Well, Whomod, the question you raise is partly a new point, but I answered this earlier in the topic, when addressing other Bible verses listed.

First off, Milosevich is a pretty unquestionably evil guy, who wages war in Bosnia to wipe out all opposition and seize power in the breakaway then-Yugoslavian province of Bosnia.
He murdered men, women and children, and oversaw the orchestrated mass-raping of women, for no other reason than terror and preservation of power.

In contrast, Israel was commanded by God to wipe out an evil civilization that lived in Canaan. God had given the Canaanites centuries to turn away from evil, and had finally resolved to erase their evil influence on the rest of the human race. They were heavily involved in the occult, human sacrifice, drinking of blood and so forth. Evil.
So God commanded the extermination of the Canaanites, and the wiping out of every last artifact and vestige of their culture, to prevent its corruption of the conquering Israelites or others.
It wasn't (as with Milosevich) a choice of one culture to wipe out its rival culture. It was a command from God, to wipe out what, in God's infinite wisdom, was an evil and dangerous civilization.

Second, the verse you quote is not given by you in the full context of the section it was taken from, or in the larger consistent cross-referenced meaning it has with other sections of the Bible that deal with similar issues.

To use one example, the slightly expanded passage of DEUTERONOMY 20:

Quote:



Going to War

1 When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.
2 When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army.
3 He shall say: "Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them.
4 For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory."
5 The officers shall say to the army: "Has anyone built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else may dedicate it.
6 Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it.
7 Has anyone become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else marry her."
8 Then the officers shall add, "Is any man afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his brothers will not become disheartened too."

[ Temporary allowances from military service were given for a variety of reasons. ]

9 When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they shall appoint commanders over it.
10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.

11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.
12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city.
13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.
14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies.
15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance [i.e., Canaan] , do not leave alive anything that breathes.

17 Completely destroy [1] them-the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites-as the LORD your God has commanded you.
18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.



verses taken from:

http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=DEUT+20&language=english&version=NIV

And the entire NIV Bible is available online, at:
http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=NIV&passage=all


Clearly, there is a divinely-led purpose to war in this situation.

But in any case, there is a deeper context than you let on in your excerpted quote, and within that context of being God's chosen people and doing everything by the direct order of God, and out of cultural obedience to God and His laws, these things that sound self-servingly cruel, are actually more lawful and directed toward serving God than they sound when excerpted.
For example, taking women as spoils could simply mean taking them into their household as servants and laborers, not raping them as you imply. Teaching them the ways and service of God within Jewish culture, and having their captives and their descendents become part of Jewish culture, and part of Israel itself.

But in other topics, you've expressed that you're a Christian, and as you say, you've studied the Bible. So surely you already understand this context, without myself or anyone else explaining it to you.

And thirdly, these are ancient times. Treatment of women, slavery and other issues, however harsh and barbaric they seem to us now, were regarded much differently in those times.
It was one of my history professors at Florida Atlantic University, who said that slavery and serfdom was a virtual economic necessity in ancient times, to build cities and civilizations.
The Bible verses you quote, however harsh, were progressive for their time. They establish laws of what is and is not permissible in war with Israel's enemies.

And in an era where we still have mass graves in Bosnia, Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan and elsewhere (and the U.S. genocide of Native Americans is no exception to this, or similar genocides by other cultures in China, Australia, Russia, and Europe over the last 100 years or so) it is highly questionable whether we ourselves in the modern era are so enlightened and civilized that we can call their practices of war and dividing its spoils barbaric.



Quote:

Animalman said:
Sigh...you know, Dave, I tried to be respectful, I tried to be reasonable, I tried to understanding. You clearly would rather just insult me and accuse me of entrenching on your beliefs than actually have an intelligent discussion with me.

I've stated my argument. You've stated yours.



I would suggest you re-read the last few topic pages, at least from pages 21 to this page (27). You will see that I have been incredibly polite, relative to the mud slung at me from multiple angry gay/liberal sources.
In which, seeing others already attacking me, you elected to take a few extra shots at me. With all due respect, you're simply repeating what's already been said. If you re-read even just the last six topic pages, that's not an insult. That's just a pure and simple fact, that all these things have been discussed already in the topic.

And I just answered you at length again in my last post above, at considerable length, but you again ignored my points and strawmanned that I "insulted" you, despite my lengthy and reasoned response.
In summary, from my above post:

Quote:

Dave the Wonder Boy said:
In any case, I've made my points clear:
How gay marriage is in contradiction to the Bible, and millenia of human tradition in every culture.
How gay rights undermines and infringes on religious freedom.
How gays use intimidation to silence and otherwise trash any political opposition to gay rights.

As I (again) already said, I was tolerant of gays, when there was a balance, where gays had a right to live together and work without persecution and even enjoy benefits of living together. Roughly the last 10 or 15 years.

But now "gay marriage" threatens that balance, and forces legalistic legitimacy of the clearly illegitimate concept of gay marriage on the whole of society, which infringes on those who are Christian and of other faiths, who don't buy what is being shoved down our throats.

You can dress it up as many times as you want, but it's still a liberal rationalization that bypasses the truth. We're headed toward a world where gays have rights and Christians don't.



  • from Do Racists have lower IQ's...

    Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.

    EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.