Hi Grant, You can't have a discussion with Emile. The best that can be hoped for is to shock him out of his religion-induced trance-like state. He is a perfect example of belief in mythology taken to it's extreme.
Please put this in any context you like and explain it to a poor lost soul like me. This is god speaking, so don't try to re-interpret what he has said. He is supposed to be able to know what he is saying without mere mortals explaining it.
"When you march up to attack a city, first offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to your terms of peace and opens it's gates to you, all the people to be found in it shall serve you in forced labor. But if it refuses to make peace with you and instead offers you battle, lay siege to it, and when the Lord, your God, delivers it into your hand, put every male in it to the sword; but the women and children and livestock and all else in it that is worth plundering you may take as your booty, and you may use this plunder of your enemies which the Lord, your God has given you.
That is how you shall deal with any city at a considerable distance from you, which does not belong to the peoples of this land. But in the cities of those nations which the Lord, your God, is giving you as your heritage, you shall not leave a single soul alive. You must doom them all- the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites-as the Lord, your God, has commanded you, lest they teach you to make any such abonimable offerings as they make to their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord, your God." Deut.20,10
I noticed that there aren't any Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perrizites, Hivites, or Jebusites working at any of the convenience stores around here. Any in your town? Most of them must have been creamed by the Israelites, as god ordered. By the way, I don't think that Saddam was even this nasty.
I wonder if those people on the receiving end thought that god loved them. Anyway, please explain all this to me so that I may have your wisdom.
Del |
