One could just as easily say that what God "achieved" was the continuation of a religion, one that has, in turn, produced the Crusades and Inquisitions. As far as we're talking means versus ends (with the benefit of hindsight), let's take 9/11 or the recent bombing in Madrid. Both of these tragedies, though horrific, produced some interesting "achievements" so the speak (the heroism of the first responders (not to mention ordinary people), increased vigilance, awareness of a wider world community, the oppression of governments, failed foreign policies, etc.), so might we say the terrorists were really just people who used extreme measures (sounds familiar?) to create a dramatic result?
Not quite. The terrorists tried to achieve disruption, fear and terror. Heroism and anything "good" that came out of it merely undermines that end. It merely emphasizes that love doesn't need ideal circumstances to thrive.
On the other hand, God promised justice; He promised He wouldn't tolerate immorality and injustice and He demonstrated the difference between His leadership and people's - the kind of responsibility involved with creating, maintaining and judging a planet can't rest on human shoulders because it would mean this kind of destruction.
It was a lesson those terrorists would have done well to heed. I wish it didn't also permit people to judge their saviour as well, but it seems it did. Like most human failings do, to those who don't actually believe in God. The achievement was that faith survived, that God could provide real comfort to the victims of sin, and that terrorism like the Amalekites practised only resurfaced as a real threat to civilization more than 3000 years later. I'd say we need God's promise to deliver the just now more than ever.
he acts of the OT God are achievements in your eyes because they furthered some earthly mission of God's, protected the Jews, and showed his "soveignity" and "justice." You like to accuse us of viewing things through tainted, skeptical eyes, but you too are viewing events that must have been horrific to those involved with some kind of pretend authority as to their ultimate necessity (i.e., "The Bible says...."). And you're taking the word of those who perpetrated the acts at face value! Once again, I urge you to re-examine the one constant of history: rationalization of atrocity. Hitler, too, believed firmly in a cause - one he thought to be endorsed by God, in fact - and he committed atrocities that, in his eyes, were completely justifiable.
The Amalekites had four hundred years to prevent the world having to sympathise with their demise. As Josephus reports in his Antiquities (
Book III, ch.2):
These proceedings of the people of those countries occasioned perplexity and trouble to Moses, who expected no such warlike preparations. And when these nations were ready to fight, and the multitude of the Hebrews were obliged to try the fortune of war, they were in a mighty disorder, and in want of all necessaries, and yet were to make war with men who were thoroughly well prepared for it. Then therefore it was that Moses began to encourage them, and to exhort them to have a good heart, and rely on God's assistance by which they had been state of freedom and to hope for victory over those who were ready to fight with them, in order to deprive them of that blessing: that they were to suppose their own army to be numerous, wanting nothing, neither weapons, nor money, nor provisions, nor such other conveniences as, when men are in possession of, they fight undauntedly; and that they are to judge themselves to have all these advantages in the Divine assistance.
Velikovsky even proposed that the Israelites freed Egypt from the tyranny of the Hyksos with this decisive victory. (See also
Ancient Sources and the Hyksos/Amu/Amalekites).
My point is that for it would be more accurate to equate Hitler with the Amalekites than with the Israelites. Israel has nothing to gain by rationalizing their victory. In fact, they only belittle themselves in the account! Would Hitler justify the holocaust by emphasizing that he lost the war? Israel, by their own admission, failed to destroy the Amalekites. In normal circumstances, taking a king captive was a great victory worthy of boast, yet Saul loses his kingship because of it. The account is described as a low point in Israelite history, something to be ashamed about: their first king was a failure. The whole chapter ends not with "and we celebrated God's victory over his enemies", but with "And the LORD was grieved that he had made Saul king over Israel.".
So they didn't justify the slaughter by appealing to divine sanctioning as you suggest. They make it clear that their victory is to be attributed to God, but that doesn't justify it - it only serves to condemn them. The main difference is probably humility. Hitler conquered out of pride, and could only have boasted about God's involvement because of his own success. Israel had no successes except the ambiguous honour of having been freed out of slavery against all odds.
Israel wasn't in any position of power, and there's a clear difference between the
charam and a sustained and divinely sanctioned policy of terrorism.
heart said:
None of it makes sense to me. The biblical god goes on a killing spree destroying his enemies and those evil children and babies- THEN, turns around and says how love should be extended to your enemies? Are you saying because god can redeem them of sins- gives him the right to kill? If that's what you mean, I'm sorry but I kind of find that twisted.
You don't understand because you go out from the idea that we can just believe what we like as long as we can find a verse in the Bible that supports it. While it's true that some people will shoot someone just because they can get their hands on a gun, it's doesn't apply here for the simple reason that we may never forget
God is the protagonist. The moment you forget that you shoot yourself in the foot - and then you can't blame Him for it. God made His judgment clear through Abraham, through Israel and finally through Christ. God judged the nations through Israel, in order to later judge the world through Christ. If you can't admit that Christ finalized God's plan for judgment and salvation, you're having the right argument with the wrong person.
God has no
love for injustice.
But it's telling how you use the word
kill. Have we been talking about different gods all along? Because I'm talking of the Creator of all life. He doesn't
kill, He judges - and can take life just as He can give it. People kill - for glory, hatred, even out of love (euthanasia), but
we cannot judge, because
we have been judged ourselves.
Excuse me, but who is trying to justify killing for religious purposes here, you or me? I think it's time we get some perspective here. I believe in a just God, and therefore don't consider myself above judgment myself. You on the other hand, believe in
no God, for if you truly believed in an unjust God, you wouldn't be arguing with me on principle, now would you? You've long ago abandoned the premises of the Bible "for the sake of argument".
For the record, here's my contribution: Christ died in the place of the Amalekites, at the hands of executioners God himself authorized by law,
so that they (the Amalekites and all sinners alike)
might be saved for eternal life, even though they sinned against Him. Had this not happened, we would all be fighting to establish ourselves, our own gods and our own kingdoms - whether physical or metaphysical - all by asserting our own moral authority. Isn't that what terrorists do, whether they call themselves "pacifists" or "Hammas"? Pitting their beliefs against each other in order to put the other party in the wrong. But it has happened, and we're all equally in the wrong before God.
