Christians, why did your god tell the Israelites to kill women, children, and babies?

Question

Isn't that a violation a violation of "thou shall not murder"?

I'm specifically talking about the old testament stories about the slaughter of innocent Canaanites that your god commanded the Israelites to do...

im not trying to apply anything to our life/world...

im just asking why god told his people to disobey the commandments

so you're saying that even the Canaanite babies weren't innocent?

Answer 1

Good point. They'll never be able to answer this unless they admit that their god is a Killer & hypocrtite. I asked the same thing a couple hours ago.

Answer 2

In the Old Testament context, the Jewish people were polytheistic until abuot the time AFTER they came back from Babylon. They thought Yahweh (God's real name) was the God of War. So they only prayed to him for war, and for revenge. So God, who wanted to reaspond to the people, he followed their askings. The Jewish people asked god for revenge on Amalek. So God granted the people this so they could believe in him, if only for a war God. Remember, God has yet proven that he is a loving God other then to Abraham and a select few. When Jesus comes in the New Testament, they do not he is the Messiah because tehy think that the REAL Messiah will drive out the Romans and be a King. THEY DID NOT THINK HE WOULD BE FULL OF KINDNESS, because they did not know better. The Old Testament is full of stories not fully documented. So please stop trying to prove the Bible and the Christian beliefs wrong.

Answer 3

Bobby Jim: So what you're saying is.
1) All Canaanites regardless of age were not innocent.
2) All Canaanites were violent and barbaric.
3) Anyone who is not of your religion deserves to die.

Do I have the gist of it? And I don't know whether to thumbs up or thumbs down the post about Satan-as-a-genetic-engineer. But it must be awfully convinient to categorize as inhuman any person who you want to genocide.

Answer 4

Thou shalt not kill...refers to indiscriminate murder.
A person who kills in personal self-defense; a police officer
who kills in the line of duty; the soldier who is defending his country, his life, his freedoms, or for survival has committed no sin against God or man.

The Canaanites had overtaken the land they were living in, it was not given to them by God and they had no legal right to it either.

When God commanded that the Israelites reclaim the land,
the land was rich, yet the people inhabiting it were physically diseased and morally corrupt and unclean, living worse than pigs in swill.

God knew the only way to protect the Israelites from these terminal and highly contagious diseases of mind, body, and land was to purify it and destroy it all by sword and fire.

God also knew to allow any to live, was to see them spread the terminal diseases of mind and body, as well, one day face having the survivors or their surviving relations to return and swear out vengeance on the Israelites.

Think about it, IF we had followed God's solution, when the AIDS virus root cause/carriers were first identified in the 70's, and man had followed through, think how many hundreds of thousands of people would have been spared this horrendous death sentence.

Answer 5

The problem is exposed in your explanation:
The Canaanites were not innocent. They were a violent and barbaric people who engaged in idol worship.

As a grandson of Noah, Canaan should have known better than to wander away from God and into idolatry. The Canaanites needed to be purged from the land so as to not defile the Israelites to whom the Lord promised the land.

Answer 6

Because the Israelites were at war with the cannanites. The kind of war in which one side wants to completely destroy the other side. If you allow the childrent to survive, tehy will grow up to kill your descendents.

You need to look at the context in which these things are written. Obviously, these commands do not apply to our world.

Answer 7

Hello, Funaholic:

A good question, because the law does say: "Thou shalt not kill."

But a literal rendering of that is thou shalt not MURDER. There is a difference.

And that same law tells that God blesses the descendants of those who obey them, and curses those who transgress.

When Abraham was promised the Holy Land, he was told it would not be for another 400 years because "the iniquity of the Amorites is not full yet."

You see, as you read, those nations were sacrificing their children to Molech, a bronze god they got hot, then put their child in his smeltering arms. God also told them they practiced homosexuality, another reason He would drive them out of the Promised Land.

Judgment day is coming for transgressors, and their families. But God's people can rest assured His reward is with Him, and their children will be saved.

The beginning of Judgment day is actually revealed in a last-day Bible code. Read all five chapters FREE on-line at http://abiblecode.tripod.com

Thus brayed my donkey.

Balaam

Answer 8

God is Good. And He demonstrates this by killing people.
God is truth. The truth is, There Is No Truth.
This is God's constant refrain.

Because God, my God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, is a contradictory God. God only tells the truth. But the truth is such a powerful thing that the only way to tell the truth is by demonstrating it. The Truth is Love. This can only be demonstrated, not defined in words. Love is not what most people think it is. Simply put, love in frank is divine care. Love is the power that created the universe and everything. Love is not the opposite of hatred. Love encompasses hatred. Several times in the bible God tells his children to kill, hate, be angry with, ignore, punish, etcetera. These things in and of themselves are not evil. When God commanded his children "Thou shalt not kill" this was meant in the context of killing for the sake of self-gratification. Remember the first commandment, "Thou shall have no other gods before me". This includes the self. People should understand that ALL gratification should come from God, not the self. God asked Abraham to kill his own son for a similar reason. Similarly, God demonstrated his love by killing his own son for OUR sins.

The contradictions in God's behavior are not mockable. Because by contradicting himself yet showing true paradoxical wisdom proves that God's Words come from a source that is superior to all sources in existence. God is the most natural being that can exist. Therefore God is Nature and Existence. God is Existence himself.

Try to say anything without confirming by that statement that something exists. You can't do it. This is because God is unavoidable and undeniable. He will have no other God before him. You will lose if you try to put yourself above God.

This is why God contradicts himself constantly. To show the Truth:

The truth is, There Is No Truth.

Answer 9

just because people kill doesn't means their religions tells them to. I believe a member of all religion kill at some point, usually war. But that doesn't means it's the religion that teaches them to.

Answer 10

Because if you knew what you were reading you'd know that the Caananites,Hittites, Jebusites,etc..were not 100% human...they were the gigantic off-spring of satanic genetic manipulation....not only did these people have demon blood pumping through their hearts but they were so deep into human sacrifice and other forms of satanism that there was no saving them!!!