Balder said:
This is not my thesis. I certainly do not believe that "Christians are potential mass murdering psychopaths," and I never meant to imply that with my question. As I suggested, perhaps you have had previous conversations in which such ugly things were suggested, but that is not what I am saying. In fact, I expect most Christians to be moral people, with a reasonable distaste for murder. If anything, what I am trying to elicit with my questions is a degree of doubt that the claims that God ordered the brutal murder of thousands of people, including children, are accurate or the best representation of what happened. I believe such stories impugn the character of God, and I think the Christian community would be better off to openly acknowledge this.
I see. I believe you. My apologies for giving you the third degree. You are correct, there are a large amount of people who believe these things and would use such statements to try and trap Christians to have them state that they would do such things. However, such people invariably are on the very far left -- and I was wondering how this made sense with you, as you did not react to my statements against Marxism or about Islamism... and you have noted that you consider yourself a Buddhist.
I do not think you would say, "In fact, I expect most Christians to be moral people, with a reasonable distaste for murder", if you felt this way, either.
Such people would never make such statements.
Previously, your statements were vague enough that I had to wonder. And you did not immediately correct your statement, apparently you did not understand what I meant by "leaving out the variables of the equation", either... that is leaving out the variables of the evidence Moses and the Hebrews were stated to have at that time.
You are correct. Most Christians would never have done what Moses did. Not that God could not make any Christian like Moses, He could. He just happened to have made Moses in the way that He did.
But, it was not just Moses, was it? But, it was all of the Hebrews. And who are the Hebrews we are talking about here, who are the Jews? So, you see, this is a very sensitive topic.
It appears, however, that you were simply unaware of this.
I would take it that most Christians would not take such issue with such a topic or statements made.
Regardless, let us move on, past this touchy topic.
Balder said:
No, I don't agree with this. I believe the testimony of Moses demonstrates that he operated from a particular moral and spiritual level of understanding which, while very likely faithful and earnest, was not the most enlightened perspective possible for human beings.
But, it was not just Moses here, was it? By that time all of the Hebrews were willing to follow the man and do whatever he said.
But, who was Moses? What were his motivations? There are many texts which suppose a great many things. Most of these are mostly obviously outrageous lies.
What we do know is quite simple. The man was a Hebrew. The Hebrews were slaves. He was adopted into the house of the Pharoah. Some texts claim that he did not know who he was all along. Yet, how could that have been, as he would have looked like these Hebrews, and his nursemaid was his mother.
Maybe he did not discover who he was until he was around forty. That is a possibility. Regardless, he would have known on a deep level. And he would have lived for forty years in this seat of luxury and power, knowing that he was saved miraculously at birth. Believing that this salvation was a sign from God, that God delivered him, so he might deliver his people.
He would have lived in torment for those forty years. Waiting for God to act. But, God would not have acted because it was not God's time to act.
His torment and rage would have been unbearable, but he would have suffered under it, being an extremely meek man.
Then, when he was forty, he acted out. He blew up. He killed a slavedriver. He buried his body.
For the next forty years he lived as a fugitive. Forty more years. Would that have erased the incredible pain? Would his having a new family and a new life had removed his pain? Would he have ever been able to forget his brothers and sisters working as slaves back in Egypt?
Would he have doubted why God saved him? Would he have doubted over all of those forty years, or would he have been able to forget? He would have been burdened all along, heavily burdened. So, when God finally came to him again and said, "I am sending you to free your people", he finally had his say, he did not want to go. He knew God could save them through anybody He wished. But, God had chose him.
What was it that bothered Moses about the Ten Plagues? What bothered him was that the people did not believe him. He did not show concern that these plagues would happen. He still had that rage, that rage was inside him.
But, what was that rage? It was not what it appeared to be. It was an understanding of the Lord's anger against sin, that is what it was. It was a door to the feelings of the Lord. His puny, mortal rage was nothing but so that he could understand God's great rage which would have surpassed him.
It was like the waiting that God made Moses do. Just as God waited patiently all of those years watching His people suffering under the cruel weight of slavery, He made Moses wait, so that Moses would be able to believe and understand God -- and so Moses would do anything God said.
There is a psychological profile of Moses, for you.
I doubt you would find that comforting. I think you might find it accurate, however.
So, what I am saying here is simply this: under the same circumstances as Moses, are you so sure that no one else today would do as he did?
Balder said:
I disagree with your assessment here also. If you hold that one has to believe that someone is incapable of error before even attempting to evaluate or make judgments about their words or actions, then I think that is an unrealistic position. With regard to Moses and the Bible, I do not automatically discount everything Moses has to say, just out of hand; but I do believe I am called, as a human being and a moral agent, to evaluate what he says and does. Approaching the Bible in an objective fashion, I do not believe I have any reason to consider it at the outset to be perfect, without possibility for error or the influence of limited human perspectives.
You are correct in this: No one at the outset, before reading the Bible should consider it true, unless they have other evidence which indicates that it should be true. The Scripture is quite plain on this, "Test all things and hold fast to that which is true".
You do not seem to think that the Scripture has that ring of truth to it, that taste of truth, after reading it. Is this because you simply can not believe miracles?
Do you simply believe that miracles can not happen? Perhaps because you have never seen miracles before?
If you believe that all of us 'move and live and have our being within God', to paraphrase the Scripture, is it beyond question that God could act within history, showing His hand? Is it also unlikely that God would do this all of the time, or would He hold back His hand, as He has held back gold and precious jewels -- giving them not just glory in presence and substance, but glory in rarity, thereby highlighting their finery?
Balder said:
Balder asked: Do you have to believe a person is flawless and without error before being capable of judging his behavior or his words?
But, which words would be true, and which words would be false? You would believe that he ordered massacres, but you would not believe that he freed the slaves through miracles? That he ordered Death, the Destroyer, to take from each household in Egypt the firstborn? To smite their land with a darkness whose signs may very well last until this very day? Was it that there was a slave revolt?
If they made all of this up, why would they accuse their own people? Why would they speak so incredibly roughly of their own people? Why would generation after generation pass down the truth, when it spoke so plainly and hard against their own nation? What other nation on the face of the planet has kept such a testimony that so convicts them?
Or, did he order the massacres in Canaan? Or, did he come down from the moutain and order the massacres against his own people -- and did he really force them to grind up the Golden Calf and put it in water so they would drink it? Did he really call for God to cause Hell to open up and swallow a whole family alive?
What about the plague of snakes?
He also wrote that Abraham lived in Canaan. If you are not going to believe the story of Moses, then why believe the story of the slavery? Why was it not just that the Jews at one time, while in Canaan, decided to invent the whole story of slavery and Moses? (Granted, you may not be aware of this, but there is some rather strong evidence of the invasion of Jerusalem by the Hebrews.)
Indeed, I have not heard of the miracles of the Ten Plagues nor any of the miracles of the Wilderness of Walls being recorded anywhere else -- though there are many potential signs which do point to some kind of great cataclysm in Egypt. And... from what we know of one of the Pharoah's, Amenhotep, we do see a man who fit the figure of Pharoah as represented in the Scripture to a "t".
We also know a great darkness sorrounds the demise and later vilification of that great Pharoah, which is most mysterious.
But, I suppose I digress here. I suppose you are not interested in what may have actually occured, but how Christians today must see it. (And, I would suppose, Jews as well?)
Balder said:
I take it you do not want to come out and say that you would help exterminate an entire community of human beings if you believed you were told to do so by God because you know that such activity is not good. And of course, I would expect you to feel that way. Which is why I am saying you should consider that the early Hebrews were mistaken when they believed this to be God's will, or something he would justly endorse.
I did not say this, and you know it. I merely said that to judge the circumstances, you must consider all of the circumstances. You can not and will not do that, however.
Christians do not do these things because they believe the full spectrum of circumstances sorrounding Moses and the Hebrews at that time. It was far, far more then just "a voice" or "a miracle".
It was extreme and extraordinary proof, evidence not only of "some power" but of the True and Righteous God who has sympathy on the poor and oppressed, but who will not tolerate sin. A God who does not fail to judge all men, but a God who judges all men with complete righteous and incredible power.
Today, where are such miracles or proofs that we might point to them, to say, "This is the voice of the Lord"?
Our standard of proof is exceedingly high, whether you believe them or not.
We know wickedness from righteousness. Did we not fight against the wicked Axis powers duing WWII? Did we require a sign from God to send us to fight against these patently wicked powers? It was a righteous cause, and we knew we had to fight it. Indeed, we were so blind - most of us - that we did not enter the war sooner... but, we along with so many, let nation after nation be eaten up, we did not attack even when we heard great evidence of the beginnings of the Holocaust... we did not act even when our great ally, Britain, was being grossly beseiged.
But, when we did act, did we not know that what we were doing was right, even though this meant the death of soldiers and civilians alike? When we did act, did we not then embrace not just the cause of our own defense, but also the cause of the gross massacres of the Jews, of the minorities, of the Eastern Europeans, of the British, of the Western Europeans, and of the Russians? Did we not act knowing the deeds of the Japanese against so many Asian countries?
Was this, too, barbarity?
Was this really so far from what happened in the times of Moses? Maybe you could argue your case against the war against the Canaanites (even though Moses warned that if they left them alive they would always cause problems... even though we see this to this very day)... but, could you make the same case for what they did to become a free people and escape the slavery of the Egyptians?
But, if it was Amenhotep, why would the Egyptians have reviled him, and not the Hebrews?
Have never wondered about that?
If the Hebrews had a slave revolt and freed themselves, would not the Egyptians had honored Amenhotep and reviled the Hebrews?
Are you going to seriously suggest no blood was shed to free the Hebrews?
Balder said:
Balder wrote: I believe that all human beings pass through stages of moral and spiritual development. At different stages, our moral “compass” and our understanding of the nature of the divine, change accordingly. Morally, our “circle of concern” widens and we are able to embrace more in it than previously – moving from self-centered concern to wider and wider contexts. Spiritually, our understanding of God deepens, moving from rather mythical conceptions to more sophisticated, relational, and experientially grounded perspectives. I further believe that the Bible records some of this development in moral and spiritual understanding. At the time of the Hebrews, warfare was obviously very common, life was very hard and often brutal, and the “circle of concern” was largely identified with one’s particular tribe or culture, sometimes extending out to embrace a few outsiders, but certainly not all. In the “incubator” of Hebrew culture, I think certain more profound moral understandings were allowed to grow, though for a long time these moral attitudes and practices were confined to their limited context; outside of that context, the same moral considerations did not apply.
[...]
I don't think the presence of evil in this world disproves the truth of the evolution of moral and spiritual perspectives. The fact that we consider genocide today to be evil, but the Hebrews and other early tribal people apparently did not, is evidence of this change. The more moral awareness you have, the more "evil" you can see in the world (when before you were unconscious of it or more fully "implicated" in it). However, every single human being starts out at the lowest level and must traverse all of them individually. Therefore, even if a community may operate generally at a higher level than some other communities, you will still find individuals at virtually all levels of development within any specific community.
They did not consider the slavery imposed upon them by the Egyptians to be evil? Did the Americans bomb the Japanese? Some would argue that unnecessarily took lives, others would argue that this saved lives. Even while there are many debates about this subject... and such subjects as the fire bombings against Germany, largely, these things have not been reviled by the surviving nations who suffered the torments of the Axis powers.
They have not been applauded, either. But, they have been accepted as grim and necessary facts. Do not think it is just the Americans and the British who feel this way... though perhaps many from Germany and Japan do not. But, these things are accepted as necessary from all of the victim nations who still remember these crimes: from the Jews to the Polish to the Chinese to the Koreans to the Czechs, and so on.
And, if we are so greatly concerned about genocide, I would suggest that you watch the movie out now on Rwanda, "Hotel Rwanda". I would also suggest that you pick up some books about the Rwandan situation.
Why is it that the "civilized" nations of the world literally abandoned these poor and impoverished people to an incredible nightmare of genocide?
You seem to be entirely ignorant of Rwanda.
This is not surprising. Have you heard about all of the rock concerts we are doing for Rwanda and the aid we are sending them to help their country? That is right, because we do not and we are not. (Yes, there is some aid, but it is pitiful, even today.)
And, if you seriously think that ends it, you are quite mistaken. Have you failed to read the news about what has been happening in the Congo Republic by the very UN soldiers? Do you think these things are lies? Or, for that matter, what these very same people have been doing in the Balkans?
Have you followed Zimbabwe? Or have you heard about Sudan?
I fail to understand your point about how "civilzed" we have become under the light of reality. Could it be that you have not followed the news on these situations? It is true... they make everyone look bad, all of us "civilized" folks who heard about this mass genocide in Rwanda and thought nothing of it.
And, even if the news was distorted - and it was - do we not now know the facts?
Or, how about Afghanistan, for that matter? Remember the great "outrage" from the world over the US invading Afghanistan? Yet, how did we see it? I will tell you as one of those who politically are in power right now: we saw it as the chance not only to try and get Al Qaeda, no, we saw it as a crusade - yes, a crusade - to align with men who were not even of our faith, the Northern Alliance... to take out the bloody dictatorship of the Taliban... and unrighteous regime if there ever stood one on the face of the planet. And we knew we could do it with minimum civilian casualities.
But, this is not my point. This is not the irony. The irony is a horrible truth that all of these global protesters failed to recognize: but a little over a decade before this ended a bloody, horrible seige of that very nation which took an estimated - a well estimated - two million Afghani lives. A seige which lasted not for a few months, but for ten long years. A seige which sought not to bring true freedom of religion and deliverance from a bloody regime... but a seige, a war, which sought to impose athiesm and totalitarianism on the land. A seige which was not protested by the far left, but a seige which the far left supported.
Is that not savagery?
It is calculated savagery. It is savagery hiding behind the careful built up appearances of "goodness". It is a carefully calculated wickedness which our barbaric ancestors were still yet incapable of. They were far from capable of it, for they did not know how to pretend to be civilized.
They were a pure and simple people who did not understand how to be exceedingly evil and put on every pretension of righteousness.
...
Yet, I do not wholly disagree with you, as I have already said. I would just point out that, yes, there is more evil in the world. It is darker today then it was yesterday. Evil, like anything almost, builds on the past. But, as it gets darker, so too is there greater Light... for the Light does not serve the darkness, but the darkness serves the Light.
Balder said:
I have never denied that "miraculous" or "supernatural" events are possible. But that doesn't mean I accept all claims of the miraculous indiscriminately.
I find it very hard to understand how one might divide between myth and fact... not when looking at the myths of the world... but when looking at Scripture.
I also am skeptical as to what you mean by "miraculous". Do you believe it is possible for the Red Sea to be parted? Do you believe that God could act through a man to announce plagues? Do you believe that the Ten Plagues could have happened? Do you believe that it could have been possible that the Hebrews heard the voice of the Lord and the terrible trumpet blasts? Do you believe that the leaders of the Hebrews could have "sat and ate with the Lord"?
Balder said:
Right. So if you accept that, then when you are faced with morally problematic passages in the Bible, you have at least two possible responses: conclude that killing off a community of people, including their infants, elders, and women, is not wicked; or conclude that such claims represent a limited and fallible human interpretation of "the will of God."
For me, I choose the latter.
Peace,
Balder
There is nothing to celebrate about such horrible things. However, through history countless nations and peoples have been clearly corrupted and then after destroyed by natural disaster, plague, famine, or war. (And other means.)
And, there is the fact that we must all die... and that horrible things happen to all alike.
What of all of these things? Are we to say, "God, I am more noble then you?"... or would we somehow pretend that God is not ultimately in control of all things? Surely, God does not perform wickedness, but could He not stop it? Indeed, how often do the poor and oppressed call out, "Is there no justice in this world?!"
But, there is justice in this world, and we do not comprehend all things -- just as the Lord told Job. There is far more to everything then what we see with our eyes or hear with our ears. The Lord is a just God, and yet, He hides himself. Where is justice, therefore, where is God? Do we not all know that God is justice and He is everywhere? Yet, only those who have faith in Him can trust in Him to bring all justice to all people.
Good and bad alike.
