God punished us for the sins of our ancestors.

Resolved: God punishes descendants for the sins of ancestors. God: the Christian god. In this debate I will accept that god is real, that being is a personal god and a judge for all of us. As the only reference for god’s word and actions is the bible (you may choose the version, but please make it an English translation) we must accept this as a valid source. I will hold the burden of proof that god does in fact punish people for the misdeeds of the long since dead. Your will need to show how I am wrong. Structure: 1. Acceptance, Pros opening argument and Cons rebuttal/ opening argument. 2. Rebuttal 3. Final Statements (interpret this freely) I thank anyone who decides to take up this challenge. I am very curious to see what will come of a good debate on this topic. Definitive proof? “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.” -Exodus 20:5-6 “Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” -Exodus 34:5-7 “The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” -Numbers 14:18 “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam” -Romans 5: 13-14 “Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite, and his seed.” -Jeremiah 29:32 I believe I have made it clear that throughout the bible god admits to, and is said to act as though, he punishes generations following for the sins of the previous. This is as good as a confession of the resolution of this debate. A case of semantics: One could make the case that it’s not that we inherit our ancestor’s punishment, we inherit their sins and for those sins we are punished. But if we take into account that god made man as it says in Genesis, then he also made it so that we could inherit the actual sins themselves, a hereditary curse. Thus we can actually follow our entire lineage of sin and punishment to the original sin of Adam and Eve, since like them every generation, by design, inherits the aptitude for sin which was apparently built into them. Paul (Saul of Tarsus) who is, as some would argue, the founding father of the Christian popularity movement even exclaims this truth. This point alone should be enough to prove my point. God himself admits to the act. Canon of Canaan Noah, a descendant of the first man Adam, was the “most righteous man on earth” " and was chosen by god for his mission (Genesis 7:1) (Ezekiel 14:14) (Genesis 6:9) (2 Peter 2:5) (Hebrews 11:7). God’s initial flaw in humanity, inheritance of sin across generations and thus permanent hereditary punishment, had by now spread through the generations and created a hostile environment and corrupt earth. Noah was instructed to build an ark to house the last of humanity (Noah’s family) and 2 of each creature. He then flooded the earth, killing every living creature he deemed was corrupted by his initial flaw, as well as other beasts, in favor of the few he saw as fitting to repopulate the earth. This is the well known, even by children, story of Noah’s Ark. What happened afterwards? Many interpretations Noah’s post flood story exists, but all of them end the same way. In case anyone is unfamiliar with I will point out a few of these interpretations since it may have relevance to god’s actions. I will leave that up to you (both Con and readers). Noah was extremely drunk off wine and was in his tent, this is where the interpretations diverge. One interpretation is that Ham sodomized Noah taking advantage of him in his drunken state, this I believe was Samuels deduction based on another biblical incident in which the phrase "and he saw" indicated copulation. Another (which I personally find to be more likely) is that Ham saw Noah having sex with his wife, and “seeing the nakedness of a man” is thought to be a common Hebrew expression describing that event. Another is that Ham castrated Noah this is inferred from the fact that Noah had no children after the flood, therefore being deprived of a fourth son. This is a deduction based on the actions Noah took, cursing Hams 4th son Cannan. In the end of the story god in his omniscience, knowingly chose a man that would intentionally curse\ punish his own grandson (Canaan), and his descendants in perpetuity, for the “sin” of the father (Noah’s son) Ham. It is only with god’s assistance that the curse would be in effect as Noah gets his abilities, much like Moses, from the blessing of god.