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

Before I begin my rebuttals, let's keep one thing in mind... Despite my opponent's attempts last round to shift the burden of proof, the burden of proof is on HIM. He is the one who is the instigator of this debate, and HE is the one making the positive claim. He could have made.the resolution "God was just..." and taken the Con position. But he did not. He made the resolution "God is unjust" and took the PRO position. So the burden of proof is on him. I do mot have to prove God is not unjust. He.has to prove God IS unjust. I would assert that God's supreme authority gives Him legitimacy in all His actions. Lat round, pro said: "God was unjust in sentencing innocent babies to violent deaths because they were innocent." Our Lord Jesus was sinless too. And yet His death brought salvation to the world. This is evidence that death and suffering can bring about a larger good, an is therefore not unjust. Last round pro said: "Con has completely ignored the challenge I issued when he was responding to it. " Thi is absolutely false. I already answered that question. If God is able to compensate those who suffer and for with an infinitely greater amount of happiness, His actions cannot be said to be unjust. Remember, life is a gift, so we are in no position to claim our gift should be of a certain amount. God is not required to give us life in the first place. And if He has no requirements, He can't be unjust. Last round, pro said: "How does authority justify action? The amount of authority a being possesses and the justification of its actions are two completely separate things." If you have the ultimate authority, then no one has the authority to tell you that you did something wrong (unjust). If one has no responsibilities they cannot do something that violates those non existent responsibilities. Last round, pro said: "[1] The definition of justified once again: Having, done for, or marked by a good or legitimate reason. [2] The definition of arbitrary: not planned or chosen for a particular reason; not based on reason or evidence." That is not accurate. Nowhere in the agreed upon definitions did pro ever offer one for the word "arbitrary". Therefore, I never agreed to that definition, or even the use of the word "arbitrary". And I do not accept it now. It is patently unfair for pro to try to redefine the terms of the debate at this point of the debate. I HOPE THE VOTERS CONSIDER THIS WHEN VOTING ON CONDUCT. Last round, pro said: "I never claimed that God has things he "ought to do." THIS DEBATE IS BASICALLY OVER. Pro just admitted that God doesn't have anything He "ought to do". This is basically a concession that God cannot be unjust. Here's why: If , as pro admits, God has no responsibilities, none of His actions can be unjust. Pro may have preferred God do something else, but remember, having more than one option doesn't make the chosen option unjust. For example, I may have several choices on how I get to work. I could walk, ride my bike, take a bus, or drive my car. Now, if I have a responsibility to get to work by a certain time, and my commute is 30 miles away, it would be unjust for me to walk if I only had an hour to get there. On the other hand, if my boss didn't care when I came in, it would not be unjust for me to walk. One could say that another way is preferable to THEM, but they couldn't say I was wrong/unjust. Maybe I did it for a good reason (exercise). Also remember, my opponent has the burden of proof to show God was unjust since he is the instigator, and has taken the Pro stance. Con said: "As long as God makes sure that I receive more happiness than unhappiness as an innocent then I cannot claim he was being unjust with me, and as long as God compensates the innocent for the sufferings that have come to them in this life then I do not see the grounds for him being fundamentally unjust." Last round pro said: "Unfortunately, this still says NOTHING about God's reason for making people suffer. The fact that God can give people immense happiness after they suffer in an arbitrary decision still says nothing about God's reason to make them suffer in the first place. " Again, I never agreed to the use or definition of "arbitrary", so it is unfair for Pro to try to change the resolution at this point of the debate. This argument of Pro's should be disregarded. Last round pro said: "And if God decided to arbitrarily order the slaughter of an innocent child, the fact that he gives the child immense happiness after he/she suffers has nothing to do with God's reason for making the child suffer in the first place. If a billionaire decided to rape a small child who lives in poverty, but then subsequently give her millions of dollars afterward so that she is actually extremely happy for the rest of her life, that still wouldn't take away the fact that the billionaire had raped her without offering any reason whatsoever." Two things. Again, the definition of "arbitrary" was never agreed upon, so all arguments including such a concept are to be disregarded as unfair. Second, the analogy is not valid. Millions of dollars is not equal to INFINITE happiness. Also, assuming that the babies who died were innocent, their death BROUGHT THEM THEIR SALVATION. This would be a "good" reason to bring about their death. Here's why: Our life here on Earth is temporary, but our soul will live FOREVER in eternity somewhere. Being benevolent, God could end our temporal life here on Earth at a time when we could die in a state of eternal bliss for all eternity. THAT WOULD BE A GOOD REASON FOR GOD TO END THE LIFE OF INNOCENT BABIES. WHAT IF THE COMMAND TO KILL IN THE OLD TESTAMENT WERE NOT LITERAL? If this were true, Then God didn't do the actions described in the Old Testament, and therefore could not be considered unjust for something He didn't do. It thus seems to me that if we make the assumption that God did give the commands to wipe out the Canaanites that this would not prevent him from making it up to the innocent Canaanites who suffered and thus he would not be unjust toward them. But suppose that he didn"t do this. We mentioned earlier the question of whether God ever gave this kind of command, and we said that the answer to this question is either yes or no. To this point, we"ve been considering what if the answer was yes. But what if it was no? In this case the commands found in the Pentateuch concerning the Canaanites would not be meant to be taken in a literal sense. We know that the early history in Scripture contains symbolic elements as well as literal ones, and these commands would then turn out to be symbolic. Presumably, they would symbolize things like the need to be totally separate from pagan culture, of how radically incompatible the pagan lifestyle is with faith in God. On this theory the books of the Pentateuch would have reached their final form some time after the events they describe, and these stories about wiping out the Canaanites (which the Israelites did not actually fulfill; there were still Canaanites living later) were included to teach the later readers how they must reject paganism, and that the original audience was meant to understand the nature of these stories as cautionary tales from which they were to draw a moral lesson (i.e., don"t be pagan; stick with God). If this is the case then God never did command the extermination of the Canaanites and we, because we are not familiar with the way literature was written at this time, tend to take as literal something that was never meant to be literal. (It"s certainly not the first time that"s happened!) It is just that because we live in such a different age and because our literature works so differently that we don"t easily recognize which parts are literal and which are not. It thus seems to me that, either way one goes (assuming that the commands were literal or that they weren"t), a rational account can be offered that shows God was not acting unjustly. [1]