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. I look forward to him/her making a case for his/her belief in the next round. Maybe then my opponent can tell us why his/her belief is justified. First of all, since all I could do in round one was accept, I have a lot of catching up to do. The first thing I have to ask is one of authority and duties. Since the Christian God has no one above Him, how can He violate any rules? What if His moral law is only for us? 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. Notice, I am not claiming His morality is perfect, so I have not violated any rules laid out by my opponent in round one. I am arguing His authority is perfect. 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. First, regarding the commands to exterminate particular populations, these are, indeed, horriffic from a modern-day point of view. Such commands are incompatible with the Christian age. God does not work that way today. The question is whether he ever worked that way, and the answer to this question must be either yes or no. We will look at both possibilities. Suppose that the answer to the question is yes: God did at one time command the extermination of whole groups of people. How could we possibly make sense of this? It would seem that the point of departure for the discussion would be this: All life is a gift from God. 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. 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. What we are discussing, therefore, is whether some of us receive an infinite amount of physical life plus a varying amount of finite physical life as well. In some cases, such as a person who dies one day after conception, the person receives an infinite amount of physical life plus one day. In other cases, as with a person who lives for a century, the individual receives an infinite amount of physical life plus a hundred years. From a mathematical point of view, these two gifts are indistinguishable. Infinity 1 and infinity 36,524 (the number of days in a century) are the same. In both cases, a person is given an unlimited (infinite) amount of life. Further, we are also given non-physical life even in the space between death and resurrection, and that is a gift as well, even if we are not in our bodies at the time. The question, it seems, is thus not how much life we receive, because (a) it is all a gift from God that we do not have a claim to and (b) it is always an unlimited gift, even if there is a temporary period in which we don't have the use of our bodies. Instead, it seems that the question is whether we suffer unjustly in this time. [1]] Sources: 1. . http://jimmyakin.com...