Anyone care to refute this statement?

Question

"The violence in the bible is NOT commanded by God. Nice try."

Those are the exact words of an email I just received in response to a question about violence in the Bible and the Koran. I correctly punctuated and spaced it, but otherwise, it's verbatim.

(((Pinay)))

They removed my Rofsit question already - lol!

Answer 1

I agree with you that there is a lot of violence commanded by God. He told Israel to wipe out the inhabitants of the promised land so that they would not be contaminated by their foreign religious beliefs and customs. That certainly is a lot of violence. God slew the first born of Egypt to enable the Israelites to leave. Things like that.

Of course, there is also a lot of violence in the Bible that is NOT commanded by God, too. But if someone is arguing that God did not command violence, they are wrong.

Answer 2

Another Bible reading -NON bible reading statement. Does anyone every really read that book? It seems they pick and choose everything and forget what is really there. It's amazing. How does this person decipher the following:

Gen 6:7, 17 God is angry. He decides to destroy all humans, beasts, creeping things, fowls, and "all flesh wherein there is breath of life." He plans to drown them all. Is this not violence?

OR

GEN 19:24 God kills everyone (men, women, children, infants, newborns) in Sodom and Gomorrah by raining "fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven." No violence there either I suspect.

And that is in the very beginning of this book.

Answer 3

I would say that quite a bit of it, in the old testament, was commanded by God. God commanded the Isrealites to attack various cities, God told Noah there would be a great flood that would kill every human except the ones on the ark, etc. That said, if you pay close attention to the "violence" in the Bible that God appears to command, it all involves the destruction of wicked people that have turned away from God and turned to their false idols and their sexual perversions, among other things.

Answer 4

God wiped out the Amorites (Canaanites) after giving them 400 years to repent of their sorcery,canabalism,child sacrifices on the red hot arms of Molech,their costant and frequent beastiality....It wasn't like He just said "Hey,I have a good idea ,let's kill some folks for fun!"Before the flood he gave man 120 years to straighten up. God always uses screwed up nations to judge the ones He wants and then the screwed up nation gets theirs too.Such was the case of Babylonia,Assyria, and Persia.Assyria was so freaking wiped out,it wasn't until the 1800s that scientists finally had enough evidence to say it really existed at all,same with Troy and Ninevah.Also the Hittite nation.
Yes ,God employs violence indeed and really He isn't done yet. Wait until the Great Tribulation! You think man and the devil can do some damage,wait until God gets in on the act! Luckily,Christians will either be Raptured(I Thessalonians 4:14-18) out (For we are not appointed unto wrath ,I Thessalonians 5:9)or if they are dead ,will be resurrected.Meanwhile the unbelievers and scoffers will go through it for 7 years .
Besides,who says violence is wrong? Peace through strength is the way! Pussy's get run over and their throats slit by Muslims.

Answer 5

I don't think that person has read the Old Testament. There is a lot of violence commanded by God. The destroying of Sodom and Gomorrah comes to mind immediately. Like I said in my previous answer, I think people see what they don't like about themselves as a fault in others.

Answer 6

The Bible refutes this, God commands violence throughout the OT.

Answer 7

well I am a Christian so here

The Bible does promote violence, he even commanded people to kill the babies and animals when they would destroy countries. BUT that was in the Old testament, violence is not promoted in the New testament which is what Christians live by. Jews live by the old testament.

Islam, not sure but I think somewhere in there they do promote violence hence Jihad (holy war). But it has blown out of proprtion in the middle east today. Even after Jesus came Muhammed went on holy wars forceing people to convert or die.

But most Muslims and Christians do not believe in violence.

Answer 8

God does not hate violence in the terms used today. At psalms 11 we see he hates violence, but the word directly translated means - a man causing the meek to tremble in their boots. Later in the Bible it is better described in a scripture about 7 things detestable to Jehovah. One of the 7 things is a man quick to shed innocent blood. The Bible is not anti-war or anti-violence (in today’s sense.) Violence in today’s sense is needed, and Jehovah himself will need to use it. It is a person that kills the innocent for fun – not a warrior for rightness.

Answer 9

Dude, I would, but there are too many verses that do....

Here's one very damning one.

This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. (1st Sam 15:2-3)

I'm not trying to refute christianity, nid you, but I despise it when people say stuff out of ignorace and think they are better than someone else....

((((Zilla!!!!))))

Answer 10

That is a false statement. Trying to turn God into some warm fuzzy weakling is one of the problems the church has today.

EDIT - That's awful Zilla, now how am I going remember to ROFLHS?? =]