"God committed genocide": An atheist myth debunked!

Atheists make claims that supposedly show the God of the bible as being "evil" or "immoral". One such claim is that because of the Flood of Noah's time and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah God committed "genocide". This claim is not true.

First off take a look at the term "genocide" and it's meaning:

Basically genocide is the killing of a group of people based on nationality, race, politics or culture. This definition is further shown from understanding where the word came from.

The term itself didn't exist before 1944 and was coined in connection with the Holocaust:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genocide?m=www

The bible states the reason God killed these people was because they were wicked or corrupt:

So by definition alone God did not commit genocide. He did not kill these people because of their nationality,race,politics or culture. They were killed because they were corrupt and wicked.

That alone refutes the claim and debunks the atheist myth but what right does any human have to judge killing someone or punishing someone who does something wrong? How can anyone think they have the moral high ground here as long as humans have the death penalty and prisons? The answer is they don't have any moral ground at all. Of course everyone knows that having laws and punishing offenders is part of a civilized society. I guess the atheists missed that somehow.

I have explained how superior species kill other species by the tons and for reasons that could be considered immoral. Funny how atheists are silent on that topic as they are the death penalty and sending people to prison for life.

The truth is this myth of genocide is just a ruse. Some atheists have no problem with mass killing for lesser reasons. Some even advocate a preemptive nuclear strike against Islamic nations. That is real compassionate.....Also some of the most brutal regimes of our time have been ran by atheists....Stalin, Polpot, etc... they didn't seem to have a problem with mass killing and genocide. Atheists should look at themselves before passing judgement.

 

"God did not commit genocide! He just killed almost every person on the planet! Because they were evil! Even the babies!" As long as you're willing to concede that the god who does something like that is not a legitimate moral authority, then you'll get no argument from me.

 

Genocide is "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group",[1]
^ See generally Funk, T. Marcus (2010). Victims' Rights and Advocacy at the International Criminal Court. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. [1]. ISBN 0-19-973747-9.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide#cite_note-1

I will never understand why Christians have to lie so much to somehow justify their poorly thought out, paradoxical, and self-contradictory beliefs.

 

You know you've won when they make their own thread to counter your argument.

Game. Set. Genocide.

 

how does one dictionary adding being part of a religious group as motivation for genocide make the wickedness of Man a lie?

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the way you've slaughtered English, you have no right to point fingers.

 

I was completely unaware that I had to respect any belief system that regarded children as "wicked".

 

is there any belief system that doesn't lump young and old together? Judism give those under 13 a pass on almost everything, but even God gave all the infants water wings, what would have happened to them?

 

Humanism is the first one that comes to mind.

 

how so? can you give us some examples? most people know nothing about Humanism other than Walter Mondale claimed it as his own.

 

What I've learned from this thread:

Christians are fine with children dying as long as its God who kills them.

 

better dead than Canadian.

 

What does my nationality have to do with this topic which has nothing to do with what countries we are from?

Oh it means you have no legit point to make.

 

I don't eat either of those..

 

seal jerky?

 

Don't you have a big mac waiting to be chowed down?

 

if i wanted one, i have 24/7 access.


and damn you for putting that thought in mah head!!!!

 

Yes, lets. And lets look at more than one definition so as not to jump to inane conclusions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/genocide
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide

Heres a few examples;
"the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group"
": the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group"
"Deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, religious, political, or ethnic group."
"the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group:"
"By 'genocide' we mean the destruction of an ethnic group "
"Genocides and politicides are the promotion, execution, and/or implied consent of sustained policies by governing elites or their agents — or, in the case of civil war either of the contending authorities — that are intended to destroy, in whole or part, a communal, political, or politicized ethnic group."

As any sensible person can see, by a number of definitions of Genocide, the destruction of every human on the planet bar Noah and his family, is unquestionably classed as genocide. The motivation for it is irrelevant.

If I caught my son stealing from the cookie jar and cut his arm off in punishment, should I be immune from judgement? What an incredibly stupid thing to suggest. Punishment for crimes is generally an accepted concept - but the punishment should fit the crime. If it does not, then we are ABSOLUTELY right to condemn those who mete out unacceptable punishments.

The topic of predators killing prey? Theres not much to talk about. It happens, and most humans, atheist or otherwise, arent too concerned with the morality of other species.

"Some"? Not me though. And, I would hazard a guess, not any of the atheists who are reading this, or any of the atheists that anyone reading this would encounter in day to day life. It's just a dishonest misdirection and attempt to tar all of us with the same brush. It's no different than if I complained about how 'some' spiritual people were responsible for the single biggest death toll, as a percentage of world population at the time, EVER, as if that somehow put you in a bad light, which of course any sensible person would see it does not.

 

The main problem people are having with the story is the killing of children, mostly because their innocence. This can be resolved by referring to the inheritance of sin, but that introduces instead the idea of being punished for the action of others, which is a violation of one of the fundaments of justice. It is the decision to kill the innocent based on their presence in the towns in question (equivalent to their nationality) that makes people call it genocide. There are wicked people everywhere and there are innocent people everywhere, but God decided to go for nationality instead of wickedness. Even Hitler tried to justify his actions by referring to the wickedness of those he eventually killed.

To be fair, I see no particular reason to label this genocide. I have much more of a problem with the killing of massive amounts of people, disproportionate punishment and judgement based on geographical position than the finer points of genocide, so sure, I'm happy to let you lose that label if that means you're actually addressing the issue.

Most atheists I know are against the death penalty in general, and certainly for the death penalty as a punishment against many of the supposed crimes in question in particular. Laws and punishments are a part of civilised society, but disproportionate punishment, which is what God's actions are claimed to be, is not.

Whoever wants to nuke Islamic countries get to defend their position without me. Judging one for the beliefs of another is logically flawed, do you think your ideological link to the Westboro Baptist Church should have any impact on the treatment of your beliefs? (Read that twice, I'm not calling you equally wicked to the WBC, I'm asking you whether you believe anyone should be attacked for the link to other ideologies or groups.)

Most importantly, and the reason I started to write this post, you are committing a common yet fatal mistake in your logic. Indeed, some really bad atrocities have been committed by atheists, but most atheists reject these actions and actors. You'll be hard pressed to find an atheist who thinks what Stalin did was good. Yet it is common among Christians to think that God's actions are not only justified, not only moral, but *ultimately* moral. If you think that the argument against God when it comes to these atrocities goes no further than "look, God did bad things", then you have completely missed the argument and your posts are equivalent to arguing the colour blue in a political debate.

This has always been an argument against God's omnibenevolence rather than anything else. Frankly, I don't know why people keep bringing it up, the concept of an evil God would solve all these questions and more. I guess it is a call for Christians to start to question the things they have been taught.

If Christians rejected God like most atheists reject Stalin, the argument would be moot.

 

Well, by this definition the destruction of the Amalekites certainly qualifies as genocide.

 

The question of the morality within the Biblical flood story doesn't rest on it's technical definition as genocide or not. It rests on the basic narrative of God killing almost every single living thing on the planet, via the particularly unpleasant method of slow drowning, because he considered the humans he'd created evil. Playing lawyer with technical terminology hardly seems appropriate.

 

I hope my point was made with my poll. Are you willing to put the same rejection between yourself and God as, so far, five non-religious have between themselves and Stalin? Nobody can blame you for God killing people, but we can blame you for thinking he was morally right to do so.

 

God did not select a nationality over wickedness. Were the Israelites ever subject to His wrath, or were they somehow sheltered because of their race?

 

Whether a character in a novel is actually morally right or wrong is entirely divorced from reality, dont you think so?

 

We're now at 10 non-religious denouncing communism. I'm going to go ahead and assume that ten out of ten Christians would not denounce God (feel free to contradict me, we can start another poll). Do you yet see the difference between the Christians' acceptance of God's moral over theirs and the non-religious' integrity to denounce things they think immoral even if they happen to agree on some other point?

 

I suppose you would need to find in the Humanist Manifesto 2000 (a very shot book!) where it justifies the deaths of small children, and you will win the argument.

Until then, my position is the moral high ground and does not justify the action of an evil god in killing innocent children.

Instead of you known doing as what any Omnipotent deity could do, which is just strike down the really bad sinner and leave the kids alone.

Omnipotence leaves no room for apologetics.