Why does my God allow children to die? Is he evil?

[Ingledsva]

Wait a minute … so your god sent Cortez to massacre thousands of unarmed natives in some supposed attempt to facilitate their redemption and “return to sanity?” And you think that was a good thing? Or a sane thing? Don’t you think it’s odd that your supposedly loving and moral good seems to love violence and slaughter so much? God couldn’t think of a better way to save their souls than to have them murdered?

That idea is crazy isn't it.


There are surviving accounts of the torture they put the natives to.


They roasted babies on spits.


They tossed people onto spikes in pits that had hungry dogs in them.


They tied off all openings and then forced water into people until the internal organs burst.


They burnt them at stakes.


These are NOT the actions of godly people trying to save the natives.


These are the actions of purely EVIL people.


*

 

[idea]

... Don’t you think it’s odd that your supposedly loving and moral good seems to love violence and slaughter so much? God couldn’t think of a better way to save their souls than to have them murdered?

No one wants to admit it, but painful experiences are where we learn what we're really made of.

 

[Ingledsva]

Don’t you think it’s odd that your supposedly loving and moral good seems to love violence and slaughter so much? God couldn’t think of a better way to save their souls than to have them murdered?

No one wants to admit it, but painful experiences are where we learn what we're really made of.

You did not answer the question.


What did the babies slowly roasted to death over fires learn?


I might add that one has to be ALIVE to learn from a "painful" experience.


Those people were just sadistic butchering murderers.



*

 

[SkepticThinker]

That idea is crazy isn't it.


There are surviving accounts of the torture they put the natives to.


They roasted babies on spits.


They tossed people onto spikes in pits that had hungry dogs in them.


They tied off all openings and then forced water into people until the internal organs burst.


They burnt them at stakes.


These are NOT the actions of godly people trying to save the natives.


These are the actions of purely EVIL people.


*

Right! It's sickening.

How can someone possibly defend this kind of behavior while telling others they can't really know what morality is???

 

[SkepticThinker]

No one wants to admit it, but painful experiences are where we learn what we're really made of.

There's some truth to that. But it's no justification for torturing people (including babies) to death.

 

[1robin]

Do you not read or remember your own posts? You did actually say something about fear:

I am quite certain in the several hundred thousand words I have posted the word fear was used. So?

The stuff about atheism is nonsensical religious bias.

Death is the most universal fear in human history, the end.

 

[1robin]

Thank you.

Lack of belief in something is a net loss? What do we lose by not believing in fairies then? Do I lose some sense of magic or something?

Do you mean to tell me I can't determine my own meaning to life? That if I don't reach the same conclusions that you do about the supposed existence of your god that I can't possibly be happy? Because I don't agree with that at all, obviously.

And there actually is at least some level of transcendence from where I'm standing. I came from star dust and when I am gone I will return from where I came. I can deal with that.

I do not care whether you agree with and I always appreciate an honest and well reasoned response.

However with non-theists, I usually get:

1. The most glaring double standards possible.
2. Hypocritical criteria.
3. The redaction of history in arbitrary language (the reason I mention this is because you did this in a post about Cortez I will get to in a minute).
4. Claims to knowledge where none is even possible.
etc....

However once in a while I get an honest admission to something that would be true by necessity if God did not exist and it is so refreshing I am happy to point it out.


It is not important but I never understood the hope a non-theist finds in coming from star dust or what the imaginary future of mankind will be. No matter the facts none of us will have any consciousness of any of it. How is there hope in what we will never be aware of or benefit from. It looks like finding value in whatever smoking ruins happen to be left after God is killed off. Anyway on to Cortez.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I do not care whether you agree with and I always appreciate an honest and well reasoned response.

However with non-theists, I usually get:

1. The most glaring double standards possible.
2. Hypocritical criteria.
3. The redaction of history in arbitrary language (the reason I mention this is because you did this in a post about Cortez I will get to in a minute).
4. Claims to knowledge where none is even possible.
etc....

However once in a while I get an honest admission to something that would be true by necessity if God did not exist and it is so refreshing I am happy to point it out.


It is not important but I never understood the hope a non-theist finds in coming from star dust or what the imaginary future of mankind will be. No matter the facts none of us will have any consciousness of any of it. How is there hope in what we will never be aware of or benefit from. It looks like finding value in whatever smoking ruins happen to be left after God is killed off. Anyway on to Cortez.

Well, maybe you just need to look at it from another perspective. Stars and star dust are what gave life to the universe, to our little planet within it and to us. It is what we are made of. So when I die, all the atoms that make me me will return from whence they came and even though I won't be conscious of it, I will be giving life back to the universe and to earth. From where I stand, there's something beautiful in that. I hear the claim many times that atheists have no sense of hope or wonder or whatever else, but when I stand beneath the stars at night, that's exactly what I do feel - I feel a great sense of awe and wonder that it all came to be, and I'm here to see it, if only for a brief amount of time.

 

[1robin]

Wait a minute … so your god sent Cortez to massacre thousands of unarmed natives in some supposed attempt to facilitate their redemption and “return to sanity?” And you think that was a good thing? Or a sane thing? Don’t you think it’s odd that your supposedly loving and moral good seems to love violence and slaughter so much? God couldn’t think of a better way to save their souls than to have them murdered?

Ok here is a glaring example of coloring history in a language to suite an agenda. I happen to know quite a bit about Cortez. Not because he was a good Christian, but because he pulled off the greatest military action in known history. They teach it at military academies.

If I described a heart transplant by saying some guy is going to charge you $150,000 to cut your chest open, crack your sternum into, rip your heart out and replace it with a dead guys organs, then I have just transformed one of the great medical breakthroughs into a orgy of gore.

Let me just list some details that apply to my Cortez claims that are relevant, it is far too large an issue to exhaustively cover.

1. Cortez did not do a small fraction of the things you claimed. He kept running into Mexican's that hated the Aztec's so bad they would ally with Cortez and it is they who did almost every atrocity that occurred. However do not think at any point I am denying that the Spaniards did not do terrible things but just getting contexts properly in focus.
2. Let us first get it straight who the Aztecs were. The Aztecs came into being when a tiny tribe was offered a bribe by another tribe's chief. The Aztec's according to their own traditions skinned her alive and wore her skin as clothing back to the other tribe's home. The other tribes were so mortified they relentlessly hunted the Aztec's. The few remaining Aztec's were told by a God they carved to live in the middle of a lake on an island. In a land full of cannibals, people who dissected each other, and shamanism the Aztecs were so bad as to be unfit for even their company. At some point the Aztecs repopulated and began decades of enslaving, oppressing, and killing every other tribe they could. At the height of this insanity Cortez and 400 knights show up. Before I go on in what way would God have been unjust to have wiped every Aztec on Earth out by any method? The Spaniards estimated that 10,000 - 20,000 hearts were ripped out per year from live people by them on only certain days alone not to mention less festive days.
3. I did not say God sent Cortez. I said God did not forget about the Aztecs moral depravations. Or let me restate. Whether or not God sent Cortez would not indicate whether Cortez was or was not a tyrannical madman. A God that promises to send four horsemen (one of whom is death it's self and Hell follows with him) would not have been loathe to send Cortez. Nor would it mean God sanctioned his individual acts (none of which you have any reason to attach to him, nor would it mean Cortez was a good Christian or a good man. The point being this is a commentary (if God sent him) on just how terrible sin is and how wrathful God can become and nothing about it compromises his nature.

I can see this is going to take a while and I have to leave. I will add a general historical account of Cortez in reply to everyone here that apparently has never picked up a reliable history book on him, soon that will include the rest of the actual historical and theological context involved here.

 

[CG Didymus]

God couldn’t think of a better way to save their souls than to have them murdered?

That's the big question. God did do that to the people that lived in Jericho. So why not be consistent. Every evil town should be destroyed. An angel can come warn the one or two "righteous" but the rest can be annihilated. If there's a false religion, a prophet of God can challenge them to prove their false god is real, when they can't, he can kill them all. The world would then, eventually, be rid of all evil wouldn't it? Or, maybe not. Those methods didn't work so well for God. None of God's methods worked. I wonder how his salvation by grace by sacrificing his only Son is working? Surely, there must be a whole bunch of Holy Spirit filled people living righteous lives out there. Or not, they argue, fight and kill each other, great. What other plans of God are there? Couldn't he just show himself? No wait, there is another plan. His son is going to come down and destroy everything evil and establish his kingdom. Evil? Gone. Non-believers? Gone. Hmmm, why didn't he just do that in the first place? He knew we were a bunch of no good sinners. What did he expect?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Ok here is a glaring example of coloring history in a language to suite an agenda. I happen to know quite a bit about Cortez. Not because he was a good Christian, but because he pulled off the greatest military action in known history. They teach it at military academies.

If anyone is “coloring history” here it is you.
I took issue with your claim that god sent Cortez and the church to facilitate for the repentance and return to sanity of the Aztec people, which is not historical fact. I mean, it’s a fact that Cortez and the church brutally took out the Aztecs, but the rest of it is mere conjecture on your part.

If I described a heart transplant by saying some guy is going to charge you $150,000 to cut your chest open, crack your sternum into, rip your heart out and replace it with a dead guys organs, then I have just transformed one of the great medical breakthroughs into a orgy of gore.

Um, okay.

Let me just list some details that apply to my Cortez claims that are relevant, it is far too large an issue to exhaustively cover.
1. Cortez did not do a small fraction of the things you claimed. He kept running into Mexican's that hated the Aztec's so bad they would ally with Cortez and it is they who did almost every atrocity that occurred. However do not think at any point I am denying that the Spaniards did not do terrible things but just getting contexts properly in focus.

So you’re not denying that the Spaniards did terrible things. I guess you feel it was justified because it was supposedly done in order to return some kind of sanity and instigate some sort of repentance on the part of the Aztecs? (Still not clear on how that works.) So two wrongs make a right?

Why didn’t your god just take them out himself?

2. Let us first get it straight who the Aztecs were. The Aztecs came into being when a tiny tribe was offered a bribe by another tribe's chief. The Aztec's according to their own traditions skinned her alive and wore her skin as clothing back to the other tribe's home. The other tribes were so mortified they relentlessly hunted the Aztec's. The few remaining Aztec's were told by a God they carved to live in the middle of a lake on an island. In a land full of cannibals, people who dissected each other, and shamanism the Aztecs were so bad as to be unfit for even their company. At some point the Aztecs repopulated and began decades of enslaving, oppressing, and killing every other tribe they could. At the height of this insanity Cortez and 400 knights show up. Before I go on in what way would God have been unjust to have wiped every Aztec on Earth out by any method? The Spaniards estimated that 10,000 - 20,000 hearts were ripped out per year from live people by them on only certain days alone not to mention less festive days.

I’m taking issue with the method by which your god supposedly took them out and your defense of it. He was upset that they were doing terrible things to each other, so he sent other people to do terrible things to them? That’s the best plan he could come up with? Where’s the morality in that?

Also, it’s apparent that your god doesn’t really have a problem with human sacrifice, given that he supposedly made a blood sacrifice of his only son. I guess it’s only cool when “he” does it? How on earth are we supposed to determine right or wrong actions from the example of such a being?

3. I did not say God sent Cortez. I said God did not forget about the Aztecs moral depravations. Or let me restate. Whether or not God sent Cortez would not indicate whether Cortez was or was not a tyrannical madman. A God that promises to send four horsemen (one of whom is death it's self and Hell follows with him) would not have been loathe to send Cortez. Nor would it mean God sanctioned his individual acts (none of which you have any reason to attach to him, nor would it mean Cortez was a good Christian or a good man. The point being this is a commentary (if God sent him) on just how terrible sin is and how wrathful God can become and nothing about it compromises his nature.

You said, “God did not forget about the Aztecs even though that is what they deserved. He sent Cortez and the Church (even with it faults) to facilitate their repentance and return to sanity.”
Why send someone who isn’t a good Christian man to save the souls of an entire population of sinners? How could he provide for their redemption if he was a terrible madman?

I can see this is going to take a while and I have to leave. I will add a general historical account of Cortez in reply to everyone here that apparently has never picked up a reliable history book on him, soon that will include the rest of the actual historical and theological context involved here.

This isn’t about the historical accuracy of the actions carried out by Cortez. This is about your assertion that your god sent him and the church to facilitate the repentance and return to sanity of the Aztec people.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That's the big question. God did do that to the people that lived in Jericho. So why not be consistent. Every evil town should be destroyed. An angel can come warn the one or two "righteous" but the rest can be annihilated. If there's a false religion, a prophet of God can challenge them to prove their false god is real, when they can't, he can kill them all. The world would then, eventually, be rid of all evil wouldn't it? Or, maybe not. Those methods didn't work so well for God. None of God's methods worked. I wonder how his salvation by grace by sacrificing his only Son is working? Surely, there must be a whole bunch of Holy Spirit filled people living righteous lives out there. Or not, they argue, fight and kill each other, great. What other plans of God are there? Couldn't he just show himself? No wait, there is another plan. His son is going to come down and destroy everything evil and establish his kingdom. Evil? Gone. Non-believers? Gone. Hmmm, why didn't he just do that in the first place? He knew we were a bunch of no good sinners. What did he expect?

My thoughts exactly. It's complete nonsense to me.

 

[Skyrim25]

Yes but how long were those 6 days?????? That is something we humans will never know with this mind of the flesh. I already addressed man does not have a freewill or choice when it comes to salvation.

With this mind and flesh we have been able to do things that many have said we would never do or see such as fly and go to the moon. Moses wrote the first 5 books of the old testament which say 6 days...I have always said that Moses was wrong on more then one topic with his teaching that supposedly came from god.

Salvation is defined by our ability to master our ignorance(good ...ONLY... comes from knowledge and evil ...ONLY... comes from ignorance). This means that our salvation is up to us and that our free will is made perfect through us by conflict.

 

[Skyrim25]

That's the big question. God did do that to the people that lived in Jericho. So why not be consistent. Every evil town should be destroyed. An angel can come warn the one or two "righteous" but the rest can be annihilated. If there's a false religion, a prophet of God can challenge them to prove their false god is real, when they can't, he can kill them all. The world would then, eventually, be rid of all evil wouldn't it? Or, maybe not. Those methods didn't work so well for God. None of God's methods worked. I wonder how his salvation by grace by sacrificing his only Son is working? Surely, there must be a whole bunch of Holy Spirit filled people living righteous lives out there. Or not, they argue, fight and kill each other, great. What other plans of God are there? Couldn't he just show himself? No wait, there is another plan. His son is going to come down and destroy everything evil and establish his kingdom. Evil? Gone. Non-believers? Gone. Hmmm, why didn't he just do that in the first place? He knew we were a bunch of no good sinners. What did he expect?

Moses is the one where all the teachings of the Jewish faith come from including the books of the OT...have you noticed that the versions of God in the OT are different then the ones in the NT?...God in the OT is a vengeful God without mercy who has innocent children killed that had nothing to do with anything, and then you have the NT which shows the opposite views of God as a merciful and forgiving God that dose not have anyone killed.

Moses lied or is wrong about the promise land being Canaan. The temple was to be built for the covenant(the messiah is the covenant) in the promise land and the Messiah was to come as a warrior and claim his throne by Jewish belief. Jesus states that...HE...is the temple that is to be broken and rise in 3 days and that the promise land was in our hearts...this is in direct conflict with Moses's teaching of the promise land being the land of Canaan.

This means that the murder of unarmed men, women and children in Canaan (Jericho) was NOT at the wishes of God that Moses however says is god's commandment. Moses was wrong or Jesus is not the Messiah. Jesus also states that the teachings of Moses are to be done away with after a time...that time mentioned is the coming of the Messiah in which a ...flawed law and teaching.... by Moses is seen for what it is...a mistake or falsehood. Until Heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the law, until all is accomplished’ (Matthew 5:18). It is also mentioned in Revelations that the old heaven and earth shall pass(as mentioned by Matthew) and new earth and new heaven are to come down to earth by the messiah during his coming as he fulfills the prophesy on the cross mentioned in Revelations(there is no second coming, revelations is about his first and only). It is to be done away with because it is not right or true other wise there is no change needed in Moses's teachings and laws but Jesus clearly states a change needed many times in different books but the most one mentioned is in Romans!

 

[illykitty]

It's much easier to argue/put the blame on God (or whatever else) rather than to take a good hard look at ourselves and our society and see where the real blame falls upon.

We can make the Earth better, it's all up to us though. Nothing else is going to change this place. I'm sure regardless of beliefs (or lack of) we humans have to do this.

If you believe in some form of higher power, then wouldn't this higher power want us to thrive and help each other? That's my view on in. I don't believe in an Abrahamic higher power form, but it's my opinion that even He would want us to better ourselves, not just sit around, do nothing.

 

[1robin]

If anyone is “coloring history” here it is you.
I took issue with your claim that god sent Cortez and the church to facilitate for the repentance and return to sanity of the Aztec people, which is not historical fact. I mean, it’s a fact that Cortez and the church brutally took out the Aztecs, but the rest of it is mere conjecture on your part.

NO, O happen to know a lot about what took place in Cortez's invasion of Mexico. I did not say God sent Cortez to Mexico and instructed him to do X or Y. That was your coloring of my statements as well as history. I said God did not forget about the Aztec's sin or redemption. No Cortez did not wipe out the Aztec's, small pox did. Smallpox killed tens of millions, the people the Aztec's had enslaved, killed, over taxed, and cut the hearts out of killed tens of thousands, Cortez killed a few thousand. You agreed to these statements:

They roasted babies on spits.


They tossed people onto spikes in pits that had hungry dogs in them.


They tied off all openings and then forced water into people until the internal organs burst.


They burnt them at stakes.

There was not one account of any one of those things in any of the three most authoritative books published about the invasion. The most authoritative one is by the Abbot sent with Cortez. He was very critical of Cortez and seems to have a been a very serious and sincere recorder of fact and a good Catholic. Let me restate what I claim since you have amplified it and warped it beyond recognition.

1. I said God did not forget about either the Aztec's unfathomable sins, nor did he leave them to produce a thousand generations of people even more detestable and damned than themselves.
2. I said he could have used Cortez as a blunt instrument so to speak, but God would have condemned many of Cortez's actions. The doctrine of God's vengeance will become very complicated if you wish to discuss it. You do not seem to understand the way it works as the Bible describes it.
3. There are very few of the books on Cortez that are reliable. It was a notoriously hard campaign to describe. Every one of the three resources I will use were written by the men involved. They are frank and accurate to the best knowledge of historians and record all of Cortez's most brutal actions. None of them includes any statement you agreed to above.
4. The Church did not send Cortez. He had a few friends in the court of Spain and finagled an expedition for the main purpose of acquiring land and gold for Spain. The Church added a priest to the expedition but did not sanction what Cortez did. The derivative campaigns are the only known case where a conquest was terminated for humanitarian reasons. He was actually not authorized by the Church or Spain to do anything, he set sail as officials were on their way to revoke his commission (for unrelated issues). Cortez did what he did on his own authority or audacity (he just happened to have a priest with him).
5. The one event that applies to God more than any other is this. Cortez was in a great hurry to get to the gold. He did have a sincere wish to stop the human sacrifice and tear down the established shamanistic butchery but it was secondary. He tried to force conversions as he went. His priest (the famous John Stevens Cabbot) told him that forced conversions are not God's will. Cortez suspended the practice from that moment. He also ended human sacrifices at every place he found them ( almost everywhere). Another one is that when Cortez's successors abused the natives he sued the Spanish government on their behalf and represented them.

Um, okay.

So you’re not denying that the Spaniards did terrible things. I guess you feel it was justified because it was supposedly done in order to return some kind of sanity and instigate some sort of repentance on the part of the Aztecs? (Still not clear on how that works.) So two wrongs make a right?

Once again I never said anything like that. I said the Spaniards were many times wrong and did horrible things. I never said God authorized or desired any of them. To give a terribly brief description: God many times uses imperfect humans to accomplish a goal. (I have no idea if that actually occurred in this case, I think for many reasons it is likely however). He allows incidental undesirable things to occur that simply come with using faulty humans. Slavery in the OT was not God's desire, divorce is not God's desire, warfare is not God's desire. He allows them to occur because we are so screwed up. It says so in exact language in the bible. God also reserves vengeance until the iniquity has gone so far that any action would not be undeserved. I am not saying he desired Cortez to assassinate all the chiefs in cold blood of neighboring villages. I am saying God allowed it because their sins did not merit stopping it. Christ is the lamb of God, but he is also the lion of Judah. God is no teddy bear and on occasion his wrath is bone chilling. We would have to spend days discussing the doctrine of wrath before any resolution would be possible. Just keep this in mind for now.

1. God can either exact vengeance directly.
2. God can allow vengeance to take the form of a general event that also includes actions he did not directly desire. This is the one that may apply here.
3. These corporate judgments are always way over due and if anyone undeserving gets caught up in it the Bible records that God is aware and eventually they receive absolute justice.

Why didn’t your god just take them out himself?

Why should he have? There is only a fault if you have reason to know an alternate action should have occurred. He did take them out himself in a flood, you condemned that as well. Your bias makes it a heads you win tails God looses proposition.

I’m taking issue with the method by which your god supposedly took them out and your defense of it. He was upset that they were doing terrible things to each other, so he sent other people to do terrible things to them? That’s the best plan he could come up with? Where’s the morality in that?

Your making the same old optimization fallacy you normally do. God and the bible never tell us that God's actions will be optimal in our opinion. If God can only do what you think is perfect, then he could only create other redundant God's like himself. Anything else is less than optimal. When a wayward, faulty, and rebellious race is used by God it will come with rebellion, faults, and wayward actions. If you can prove that God is violating revelation by using man then you may have a point, until then you do not. So far when God wipes out people for sin you condemn him and defend them, when he acts through another (possibly) against one of the most vile culture's in history you condemn him and take their side, when he appears to not have acted you condemn him as well. When he saves everyone that will but believe by paying the entire price you condemn the whole event and him. How can truth be arrived at by this methodology?

Since it is well known that God takes everything a person has if it is used to rebel at the judgment, then I do not see that taking their lives after they took so many of their neighbors lives is more severe. I have noticed over the years that most atheists, most of the time, side with the people who are wrong if God exacts judgment on them. IT reminds me of the well known soldiers complaints against whoever the officers happen to be. Whatever side of an equation we are on we almost always think that side is right and the other wrong regardless of whether that is the slightest bit true.

Continued:

 

[1robin]

Also, it’s apparent that your god doesn’t really have a problem with human sacrifice, given that he supposedly made a blood sacrifice of his only son. I guess it’s only cool when “he” does it? How on earth are we supposed to determine right or wrong actions from the example of such a being?

That is not even close to accurate. The one example where a mortal human was to be sacrificed was instigated by God to illustrate his official position on the subject. Abraham was stopped by an angel directly from God from killing his son. It is very important to note that the angel said God would provide the sacrifice not man. Man should not be ripping each others hearts out for several reasons. No one gains anything by the act, no one has the right to kill another for unjustifiable reasons, no one has sovereignty over another's life. Note that none of those reasons would apply to God. Christ's sacrifice is the greatest possible good and productive act conceivable, God did not kill Christ but his allowance for us the Romans to kill him was the most theoretically justified act possible (Christ chose to do this long before the event), God does have sovereignty over everything. You already know all this and the pages I could post if it would do any good, yet you chose to mischaracterize these events on purpose. Why? IF you cannot tell the difference between the crucifixion story and capturing your neighbors so their hearts can be cut out by the tens of thousands while they are alive for the purpose of making the sun rise then that is because you do not want to. God emphatically stated we are not to sacrifice each other because of the reasons above and many more. The Aztec's were doing exactly what God said not to. If he had anything to do with Cortez how is any punishment for systematic torture (including skinning people alive) unjustified?

You said, “God did not forget about the Aztecs even though that is what they deserved. He sent Cortez and the Church (even with it faults) to facilitate their repentance and return to sanity.”
Why send someone who isn’t a good Christian man to save the souls of an entire population of sinners? How could he provide for their redemption if he was a terrible madman?

I am unsure how to rate Cortez as a Christian. On one hand he was brutal and lusted after gold. On the other he was sincerely trying to destroy their sadistic practices and sadistic practices. Let me give another example: When he was taken to the chief temple he had maybe a few dozen soldiers with him. He was surrounded by millions of hostile savages. He was so disgusted by the human remains and blood smeared on the walls that he in full view hacked down their idols and cleaned the whole temple out himself. He did more for God (or sincerely tried to) than 99.9% of us, yet he was also a violent military general. I have no idea where to rank him nor is there a need. It is a fact he did extremely self sacrificing acts for God that were greater than most and committed horrible acts that I really think God did not desire. All Christians are admitted failures. Only Christ perfectly reflected God's will. Moses, Abraham, Ezekiel and all the rest were Godly men who at times did ungodly things. I do not see how it could be any other way given Biblical context. I did not mean to suggest Cortez himself was to be the conduit to God. Cortez if used at all by God was an instrument for the Aztec culture's demolishment. His priest and later the Church was to be their conduit to heaven through their teachings about Christ. In debate you must first destroy the wrong notion before a correct one can be substituted. A scripture about demon possession says that if a house is robbed you must first bind (render inert) the strongman of the house. The same is true of a false belief. You must first shock a society out of a falsehood (maybe even wait until a generation has passed) on before a new idea will be adopted. We "rehabilitate" prisoners after their faith in what they thought has been shocked through judgment. If history shows anything, it is that wrong ideas must be beaten out of a society. The most backwards culture's there are will die rather than allow a very advanced and prosperous one to take their backwards ways away from them. My ancestors "American Indians" are a obvious example. I do not know how some of these terrible beliefs get started, but once started they are clung to like grim death.

This isn’t about the historical accuracy of the actions carried out by Cortez. This is about your assertion that your god sent him and the church to facilitate the repentance and return to sanity of the Aztec people.

I did not assert that. I asserted that God may have allowed or even desired the Aztec's suffer some kind of general reckoning and eventual repentance. I do not believe that either the crusaders, the inquisitor's, nor Cortez was obeying God in their specific actions. If God had anything to do with it, it was in a general way. You can't get an imperfect tool to operate perfectly. God used a perfect tool in a perfect way and we thought so much of it we killed him. He used imperfect tools that performed imperfectly and you condemn most of them. It was my main point that through your bias you CANNOT see that the Aztec's later state was infinitely better than the former, and you are intentionally or through a lack of knowledge getting what in fact happened all distorted and without any methodology to do so condemning God for it. This al started because someone said God simply lets cultures continue indefinitely in their ignorance. I was showing that in the Aztec's case much evidence exists that he did not do so, as an example.

I am so busy at the moment this is all I can post but a thousand words for every one I typed are needed for this subject.

 

[1robin]

My thoughts exactly. It's complete nonsense to me.

If he indeed acted as was claimed in what you agreed to you nor anyone else would be alive. Which is it?

There was very little truth in what was claimed but lets pretend they were correct. Which one can you actually prove God acted wrongly concerning?

All of these distortions of history are the exact same claim (even if they have any truth in them). God must act as you desire or you will reject him. God must punish sin in only the way you determine, he must be hands off when you demand and vengeful when you say, he must either leave you completely alone or do everything for you as you wish, he must make heaven compulsory for those who reject him at your whim, and he must punish those that do believe, if they violate your standards. This is a completely futile way to evaluate anything, though it is a very common methodology even for science and history by your side.

 

[1robin]

You did not answer the question.


What did the babies slowly roasted to death over fires learn?


I might add that one has to be ALIVE to learn from a "painful" experience.


Those people were just sadistic butchering murderers.



*

It is remarkable:

How little you know about what you condemn. It is far more remarkable how consistently you defend the infinitely worse of two parties if the other has any real or imagined connection with God. Exactly how awful is too awful a fate for those that cut the hearts out of their neighbors while still alive by the tens of thousands and raised generations of those that would have done the same? What futile standard did you invent that God violated and why should he have adhered to it?

From just memory you have defended the right to kill a child in the womb by robbing it of the exact same rights you demand as an excuse for the destruction of millions of human lives. Yet you have denied the maker of that life and the only one that can rectify the injustice the right to do so. You have taken the side of one of the most vile culture's in human history and condemned a man that spent his own money to rebuild what the Mexican's destroyed, who stopped the attempt to convert by force, who stopped human sacrifice on an industrial scale, and is the only known example of a conquest being terminated for humanitarian reasons. To make it worse you do so on the basis of stuff that no reliable source even mentions. I have read most of them, have you. 99.9% of the deaths at the time were the result of small pox. Of the .1% left the Mexican cultures who had been systematically killed and enslaved by the Aztec's killed and Cortez (whether through military necessity or brutal efficiency) killed less than 5000, almost all of which were attempting to kill him. Yes he did horrible things, no they were not on instructions from God, and no they do not include what you mentioned. When a world view forces you to defend atheistic utopias that actually killed tens of millions, abortion that has killed hundreds of millions, or cultures who tore beating hearts out by the hundreds of thousands and skinned people alive and the same world view forces you to invent atrocities that never occurred to condemn acts of people who simply claimed to believe, or the most beloved events in history instigated by God then it is time to question that view point.

Is the only description of a God that you would accept one that would obey your commands like a puppet?

He wipes out people who have reached the point of no return and you condemn him and defend them. He uses people (perhaps Cortez, I do not know) to punish those who have preyed on others in totality and you condemn him and defend them, he does not appear to act and you condemn him for that, he pays 100% of the price to redeem even those who deserve the former and you condemn him, he exhibits the highest conceivable example of love and self sacrifice and you condemn even this. I would not like to see the God your would accept nor live in a world he created.

Even if God had demanded what Cortez did in detail (and I do not claim nor think he did so) by what standard did they not earn it? If the Bible is right then judging by the results in what way are the Mexican's not infinitely better off for what happened? If the Aztecs did not deserve the greatest vengeance imaginable then who is? Hitler would have been appalled by what they did. What revelation does God violate by vengeance against evil? What aspect of justice does not mandate similar events?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I did not assert that. I asserted that God may have allowed or even desired the Aztec's suffer some kind of general reckoning and eventual repentance. I do not believe that either the crusaders, the inquisitor's, nor Cortez was obeying God in their specific actions. If God had anything to do with it, it was in a general way. You can't get an imperfect tool to operate perfectly. God used a perfect tool in a perfect way and we thought so much of it we killed him. He used imperfect tools that performed imperfectly and you condemn most of them. It was my main point that through your bias you CANNOT see that the Aztec's later state was infinitely better than the former, and you are intentionally or through a lack of knowledge getting what in fact happened all distorted and without any methodology to do so condemning God for it. This al started because someone said God simply lets cultures continue indefinitely in their ignorance. I was showing that in the Aztec's case much evidence exists that he did not do so, as an example.

I am so busy at the moment this is all I can post but a thousand words for every one I typed are needed for this subject.

You did actually assert that, outright. Word for word.

"God did not forget about the Aztecs even though that is what they deserved. He sent Cortez and the Church (even with it faults) to facilitate their repentance and return to sanity.”

If you'll notice, I steered clear of the actual historical record of what Cortez did because it's secondary to the assertion you made, that you now say you didn't make. I made note of this in my last post to you.

If you wish to retract that statement now, then there isn't much of an issue left to talk about.