In 1947, Stalin and the Soviet Union had a disagreement with
a city regarding a murder, this started a civil war and the city was demolished
killing 50,000 men and all the women and children. But there were 600 men that
escaped and hid for 4 months. These men now had nowhere to go and were no
longer part of the Soviet Union. They soon realized the best thing to do is to
make amends with Stalin and the Soviet Union so they could once again be part
of the Country.
The men apologized for the war their city had started and
Stalin and the men came to an agreement that they could once again be part of
the Soviet Union. The men were obviously saddened that their families had been
killed and Stalin agreed to help them find women to replace their wives.
Stalin noticed a city
that was not completely on board with communism and because of this sent 12,000
men to kill everyone in the city, including women and children. Stalin said,
"Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a
virgin." His men found 400 hundred young virgins and brought them back.
Stalin then gave the virgins to the men as wives, but there were
not enough women for all of them. The Soviet
Union felt for the men who did not receive a virgin as a wife. So Stalin asked,
"How can we find wives for the few who remain?” There must be heirs so
each man can continue his family’s blood lineage.
Then they realized there is an annual festival where women
go to dance. They told the men who still needed wives "Go and hide in the
vineyards. When the women come out for
their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them
home to be your wife! So the men did as they were told. They kidnapped the women who took part in the
celebration and then returned to their own homes with the women. Now all 600
men had a wife again so they could start a new family.
It is clear and everyone would agree what Stalin did was
extremely evil. To kill a woman’s family and children and then be held hostage
and raped for the rest of their life is not a story with a happy ending like
Stalin likes to make it seem. It is sad that this story is not being taught in
our history classes because if we don’t study history we are doomed to repeat
it.
But what is even more disturbing, is that this is not an
untold story about Stalin and the Soviet Union at all. It is a story found in
Judges Chapter 20 and 21 about the Israelites also known as “God’s chosen
people” who claim to get their morals from God, and is the same God
Christians today claim to get their morals from. This story was not taken out
of context and for anyone who thinks it was, be sure to read it for yourself.
Christians always claim to be morally superior to those who
don’t believe in their God, and even claim people who do not believe in God can’t
have morals! I don’t believe many Christians would condone this behavior or
claim this story to be moral. This is evidence that Christians don’t get their morality
from God, but that they are actually more moral than the deity they claim to
worship. As the late Christopher Hitchens once said, "Human
decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it."
Yeah, the book of Judges is a truly dark page in the History of Ancient Israel. In fact, you can find examples all through the Old Testament of behavior that God did not condone. Including this incident. Please, read it for yourself. You won't find anywhere in this passage or anywhere else in the Bible an indication that God told them to kidnap and rape women.
ReplyDeleteI have seen this argument used with the man who cut his concubine to pieces, with Japheth the judge who consecrated his daughter to God, which can be interpreted as human sacrifice, and other behaviors described in the Old Testament. I have to say honestly that it upsets me that someone who is proposing that he is "reasonable" and objective would use this type of argument. Obviously the Bible contains descriptions of horrid behavior. That does not mean that God has condoned it. This is pure propaganda.
dg 21:23 And the people of Benjamin did so and took their wives, according to their number, from the dancers whom they carried off. Then they went and returned to their inheritance and rebuilt the towns and lived in them.
ReplyDeleteJdg 21:24 And the people of Israel departed from there at that time, every man to his tribe and family, and they went out from there every man to his inheritance.
Jdg 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Verse 25 is the indictment AGAINST Israel in this matter.
Have you read Judges chapters 20 and 21? Because the Israelites are claiming to be communicating with god the whole time.
ReplyDeleteBut the point of this post was to show that morals don't come from religion/god. These were people who claim to be getting their instructions from a moral God, and this God is the same one Christians claim to be moral.
But here are a couple of other verses where God say's its ok to kidnap and rape women. (But of course god is not really saying this because he doesn't exist and only exists in the minds of those who created him or believe what they are told.) Thankfully this God does not exist!
Deuteronomy 20:10-14
As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.
Numbers 31:7-18 NLT
They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.
Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the people went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. "Why have you let all the women live?" he demanded. "These are the very ones who followed Balaam's advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.
Now I'm not religious by any mean and love to debate (more like argue tbf) with xtians but this whole story sounds like bollocks. You haven't given any references at all!!
ReplyDeleteJust to pick out a few bits:
You state "... had a disagreement with a city". Would be nice to actually mention with city!!
"Stalin noticed a city that was not completely on board..." -- again, which city was this one??
"an annual festival"... which one is this??
How do you expect this to be taken seriously!?!? This is as bad as any religious person spouting the bible to justify their point of view... you'll notice that they have no evidence for what they say either
Lurking Gun, Did you read it all to the end? If you did you would have saw that my reference is Judges Chapters 20 and 21 in the Bible. You do realize Stalin never did these things right? I was showing that the God in the Bible did this so people can question the morality of God in the Bible.
ReplyDeleteI think this blog post does a fairly good job of answering some of the questions raised here: http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2009/why-did-god-command-evil-deeds.html
ReplyDeleteThanks Daniel for the comments, and I’m looking forward to talking with you soon. I read the blog post you left, and I see many things wrong with the logic and reasoning.
ReplyDeleteFirst, it is saying God slowly unfolded humane values, but atheists/agnostics don’t have a problem with the speed at which the god character in the Bible unfolded his values – it’s that many of them are evil. And a god that is all-knowing and perfectly moral couldn’t possibly give instructions for such actions. Not only because they are immoral, but because he/it would know that by giving such instructions it would allow his followers to justify slavery for thousands of more years.
(Also, the comment about enlightened people being ok with the even slower unfolding of humane values through Darwinian evolution doesn’t make any sense. The time frame of how fast human values unfolded doesn’t matter. If evolution were true, of course it would take much longer for human values to arise because evolution has nothing to do with human values and only explains the diversity of life.)
Second, he mentions some of the Ten Commandments and says they outline the basic social code. He lists don’t dishonor your parents, don’t kill another human, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t commit adultery, and don’t covet. He doesn’t mention don’t rape, or don’t own another human being because the character in the bible never says this. Instead he thinks it is more important to list don’t work on the sabbath, don’t make graven images, don’t say my name when angry. This seems to me the commandments of ancient and superstitious men who have invented a god rather than the commandments of a moral god capable of creating a universe.
Plus, the commandments that are actually good ones to have were pretty obvious and we could have figure those out on our own (and we did). Many societies had laws similar to those and came up with them without getting them from the 10 commandments.
Also, isn’t it odd that if this god existed, he would break his own commandment, by supposedly killing EVERYONE on earth except for one family! Then on top of that instructing “his chosen” people to slaughter other nations, basically telling them to break his own commandment.
But when you think about it deeper, it makes perfect sense if this god is a delusion of the people. Of course they would think their god LOVES THEM the most and picked THEM as his favorite. When they came up with these 10 commandments (and many others!), it was really only meant to be followed within themselves. Because they didn’t want their own killing their own, but it seems perfectly acceptable if it’s people they don’t know from other nations.
To me, this post is just an example of how far people can go to justify immoral acts just because they want to believe there is a deity looking out for them. It is a comfortable belief to have, and the fear of hell that has been instilled in people makes questioning this ancient belief not worth it to them (which is why it has survived so well over the years and been passed down). Many are happy to live a comfortable lie than face a tough truth.