I am really saddened at the downward spiral your posts are becoming. You have been schooled in the Bible and for you to omit or twist things is not the Evangelicalhumanist that used to be.
You're wrong. I've not changed...I'm who I always was.
Questions:
1) The above suggests that case one is the same as case two. So, if killing Canaanites through the use of Israel is wrong, you are then saying that God should do nothing with child sacrifices and beastiality (which produces rampant contagious diseases that would affect all ages. So you are fine with that?
You keep bringing that up, so I'll ask you a question: was every Canaanite killing children and buggering animals? All of them? Have you got any evidence of any sort whatsoever to demonstrate that this excessively unlikely scenario is the actual truth of a whole people?
Or perhaps you just have a few hints written by the victors, who, of course, never, ever distort the stories of those they defeated in order to look more justified themselves...oh my goodness, never!
2) If God "could have PREVENTED all that useless killing" way before, you are saying two things, 1) that by removing Canaanites He wasn't stopping it, which is what He was doing as you suggested that He should. or 2) He should have stopped it before... How would you suggest He stop it without violating self-determination that He gave to man?
3) You are smart enough to know that God gave mankind self determination. So, but the use of the word "Omniscience" in your context, you are suggesting that mankind does NOT have self-determination because He could have stopped it. And could have stopped murder; could have stopped car accidents; could have stopped bullying; could have stopped broken bones; which eventually leaves one at the place of simply being a robot with no self-determination. Are you suggesting that God DIDN'T give man self-determination?
4) "(And philosophically, that's the problem with assuming "omni" anything, since it will inevitably run into a logical morass from which there's no escape.)" Really? So, "omni-potent" means that He is powerful enough to do ANYTHING! But He isn't powerful enough to give man self-determination and that if He gave man a lease on this world (to create anything they want for good or for bad) you have now a philosophical problem. You are in essence saying If He CAN'T give man self-determination and a lease in this world, then He is not OMNI-potent. Or if He DOES give man self-determination then He is NOT omnipotent because now man has power beyond His.
OR, as it is obvious to me and much more logical,
BECAUSE He is OMNI-POTENT, He has every capacity to give man self-determination and still not loose His capacity because He still is OMNI-POTENT.
The Biblical realty is that God is STILL trying to prevent people from doing evil by a new birth where man is reunited with the God of Love. Love God and Love your neighbor. But, we still have self-determination and can just decide there is no gods or God. Which, in its logical conclusion, means that man will determine the future of this world and the future of their individual lives making himself his own god and therefore there is no atheists because we become our own gods. A conundrum in and of itself.
You can try as many arguments as you like, but they all fail, because, as I'm about to demonstrate, your arguments always result in an absurdity, and there's no way out of it.
I do not care which "omni" word you use -- omnipotent, omniscient -- the philosophical and logical problems are inescapable.
Let's try a little thought experiment. Let's pretend that you wish to build a structure in your front yard which is against the local zoning codes. But, hey, you have self-determination, so you can ignore those codes, right? However, you're also smart enough to know what those codes are, and what the consequences of ignoring them will be -- you will be forced to tear down your new structure at your own expense, after having built it at your own expense. You'll lose a lot of money and time, needlessly, and probably annoy your neighbours into the bargain.
YOU KNOW ALL THIS BEFORE YOU START. So, do you start building?
The problem for an omniscient and omnipotent deity is much, much worse, because that deity must be aware that the very things he has brought (or is allowing) into creation will have to be destroyed by his own "law" and in contravention of his own "law."
This is why I say that an omniscient and omnipotent deity is a logical farce -- and it is made a trillion times worse when some religions, like Christianity, also insist that it is "loving," or (let's use the omni thing again), omnibenevolent. That sort of entity, knowing omnisciently beforehand how utterly useless his use of his omnipotence would be, would give himself an omnibenevolent hug, forget the entire thing, and go back to sleep.