Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 12:19PM | by Otter You can only evade for so long the importance of a direct command to kill civilians, even if it was the done thing back in the day. It’s generally agreed, with good reason, that this is not the best humans can be, and if Yahweh thinks differently, if he even thinks that’s good hyperbole (exaggeration for effect), there’s no room for him in our counsels.
Thursday, February 16, 2012 at 11:38AM | by Otter
Updated on Thursday, February 16, 2012 at 12:57PM by
Otter
It’s not that complicated, Dr. Piper.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 7:00AM | by Otter Undeception, a blog worth tucking into your biblical study bookmarks no matter what your spiritual inclinations, contains this gem from C. S. Lewis that actually makes a terrific point that Touchstone, myself, and others are constantly at pains to make to Christians: that God is either not worth worshiping or that he is good, and where the Bible says he is not good, we mustn't hesitate to identify the conflict for what it is: a serious problem for views of inerrancy (or at least the inerrancy of a simplistic historical reading of those texts).
The Undeception blog entry is specifically in reference to the Canaanite genocides described in the Bible's Deuteronomistic history, passages where the God of Israel demands the obliteration of ethnic communities.
That's not to say that subtleties are not possible. But they are not endlessly possible or even desirable to any great extent.
Lewis:
On my view one must apply something of the same sort of explanation to, say, the atrocities (and treacheries) of Joshua. I see the grave danger we run by doing so; but the dangers of believing in a God whom we cannot but regard as evil, and then, in mere terrified flattery calling Him ‘good’ and worshiping Him, is still greater danger. The ultimate question is whether the doctrine of the goodness of God or that of the inerrancy of Scriptures is to prevail when they conflict. I think the doctrine of the goodness of God is the more certain of the two. Indeed, only that doctrine renders this worship of Him obligatory or even permissible.
Sunday, July 31, 2011 at 7:01AM | by Otter Christianity must, to be meaningful, loudly and urgently renounce violence as a means of obtaining its objectives.
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 7:20AM | by Otter 
"Such readers are probably right to accept all this justice-talk 'blindly' (because I think it really is blind): their religion begins (? and ends) with the Bible, which by the way is not biblical. But they should understand that they're using language in a way that the rest of us have no access to. Justice no longer means what we recognize as just, it just means what the most powerful person on the block (their god) is capable of doing. Might makes right, whatever he does is okay.
