The reason I find this so difficult to write about is not because it is a skillful refutation, but rather because it is ludicrous, and it's based on faulty reasoning from the beginning. The writer helpfully points out that God doesn't approve of murder in passages Exodus 20:13 and Matthew 5:21-22, nor racial partiality as mentioned in Romans 2:10-11, but, apprently his displeasure in these two things does not extend to himself.
It's yet another round of "God can do whatever he wants, no matter how immoral it is to us humans, because he is God, so nyah." It's just as silly as I've made it sound. He seems to believe that he has thoroughly made the case that his all-loving, all-forgiving god is totally for us humans being peaceful and loving, but he just doesn't have to behave the same way. Unfortunately for him, he has not made this case at all. An omnibenevolent being should be held to JUST as high as standard as humankind, if not moreso.
Wouldn't the idea that God himself is sinning by perpetrating genocide completely fly in the face of the idea that God is perfect and never sins? The author of this nonsense has carefully crafted a reason why his god would NEVER condone humans committing genocide -- and yet, when the god itself does it, he is merely acting out his righteous judgement.
What we see at the beginning of 1 Samuel 15 is the long awaited fulfillment of the judgment that God pronounced on Amalek a long time before (way back in Exodus 17). Now, God is not doing this on a whim, God has essentially just been patient with Amalek all this time, and has finally decided to act upon the judgment He pronounced initially. We see from Exodus 17 that this is definitely God's act. As we saw previously, in the moral frame of reference of God relating to man, God taking the lives of the people of Amalek is not immoral at all.
Um, excuse me? It absolutely IS immoral. In fact, it is later described to be immoral later on in this very same article!
God is clearly against His worshipers committing murder (Exodus 20:13, Matthew 5:21-22) and also against racial partiality (Romans 2:10-11), so we can obviously infer that He is against their combined evil in the act of genocide.
I do not understand how God in this instance can be seen as anything more than a ruthless dictator, completely abolishing an entire race of people simply because he felt like it. There are many ways to punish people, we as a society have figured that out. But God resorts to the same tactic every time -- murder. And not just murder of the person who did the wrong thing that so offended him; no, murder of every living being that possibly even reminds him of that evil.
We are lead to believe through manipulations that god was merely "carrying out judgment on a particular people group for particular atrocities". What WAS this atrocity that so offended Yahweh? Let's find out! (Because learning is POWER!)
Long story short, the Amalekites were a source of constant woe to the Israelites in bible times. According to the bible, when the Israelites were completing the exodus from Egypt, they waged war with them, picking off the weak, elderly and infirm. They were ALL up in the Jews grill, y'all. Why? Well, because the Amalekites (among others) owned the land that the Israelites were attempting to just rock up and steal from them.
A few other reasons that have been given for why God was so pissed off at the Amalekites include:
- Sacrificing their children to gods (Dt 12:29-31)
- Nobody actively demonstrated any righteousness (Ez 14:13-20)
- It was just because they were at war (Dt 20:10-15)
- Godsaidso (Jdg 7:2-3, Josh 5:13-14)
- They were invading the promised land (Deuteronomy 2:34; 3:6; 20:16-18)
Unlike us, God knows the future. God knew what the results would be if Israel did not completely eradicate the Amalekites. If Israel did not carry out God’s orders, the Amalekites would come back to “haunt” the Israelites again and again. ... After David and his men attacked the Amalekites and rescued their families, 400 Amalekites escaped. ... Several hundred years later, a descendant ... tried to have the entire Jewish people exterminated (see the book of Esther). So, ... incomplete obedience almost resulted in Israel’s destruction. God knew this would occur, so He ordered the extermination of the Amalekites ahead of time.
Brilliant! So instead of actually doing something to stop that from occuring, like, say, snapping his fingers and having both nations live at peace with one another, or visiting other groups of people with the frequency and miraculous nature that he appeared to the Israelites, to command them to live in harmony with the new tribes, he just decided to MASSACRE THEM ALL.
AND IT DIDN'T EVEN WORK.
That's right, kids, God knew that the Amalekites would cause trouble for his special babies in the future, and so he ordered them all killed. But, since God is so terrible at having any of his insane orders followed, it didn't work, and the event that he was trying to precipitate happened ANYWAY, making the entire event an exercise in total futility. Bloody, gorey, inhumane and terrible futility.
Not only does this fail on multiple levels, but all the other excuses are equally as lame. They sacrificed their children to gods? Well, God apparently did the same thing RE: Jesus, and he even ordered Abraham to do the same. Jepthah, as well, was ordered to sacrifice his daughter to God. They were at war? If we were at war with another country, and sliced open pregnant women's bellies to make sure that their fetus was dead, too, as well as murdered all of their livestock, burned all of the booty and basically made sure that any living breathing thing there was totally decimated, I think that would be considered a terrible atrocity. War is war, genocide is genocide, no matter who puts their happy stamp on it.
Over and over again, while reading multiple articles about the slaughter of the Amalekites, I've read the words "This is a difficult passage", "I don't understand why God did this 100% either", "I'm not so sure about this, but I trust God is Just", and many more like it. Even biblical scholars and Christian apologists are uncomfortable with the events described in 1 Samuel 15. Why? Because it shows off the ugly face of God to the extreme, the entirely self-contradictory nature of the creature.
The Bible also clearly teaches that one person is not held guilty for another's sin (Ezek 18). And yet, God was completely fine with murdering suckling infants and young children who didn't even know their own name yet, let alone their racial heritage, that, by a cruel twist of fate, was bestowed upon them by the very God that smited it. Yes, Yahweh deliberately allowed children to be born into a race that he particularly hated, merely so that he could have his minions slaughter them.
Trying to cover up rivers of blood with a doily won't work. God clearly agrees with the idea that group of people deserve to be bloodily murdered simply to wipe out their entire race. The bronze-age desert tribesmen who wrote these tales did not yet know that, to a civilised society, these actions are unacceptable even between warring nations. But we know, and no amount of special pleading will untangle God from that unholy act.
Stay tuned for Part III: Investigating "Deuteronomy 22:22-28 – Does this passage condone rape?"
