Do all forms of Christianity support genocide?

[Jester]

It came up in another topic that some consider Christians to universally support genocide.

Is this the case, do no Christians support genocide, or is there a mix?

As this is a touchy subject, please careful to remain civil, and provide evidence for your conclusions.

[byofrcs]

It came up in another topic that some consider Christians to universally support genocide.

Is this the case, do no Christians support genocide, or is there a mix?

As this is a touchy subject, please careful to remain civil, and provide evidence for your conclusions.

Genocide is a fairly modern concept which dates from 1948 (it was a term created by Raphael Lemkin in 1943) and I would imagine that most Christians by now would not support Genocide as it is defined (especially where it is illegal to not believe certain forms of Genocide have occurred vis. denial of the Holocaust in Germany and Austria - two nations in which Christianity is institutional).

The Holocaust is relevant because it was following the Holocaust that Lemkin had managed to campaign for the universal acceptance of international laws defining and forbidding genocide. This was achieved in 1948, with the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Christians have a problem in that if their morality comes from God then the word of God, the Bible, summarises this morality. It is inconceivable that there would be a higher morality.

The Old Testament details some events that are clearly genocide by today's standards. The plagues of Egypt are a reasonable example but more telling is in Deuteronomy 20:16-18 (KJ) in which it has,

16 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:

18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.

It doesn't take much imagination to stop at verse 16 and apply that to any theatre of conflict up until, well right now.

If one reads all of Deuteronomy then the humanist in you quickly realises what a foul set of proscriptions it is and it is inconceivable that such a document could form the basis of any reasonable law. And yet it forms the basis of that in which people, even today, swear oaths. That is the anathema.

Up until last year blasphemy was still illegal in the UK. It was a criminal offence i.e. not a civil matter, but one which in the past would have resulted in a prison sentence, a fine or corporal punishment (hard labour, flogging, branding etc).

I would say that it has always been a chilling effect on the behaviour of any free thinker and in part I suspect this is why it took until modern times when the sheer weight of humanism made conviction for blasphemy difficult, that people started to consider that ethics can come from man rather than God. I suspect it also took the sheer mechanised slaughter of the 1st World War, in effect a war in Europe between Christian nations, for people to question current morality.
It certainly took the World War 2 deaths to even define Genocide and it has taken up until a few months ago that the International Criminal Court, which specialises in these crimes, to have its first trial (of the Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga).

So in just one twentieth of the time, Humanism is correcting the folly of many centuries of Christianity but until all nations in the world subscribe to these modern instruments of humanism there will always be one nation who, "shalt utterly destroy" the others without or within.

[Greatest I Am]

byofrcs

Well said.

Now if only Christians could stop thinking that genocide is justice.

Regards
DL

[Jester]

I neither support genocide nor a god that does. My understanding of God is clearly different than your own. As such, the God I believe in doesn't support many of the things than the God you seem to be envisioning.

If not the Jesus/God the which one?

An understanding of the "Jesus/God" that is very different from your own. What name you give to it is not terribly relevant, in my view.

[Greatest I Am]

I neither support genocide nor a god that does. My understanding of God is clearly different than your own. As such, the God I believe in doesn't support many of the things than the God you seem to be envisioning.

If not the Jesus/God the which one?

An understanding of the "Jesus/God" that is very different from your own. What name you give to it is not terribly relevant, in my view.

You do not believe in the God of Noah or the God of Sodom and the old testament?

Your version does not kill men?

Regards
DL

[Tahir]

Since God-believers believe that every death is ordained by God, this is a sort of pointless debate. What is the difference between God causing someone to die due to cellular disintegration, a natural disaster, or ordering one tribe to wipe out another? Death is death.

[Greatest I Am]

Since God-believers believe that every death is ordained by God, this is a sort of pointless debate. What is the difference between God causing someone to die due to cellular disintegration, a natural disaster, or ordering one tribe to wipe out another? Death is death.

Hmm.

So if your son dies of a disease it is the same as if someone comes to your home and murders him, is it?

I think not. I would want retribution against the murderer. Not against a virus that has no sense of doing evil.

Regards
DL

[Jester]

You do not believe in the God of Noah or the God of Sodom and the old testament?

Your version does not kill men?

My version ensures that the spirits of men never die. I believe I have already mentioned this.

I believe that it is a naturalist perspective, which claims that all ethics are social constructions, that would be most useful in justifying genocide. One could very easily apply Darwinist thinking to the concept. This has, in fact, been done before.

This is not to say that I believe that more than a very few atheists support such horrific ideas, but I do think it is a relevant point when considering the relative effects of religion and non-religion on the subject of genocide.

[Greatest I Am]

You do not believe in the God of Noah or the God of Sodom and the old testament?

Your version does not kill men?

My version ensures that the spirits of men never die. I believe I have already mentioned this.

I believe that it is a naturalist perspective, which claims that all ethics are social constructions, that would be most useful in justifying genocide. One could very easily apply Darwinist thinking to the concept. This has, in fact, been done before.

This is not to say that I believe that more than a very few atheists support such horrific ideas, but I do think it is a relevant point when considering the relative effects of religion and non-religion on the subject of genocide.

Answer my question above and we can move on.

Regards
DL

[Jester]

Answer my question above and we can move on.

That last answer may have been unclear at that. Let me be more explicit, then:

My version ensures that the spirits of men never die.

This is to say "no, I do not believe that God murders". To murder, one is seeking to destroy a person. To murder while ensuring the victim's continued existence is a paradox.

Now that we can move on:

I believe that it is a naturalist perspective, which claims that all ethics are social constructions, that would be most useful in justifying genocide. One could very easily apply Darwinist thinking to the concept. This has, in fact, been done before.

This is not to say that I believe that more than a very few atheists support such horrific ideas, but I do think it is a relevant point when considering the relative effects of religion and non-religion on the subject of genocide.

This is also a very significant point. The fact that you don't seem interested in it does not mean that it is not relevant to the topic, or worth attention. It, too, is a clear and specific response to your general stance on this topic.

[byofrcs]

You do not believe in the God of Noah or the God of Sodom and the old testament?

Your version does not kill men?

My version ensures that the spirits of men never die. I believe I have already mentioned this.

I believe that it is a naturalist perspective, which claims that all ethics are social constructions, that would be most useful in justifying genocide. One could very easily apply Darwinist thinking to the concept. This has, in fact, been done before.

If it is a "fact" then you will have no problems supporting this claim then will you ?

Cite or retract.

This is not to say that I believe that more than a very few atheists support such horrific ideas, but I do think it is a relevant point when considering the relative effects of religion and non-religion on the subject of genocide.

And what exactly does that say ? It's waffle. The OP is about Christianity not atheism.