Why does evil not have to be eliminated anymore?

xdisciplex · Nov 19, 2006

In the old testament the jews had to eliminate all evil among themselves. And the other tribes in the area which were also evil had to be eliminated, too. If it was so important to eliminate evil and to keep it from spreading then why are christians not supposed to kill witches and other evil people anymore? Somehow it's hard to reduce this to a common denominator. In the old testament God ordered these things and in the new testament Jesus advertises peace and tells us to pray for our enemies. Why didn't God directly tell the jews to pray for their enemies in the old testament?

I just came across this here.
It throws up a lot of questions. Israeli schoolchildren were asked wether Joshua had the right to kill the other people at the battle of Jericho. 66% of the children said yes and they named different arguments.
Then he exchanged the names Joshua (General Lin) and Jericho (chinese kingdom) and put in other names and asked a different group the same question but now the question had no link to the bible anymore and then only 7% said that General Lin had the right to inhabit the chinese kingdom and kill the people!
This shows that people judge things differently when they have to do with their religion. And I think this is really true. You will not find a christian who would condemn anything which is in the bible. But if somebody else did something like what the jews did in the bible then most christians would condemn it. Isn't this hypocritical? I mean what if we do not really agree with what God ordered the jews to do but we simply deny our real thoughts because we simply feel like we have to agree with God but basically what the jews did goes against our own feeling of justice? I think if this guy had done this test with me I would have reacted exactly the same way. I would have named exactly the same reasons why Joshua had the right to do it and in the different scenario I would also have said that General Lin did not have the right to do it. But where exactly is the difference between this and moslems which think that they have the right to kill all unbelievers? They are as convinced of being right as the jews are of being right. Somehow this really makes religion look like the root of all problems.
The original text is here, if you want to read it:

"Tamarin [an Israeli psychologist] presented to more than a thousand Israeli schoolchildren, aged between eight and fourteen, the account of the battle of Jericho in the book of Joshua:
Joshua said to the people, 'Shout; for the LORD has given you the city. And the city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the LORD for destruction...But all silver and gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.'...Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and assess, with the edge of the sword...And they burned the city with fire, and all within it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD.

Tamarin then asked the children a simple moral question: 'Do you think Joshua and the Israelites acted righty or not?' They had to choose between A (total approval), B (partial approval) and C (total disapproval). The results were polarized: 66 per cent gave total approval and 26 per cent gave total dissaproval, with rather fewer (8 per cent) in the middle with partial approval. Here are three typical answers from the total approval (A) group:

In my opinion Joshua and the Sons of Israel acted well, and here are the reasons: God promised them this land, and gave them permission to conquer. If they would not have acted in this manner or killed anyone, then there would be the danger that the Sons of Israel would have assimilated among the Goyim.

In my opinion Joshua was right when he did it, one reason being that God commanded him to exterminate the people so that the tribes of Israel will not be able to assimilate amongst them and learn their bad ways.

Joshua did good because the people who inhabited the land were of a different religion, and when Joshua killed them he wiped their religion from the earth." (pp 255-256)

Continuing on a little further:

"Tamarin ran a fascinating control group in his experiment. A different group of 168 Israeli children were given the same text from the book of Joshua, but with Joshua's own name replaced by 'General Lin' and 'Israel' replaced by 'a Chinese kingdom 3,000 years ago'. Now the experiment gave opposite results. Only 7 per cent approved. In other words, when their loyalty to Judaism was removed from the calculation, the majority of children agreed with the moral judgements that most modern humans would share. Joshua's action was a deed of barbaric genocide. But it all looks different from a religious point of view. And the difference starts early in life. It was religion that made the difference between children condemning genocide and condoning it." (p 257)

After the reading, Dawkins opened up the event to questioning. Some of the questions were merely people relating their own deconversion stories or just thanking Dawkins for coming to Portland. And then there are always a few people whom it seems want to try and impress the rest of us with their superior intellect by cramming as many syllables into a word as possible or quoting from their doctoral thesis. Even Dawkins was confused by a few of their questions and had to ask them to elaborate before finally trying his best to be polite and give an answer that at least was slighty relevant to whatever it was they were attempting to ask. We did not have any theists come up to the mic and try to argue with Dawkins, but that's not too surprising seeing that the NorthWest, and particularly Portland, has one of the largest non-believer percentages in the country.
Click to expand...

Claudia_T · Nov 19, 2006

Cain deserved the sentence of death, but God still spared his life, and granted him opportunity for repentance.

Cain only hardenrf his heart, and he encouraged rebellion against God's divine authority, and to become the head of a line of bold, evil-minded sinners.

Cain tempted others; and his example and influence exerted their demoralizing power, until the earth became so corrupt that it had to be destroyed....

By allowing Cain to live God showed the world what would happen should sinners not be punished and killed.

Severity to a few may prove mercy to many.

Being "kind" to those bent on sin seems to be a kindness but in the end is not. Prov:12:10: the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

billwald · Nov 19, 2006

Because Jusaism evolved into a more civilized religion. The alternative is the Islamic form of justice. Islam did not evolve into a more civilized religion.

xdisciplex · Nov 20, 2006

Were all the evil tribes related to Cain and his offspring?

@ billwald

What do you mean with "evolve"?

BobRyan · Nov 20, 2006

#1 - Where did you get the idea that the city of Jericho is "the Chinese kingdom"??

#2. Israel was a THEOCRACY - that means God was King and God's rules applied. Kinda like heaven is a Theocracy and there aint no Sabbath breakin' going on up there.

The point is that the rules under a National Theocracy are very different than normal national civil laws.

God held his own people to certain standards - but he did not send Israel out to China, or Japan, or Africa or Egypt or America to "kill cannibals".

In Christ,

Bob

billwald · Nov 20, 2006

evolve - common definition - to change over time.

How does anyone propose to eliminate evil? Nuke all the "-Stans?"

dispen4ever · Nov 20, 2006

That's a fascinating discussion, xdx. The short answer is that you must deal with what is in the bible, not make up alternative scenarios and then attack the bible using them as your weapon. God is God, what is written is written. Your purpose is 1) receive Christ as Savior, 2) follow him daily. While I am pleased that you are looking at scripture, I must say that hypothetical manipulation of scripture leads to nowhere. :godisgood:

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