Passages in the bible call for the slaughter of pregnant women and their unborn children? Discuss.
Hosea 9:11-16 Hosea prays for God’s intervention. “Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Give them, 0 Lord: what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. . .Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.” Clearly Hosea desires that the people of Ephraim can no longer have children. God of course obeys by making all their unborn children miscarry. Is not terminating a pregnancy unnaturally “abortion”?
Numbers 5:11-21 The description of a bizarre, brutal and abusive ritual to be performed on a wife SUSPECTED of adultery. This is considered to be an induced abortion to rid a woman of another man’s child.
Numbers 31:17 (Moses) “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that hath known man by lying with him.” In other words: women that might be pregnant, which clearly is abortion for the fetus.
Hosea 13:16 God promises to dash to pieces the infants of Samaria and the “their women with child shall be ripped up”. Once again this god kills the unborn, including their pregnant mothers.
And then again a "post natal abortion"
1 Samuel 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling , ox and sheep, camel and ass.
Psalm 137 7 Remember , O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said , Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. 8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed ; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. 9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
Isaiah 12:15-18 15 Every one that is found shall be thrust through ; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword. 16 Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled , and their wives ravished . 17 Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. 18 Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces ; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children.
Posted by Toetapper (Member # 6473) on :
Though I resist the label, I am what most people would call an atheist; before I made the conversion, I was a Christian of no particular denomination. Let me see if I can shed a little light:
The "New Covenant" changed things - from a very basic perspective of Christianity. Jesus Christ established this with his followers and disciples and essentially renders the Old Testament little more than a history book (and probably not a very good one). With the "New Covenant", he transformed the religion to one in which a person proceeds simply from love. If one is "walking in love" (Romans 14 - the chapter is brief and elucidates this nicely), all the appropriate behavior follows.
The Ten Commandments (and all the ensuing laws) are unnecessary and obsolete if one is loving as Christ commands.
There are many fundamentalists who would vehemently argue against this; they kinda seem to like a wrathful God. I would suggest they haven't read the New Testament very carefully - except maybe Revelations (wrathful God again).
I'm sure that I'm likely to be taken to task for this interpretation; I'm just sayin' is all...
Posted by Wrinklesguy (Member # 732) on :
LeDaemon: Maybe because if God wants to smite down someone, he can do so..afterall He is God right? I think it's when WE take the Liberties of said matters is when it is considered walking the line.
Toe Tapper: Actually, man..you're mistaken. READ:
quote: [Matthew 5:16-18] The Fulfillment of the Law 17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Christianity is actually about loving as well as following rules set forth before hand..etc..not an expert but..user-friendly religion is interesting, just ignore all the hard laws and hand pick what fits you best right? Just wondering.
I'd also say the modern Christian "church" whatever denomination u want, is severely flawed in their doctrine,interpretation of the Bible,leadership and causing alot of people like yourself to stray away from a really good thing..u pick the reason. It's sad.
Posted by Andy-Laa (Member # 31511) on :
You know the passage where it says gay is wrong "It is wrong for a man to lie with another man as if he were a woman" etc (that's a para-phrase)
Well in that same book, there's sections on how you should sell your first-born girl into slavery and how it's wrong to eat this BIG-ass list of food (including pig)...religion - or most, anyway - pick and choose what they want the bible/koran/word-of-the-day toilet paper to mean.
Like how for many years people were taking it literally that God made the world in six days (he would have had to have invented days first, but that's by-the-by) then when science came in with evidence that the world is hundreds (of thousands?) of millions of years old, they started taking a less officious, dogmatic approach to it. "Oh no, it was six stages, not days". Despite his omnipotence, he apparently gets tired and can't blink everything better like he should be able to...were he real
Yeah, I still hate religion.
Posted by Spruce314 (Member # 35412) on :
LeDaemon, I suspect you are taking these scriptures out of context.
Question for you. Why are you attacking Christianity only? Why not Islam or Hinduism?
Posted by LeDaemon (Member # 198) on :
Not out of context, but passages straight from the bible word for word King James Version.
It wasn't an attack, but a call for discussion on a topic. I was raised a Southern Baptist an went to church every Sunday with my family until I was about 15 when I stopped all together. I never went to a Hindu or Islamic worship service, or studied either texts so I'm going with what I'm familiar with. However, from what I've read of those they're equally as ridiculous, but I will let someone else start a thread on discussing passages from those.
Most things you hear in Sunday school or a sermon taken from the bible to skip past the nasty bits and focus on the good things. Its all from the same book so is it supposed to be taken literally as the word of god or do we interpret certain passages metaphorically that might make one particularly queasy reading. (Thinking of the story of Jezebel.)
Please discuss what the passages I listed above that were taken out of context were supposed to mean then.
Posted by Spruce314 (Member # 35412) on :
I understand where you're coming from. Time permitting will take a deeper look.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)