Double Standard 2

Deuteronomy 13:12-16 "If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt."

Now, I know what you're thinking. "It's the Old Testament, Jesus came to reform it and change things up a little"
Yeah, well... Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets (Old Testament). I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

Christianity, Islam, Judaism, they are all just different flavors of the same desert cult which can be spread only through violence, coercion, fear-mongering and treachery. In don't care if this offends anyone, it's 100%, raw, unfiltered Truth.

It clearly says what it means, who is it reffering to and to whom it applies. You can't bail out with the "out of context" excuse christians love to use.

"It's the Old Testament, Jesus came to reform it and change things up a little." is another excuse I've seen christians use numerous times to debunk the inconvenient verses from the OT. I am legit surprised you didn't say that.

Yes, it is not my time to understand a book filled with contradictions, atrocities, Jewish supremacism and plagiarized (and often perverted) stories and proverbs which was and effective mind-cpntrol tool from the moment christianity started occupying Europe and the rest of the world from there.

And lastly, who is the passage in Deut reffering to? It says clearly who it refers to ('troublemakers' saying "Let us go and worship other gods", or in other words, anyone who doesn't worship Yahweh) and what to do to those people (put them all to the sword, destroy their town, burn it with all the plunder in it as a burnt offering, or a sacrifice, to Yahweh, and never rebuild the said town).

I see you've done your research. You have my respect for that.

I'll admit my fault regarding the Deut verse. I argued my point poorly. But that does not make me (entirely) wrong. You've shown what are the Israelites willing to do to their own people for worshipping other gods, so you can only imagine what they would be willing to do to other nations. That, of course, is not enough, so, let's take a look in the Old Testament:
Deuteronomy 7:1-6 "When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession."
And this is one of many passages in Deuteronomy alone saying that Israelites should utterly massacre the inhabitants of the land they'll possess and destroy their culture and places of worship.
For other nations, Deuteronomy 20:10-15 "When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 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. 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." The first verse of the chapter says "When you go to war against your enemies...", implying it can be an invasive war.

Reached the limit,tbc.

Sorry for the late reply. Been busy. I'll get to the point.

You may argue that the 'many nations' deserved to be massacred because their gods were demonic and required monstrous practices. This is hypocritical, however, because:
1. Yahweh was worshipped by the many nations (namely the Canaanites), and was a volcanic God related to metallurgy (hence why the OT often describes him in the terms of fire, rage and burning), similar to the Greek Hephaestus or Roman Vulcan.
2. Yahweh also required a horrifying practice: circumcision. Sure, it's better to cut you baby son's foreskin off than to burn him alive in the statue of Moloch, but circumcision is still very horrifying and it has medically been proven to cause significant trauma and permanent alterations to the brain (pic related). And Yahweh requires circumcision at as young age as only 8 days in Gen 17:12.
Secondly, not all gods were evil. Asherah, the mother godess of Canaan, is a good example. Yeah, the worshippers of Asherah practiced the so-called "sacred prostitution", but what is better: to have sex in the name of Asherah and Baal, or to cut your baby's foreskin off?
And Yahweh specifically asked for Asherah poles to be burnt down many times in Deut. This resulted in a lack of feminine figure in Abrahamic religions (where Christianity got a little better off with it's Virgin Mary, but not that much), which caused quite a few other problems, but that's a story for another days and irrelevant to our discussion. Back to the topic at hand.

Here's another passage I found. 2 Chronicles 15:13 "That whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman."
I had a dilemma as to whether to mention this passage or not, since 2 Chronicles is a historical book, not a part of the Pentateuch. In the end, I decided to include it because the rest of the chapter says that Asa gathered all of Judah and Benjamin, as well as the strangers from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon, and they have asworn with all their heart and soul, with loud voice, shouting, trumpets and cornets. An oath to which all of Judah rejoiced.

And after all this, I'd say that only one argument remains: "This all may be true, but these are the laws God gave to Israelites, not Christians". This is a very good argument, but also one which creates a great problem/incosistency. Which parts of the OT apply to Christians, and which do not, and why?

Reached the limit...again. To be continued...

You know that true Muslims are called to "kill the infidels". If they do not practice that belief, they are not following their law. When a Christian persecutes or kills another Christian, they are not following their laws. I would be interested to hear what you have to say about the Christians persecuting others though because I research a lot about the history of Christianity.

I agree with you on the first part, but there are believers out there. The whole point of God sending Jesus down to earth. God knew that we were not a perfect people so he had Jesus die for our sins so that one day we could be one with him and that we would not enter Hades.

I'm certainly not offended, I am actually quite happy to discuss matters like these (I certainly wouldn't get a degree in debating lol). I do have a question. Because you are stating that Christians are murderers, wouldn't you be justifying your own set of beliefs? From my standpoint, it goes both ways.

You may argue that no part of the OT nor the NT apply to any Gentiles (non-Jews), as Jesus clearly said in Matthew 15:24 that he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, and later makes the analogy that "It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” making this entire discussion that much more complicated. Because, according to that passage, non-Israelite Christians are hypocrites just by being Christians at all, let alone by doing anything in the name of Christianity. But they are also not hypocrites because salvation is for everyone who believes (first the Jew, then the Gentile) according to Romans 1:16, and that there is netiher Jew nor Gentile, according to Galatians 3:28. It's very hard to take seriously a book with so many inconsistencies and flat-out contradictions.

Conclusion: Do christians act in opposition to what they believe when they kill unbelievers? I don't have a f**king clue. The OT clearly has nothing against killing unbelievers, and the NT does very little, if anything, about that. But the Bible is such an incosistent, self-contradicting collection of books that studying it at all makes little sense.

I commend you knowing your facts!

Although, I may be able to explain how the Bible is not inconsistent.

If you could rephrase these inconsistencies, I could probs answer them.

Well, there's one I've already mentioned: the egalitarianism of Galatians 3:28 and the non-egalitarianism (and straight up jewish supremacy/zionism) of Matthew 15:24 and Romans 1:16)

Another one: Family values of 1 Timothy 5:8 and anti-family values of Luke 14:26 and Matthew 10:34-36

There's a very thorough list I've discovered a long time ago here: https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/contradictions.html

Hello Powermetal: I totally understand why you would find the family values in the new testament inconsistent, but there is an answer to what these verses mean. Timothy 5:8 and Luke 14:26 explain what Christians need to do for their families throughout the years. What I'd like to point out first is that these two verses are what God and Jesus are telling the people. In Matthew 10:34-39, Jesus is not calling the people to do anything, instead, he is preparing the people for what He is going to do. This verse is referencing back to Micah 7:6, where the prophet Micah is proclaiming the coming of Jesus. As we fast-forward back to Mathew 10, Jesus is telling his disciples that he is coming back, and when he comes back, he is turning the unbelievers against themselves. Because in the coming times, Revelation states that many Christians and Jews after the rapture, would be persecuted, hunted, and killed before the second coming.

I will have to get back to you on egalitarianism because I know very little about this. I enjoy debating and would be happy to try and find an explanation to that if possible. I will also most definitely check out the cite you have shown me. This has given me a spark of interest.

Timber: It will not let me reply to you directly, but I would like to try and make a solid point tomorrow if you are willing to listen.