There are good reasons to believe that God did not order the genocide of the Canaanites.

Thanks to Con for his response. However, I find his accusation of 'trolling' a bit perplexing and his response remarkably weak as it doesn't really deal with the issue(s) at hand. (1) What the Bible saysCon misses the point by saying that by me just quoting the verses I have hamstrung myself. Because 1) I'm granting, for the sake of argument, that the conquests happened in the bible as depicted 2) Conceding that the conquest happened for the sake of argument is not the same as conceding that God ordered it. I have no doubt the author(s) believed that God ordered them to commit genocide; I just think they mistakenly attributed and projected their own viscous and genocidal attitudes onto God, as a perfectly good God would never order such heinous moral atrocities. And I supplied reasons as to why a perfectly good God wouldn't order genocide; those reasons in and of themselves constitutes strong reasons to think that the Israelite God did not order genocide. Con does not just get to assert the the truth of his position by denying my position by fiat and appealing to his own idiosyncratic understanding of the divine inspiration of the bible.(2) Who inspired the BibleThis debate really isn't about inspiration in the first place. This is about Con coming up with some good reasons why God allegedly ordered genocide (and what do you know - the Bible offers some reasons!). But I will make some brief remarks. I'll be charitable and assume that Con holds on to a specific view of biblical inspiration that is typical among more conservative Christians (in North America at least). Probably something like verbal plenary theory (which, incidentally, necessitates inerrancy). [1] It's all well and good that Con believes this theory of inspiration although I believe it to be utterly mistaken for various reasons including it's commitment to inerrancy but Con is not allowed to just assume it is the correct theory of inspiration. Con can argue for it's truth, but just posting proof texts of verses than can be understood different ways depending on which theory of divine inspiration one holds to won't cut it. Speaking for myself, I hold to a theory of divine inspiration that does not necessitate that the Bible be inerrant.As Eric Reitan puts it:"According to the progressive Christian understanding, the Bible is an important authority in the Christian’s life but not an inerrant one. The progressive Christian does not accept the Doctrine of Plenary Verbal Inspiration (the doctrine which holds that the Bible says exactly what God wants it to say from cover to cover). Rather than viewing the Bible as the very Word of God, the progressive Christian views the Bible as a seminal human testament to divine revelation....Put more simply, the Bible collects both first-hand and second-hand (and sometimes third- or fourth-hand) human testaments to divine revelation. On this progressive Christian view, the testaments themselves do not bear the stamp of divine inerrancy, since they are human testaments and as such are subject to the fallibility of their human authors. And this means that approached on a verse-by-verse basis, one cannot confidently say, simply because the passage appears in the Bible, that it truly expresses the will of God or offers us an accurate understanding God’s nature." [2] So Con's repeated brute appeals all throughout the debate to the inspiration of scripture are really moot and irrelevant points that attempt to distract from the main issues at hand.(3) The IntentFinally, Con gets around to offering some putative reasons why God would have ordered genocide. Unfortunately, they fail badly - a few probing questions show this. Con points to alleged fact that God knew and had a plan to destroy the Canaanites for their sins ("punishment"). To quote myself from an earlier debate (with a few modifications):"If God knew that the sin of the Canaanites would reach a level at which the only action to take is order genocide, why, exactly did he not do something about it before they reached that level? There is strong biblical precedent for allowing great sinners chances to repent before drastic measures are taken...God tells Jonah 'Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.' (Jonah 1:2) He was planning to destroy the city if they did not repent. The sin was so bad that children there couldn't tell 'their right and from their left hand'.(Jonah 4:11) The denizens of Nineveh end up repenting. Why, exactly, did God not send a prophet to help the Canaanites repent, thus avoiding genocide?This, again, brings up the problem of children being sentenced to die for the sins of their elders. This is very clearly morally wrong. Bringing in the concept of 'original sin' doesn't help at all either. Because if the children were already depraved enough to deserve death the moment they entered the world then, why, exactly, did God have to wait for the Canaanites' sins to reach "full measure"?Take a look at Deut 20:10-18. "When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies.... 16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes..." God makes a clear distinction between how those Canaanites who are in Israel's land are to be treated as opposed to those who are not on Israel's land. If imposing this genocide on the Canaanites is really a form of divine punishment it seems like an convenient rationalization that the Canaanites on Israel's' land are just wicked enough to endorse genocide yet the ones outside of the promised land are suitable to be taken as the spoils of war." [3] And, again, Con utterly misses the point. The morality and right or wrong of the act is EXACTLY WHAT IS AT ISSUE. As I have argued, God would not order such things because he is perfectly good and such acts are utterly evil. Con hasn't even attempted how to show these acts aren't evil or that God had good reasons for ordering (apparently) evil acts.Rationalizing GenocideCon ignores the point. The conquest narratives fit a very general pattern of illegitimate rationalizations for genocide so there is strong reason to believe that the conquest narratives themselves employ illegitimate rationalizations for genocide. I showed that. Con has nothing to say to that point.Con makes some other spurious points such as we can't look at this from a human perspective but God's one - but that just ignores the point that as humans we will necessarily have a human perspective on things. This includes God. And Con ignores the point that I have offered reasons as to why God would not have ordered genocide as punishment. Con has not rebutted them other than question begging appeals to his theory of divine inspiration of the bible.Child KillersAgain, a moot appeal to inspiration as I have detailed. Even if I granted that's okay for God to kill children it doesn't follow that it's okay to order other humans to kill children. I have already made this point. And there is no reason given in the text to think that the Canaanites were "irredeemable". Soul-Destroying EffectsAgain, begging the question. Why isn't war in the modern era relevantly similar to war in the ancient era? Did people not get PTSD back then because they didn't know modern psychology? Of course not.Present day genocide?Saying "sorry it doesn't compare" isn't a rebuttal. It's an ungrounded assertion. Con needs to prove it.Sources[1] http://www.gotquestions.org... [2] http://thepietythatliesbetween.blogspot.com...[3] http://www.debate.org...