The Joshua statement, "...but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." is anti-Christian.

"As with most modern students of the Bible, Con is making the mistake that one of the components of the crime of murder is time. What these modern students of the Bible think is that today the crime of murder is wrong even if committed under the guise of religion. But in Joshua's time the Bible students think that the crime of murder committed under the guise of religion was justifiable homicide. The question is-" First of all, this representation of my argument is completely misconstrued. No where did I say that "time" was a factor in determining the morality of killing. I said that the covenants of God give us direction into these matters, and that is a much more important. Furthermore, modern students of the Bible would not say that time matters when it comes to the nature of killing. In fact, the more liberal scholars influenced by postmodernism (even the atheists) would say any murder done under the guise of religion or in the name of God is wrong. But that is exactly what Pro is saying. He is taking the side of the postmodernists and liberals by assuming that our own cultural context is to be the judge of what the Bible says. His position is modern because he uses an eisegetical method of reading the Bible (which means that he shapes the Bible by his own opinions and preferences) instead of an exegetical method (which means that the Bible shapes our opinions and understanding). Now, I would like to address Pro's use of "guise of religion." First, there is a difference between doing something under the guise of religion and doing something because God has commanded it. Indeed, we can both agree that just because someone SAYS they are doing it in the name of God does not mean that they actually are. However, in the case of Joshua, we have no reason to believe that he was not commissioned by God and not commanded to take the land by force (see my argument above). On this point, I would like to make one final comment. Pro builds a wonderful stawman when he says "the Bible students think that the crime of murder committed under the guise of religion was justifiable homicide." The Bible students do not think it was the crime of murder, so to say that we do is badly misrepresenting us. Also, as noted above, we do not think that just because something done under the guise of religion that makes it automatically justified. Nor do we think it was "murder" or "homicide" ("Justifiable homicide" is an oxymoron). Indeed, if God commanded it to be done, then it would be morally right to do so and therefore not murder or homicide. "Why do the Bible students think that time is a component of the crime of murder? Answer: It is because the Bible students have attended Sunday/Saturday school." This is just fluff. It does not matter where someone learned something. What matters is if what they learned was true. And, by the way, I have learned only a very small amount about God and the Bible in a Sunday school class. This statement by Con is therefore irrelevant and not an issue for this debate. "If for instance, Con had never heard of the Bible then Con would accept the fact that there is no statute of limitations for the crime of murder. That Joshua is just like everyone else. That Joshua was and is subject to the LAW. And that we can convict Joshua for murder anytime we want to. Because Joshua is guilty and there is no statute of limitations that will get him off no matter what the Bible students think." Actually, there are statutes of limitation to murder, even in the United States. For instance, the U.S. law makes a distinction between murder and manslaughter. More philosophically speaking, there must be limitations to what constitutes murder, for if there are no limitations, then eating pie could be considered murder. To know what murder is, we need the definition of murder, and that definition limits murder to only to what the definition says murder is. To say that Joshua is subject to the law requires a question: what law? The United States law? Well, that did not exist in his time nor did any current legal system that exists today. The only type of law that both us and Joshua could be subject to is a transcendent law that time has no hold on, i.e. the law of God. So we must look at Joshua in light of the what God has commanded in his law. That is the only law that we could rightly hold up to Joshua. Of course, we could put Joshua on trial against modern legal systems. But, that does not necessarily mean he was wrong in what he did. For the law of man can go against the law of God. If God told Joshua to take the land by force, he for sure would be charged with crimes by our own systems. But God would not find fault with him. All of that said, Pro basically conceded to all of my arguments and resorted to fallacious reasoning (I believe I counted a total of 4 or 5) to argue against me. In the last round, he dropped all of his arguments and turned to how "modern students of the Bible" interpret Scripture. But this has nothing to do with the debate. Pro has failed to show that he was right, and conceded to all of my arguments. Therefore, I urge the voters to vote Con. Thank you.