choices that we make effect us sometimes to the point that when presented a choice we could not make a free will decision in the classical sense.

Do you ever bother to actually contribute anything? Maybe you would like to say why you feel that I am wrong, despite the fact that the passage is fairly clear.

Maybe you would actual say what you believe. Or just continue to troll the forum and contribute nothing. Either way, just wondering.

Just when I thought you couldn't get any more ridiculous, you surprise me with something like this.

I'll humour you though, and grant you that God himself did not get his hands dirty in destroying Sodom and Gemorrah. He just ordered two of his angels to do it. Fine.

What about the Great Flood? Did angels make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights?

A picture says a thousand words...and I suspect that the picture above accurately reflects the reaction most of us had to your defence of "the angels did it" when we accused your god of mass murder.

First off, I love the show Dexter so the analogy does hit home to me.lol. Now, as I can completely understand and agree with what you are saying, but that is not where the story stops.

If I said to you that you were going to meet a mass murder you would default to "evil guy", which would be reasonable. Then I would go on to tell you that he is a mass murder in the sense that he was in an African jungle and 20 men came to rape and murder 80 children in a school and the only way that they could be stopped was for the man to kill all 20 men. And that the man knew 100% that all 20 men would participate in this act. Now where would your position lie with the man? Because this is what I am hearing you and others say,

"Well you know some of those men were probably really good, but just were put in bad situations and you do not know that some of them didn't have families at home and that the man did not actually know that they were going to do that, even though he knew for a fact. I think that he probably did not know even though I have no reason to say that. So I think the guy is a big jerk, and I cannot believe that you like a guy that killed all of those innocent men. Man, what a terrible guy, just terrible, and anyone that thinks otherwise is also terrible."

And then I tell you about another guy in the exact same situation and you say,

"Well I would have done the same thing. Good for him"

Then I say,

"WHAT!"

Then you say,

"Stop having a double standard, jerkface!"(*jerkface was added in for effect, may not be actual verbatim conversation)


So you see, you are ending the conversation early then what is actually happening. Even when the full situation is explained, you still persist in your original opinion even though it is inconsistent because you hold a very strong double standard for some reason.

My quote about the angels had to do with free will. It is not that I tried to get God "of the hook" for anything.

And Dknight is in my opinion a worthless poster. He never attempts to add anything.

Even as much as you and I disagree, you a least attempt to refute what I am saying and back up your position, and even give me your position for that matter. So even though you go after just about everything I say, and I know that you do not really like me, I respond to many of your posts because you attempt to contribute to a conversation. He does not.

1 Sam 15:3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

Now Jib, you have, in your rather warped way, convinced yourself that every Amalekite was evil and deserved death -- every man, every woman, every child, and every infant.

I guess.

But, what the hell did the animals do to piss off Jehovah so much?

hey hey hey! come on roundguy. God didn't kill every amalekite! he just ordered his people to do it! free will, ya know what i mean?

Here's my personal favorite:

"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths."

2 Kings 2:23-24

I mean seriously, you dont see anything, not one thing, wrong with this? Have you ever considered reassessing your beliefs WITHOUT the prior assumption that God is this wonderful, all-loving God who can do no wrong/evil? Cause if not, then i would really like to see how you will answer to verses like these (and there are plenty more where this came from, thats right, the BIBLE).

The difference between you and I is that I do not believe that the God of the bible is arbitrary in what he does. Some things might not always make sense to me thousands of years later, but I try and look at think objectively for that time.

You look at the passage an assume that God is arbitrary and that he did not have a reason to do this.

Upon studying the bible and the history around the time of the bible you can find all sorts of things out that seemed to make no sense.

One thing that I always thought was odd that was God said the jews were not allowed to wear cotton and wool together. That seemed pretty silly and arbitrary. Then I was informed that at that time there was a pagan god that that people worshiped and as some sort of fertility ritual or something they would intertwine wool and cotton garments. Then in light of that, now it makes complete sense.

So the point is, upon learning more about those time all of the sudden things do not seem as terrible or arbitrary. I believe that it was the Canaanites that would through their own children into fires to worship their gods. These were not nice people, nor were those times anything like today.

There are also many passages depicting times where the Israelites would intermarry with the people and then the women would cause them to turn away from God.

Actually Saul did exercise his free will:

9 But Saul and the army spared Agag [the King] and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good.

And Jehovah was seriously pissed off. Saul got a serious tongue lashing from Samuel in this passage.

Go figure. God was pissed that Saul didn't finish the job....

you can really only be so objective about committing genocide and mass murder of children. but yes, in general, i agree that you must be objective when reading the bible.

and you just roll with it? personally, i would have to have explanations for every single evil/cruel act that God did/commanded in the old testament before i felt comfortable with the idea that God is indeed as all-loving as he claims.

no it doesnt, it still makes no sense at all.

this doesnt justify destroying killing and raping entire cities. And i doubt children were really taking part in these rituals (except, you know, being the ones thrown in the fire)

have you ever thought about WHY this happens? in a time when God's power and presence was so clearly shown, what would cause these "people of God" to turn away from him?

I would (rightfully) ask for evidence that these 20 men were coming to rape and murder 80 children.

In a court of law, this man would need to provide a plethora of evidence to prove that he isn't a mass murderer.

In a court of hypotheticals however, this man would only need to produce a TINY SHRED of a tip-off to have more evidence for his case than you do.

Animals don't have souls ldo. Pay attention, k?

This is the equivalent of shooting a person and saying it was the bullet that did the killing.

Makes no difference to my point. This is not about me being able to prove that when God said he would spare Sodom and Gomorrah if any righteous were there. In this setting the fact that he said that should be enough. Either God of the bible exists or not. If not, it makes no difference. If so, then when he said that he would not destroy an entire city if there were any righteous, then what reason do we have to believe that he was lying, other than malcontent?

This is absurd. If the bible says that God would not slaughter the righteous, then why would we believe otherwise? The bible serves as ample evidence.

So much for only having the need to believe in this God character. If that's not enough, you have to also believe in his son Jesus (who is also him). But not only that, there's the devil too. The story's not complete without a devil.

But wait...there's more!

ANGELS! We have ANGELS too! Good thing the angels were there as a final "explanation" for carrying out God's work. Otherwise Christianity would have had to resort to ghouls, goblins, witches, and leprechauns as well. Where's monotheism when you need it?

And just in case that argument doesn't fly, try this one:

It's not the boss's fault, right?

There are about 600 posts of evidence against this claim in that other thread.

Once again, I was not trying to transfer the accountability, but when free will was brought up I offered this as an explanation on how God could do these things without infringing on free will.

This is a very simple concept. Are you aware that I am able to infringe on others free will? Or do I have to explain that as well?

I'm sorry, I presumed that when you said you have read the bible you were telling the truth. I guess that is what I can expect out of an atheist, ldo.

I did not insert angels ad hoc. They have been in the bible since day one. So if you believe the bible to be true, you believe that angels exist as well.

Ugh, are atheist incapable of reading anything in context? Or did you all decide at the last meeting to do this just to piss off the theists?

I know...and I kinda reverse-engineered it to make a joke (and a point). Looks like it bombed.

That thread, and your post, have nothing to do with this topic. I do not have to prove that the God of the bible exists in the conversation. It is assumed that he does exist.

This conversation is about whether or not the God of the Old Testament is morally just in what he did. His existence plays no role here, it is a discussion about if he did exist and if the bible is inerrant, then and only then, can we discuss if the happenings of said God were morally justified.

I am not very good at always noticing the jokes. Of course I could just act like others on this forum do when I state that something was a joke. here is goes,

"Na uh, it was not a joke you are just back peddling because you know you are wrong, jerkface!"(*jerkface added for effect, may not be actual verbatim conversation)

Anyway, what was the point that you were trying to get across? It seems you are trying to state that it is all very convenient. If that is the case, isn't the truth always convenient?

But ordering angels to do it does not at all get you around the problem of God infringing on free will! For the purpose of this discussion, there is no difference between God doing it and God ordering angels to do it.

What does your ability to infringe upon the free will of others have to do with anything?

It doesn't matter what weapon (angels) God uses to kill off a civilization, the act of killing them is an act by God that according to you is for the purpose of preventing evil, which is exactly contradictory to your usual argument about God allowing evil to exist!