Is the Bible hate speech, does it preach genocide?
The Christian God is a God that teaches genocide.
I have a native professor at university that is finishing up on a book with a similar title. He examines the bible and shows all of the verse which advocate actions that conflict with what the commonly held definiton of genocide is. I am not sure exactly which verses he is choosing to use but I found a site with a ton of quotes from the Bible that are promoting hate. I know what kind of thread this is going to end up being like, but I'm hoping that there is going to be some level discussion going at some point. I just want to show some of the quotes and see what you guys think. Is it promoting hate or genocide? How does verses like this conflict with the image that Christians have of themselves?
"I saw that the people were marrying foreigners. Their children were even learning foreign languages. I called down curses on them. I struck them and tore the hair out of their heads and made them swear by god, 'you will not marry foreigners.'" Neh. 13:23 "So I purged them of everything foreign. I drew up regulations defining everyone's duty. Remember me, oh god, for my happiness." Neh. 13:30
"They waged war as god had commanded them and killed every male. But they kept the women as captives and took their wealth as spoil. Moses was enraged. 'So you spared the women? Kill every woman who has had sexual intercourse and kill every little boy, but keep the virgin girls for yourself. Divide them up evenly.'" Num. 31:7, 14
"You must drive all the natives of the land before you. If you do not drive the natives of the country before you then those who remain will become disgusting to your eyes and a thorn in your side. They will harass you in the land where you live, and I will deal with you as I meant to deal with them." Num. 33:51 "Devour the nations the lord your god delivers over to you. Show them no pity."
"Slaves you may possess, but make sure they are foreigners. You may also make slaves of the natives who dwell among you and from their children who are born and reared in your land. You may own them as chattels and leave them to your sons as their heriditary property, making them slaves forever. But you should not lord it over your own countryman, your own kinsmen." Lev. 25:44
Mere words will not keep a slave in order. He may understand, but he will not respond. Pamper a slave and he will be ungrateful. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of a fool." Proverbs "When a man beats a slave so hard that he dies in a day or two, he shall not be punished, for the slave is his property." Ex. 21:20
The list goes on and on...
What do you guys think? Is the Bible is hate literature?
Did you check out the link? Theres a ton this stuff in there, and I know that my professor meantioned quotes and passages not listed on that site too. If I remember anything else he said I will try post it.
Well... I mean yes, the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is chock-a-block full of very unpleasant stuff, that's very simple to see.
I don't think it does to get bogged down in that, though. All that should do is remind you to run a mile when you meet someone who takes a Holy Book literally.
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T-C, if you have followed some posts in the other religious-tinted threads, you'll see that people also pointed out to some monstrosities as killing (perhaps even genocide?), rape, torture, etc.
I will also post here Article II of the UN Genocide Convention:
ARTICLE II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:
a. Killing members of the group;
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
I know... part of the motivation for starting this was discussion in other threads. I thought that it should be made its own thread where the question is more clear, is the Christian God one that tells its people to commit genocide? I think the answer is yes, according to thier own book their God commands it. I want to know if I am missing something here or do Christians support genocide given the right religious reasons? If there are any good quotes from threads in this forum that aren't somehow covered by the list of quotes in the original post, feel free to post them.
I understand that he has biases, we all do. But, still in this country, a pre-contact population of from 12 to 20 million indigenous human beings was reduced to 200 thousand by 1920. Their actions were glaring examples of behavior that falls under the definition of genocide. Are you familiar with the massacre of wounded knee? The US Army shot and killed unarmed, unsuspecting men, women, children, and the elderly. Very few people wil dissagree with the fact that Wounded Knee was genocide. What I am asking you, as someone who does not have a native bias is, "Is the Christian God a genocidal one?" I think that the Christians have been historically more violent than most religions. I think a lot of violence is caused by people who instead of understanding the point of Christianity choose to search the Bible for verses that justify such things as killing natives in America, but when those verses are so blantly obvious to me as being hate speech how do I know what the real meassage of Christianity is? Chirstians wrote that but it sounds like Nazis. Instead of viewing this with a Euro-American bias, try to look at this again critically and tell me what you think. Personally I think the natives' distrust and in certain situations, hatred of Christians is well justified based upon their historical realtionship of oppressor vs. the oppressed.
Yes, and I also know about the land reserves etc and it is far fetched at best to say that this stuff was done for religious reasons! Think of the land man!
Bear in mind this professor may be hostile to you for visible reasons rather than speculative religious ones.
My professor is not hostile towards me for visible reasons, or otherwise.
I think that there were other reasons for the Europeans to invade the Americas other than religion. However, religion was used to justify a lot of senseless violence. Are you familiar with the Massacre of Wounded Knee?
Thier land was stolen from them. Just because they have a few reservations left does not make the fact that we took the rest of their land away any easier for them to accept.
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Ytaker agreed with me once on October 9th, 2004
Last edited by Turbo-Cajun on Oct 10th, 2004 at 05:42 PM
A good part of it (not Wounded Knee specifically, just the situation with the american indians in general) was justified by religion. A teacher I had a few years ago put it well--many of these people believed that it was their duty as Christians to convert the rest of the world (still do, actually) to their religion. And if the people could not be converted, they believed they had the right to kill them in order to prevent the spreading of pagan religions. So yes, the primary purpose WAS expansion, but I think that if you had asked them, they might have justified it at least partially through religion. Besides which, the things they did to the native people were not things that were justified by expansion. We now have a huge piece of land to live on, and here we are trashing it.
Interesting stuff. I don't think most Christians take the Bible that literally, but I know that there have been many Christians in the past who have done horrible things to other ethnic groups. And now nobody can give us any of that "they weren't really Christians" crap, because it says this stuff in the Bible.
Shaber, do you read my posts even? Do you know what this thread is about?
I agree that we had other reasons for colonizing the Americas.
You said this earlier and I agreed with you. But the question I am asking is does the Bible promote actions that are considered genocidal? I say yes. There is evidence of Christians committing genocide. Maybe the wounded knee isn't the best example I could have used. It shows that Genocide was committed. It does not exactly prove my point yet though. For that I probably need to show you another example
Now, from his base on Haiti, Columbus sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields, but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those five hundred, two hundred died en route. The rest arrived alive in Spain and were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town, who reported that, although the slaves were "naked as the day they were born," they showed "no more embarrassment than animals." Columbus later wrote: "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."source
Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold?
What does that statment mean to you? Is that okay because we own all their land now?
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Ytaker agreed with me once on October 9th, 2004
Last edited by Turbo-Cajun on Oct 10th, 2004 at 06:03 PM
Mexico was settled by Spaniards, not Anglos. They had a different view on the native population. In America they wanted the native dead, because the white people wanted the land. In Mexico the Spaniards wanted the gold, not the land. They had thier own country and they needed people to bring them the gold. So the indigenous were useful to them. They also tried saving their souls by bringing Catholicism, in America people who advocated teaching natives religion and assimulating them into society were proggressives... people way out on the edge of racial tolerance.
Many Christians thought that way--no doubting that. But the New Testimant says that if someone isn't receptive to your teachings, you should knock the dust off your boots and move on (or something like that--don't have my Bible with me), so Jesus himself clearly didn't teach that sort of convert-or-die mentality--it's a Christian thing, not a Jesus thing.
__________________ "Men curse the Communist Party, but eventually it may release them. If hell were endless, then God would be worse than our Secret Police."--Pastor Valentin
I guess I can understand what you are saying... I've read that passage before too. But if you guys don't agree with stuff like that why do you have it in your holy book?
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Ytaker agreed with me once on October 9th, 2004
Oct 10th, 2004 06:57 AM
not religion. Without it we wouldn't have had Canada or Australia either.
