The Christian God was not justified in instrumenting mass-killings in the Old Testament.

So far, all my opponent has done is recap stories from the Old Testament without telling us why he/she believes those actions to be unjust. " You are completely wrong here. Here is just one example of my arguments against the justifiability of the instances: "that still doesn't give God any good reason to kill innocent children, infants, and animals. Since he is supposedly omnipotent, he could have done literally anything else that would have resulted in no innocent bloodshed (allowing Israel to adopt the children and animals, God taking care of the children and guiding them himself, sending the children and animals to another nation, etc. ). " I'm unsure about whether you actually thought that I didn't put up any arguments, or whether you were flat out lying to try to sway voters' opinions. But if you take the time to read my argument, you will know that I did argue against the justifiability multiple times. " I would argue that since He is the ultimate authority, every action He takes justified if only because of His authority. He can do whatever He wants, and his authority justifies His actions. " This is commonly referred to as Divine Command Theory. This theory argues that since God is the most powerful being, this justifies any action he could take including torture, rape, infanticide, etc. In other words, the theory claims that "might makes right. " It seems pretty obvious that the possession of power does not make you correct or justified whatsoever. For example, suppose that in another possible universe, there exists an extremely powerful consciousness that can be considered God. The consciousness is immaterial and the most powerful being in that universe, being able to create anything he desires. Suppose that some time, he decides to create millions of complex life forms. But instead of giving them education, families, or a life that would resemble ours on Earth, he decides to strap them down and torture them for all of eternity. In fact, he decides to make them feel the most incredibly powerful pain that he can, non-stop, and continuing forever. In this instance, he would be the ultimate authority and under what logic you have suggested, would be completely justified in his actions. Using Con's logic, we could justify any immoral action as long as the action in question is committed by the highest authority in the universe. So because of this, I have to assume that Con would think God would be justified in doing anything. If God were to materialize as a human and then subsequently rape and torture babies for several months before ending there lives and only for his sadistic satisfaction, Con would be forced to say it was justified because God is the most powerful being. I challenge Con to answer whether or not he would think that God creating babies to be raped and tortured by him and then having their existences ended immediately after would be justified. Thankfully, we don't have to say that God raping and torturing babies would be justified because the logic is flawed. Consider the following logical proof of this theory: Premise 1: God is the most powerful authority in all of the universe Conclusion: Therefore, God is justified in taking any action he could desire This proof is flawed because God being the most powerful being in the universe does not in any way justify any heinous acts he could commit (baby rape, torture, infanticide, etc. ) There is no valid logic that could lead to the conclusion. Being the most powerful authority at any given time does not imply that any act you could commit is justified. The justification of a being's actions is completely independent from the amount of power it possesses. "Next, let me see about answering your questions. I hope you'll bear with me as I lay some principles that will become relevant later in the discussion. I want to give you as thorough an answer as I can. " I'd like to inform the readers that the rest of the paragraphs that Con puts up from this point onward are all completely copied and pasted from his source. None of it is original whatsoever. It seems intellectually dishonest that he didn't put quotation marks around the rest of these paragraphs because many people would assume that those are his original words and that he was paraphrasing. Con wrote the first two paragraphs in his argument, but all of the rest are completely copied without quotation marks. So from this point onward in my argument, I am refuting the arguments of Jimmy Akin and not my opponent's. You can see exactly what Con copied in his source and here: . http://jimmyakin.com... This would not have been a problem if Con had put quotation marks around what he copied. "Because all life is a gift from God, it is up to God to determine how much of that gift we receive. Whether he gives us a day or a century, it is his gift to give, and because it is a gift, it is not something we are owed. We therefore cannot claim that God is being unfair if he gives us one amount of this gift rather than another. " So from what I can understand from Jimmy Akin's argument, he is saying that God owns our lives and has property rights over them while we don't. He is saying that since we are God's property, he can do anything he wants with us, including take away our lives. Since Jimmy Akin thinks that God has property rights over us, I wonder if he also thinks that God has the right to rape, torture, kill, and psychologically torture innocent people for God's sadistic pleasure. I wonder how much he would justify. In addition to this, it seems like Akin views our relationship to god almost like a slave-master relationship. He thinks we are God's property and that God can do whatever he wants with his property (this is an identical argument people used for slavery. ) Keith Parsons puts this logic in an illuminating light: "It strikes me as monstrous to suggest that God would have the right to do anything whatsoever to us. What would give him that right? Surely not his omnipotence, since might does not make right. Is it the alleged fact that God created us? Suppose I were to create a race of sentient androids, fully as capable of suffering as humans. Would I then have the right to inflict capricious cruelty upon them? If Dr. Craig insists that I would, he must be moving in a moral universe that does not intersect my own. " [1] -Keith Parsons in response to William Craig I argue that God would not have any right whatsoever to kill what he created without a valid reason. Once he creates their lives, although it is a noble thing to do, those people's lives are not his to inflict cruelty on. Regardless of whether you created the life or not, you do not have the right to do whatever you want with another person's life. To do so and to take away happiness from that person is not justified whatsoever. Again, God does not have the right to rape and torture babies just because he created those babies. God should be subject to the exact same moral laws as us and not above his own moral law. And furthermore, this so called gift of life comes at absolutely no cost to God. Whereas most gifts come at some sort of sacrifice from the giver, God does not make any sacrifice in order to give this gift. So he has no reason to take this gift away unless someone is reducing the sum total of happiness. If God was morally perfect, then he would choose actions that maximize the sum total of happiness instead of unjust actions that punish innocent babies for the crimes of others. "In fact, he gives all of us an infinite amount of this gift because, once we are created, we will endure forever. After the resurrection, we will all (every one of us) have an infinite amount of physical life ahead of us. " I wouldn't call an infinite life of being tortured in Hell a gift whatsoever. And that seems to be where the Amalekites would have gone to since they didn't worship Yahweh specifically. God kills them mostly because they didn't worship him and then resurrects them to be tortured in Hell because they didn't worship him. Eternal torture is the most unjust act one could commit. "Instead, it seems that the question is whether we suffer unjustly in this time. [1]]" 2 Samuel chapter 12. David commits adultery with Bathsheba and gets her pregnant, and then sends Bathsheba's husband to the front lines of war to die. So to punish David, God told David's son to rape pregnant Bathsheba in front of David and many Israelites, and then God killed Bathsheba and David's baby with a disease. "Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. The LORD struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it was very sick. On the seventh day, that the child died. " [2] If making a baby suffer horribly for seven whole days before killing it isn't unjust suffering, then I have no idea what would qualify as unjust suffering to you. In Conclusion: I hope I have shown that A) God's possession of power does not make any action he could take justified. B) God does not own property rights over our lives with which he can do anything he wants like the torture of innocent babies. C) God caused horrible and unjust suffering by sentencing innocent babies to violent deaths by the hands of the Israelites in numerous genocides. Imagine how much having your throat slit or a sword thrust through you by an Israelite would hurt. And then imagine God commanding that to be done to an innocent baby. Sources: [1] . http://www.patheos.com... [2] . http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com...