What kind of God approves of murder, rape, and slavery?

Question

As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you. -Deuteronomy 20:10-14

Answer 1

I really think you should address your questions to a religious leader if you're honestly looking for answers. You seem so angry - I hope you find peace. Of course if you're not really looking for answers, but answering your own questions to insult people who do believe....I still wish you happiness and peace. God bless!

Answer 2

Those people were lucky to even be given the slightest chance at peace after what they did. There was no rape however, GOD does not condone that, (read the TORAH) the women were just to be spared and treated as servents, because they were somewhat less responsible for the sins of that city than the men were. if the town chose peace, GOD would not have afflicted them long, those who are peacefull and reverent to the LORD are always rewarded with blessings, mercy and kindness.

GOD IS LOVE, if you reject LOVE then you are a hater and also hated. You reap what you sow. We will all stand before the LIVING GOD, some in peace and others in terror. Love is the devider, those who obey the command to love GOD and their nieghbors shall recieve peace honor and love, those that choose hate shall be given hate.

JESUS IS the WAY of SALVATION and TRUTH.

Answer 3

Where do you see "rape" in that scripture? I see no reference to rape. God has poured out his judgment on wicked civilizations through natural catastrophies, plagues and wars. God does this to protect His people from those who would harm them. God does not always wait for the enemy to attack, sometimes God decides to have His people strike first. Timing is everything to God and since He knows all things, whichever plan works best to achieve His purposes, that is the way He does it. If you knew someone who had sworn to kill your child, would you wait for this person to attack your child first? Or would you possibly attack this person first and remove the threat to your child?
However God chooses to defeat His enemies is up to Him.
God does not always view things from the natural worlds standpoint. He most often looks at the spiritual battle which rages here and in the heavens. If 30,000 people die, (I am referring to the men of the village) and by doing so, 70,000 women and children learn Gods truth and are saved, this is Gods will, that the 70,000 captives will become saved.
This is Gods glory that these 70,000 captives, learn about Him from their captors and accept Christ Jesus as their Savior. We look at the natural aspect of things and God focus' on the spiritual aspect of things. Life is but a breath to God, it is our spiritual life that He concerns Himself with mostly. God Bless You....Peace.

Answer 4

A God who owns the town, loves the people, and offers them peace and safety on His terms but who is unafraid to judge them and punish them for their disobedience to His revealed will.

Also, a God who means to be taken seriously.

If "all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come" (I Corinthians 10:11), then we would all do well to heed those messages.

Answer 5

Allah does stuff like this all the time in the Koran but as for the God of the Bible, I will attempt to explain. Just because you keep the women doesn't necessarily mean that you rape them. I think that most Americans would like to see the soldiers in Iraq keep the women and children alive too if possible. And did you read the next chapter? I'll copy Deuteronomy 21:10-14 for you here:

When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive, and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her and would take her for your wife, then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. She shall put off the clothes of her captivity (meaning that she will dress like a Jew, not go naked), remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother for a full month; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. And it shall be, if you have no delight in her, then you shall set her free, but you certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not treat her brutally, because you have humbled her.

Killing someone in war is not murder. You must attack sometimes if you're going to win the war. It can't all be self-defense, although in this case the war probably started as self-defense because one of the nations attacked Israel. That happened fairly often in the Old Testament. The Middle East has never been a really peaceful place. God never commanded Israel to attack any other places except for the land of Canaan and He forbade them to attack certain lands because one was the possession of Esau and his descendants, etc. The ones outside of Canaan... (God gave Canaan to the Israelites as a possession; Esau also dispossessed the inhabitants of his land by the way and I seem to remember America dispossessing the inhabitants of this land sometimes too, even though God never gave us this land as a possession so if Israel's bad, then we're worse, right?) The people outside of Canaan that the Israelites attacked were always attacked because the Israelites wanted to pass through their city peacefully and they wouldn't allow it or in the case of the Midianites, they had sent harlots to Israel who perverted the nation and caused Israel to sin, which in turn caused God to send a plague on Israel that wiped out thousands. Then God commanded Moses to avenge the Midianites for this crime (Numbers 31).

And as for slavery, the Bible is confusing on that issue. Some of the most avid abolitionists, like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas were devoted Christians who read the Bible a lot. There were some vocal supporters of slavery who were also Christians, although if they truly believed, I bet they were nice to their slaves. God delivered the Israelites from Egyptian slavery but then allowed the Israelites to have slaves of their own, especially from other nations. My dad just told me that God didn't like slavery. From reading the Bible, including the New Testament, I'm inclined to agree. Jesus came "to proclaim liberty to the captives" and "to set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Luke 4:18). God also condescended a little bit in His laws to the Israelite nation. He only allowed divorce "because of the hardness of [their] hearts" (Matthew 19:8, 9) and at first, He did not require them to live monogamously either. They could have more than one wife. That came later. It was progressive revelation, not a contradiction. Hardness means stubbornness and/or evil.

It is not wise to base your whole theology of God on just a handful of scriptures. You will err, probably seriously, if you do. Read the whole Bible and make your decision.

Answer 6

Because at the time Israel was God's chosen people and if you were an enemy of Israel then you also were an enemy of God. So if you bacame an enemy of God then God created you and God would allow you to suffer and be destroyed. Same thing happens in the end time

Answer 7

God gave us the 10 commandments and told us to not to disobey them, those would be all the above you say god approves of and thats wrong, these acts are committed because he gave us free will to do right or wrong.

Answer 8

It's a difficult task to attack a town single handedly because I personally know no one who would go along with such a venture. So I have to decline .

Answer 9

God deals with mankind no matter what mankind has sunk to and that is out of God's love and God's plan to save as many as would be saved.

Answer 10

You gotta love Deut...my favorite is the one where if a woman happens to grab the privates of your enemy, you should cut off her hand...how often does that happen??? I am always sure to let my kid know that Deut says if my son is misbehaving and not respectful, I should put him at the edge of town and let the townspeople stone him to death. Yeah, good one.