I love how they talk about how evil they were then you just try to curve the fact they were doing evil and say well they got keeled how is that fair. Had it been a council of men that decided to go to war instead over morality you wouldn’t be having this conversation and say they did it for the good of man. Your a more on
what happen was happened in old testament that is not mistake of God , God was fighting for israelites You fool don't believe in old testament Believe in new testament Don't confuse us , first You were confused
Curious. Why are you trying so hard to be like Lex? Is it because the establishment has, for whatever reason, given him a free pass? That he can say whatever and they leave him alone. Do you not have any of your own ideas?
Please please please try to get Greg Boyd (pastor of woodland hills) on to talk about this topic! The cruciform hermeneutic in his book "crucifixion of the warrior God" can provide a very satisfying answer!
@@jakegoldberg6767 I don't know if that would matter to this kid. As I would imagine that one of his arguments against God centers around pain and suffering in the world .. Though Jesus suffered horribly and experienced pain that the average mind can not even fathom. Or considering that the Lord's most important message he was trying to get across to us is that what we do in life, determines what happens to us after death. and he would ask what the point was to Jesus dying and being resurrected.
@@Alien1375 What do you mean? The 4k ultra HD close ups of his methhead ear wounds really pull together the whole "evangelical pastor" look hes going for. Its like bright colors in poisonous animals, except with pastors and deranged religious beliefs lol.
Alex is really the best atheist in my view, he's doing his best to not make a "gotcha" statement; he's framing actual ethical questions in the most sincere way he can. I personally am a Christian and have been impressed with his interactions with Jesus' heavy hitters.
I am fascinated every time I see christians expressing enthusiam for alex. I think its great and admire your open-mindedness! However given the atheism he fervently advocates, how exactly does this work? Do you constantly sit there and think "ah, interesting argument but I disagree" or do you like roll with the ppunches, and not feel it necessarily debunking your wordview? Genuinly curious! All the best
@@Charlies_stuffI was right in the middle of pouring my heart to you and got kicked out by an ad..ugh. I know your question was not for me but for the comment you replied to. But I just wanted you to understand it isn't about RELIGION. It's all about RELATIONSHIP with Jesus. I'm sure you have heard the prayer ..to repent your sins and ask Jesus in your heart and believe He died for our sins in our place and was raised in 3 days. That is only part of salvation. We must pray daily..WALK DAILY with Jesus...its all about RELATIONSHIP. When we are saved...we are all given the Holy Spirit ..He is becomes one with our soul to guide us and comfort us and to speak to Jesus when we can not find the words at times for our prayer. But the diff between religion and relationship is the true LOVE for Jesus and the love FROM. Jesus. And loving Him so much that you want to please Him and that allows Him to change our hearts and to walk the unique plan He has for each of us. And that brings so much more joy and purpose into your life. Forget RELIGION which focuses more on THE LAW and works. And it isn't simply obeying God's laws or the doctrine of some religion or our deeds which will get us to heaven. It is KNOWING CHRIST.. THE HOLY SPIRIT which will get us to heaven. A daily conversation with the Holy Spirit. Daily prayers to Jesus and the full desire to do whatever is PLEASING TO HIM simply because you genuinely love HIM SO MUCH. It really is life changing. 💗🙏
Deuteronomy 9:5 “It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
And so this brings into question, has every act committed by man to another been an act of punishment by God upon those people for their perceived sinfulness? How are we to understand what then is right or wrong if all acts of evil are permitted in the name of "righteousness"? And I even recall committing a sin for the greater good to be a moral no no in the Bible as well.
@@deecee796.... You are daft. If you had an ounce of reading comprehension and opened a Bible, you'd realize the context is Israel is the "chosen" people. Being chosen is not necessarily nothing but sunshine and rainbows for them. They were the ones to carry out and be the shining city on the hill which they failed at many times. So no, it's not a standard for every civilization
@@deecee796No, acts of sin are only possible through God given free will and are against God and will be punished when the person reaches judgment, they are not punishments. This is different, and even if the Bible said that God can not sin and this was an act of God
@@deecee796 The Bible is clear that we are not allowed to "sin" for the greater good. The Bible states that the ends do not justify the means. However, it is a self-defeating argument just by the definition of the word sin: Sin is to go against God (Who is All-Good). This is why we discuss whether or not God's actions are good or bad (morally speaking). It is a fair argument, and that is why Christians should always be open to discussing the actions of God. However, it is also important to understand that Christians are not all-knowing and, as the Bible states in Job, we will not know the answer to every question we have until after judgement day. Of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask questions, but we should definitely not base our belief in God around whether or not we can understand every action He takes. Instead, if you are going to base your belief on God being moral (which is 100% fair), then you should ask yourself, "To my understanding: Is the vast majority of God's actions good?". If the answer is yes, then you can continuously try and figure out why God acted certain ways in other places, whilst following His commandments. This leads to you gaining a deeper understanding, whilst also being on the Righteous side of the argument. This is my narrative alone though, so it's fair to disagree (Personally: if a God exists they must be moral. However, I am human and am flawed. I cannot decide what is moral 100% of the time. However, I can decide what is moral majority of the time, such as murder being immoral. Therefore, if the Christian God is moral to everything I understand, He is worthy of being followed, because He is better than I am. The Book of Job makes it clear that it is alright to have questions, and it is alright to have your foundations shaken: but you have to have Faith that there is a moral reason for the actions God takes. ------------------ To answer the first part of your comment: "has every act committed by man to another been an act of punishment by God upon those people for their perceived sinfulness?" No. It is made clear that there is an adversary who is actively seeking to trip you up. This is revealed in Genesis 3, and we see him rear his head all over the Bible. The Book of Job takes place with Satan actively trying to make Job sin. He did everything he could to make Job sin: Killed his entire family, stole all of his animals, gave Job a mysterious illness, and he even had Job's wife tell Job to curse God and die. If Satan is allowed to do anything and everything to make us sin: then it is clear that not every act committed by man was an act of punishment by God. Instead, we have the argument of free will: We can choose to serve God or Satan. God wants us to uphold the moral good, and Satan wants us to hate God, and stray away from Him. Because of this, we are limited to the two options. So, if we choose to serve God, then we are choosing to avoid sin like the plague: where as if we choose to serve Satan, that doesn't mean you are bowing down to serve Satan: you could be doing whatever it takes to make you happy (which could result in you stealing a candy bar, or taking someone's bike, etc). I also want to correct the part you have about "perceived sinfulness", there is no such thing. Sin is when you go against God. Therefore, God doesn't have a perception of sin, as it would be impossible for an all-knowing God to not know what He supports and what He doesn't support. ------------------ "How are we to understand what then is right or wrong if all acts of evil are permitted in the name of "righteousness"?" All acts of evil are not permitted in the name of righteousness (Romans 3, yes the majority/entire chapter is about this topic). If you lie, but your lie leads someone to God, it is still a lie, and lying is a sin so you will be punished. The Bible is clear the presumptuous sinning is not easily forgiven (presumptuously sinning = sinning when you know it's a sin).
I only started seeing clips of cliffe pop up in my ytshort feed a few months ago, and I have been wanting to see him talk to someone like Alex since I first saw him.
Alex, I just discovered you and your material and I love all of it. You're such a well-spoken, intelligent person which is unbelievably refreshing in these times we live. Thank you. Subscribed!
"We are more interconnected than we would like to admit" I LOVE this. It's not to say that I don't appreciate taking accountability for my own actions, but I do believe the choices of others, as well as my own choices affect both me and the people around me to a certain degree.
Absolutely! And evolutionary biology and the genome project have made this abundantly clear on a scientific level. I think it's a massive part of what the Bible has been trying to say all along. In my opinion science and faith only contradict each other if a person's view of with one or both areas is too narrow. There's a truth that both avenues tap into and I wish people would stop pinning them against each other so we can make progress.
Isn't it funny how pdf file atheists literally believe what atheist religion doctrines say that men can give birth, but then at the same time, they reject what doctrines of islame says that women can be pregnant for ten years? They're both huge lies with zero basis in reality, so what's the difference between these two religions?
Alex, your rethoric is amazing, your biblical knowledge is fascinating and your habilities regarding the recognition of the interpretations of others on the biblical texts is just 🤌. You are such an inspiration! Much love❤
@@manicksgaming6949 Alex vs. Frank Turek? You mean that video from 7 years ago when Alex was just 17 years old? That’s what you have to judge by? You do realize a lot of things change since people were 17, right?🤣
It does, and reading the OT we have to read it that Christ is the necessity to come. All in the OT, I read it as Christ being prepared, even through the failures and atrocities throughout the OT. All are wrapped in fallen flesh that bare witness against us.
@@Nutterbutter123have you seen billiy carson? he answeres those questions regarding the old testamen God more like gods who are called Annunaki (people who came from above) on other olders scriptures than the Bible like the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Summerian Tablets.
@@philswiftreligioussect9619 I am still a devout Christian. God is too good. But it’s healthy to acknowledge when a good question or argument is posed.
@@SDSwampert People who push their religion onto someone they know is an atheist do it because they have no respect for that person. They are simply pushing their beliefs.
Great conversation. And also, great production! From location and it’s sound signature, to video quality and lighting. I hope the rest of the conversation will eventually come to TH-cam for all us freeloaders. ;-)
Whichever is most morally convenient. It’s almost as though there is no divine creator and these religious scriptures are just the work of human beings claiming divinity.
@@alanheyes694 yea especially considering the fact the israelites derive from the canaanites and made their own version of the "original" (canaanites) religion. Few hundred years later some israelite writes the exodus a mythological story about where they came from. But that never happened
Also, it should be noted that all that about child sacrifice comes from Hebrew sources, ie their enemies. And we already have archaelogical evidence that indicates that Hebrew sources in the Bible are less than reliable, much like other ancient sources when telling stories about their enemies. Later on, Romand wrote that Christians sacrificed children, and even later on Christians wrote that Jews sacrificed children. Quite frankly, it seems that any unsacrificed child must have felt left out.
Wow this is a stellar conversation and i cant wait for the full release. These are the type of even tempered congenial conversation people should be having not only about religion but politics as well. Its these types of conversations that can help strengthen your faith as a believer even Thomas doubted and i believe its healthy to have these kind of questions. As a Christian myself i find these conversations helpful in my walk with God because its forces me to grapple with the unknown and by proxy strengthen my prayer life. Alex did a phenomenal job of not trying to "win" the conversation but instead i feel like hes going about it with genuine intrigue which is healthy. If this same attitude was applied in our national politics we would be in alot better shape as a country. We need more of this kind of dialogue for the country and the world at Large. Thank You Alex for hosting a wonderful podcast and being part of the solution and not part of the problem. Thank you as well Cliffe And Stuart for continuing to shine a bright light on the Christian faith and bringing people closer to Jesus. All of you guys are great and i cant wait to indulge in more of this kind of content.
I left an in-depth response somewhere in the comments. IMO I found these passages disturbing as well, so as a Christian I spent hours reasarching this topic. Not to brag, but I think I gave a better answer than Cliffe and Stuart
@@4Neighbors1Camera The issue with this entire debate on Violence in the Old Testament is that its completely based on our 21st century view of morality, religion and modern technology. It did not consider the life and culture back then, and TBH I don't think anyone in this room on either side did enough research on the topic. 1.Most importantly, Combat in that time period and region was not viewed as People vs People, but Gods vs Gods. The Israel God vs the Canaanite God. This fighting was not viewed as killing people groups, but vanquishing a Wicked God (who was viewed as 100% real). One who ordered their people to sacrifice Children to, cannibalize each other, had ritualistic orgies, stacked piles of their enemies skulls multiple feet high, and other nasty things. 2. Biblical scholar Fr Stephen De Young studied near-eastern history, and came to the conclusion that describing a complete wiping out of people was a very very common brag many countries would have. lots of other similar countries spoke the same way. Also in future chapters of the Bible, it forbids the Israelites to intermarry these same people groups they supposedly killed everyone. Well, I thought they were 100% killed? Clearly Not. 3. God doesn't declare any future offensive combat against other people groups in the rest of the Bible. and declares against offensive combat, taking women s*x slaves, and taking spoils of war. These were all concepts that were unheard of at the time, and although today might seem barbaric compared to our modern sensibilities, they were radical at the time. 4. If you are wondering why the Israelites NEEDED to go to the promise land where others already lived, I am convinced they needed to put their home there, so thousands of years later they would be right next to the Roman Empire (the largest empire at the time) when Jesus was born, allowing his message to travel quickly through the entire known world at the time. 5. The modern person can hardly comprehend how violent and vicious the ancient world was. In those ancient times, invading and killing every person, or taking all the women as concubines, and all the children as slaves was a common occurrence. There were no means or resources to take prisoners for life, and exiling someone to the vast wilderness was essentially a death sentence. If someone's parents were killed back then, what were the options: Keep the kid alive, and hope he doesn't revenge kill others, Kill him or exile him to his death. Or keep him as a slave. Also this cleansing of the area was to make sure none of their depraved culture seeped into the Israelite culture, which did end up happening eventually, proving God right,. their evil ways seeped into Israel life eventually, 6. Saying the canaanites and others weren't given specific instructions to stop their wicked actions is a ridiculous idea. As if they had no idea sacrificing children by burning them alive was not a good thing. It's not like they were being slightly unpleasant, they were monstrous violent people who needed to be removed from the developing world, same way you would remove a cancerous tumor to save the body. Atheists always like to talk about they don't need God to have morals. 7. God chose the Israelites and no other group, because they were supposed to be a shining example to others. God never intended to need to babysit our world and do everything for us. His goal was to lead one people group, that would be a shining light to others, and eventually let them on their own. clearly it did not happen. And when they failed, he sent Jesus as a savior to the entire planet, not just 1 people group. 8. The nature of God never changes, but the Nature of humans did. Jesus spoke of Forgiveness and humility, but if he came 2000 years earlier, he prob would've been ignored and killed. the Bible as a whole is a summary of Gods plan to win back humanity from their violent and awful ways, back to how they were always intended to be. Changing an entire planet takes time, and the full instructions were slowly spoon fed over time, People still had their free will, but were guided slowly towards a better life with Christ. Look at us now, just 5-6000 years since the Book of Joshua. We find these acts deplorable, because of how much we have morally improved in a (cosmically speaking) short time frame. 9. I know Atheists hate this response, so I saved for last. But as creator of Humans, God has the final say of their Life. If I loan someone 100$, then want it back, it's my Money in the first place to do with as I please. Humans killing each other is not the same as God giving judgement on wicked people. Also anyone who was a victim I am sure was given a special place in the afterlife, and eternity that would last infinitely longer than their time here,
Please help me understand how you Christians come into these comment sections saying the atheist made you “think”, but your opinions never actually change. That’s the problem with religion to begin with, you come into these conversations to seek confirmation bias to become a better Christian, not to actually evaluate the morality of Gods actions. Because at the end of the day we can talk about God literally commanding entire civilizations to be slaughtered, but you won’t see a problem with it or will have some twisted Frankensteined reasoning these Christian figures feed you as to why it was okay.
- What about this particularly evil thing done in those passages? - Let me start by talking about other passages where that particular evil doesn't happen or happens to a lesser degree
Well, basically. If one would somehow discover that God really is moral ideal who can do no wrong, then all apparent evil committed by them would be just that - apparent What's bothering - how was that supposedly discovered and confirmed? Persons who own armies and command them to commit genocide while claiming to be well-motivated saviors who want best for their people while they oppress them are somewhat of a historical banality. Those persons are called tyrants and are always labeled as evil for the reasons above. One does not seriously consult their propaganda writings to contradict those facts and those conclusions.
Mere Secular Legalese...pffttt... try telling the truth for once, who knows, it might even set you free from your logical prison one day. Jesus is Lord!
@@ShuggieEdvaldson telling someone else they are in a logical prison is hilarious while you yourself believe a virgin can give birth, jesus rose from the dead and many other made up stories.
The evil one, who is to be "destroyed" is the winter season of hunger, cold, sickness, darkness, and death. Typically this is the five months as described in Revelation 9. The evil leader of these baddies is the scorpion constellation (Rev 9.5). Canaan, the fourth son of Ham, is Scorpio. The "nation" of Israel is a collective of four signs as in Isaiah 9. The leader is the noble/royal lion (Leo) and the lying tail is the scorpion (Scorpio). Between the head and tail we find the palm frond/branch aka Virgo and the reed aka Libra.
Or boasting and chest pounding when they lost, and turning it into a win. There is no way to know which, since that area has been full of conflict by all parties for thousands of years.
I really enjoy Alex and his ability to have these difficult, probing conversations in while maintaining the highest standard of respect. I pray for Alex’s conversion, and even if not, I pray for him to continue this great work he is doing here.
Please, keep listening to Alex. But do so with an open mind. Allow yourself to question what you think is sacred. Some truths may be ugly, but accepting them will allow you to grow. If you find answers, your faith will be stronger. If you don't, maybe faith isn't really the right path for you. Just a thought, from an ex-believer.
Their answer to literally any moral dilemma as prescribed by their god is always the same. “God knows what he’s doing” and “who are we to question a gods decisions”. Isn’t that convenient?…..
That's the whole point though. We're not God. If God being the uncreated creator, the unmoved mover, decided to create a universe with living creatures then what's wrong with Him decided to influence that world in whatever way he chooses. What I would like to know why atheists seem to think they can judge God's actions but not other people. If God commands a pagan people who participated in child sacrifices to be killed as judgement to be immoral then why don't atheists judge individuals who practice abortion today? And when atheists judge God, the creator of the universe for His actions I'd like to ask by what standard are you guys making this judgement? If morality is subjective then what religious people believe about God is perfectly fine because it's all subjective in end, right? ROMANS 9:14-23 "14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[a] 16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[b] 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. 19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[c] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? 22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath-prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory-"
bro, we needed this interaction. Cliffe and Alex going head to head. I quite liked the calm atmosphere of this discussion, as well the logic brought by alex in dismantling cliffes responses and explanations. To me Stuart seemed to yap up nonsense in response to alex, so I'm curious to see the full video to see if he has anything of substance to say. EDIT: Otherwise, love your videos alex!
@@c0axLet’s be honest as Christians we’re bias towards Cliffe the same way these guys are atheist and they’re bias towards Alex. So even if Cliffe did have good points these guys won’t see it the same way we won’t see if Alex has good points.
I love that these men were able to sit down and have a civil, intelligent conversation. Kudos to Alex for having them on and asking the hard questions.
"They were given over 400 years to repent" "Oh yeah, what kind of instructions were they given?" "I don't know, but they were bad, and the Chinese don't have an issue with genocide" What a great point...
He’s just changing the subject to deter our attention so we get side tracked and forget the question we asked and start talking about something new. Classic liberal tactic
Apparently god gave us free will but those who choose their own path as given by god will be slaughtered, he didn't seem to put this as one of his rules makes free will nonsense
What got me was when he said it "seems like we're all reading from the same sheet music" about morals, the very next thing he said was about how the Chinese have completely different morals than Westerners.
I've been waiting for someone to challenge cliff that is not some young student. First time I've seen him under this much pressure and he had no real answer. It's brilliant.
No real answer…to you. The funny thing about these videos is both sides come into them with their own opinion, and leave with their own opinion stronger, thinking that the other side is crazier.
He literally said....i don't know! And yeah its a struggle to accept. That's not a real answer. And the hyperbole argument was magnificently put down by alex. He was in total control of this discussion.
@@patriot-g3e yeah, i'm pretty sure buddy 😂😂😂😂 much need for that laughing emoji 😂😂😂😂 at 19:07 these dimwits said "well, you know, at least they didn't rape 'em" 😂😂😂😂 mad funny i know. sad people
@@manicksgaming6949It's a helluva thing to punish the entirety of somebody's lineage for all other generations to come because of a mistake they made ages ago.
As someone who is not sure if moral realism is true, my biggest problem with these passages is not the morality per se, but the unimaginative way in which the deity allegedly solves "the problem". Isn't interesting that God didn't think of anything better than what an israelite scribe from the Ancient Neart East would probably conceive his deity doing?
Honestly such a good point, and I bring this up in other moral arguments. If I can come up with a more humane way to deal with these problems, then surely an all-knowing god could come up with that too. And being all-powerful, there's no "well, he HAD to do it this way to maximize good later on down the line" argument, because if that's true, then he's not all-powerful.
@Radi0actvChickn He won't be all powerful if he could not show that death can be defeated either by bringing back life. God as the author of life can take it when he wants. There has never been a refutation to that idea. Only an appeal to emotion.
Respect to Alex for being able to entertain and meet these ideas where they are. I’d be incapable. Every time these dudes speak my head hurts a little more.
Interesting to see the Knechtles in this context. You've genuinely built up a cache of good will that has elevated the quality of the dialogues on display. Others should take note.
I'm a Christian, and as a Christian I habe full faith in God and His deeds. I cannot deny that the questions ppsed by Alex, here, are very interesting and thought provoking. Very well articulated. What I find curious, is that God the Father is not being discussed here as a parental figure. Since we have been created in the image of God, we ourselves are vreated to be parents. What do we do when our children misbehave? We try to teach them, and we punish them. Sure, we don't punish them to the point of killing them, because we do not have the right to take lives. But, you might ask, did the Israelites have the right to kill and enslave? Without the authority of the Father - no. How can we pass on judgement and punishment, without the authority the moral high ground? We can't, and if we do, we have sinned. But, and this is my understanding, a problem doesn't have to be one's responsibility only when it arrives on one's doorstep, ergo preventative measures - ultimate cleansing, only by the authority of God. God sent ultimate sinners to do what ultimate sinners have created. I can't seem to find a passage in the old testament where the sinners themselves justify the act of their sin, without still being sinners. Please, let's discuss this theory, and correyme where I went wrong. Thanks, Alex, great video.
"Since we have been created in the image of God" Care to prove that? This is why it wasn't talked here, as no one managed to prove it to be the case. "We try to teach them, and we punish them" Not by burning them alive for eternity... Isn't it?... "because we do not have the right to take lives" Why does god have right to take lives? "How can we pass on judgement and punishment, without the authority the moral high ground?" Making shit up doesn't really provide you high ground here. You can't prove that your god even exists, let alone that we should follow what some book claims to be word of that god. "God sent ultimate sinners to do what ultimate sinners have created" Like punishing rest of the humanity for eternity because 2 of them eat an apple? "Please, let's discuss this theory, and correyme where I went wrong" You went wrong by assuming that god is real, that he is good god and so on. Aka you went wrong from the start.
Everyone is a sceptic until they experience it themselves. I learn from the experience of others and I trust 1000s of years of tradition and the stories of genuine people that I know personally instead of modernity. Ask yourseves these questions What has the world view of humans been for most of history? Most people incorporated a spiritual worldview. When did modern worldviews change? Early to mid 1900s What events simultaneously occurred at that time? Electricity Radio Mechanization Industrial war and murder And most importantly the advent of nuclear weapons. People started to place themselves on the throne of God. We have forgotten where we fit in the order of the universe and who we serve with our actions. @@Zripas
@@garthxander9733 What changed? Education, technological progress and so on... You no longer can so easily brainwash people without being fact checked in few seconds due to access to internet. I dare you to present sound and valid argument for god existence and lets see how you will end up here. By the way, there been way way way way more murder before technological revolution.
@@Zripas @Zripas First of all, do you know what hell is? Second "Why does God have the right to take lives?" Day that again my friend, to say the all powerful God who created us, doesn't have the right to destroy us? That's like saying I can build a lego set, but I'm horrible for destroying the set. Thirdly, "You can't prove your God exists" your point? You can't prove anything at all, to prove means to show it cannot be another way, which is why people like scholars turned to evidence, this being morality and historical evidence. Fourth, God is t punishing all of humanity because two people sinned, God isnt forcing evil onto us, we have something called a free will. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, and even if they didn't sin, somewhere down the line someone else eventually would. And no God is not evil for giving us free will, he is not going to force us to love him. God is love, meaning you can't force it, getting rid of our free will would be forcing it. Fifth, back to your first point, again you cannot prove anything. Finally, despite my comment, I'm sure you will still disagree, so I have one question, if you had all the evidence, all the proof, God is real and Good, would you follow him?
@@Wind0watcher "do you know what hell is?" Imaginary theists created to scare people. Its quite similar to Santa bringing you coal if you missbehave. "to say the all powerful God who created us, doesn't have the right to destroy us?" Correct, he doesn't. Even if you could prove that your god is real and that he created us, will not mean that he has right to destroy us. "That's like saying I can build a lego set, but I'm horrible for destroying the set." Did you noticed that your "analogy" lacks one tiny thing in it... Actual living being... Will try to fix it for you, as you clearly can't make valid one. You rise a kitten, not even make it, just find and rise it. Lets assume that it would have died without you. Do you have a right to kill that kitten? " which is why people like scholars turned to evidence, this being morality and historical evidence" ? Morality is evidence now? Are you drunk or high or both? And historical "evidence" is extremely wage expresion, what do you even talk about here? Some texts in books? I mean, yea, we could say that its evidence, just like someone saying that they so bigfoot is evidence, its extremely bad evidence, but still evidence. "God is t punishing all of humanity because two people sinned" Original sin? have you heard about it? "God isnt forcing evil onto us" Didn't he created evil? And created humans who can take that evil in? isint everything is created by god, including children with cancer? "we have something called a free will" Feel free (irony) to prove that this is actually the case. "Adam and Eve chose to disobey God," In which fictional reality was that a choice? By bible itself, it said that there was no evil before those two tasted that apple, which means that Adam and Eve should not have had a concept what evil is, or what doing something bad actually is, so then, how the hell punishing someone who had no idea what they are doing is actually a good thing? Its like giving a grenade to a toddler and when he pulls that pinout you would start beating him... Do you see tiny issue here? "somewhere down the line someone else eventually would" So that justifies cursing remaining humanity for the rest of times?... basically, by your logic, because we could trace some of your ancestors being genocidal maniacs we should be able to put you in jail for that? Same logic, so same rules should apply, right? " he is not going to force us to love him." Yet there is only single thing you can do which will be unforgiven, its disbelief/worship of that god. You can go around and murder children, even that can be forgiven, but not worship of your genocidal maniac. "God is love" Purple is potato. This is how rational that sentence is. "again you cannot prove anything" Ok, so you admit that you can't prove your god, cool beans, we agree on that one. "despite my comment, I'm sure you will still disagree" What did you expected? Me doing 180 because you made some weird fallacious comment? "if you had all the evidence, all the proof, God is real and Good, would you follow him?" Cool beans, go for it, present evidence, proof and so on. Give me your BEST shot you have.
Actually, considering the people He dealt with, he’s incredibly merciful. I’d urge you to go read the Old Testament, and read it in context of global history.
I think any Christian or Jew struggle with the actions of God in the Old Testament when it comes to wiping people out. I try to be objective. Whether I'm a believer or not is irrelevant. That has no bearing on what this God of the Bible is doing. I could not exist and God's actions would of still been the same. Let's say God does exist, for argument sake, does God have the right to be God? God is the author of reality, since he created it. I think it's safe to infer that since God authored reality, he's the boss. This includes dispensing judgement. Alex has a problem with God's commands, which are judgements by God to deal with evil. Alex is imputing his sense of morality, which by his own admission, is moral relativism, onto God's decision making process. Alex thinks since God's commands to wipe people out are below the threshold of his morality, then they are inferior, and if that is true, then how can God be all good and loving? There lies in the million dollar question. One of the hardest questions for any theist to answer that would give a satisfactory answer. Like I mentioned before, does God have the right to be God? If God is the standard for righteousness, which includes good, then our feelings about what's right or wrong are irrelevant in the context of them being the benchmark. Take yourself out of the equation. What is God's standard? Good is just that, 100%. There's no flaw, no bad, no white lie, nothing. Humans are decent with the capacity to do good, but we aren't 100%. God is. For argument sake, if the Bible is correct, then humanity and the world was once good, then it fell. According to the Bible, sin is corruption. Sin simply means to fall short or to miss the mark. Not a certain type of behavior, but anything that falls short or misses the mark. Of what? God's standard. Sin is separation. It cuts off anything from the eternal life source which is God. It's a top down one way street. Think of a glass of water. Now put a drop of cyanide in it. It corrupts all of the water, not just a portion. That's what sin does Being that the world and humanity are tainted with sin's corruption, God has the right as the author of everything to judge anything and everything that falls short of his standard. In fact, Genesis tells the reader that the corruption was so bad that God didn't just wipe out a city or a country, he wiped out the world. But, he also made promises or covenants to humanity to save/fix them and the fallen world. According to the Bible, Israel is God's chosen people. Chosen to do what? Chosen to be the people by way the messiah comes to save the world. Even though he chose Israel to be his people, he is dealing with sinning people in a sinful world. All of it is below his standard of righteousness, which is sinlessness. God can deal with people on any terms he wants because he's the boss. If it's all corrupted, then he can judge however he wants according to his standard. Sometimes God had Israel wipe people out, sometimes he had other nations wipe out some of Israel as well as enslave them. Sin is no nonchalant matter with God in the Bible, it's like a stage 4 cancer that corrupts the whole body, makes it decay and die. God has to deal with sin if he is perfect. He has to judge. If he wanted to, he could wipe out the universe and start over. It's his right, he's the creator and boss. According to the Bible, the God of that book won't do that because he is a promise making and keeping, God. Faithful to himself, his word and his relationship to his word. He said he will fix the world. I know it doesn't seem fast enough to literally everyone, including me, but what is 13.8B yrs to an eternal being, who is the creator of time and isn't bound by it? In between the humanity's fall and it's restoration, God can choose to deal with corruption any way he chooses. Doesn't matter if it's men, women, children or livestock, it's all corrupted. I can imagine this statement might trigger someone's morality heartstring, but it's not about any of us. It's what is God's standard and how he chooses to deal with the corruption of falling short. It doesn't matter how we view it in terms of how God conducts his business. If he is good and a just judge, he will judge correctly according to his standard. According to the Bible, ultimately, God has a plan, restoration, and he will succeed in it. God deals with a world a certain way before Jesus, and he deals with it another way after him as far as I can tell. This post isn't meant to be a gotcha or a definitive answer. It's an incredibly tough subject to give any type of satisfactory or sufficient answer that isn't just brushed away immediately. In answering this problematic issue, I really do try and approach it like a crime scene. Be a set of eyes, pretend I don't exist so that I can be objective as possible in the analysis. If we are talking about the God of the Bible, then we need to look at everything from the perspective of God. The Bible says God is a person with feelings. So, I think it's safe to assume there is motive. Motive produces action. That's the beginning of my approach to try and understand God. A person can think or feel however they want to after that, and you have every right. I was just trying to articulate some ideas. If you agree or disagree, that's fine. If you want to engage meaningfully like Alex would, that's fine to. Hopefully this post has some utility. Thnx for reading.
Yo.you gave me a lot to consider. It's not easy to come with those terms that.he's God and has the right to make that decision. But at the end of the day he's the creator.
The thing Alex's argument really achieves is it damages a lot of the standard proselytising arguments Christians make. They often rely on "doesn't God/Jesus just feel good?" and other such appeals to our emotions and moral intuitions. I have much more respect for divine command theory than most atheists, "who cares how you feel, he's God" makes sense, but its certainly not going to convince many people to worship God. I feel similarly about the problem of evil, and God "loving" us. Clearly God's definition of love is quite different from our definition of love (I wouldn't allow something I love to be tortured, God would), so "God loves you, don't you want to be loved?" loses a lot of its persuasive force.
@@umothebeliever good stuff. Happy to contribute. Also, something to think about. There's only one thing any being needs to be God... Absolute Power! It doesn't matter how Loving or Good God is, if he isn't Almighty, then love and goodness would of been wiped out overnight when Lucifer tried to overthrow God when he rebelled. God is Love, God is good, but love is NOT God, good is NOT God. Him being God isn't dependent on those characteristics being part of his nature. There's nothing you cannot learn about a person that they don't reveal to you about who they are. To truly get to know a person, they have to reveal themself to you. The Bible says God is a person. I think you would expect God to reveal himself, who he is and his ways to you. The Bible says God loves, he forgives, he has patience, he gets mad, he judges, he saves, he's faithful to his word etc. If that God is real, then I say Thank God! Because if it were another God that was almighty or has more power than the God of the Bible, but was evil in his nature, then we would have a completely different reality, probably rooted in suffering. God is not on trial, humanity is. You are either going his way.. which produces life because you are connected to the source of life... Or... You are going your way, which produces separation from that life source and you decay and die, physically and eternally.
@@saulgoneman I'm not a fan of a watered down hippie approach to convince anyone to believe in God or Jesus. A big ole love fest where we are all eating cupcakes and candy canes. I'm also not a fan of the fire and brimstone Bible thumpers either. You shouldn't have to coerce or frighten anyone to get them to believe in God or Jesus. I would challenge their theology. Using "Who cares what you think, he's God" wasn't a strategy for winning souls. I agree, it's not going to, and that statement wasn't it's intent. I said that in the context of getting to the Truth of who God is as a person. Saying "who cares what you think" is another way of saying, "look at this as though you don't exist." I understand that sounds contradictory. How can I look at something if I don't exist? Let me streamline the concept. Be a set of 👀. Nothing else. No body, no brain, no Ego. Just a set of eyes that only sees evidence. When you can do that, you see things for what they are. You see the truth. You haven't tainted the evidence with your subjectiveness. It allows you to be as objective as possible. Once you see the truth of the evidence, you can bring your Ego back online and do analysis, draw conclusions. This is the approach I take to understanding anything, including God. If I was a set of eyes and those eyes could see God revealing his personhood in a book, those eyes could record everything that is revealed. I bring my ego back online and now I can analyze what type of person he is, his ways and what he wants. Once I understand all that, now I can use that understanding to articulate what convinces me and the hope I have, how I came to my worldview. Plant the seed and see if it produces fruit. Love in English is an all encompassing word. It is in the Hebrew and Koine Greek, but those languages all have more specific and nuanced words for love that is missed in English. Love in Koine Greek Eros - romantic love Philia - a brotherly or friendly love. It's reciprocal. Philautia - self love Ludis - flirting or playful Agape - selfless unconditional love that is freely given by choice, not obligation. Philia is the root word for the city of brotherly love.. Philadelphia In John 3:16, that love is Agape It's easy to just throw around the English version of love and possibly miss the type of love or a more nuanced version of whatever love God is displaying. This goes for a lot of words in the Bible that are just taken at face value in English. I'm not saying the translation is bad, just that further examination in the original languages unlock deeper understanding. Thnx for the reply 😎
God's answer to Moses is " I AM THAT I AM. Total perfection without limitations. Let us make man in our image. God is not lonely, he is totally beyond our ability to fully comprehend, we need to put our useless intellect aside and know that He is God!
18:53 This is the kind of thing I really can’t understand. “You’re reading judeo-Christian texts from a judeo-Christian point of view, that’s why you’re morally outraged.” Uh, no. From the text’s POV this is completely justified. From our POV it’s immoral. Clearly, our 21st century morality does NOT come from the referenced text.
@@charliekowittmusic you want humans to have free will, but you get upset when evil is allowed, then you get upset when evil is judged. Then you say the way and timing that God moves people into the next life is incorrect
@ I don’t believe in free will. Why are you assuming 10 different things about me lol? Stick to the subject matter. I believe exactly what I said. If God commands immoral acts, then God is immoral. Or, indiscriminate killing and ethnic cleansing is moral, and we’re the ones who have morality backwards. One of these must logically be the case. So, tell me. Which is it?
@@charliekowittmusic if you don’t believe in free will then how is this immoral from your POV? The Athiest worldview is that genocide/murder are not wrong in any absolute sense. The Biblical worldview is that murder/genocide are always absolutely evil and God moving people to the next life is never murder/genocide.
@@domcruise274because it makes absolutely no sense you just can’t admit it to yourself because you desperately want to believe 😂 According to you.. this god former and created us and influenced the way we are. This god also knows EVERYTHING we will ever do. And then when we do what he knew we were going to do. He gets angry and kills us, and then damns us to hell for all eternity? 😂
I dislike the arguments that claim since the bible was a long time ago, immoral acts are actually okay for the time period, but at the same time we all need to learn how to be moral from these exact same stories. I fail to see how that is not just nitpicking what you like and ignoring/justifying what you dislike about them.
You treat it as protomorality. Obviously there is a lot of immoral things compared to today but you can also see the vestiges of where our current morality comes from. It’s the same way we can still gleam moral lessons from Greek and Roman myth even if a lot of it is also distasteful to our modern perceptions.
@@Waxican Of course we can glean good lessons from it. The problem is when people can't admit there were mistakes. Things that absolutely cannot be reconciled with an omnipotent, all-loving being.
Well that depends how you learn from stories. Do you just arbitrarily mimic what the characters do? Or do you integrate the stories with spiritual practices that develop awareness and sensitivity to suffering and conscience?
That very first question that Alex asked in counter, about whether these "cursed people" had the same opportunities to learn and repent as the Israelites did - that's a key point. God's mercy is unequivocally not uniform. For all that Cliffe said "actions have long-lasting consequences", God sure didn't seem to care about the long-lasting consequences of his disinterest in the salvation of the Canaanites.
@@blakevinccent4928 How do you know the Canaanites wouldn't listen to God? When God sent Jonah to Nineveh it was because they were wicked. When the people of Nineveh heard what God was gonna do they believed what Jonah said and proclaimed a fast. God then spared them. How do you know the Canaanite people wouldn't do the same if God sent a prophet instead of an army?
@@resinsminia simple, god knows everything he knows who will be saved and who will not. God knowing everything and the hearts of them knows they could not be saved. If god didn’t know everything he would have asked them, but he knew their hearts as he knows everything it’s stated in the Bible god is all knowing. He knows who can and cannot be saved.
@@resinsminia Everyone in Jericho knew about the God of Israel and knew about their feats in battle. Especially considering how god-minded (if that makes sense) these people were, sacrificing their own children for the favors of their gods, they 100% would have attributed the victories of Israel to the strength of their God, which they did. But only Rahab actually feared God, her family in turn having faith in her and choosing to fear God saved all of them. The people of Jericho knew.
If Amalekites were to be slaughtered because they ignored God's orders for 400 years to just pack up and leave, how much greater would be God's wrath to Israel for ignoring Jesus for 2000 years? Maybe the Jews were idiots for putting God as the justification for their conquering Canaan.
I hit $113k today. Thank you for all the knowledge and nuggets you had thrown my way over the last months. Started last month 2024. Financial education is indeed required for more than 70% of the society in the country as very few are literate on the subject.
It's essential for you to have a mentor to keep you accountable. Myself, I'm guided by Evelyn Vera. for years and highly recommend her I focus on him. To be honest, I almost didn't buy the idea of letting someone handle growing my finance, but so glad I did.
“Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.” Genesis 18:23-33 ESV bible.com/bible/59/gen.18.23-33.ESV
THANK YOU! Exactly the example I used in my comment as well. The Holy Spirit is working within us. I heard Him tell me "remember Sodom?" when I was listening to Alex's remarks and I very rarely study OT scripture - these points Alex and others bring up make me struggle sometimes. Struggle creates strength! Praise Christ!
Go see what Dr Ammon Hillman has to say. He's an expert in ancient Greek medical texts and is translating stuff from Antiquity that has yet to be translated. Warning, you may be shocked by what he's translating
Wait, how long have you been a Christian? And now you are just considering whether you approve of genocide in the Bible? It's amazing the cognitive dissonance of so many people. It's a disgusting and perverse act, then... now. .. in the future... doesn't matter. It should all be condemned. There is NO justification. To even try and justify it you have to give up your humanity. Disgusting.
@Caleb_287 so it says in a Bible verse. What did this god provide in the way of help to make sure these people understood what was supposedly at stake? Where is the empathy and loving nature that your god supposedly has in this instance? It's all made up so I don't care, but people use this kind of rhetoric to do unspeakable and u ethical things even today. It's disgusting . There is never, ever a justification for mass murder or genocide, even for your made up god.
@@SR-ry6hs I don't know all the answers and I bet you don't either. So how can you call it genocide? If you would be a bit of a critical thinker and not just lean one way; it would be much better for you. God bless.
4:50 I am abhorred by this reference to the Chinese people. Acceptance of collective punishment is not Chinese-specific. Just because Chinese and broad Asian cultures are more collective rather than individualistic, doesn't mean that they find genocide or killing of infants and children acceptable. Who actually think that such anti-humanity crime is acceptable? Only believers. You found Chinese being OK with biblical genocides because you asked Chinese Christians. If you ask White, Black or other racial groups who are also Christians, they are also going to say it is acceptable. But to non-believers, the vast majority of them will have trouble accepting that genocide is an appropriate form of punishment.
@@andrewtsai777 Athiest worldview is that Murder and genocide is not evil in any absolute sense. Biblical worldview is that murder and genocide are always absolutely evil and that God killing someone is never murder/genocide. So which worldview is your comment based on?
Just a little bit into this, but this is probably the most sedated I've seen Cliffe Knechtle and he is infinitely more interesting and agreeable explaining why he believes these things than his normal schtick of just asserting his beliefs. I found myself agreeing with him on a lot of his interjections despite having the opposite overall conclusion. Very well done Mr. O' Conner and great job Cliffe, I'd like to see more of this!
you are comparing it with his usual shtick of proselytising at college campus. Of course he is brazen there. Alex wasn't born yesterday, has a degree in philosophy/Theology, and doesn't accept bs. Not the same!
@@JDFREEMAN-e2n neither can you😭😭 I guarantee you’d get rhetorically dominated by a 3 year old with a diaper full of shit. I’ll debate you and embarrass you lol.
@@lukedegraaf1186 a lot of his contentions that if we try to interject modern ethics in established history, we're always going to come up lacking. Like how when he brought up that it's only Western Cultures that seem to think that a god can't just order the death of people or cultures.
Cliffe acts like there aren't Bible scholars writing papers on every nuance of these issues. He could easily talk to them with his platform also. He's just a lazy grifter.
To be fair, I don't think Cliffe does the best job at explaining God's judgment here, but his argument was not "God didn't mean that," it was that God's judgment is impossibly righteous and absolute, no matter the circumstance. A just explanation given the incomprehensible being we're talking about.
Yo have to turn this biblical texts upside down and inside out to get anything positive out of them. Why not read them as they are written? Which I do! Which makes hod a monster, imo.
At 10:31. Much of the Old Testament text on genocide is really about obedience. God will punish those who are not following God's commandments, the victims of genocide. He will also punish the oppressors who do not follow commandments to exterminate all people and livestock from a particular ethnic group. When you contrast that with the concept of obedience in the New Testament it is a different approach. God and Jesus still love the sinner even though they constantly fail the obedience test.
Well, around min 1:30, Cliffe says it is an Exageration; that most people condemned to die is still alive in the next chapters... But that Neglectance to Kill Everyone as Ordered is Later portrayed as the Cause for much future Trouble.
8:30 Counterpoint, Alex. “Genocide” does not have to mean literally leaving no one alive. If that were the case, then there would be no such thing as genocide. Even Hitler did not succeed in killing all Jews. It was still genocide. It is “The deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people based on their race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion.” What is done in the Bible fits the bill.
@@awesome3139 the Athiest worldview doesn’t believe genocide or what Hitler did is evil in any absolute sense. The Biblical worldview is that murder/genocide are always absolutely evil and God moving people to the next life is never murder/genocide. Do you know your own moral belief system?
@@domcruise274 Atheists don't have a world view. They have one shared thought, that they don't have a believe in a deity. That's it. You're referring to the idea that evil is relative to a culture, which is absolutely is. As societies mature and come together they solidify what acts are wrong to be similar, and ideally enforce that on those who commit those acts. Ideally. So taking your statement on the afterlife - a wonderful loophole to absolve God from being judged in the same way a person would be. He's not killing or ordering murder, he's just...moving them along a bit ahead of schedule. Convenient.
Twenty minutes of non-answers, truly amazing how they can't give an actual answer to anything! What was he even trying to say at 10:34, going on a full rant about God trying to separate his people?
that's how you get nazis. "We're the Supreme race and your death is a fare price to pay so that our people may live on your land." And then 80million people get murdered en mass. Many people fought every step of the nazis rise to power. and so do I plan to fight at every step, every street, every breath. May such things of old not repeat themselves again in the new ere. "The only thing that you need for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing." - A Fighter.
@@danielearl3591 I understand that he was trying to say that, but it was complete opposite of what the other guy said. Either these orders are hyperbole, or they have to be taken literally. You can't have the cake and eat it too. The moment you say the jews didn't have fo kill everyone, every statement and absurd order could be questioned on its hyperbolism. How could a perfect being not be perfectly clear regarding his orders? - God, we killed everyone, as you asked. - Nice! Wait... even Timmy, the little cripple boy and her widow mother who did everything to support her child? - Yes, as per your orders. - Come on guuuuys I was clearly using HYPERBOLE, you didn't need to kill them! But I said what I said, tee-hee you get a free genocide pass!
it’s literal where it’s rhetorically useful for it to be literal and figurative where it’s rhetorically useful for it be to figurative. what’s not to get?
@@TaeyxBlackJust because a certain interpretation is more useful than another doesn’t subtract from the immorality of the literal text. Using your logic we can justify just about anything, although I suspect that’s why you’re using it. It’s a good way to avoid confrontation.
@@masked_12 You missed the point. If someone is choosing each of the instances where they think it's literal or figurative then none of it can be taken seriously. 👌🏻
13:02 "I believe that innocent children were killed by Israeli bombs, and they happened to be Palestinians; part of Hamas maybe, or Hezbollah." What a great way to not only not answer the question Alex asked, even remotely, but also to show your complete ignorance. I can promise you, Cliffe, that there were no Palestinian babies that were members of Hamas or Hezbollah. It's disgusting how these guys have no problem dehumanizing their perceived enemies, whether it's the Amalekites or the Palestinians. If innocent people are going to be killed, then we should not be going there to fight.
@@connorohara751 The point was to show you and I live in nations that do the same exact thing you judge God for but on a scale hundreds of times larger than was possible in the Bronze Age. If humans are so much more moral and good than God than why does it seem so impossible to trust our nations our rulers or even our neighbors. If you had your life savings on display in the street and told everyone “this wealth belongs to me I’ll return in 24 hours but if you steal it you won’t be punished” in your local city would you trust in the average person in your city of millions to NOT steal your stuff? I know if I did the same with Jesus I wouldn’t fear my money being stolen at all
@@CSS916 Athiest worldview is that Murder and genocide is not evil in any absolute sense. Biblical worldview is that murder and genocide are always absolutely evil and that God killing someone is never murder/genocide. So which standard is disappointed?
@@connorohara751 you want humans to have free will, but you get upset when evil is allowed, then you get upset when evil is judged. Then you say the way and timing that God moves people into the next life is incorrect
I didn’t think he was going to, but he did. “You can’t judge the morality of actions from thousands of years ago by standards of today.” It never gets old.
Then claim that their god is also timeless and unchanging. Theoretically, if someone convinced people like him that god wanted them to destroy a group of people, they’d do it. It’s happening right now.
@@jordanbtucker I meant to ask you. I’m just confused. Maybe I understood what you were saying but it seemed like you were criticizing Cliff and Stuart for what they said and I wasn’t sure why. Do you believe they were being inconsistent? Did it disagree with your set of morals? That’s why I asked.
@@jellslixcy6168 Atheists don’t believe murder is wrong in any absolute sense. Biblical view is that murder is always absolutely evil and God moving someone to the next life isn’t murder
@ I think you mean people that don’t believe in objective morality don’t think murder is wrong. Not all atheists don’t believe in objective morality. I am an atheist and I believe murder is wrong.
My thing is why would God not just destroy the devil then isn’t the devil the one causing this evil and temptation. Am I suppose to believe the Canaanites are these master minds that’s greater than the devil
@@rodoxag9117 Well hey God can give the dead eternal heavenly paradise…… can you? Plus there’s a lot of context before you even get to that point. These nations did all kinds of things that would make satan blush. Say the nation of Cannane took over like role or Persia and their cultural practice took out globally…. In a situation like that was God not right to try to prevent those behaviors? And God shoes mercy if they repent look at ninivah.
@@Dorkeydaze god can also, supposedly, give eternal and unimaginable suffering, your points being?. Yes, yes, I already know the "context" (the golden excuse), but read the bible again and you will also find that god commanded many things that would also make Satan blush. And one thing is for god do something to prevent those things, and another completely different thing is sending humans to do their biddings, including blood baths, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Are you telling me that god, in his infinite wisdom, couldn't find more peaceful and better alternatives to turn those people around, other than brutally murdering them? This god sure seems very limited
Not at all contradictory… but what’s contradictory is Alex saying these things are objectively wrong when he doesn’t actually believe in objective wrong
@@domcruise274he actually argues for the opposite, I.e., moral relativism. You may need to listen a bit more carefully to what Alex actually argues. He says that if these things listed are not ‘wrong’ by the Christian metric, then nothing is. Lest the Christian concede that something can go for the people of one time and place, and not for another, and to do this would be to destroy the validity of the Christian position and actually bolster the validity of moral relativism.
Comparing modern war casualties to a specific order to destroy everything that breaths down to the children and the animals of a nation is pretty disingenuous.
😂at the end one of the Christian defenders sounded like a Nazi defender I heard that was saying it was more humane to kill the Jews rather than let them starve to death because they didn’t have enough food or housing for them 🤔
The evil one, who is to be "destroyed" is the winter season of hunger, cold, sickness, darkness, and death. Typically this is the five months as described in Revelation 9. The evil leader of these baddies is the scorpion constellation (Rev 9.5). Canaan, the fourth son of Ham, is Scorpio. The "nation" of Israel is a collective of four signs as in Isaiah 9. The leader is the noble/royal lion (Leo) and the lying tail is the scorpion (Scorpio). Between the head and tail we find the palm frond/branch aka Virgo and the reed aka Libra.
Takes a big man to admit that you don't fully understand what you're talking about, but the way he speaks about the Bible with such confidence makes it seem like he doesn't actually mean that. Confidence breeds incompetence.
@@Kevin-xk3me Well as someone who has an undying faith in the all loving God, I would at least expect him to rationalise why the genocide of innocent children was necessary for the greater good. Nobody is perfect but if you can see a flaw, no, A FUNDAMENTAL FLAW within the character of God, I think it’s illogical to believe in such without a) not knowing any better b) being purposely ignorant
One small thing I noticed when Alex was rebutting the first round of arguments, he reads that God regretted making Saul king...now how would that work at all with an all powerful creator? Why would God regret a thing he chose to do when he knew what the end result would be? That sounds an awful lot like he changed his mind and thought he was wrong, which doesn't track to terribly well with the idea that God doesn't make mistakes.
God, be it Christian or otherwise, is meant to be incomprehensible, so its laughable when atheists try to argue morals to disprove or undermine the concept of a just God. Same thing if it seems impossible for a just God to let someone burn in Hell, it is possible because this impossible being would have infinitely(impossibly) correct judgement and abilities. Time is also irrelevant. Cliffe, like many others, gets caught up in the emotional appeal of genocide when explaining. By the logic of atheism, you could call someone(Like Cliffe or Alex) evil because you don't like what they're doing, yet have absolutely no standing. The concept of free-will is why God can task you with something yet be disappointed by the result(your actions).
How does regret make a perfect being imperfect? It's worth keeping in mind it was not God's idea to make Saul king. You seem to make a leap that regret automatically means a change of mind. Perhaps you can think of times where you regretted an action even though it was necessary?
14:05 - come on Alex, surely you're well aware there is no rule of "proportional response". It's a recent invention aimed to restrain Israel's ability to respond to terrorist attacks. There is no mention of it as a "rule" at any other time in relation to any other conflict. The closest to it was the cold war concept of "symmetrical response" which was a way to avoid mutual destruction. And the example you're using isn't of "disproportional response" but of a war crime which are completely different concepts. You can do better.
You clearly haven’t heard of the concept of an “eye for an eye”. Which (even though it is condemned by Jesus himself) has been used all throughout history as a rule of “proportional response” in historical pretext in the Bible, in Hammurabi’s code, to the very basis of what systems of law and justice in the modern day are built upon. You can do better to understand that this isn’t some irrelevant point of view it’s a moral standard to prevent horrible atrocities (like genocide) from happening
Alex as a new christian its really enjoyable to listen to this intellectual debates. Keep up these conversations. You ask the same questions that many people have but not everyone has the possibility to ask them to people that really know a lot.
As someone who studies this stuff a lot, I can assure you there aren't better answers to these questions than the terrible answers you heard here. The apologists just assert that their god is morally justified in causing any amount of suffering, and when asked who made that rule, who says God gets to do whatever they want? What do you think the answer is? God says God gets to do evil so he does. Or they say, "Well, who can stop him?" As if having the ability to cause suffering means you're automatically justified in causing it. Dr. Josh Bowen does a lot of debates with apologists about the herem bans, and the "devotion to destruction" of entire people groups, and as I said, nobody has reasonable answers for it besides, "They're just exaggerating!" But these same people will say if God commands a mass murder, you MUST do it... so the hyperbole excuse isn't actually relevant at all. These two men (and most who try to defend these books) defend actual genocide as a necessity. That should give everyone pause about relying on these books as moral guides.
@@sparrowthesissy2186 you're missing one key detail, it's a fallacious illogical statement to question God's decision making as he is the objective truth and morality. The claim "God isn't moral" is self-defeating.
@@gallowglass3764morality can exist without the books being an explication for it. Have you ever considered this option? Let’s not make a false dichotomy here. Just because something exists, doesn’t mean we can explain its nature. There are plenty of extant phenomena that we can observe but not yet explain fully, so why should morality, that being a particular cognitive construct associated with value judgements subject to inter-cultural and even inter-species variation, be exempt from this?
We need to understand with a humble heart. God sees the future. We don't. He knows what would had happened if evil generations would had been left alive. All we can do is guess. As a servant of God i believe Jesus died for my sins and I'm so grateful. Apart from that i leave everything to God. I have a limited brain which can only comprehend so much. Thank you Jesus! 💙🙌
God knows what would have if evil generations would had been left alive. then why did he create those evil generation in the first place, just to wipe them out, wouldn't it have made sense for him to not create those generation
@Mkhl4Sure God did not create evil. People have free choice to do whatever they want, just like you are doing right now. You choose to speak your mind yet you can't understand how God works. I didn't understand either until I came to Him with a humble heart. God ignores the proud but gives grace to the humble.
@@EAC23 God created everything in the world. Okay let's say I grant you that statement God did not create evil. I mean he is all knowing, he created everything knowing what would have happened from get go and he still decided to created which means he knew about the evil before it happens and he chose to create. So in fact God did create evil. God and devil are the same people
@@Mkhl4Sure He knows everything because that's who he is. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Now just because He knows it doesn't mean he cannot let it happen. Love by definition has to be freely given. In other words He could have just created robots but robots can't love. We were created to love Him like He loves us, but He also gives us the ability to choose without forcing us. I would recommend for you to read the book Is God A Moral Monster by Paul Copan. That should answer many of your questions.
@@EAC23 he knows what we will happen because he has set that way. Free will is just an illusion, if everything has been predestined and he knows the final outcome, why waste time of seeing who would come to heaven and who's goign to hell, i mean he already knows. Makes no sense. Just put people in their right place
@@MarkPatmosnope, just from our moral standard of today. I could easily say "hey, just the laws and morals of the Israelites back then". The problem starts when you insert an "all good, just, unchanging" god as lawgiver of absolute and objective morality.
Atheist really have no moral ground to stand on though. The point of Israel as a nation was to be the light of God shinning though the institution of a earthly kingdom. Since Israel’s will one day be the throne room of Jesus Christ and all nations will be subject to it what reason does God NOT have the right to establish his kingdom? Say God for whatever reason let the nations of man do as they please say the nation of Canaanite’s took over globally through military expansion like Persia or Rome did and they had a religious prophet like Jesus and child sacrifice was done in the millions of billions today…. People would surely say a worse act had be done because Gods neutrality in the situation. God shall kingdoms that displeased him and would displeased many billions of us and he acted. Atheist now sit here and argue why God would do such a thing.
TH-cam censorship is so annoying. Literally wrote a reply just got it to be deleted. Essentially my was if the nation of Canaan took over globally like Rome or Persia did everyone would be upset God didn’t step in and do something, but when God FOES do something atheist still get upset about it.
Watch the full episode on TH-cam now: th-cam.com/video/r8RZarGC8B4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=iSNr1-PJmhbeojKk
I love how they talk about how evil they were then you just try to curve the fact they were doing evil and say well they got keeled how is that fair. Had it been a council of men that decided to go to war instead over morality you wouldn’t be having this conversation and say they did it for the good of man. Your a more on
what happen was happened in old testament that is not mistake of God , God was fighting for israelites You fool don't believe in old testament
Believe in new testament
Don't confuse us , first You were confused
Curious. Why are you trying so hard to be like Lex? Is it because the establishment has, for whatever reason, given him a free pass? That he can say whatever and they leave him alone. Do you not have any of your own ideas?
Please please please try to get Greg Boyd (pastor of woodland hills) on to talk about this topic! The cruciform hermeneutic in his book "crucifixion of the warrior God" can provide a very satisfying answer!
@@jakegoldberg6767 I don't know if that would matter to this kid. As I would imagine that one of his arguments against God centers around pain and suffering in the world .. Though Jesus suffered horribly and experienced pain that the average mind can not even fathom. Or considering that the Lord's most important message he was trying to get across to us is that what we do in life, determines what happens to us after death. and he would ask what the point was to Jesus dying and being resurrected.
This is the most HD I've ever seen these guys. I'm so used to seeing them in zoom call videos
Not really sure that is a positive...
God did create Godband HD.
I'm used to seeing Cliffe in a vertical shot, crouching with his hands on his knees, like he's about to drop a number two.
@@Alien1375 What do you mean? The 4k ultra HD close ups of his methhead ear wounds really pull together the whole "evangelical pastor" look hes going for. Its like bright colors in poisonous animals, except with pastors and deranged religious beliefs lol.
@@ryanthenormalhahahahahHahh I can see the thumbnail in my minds eye 👀😂😂😂
More conversations like this! I'm tired of watching people "dunk" on others. A calm, balanced discussion in good faith is a breath of fresh air
maybe fix your feed and who you subbed to.
@@BlackOxymoron Almost impossible nowadays Idk
@@EmersedTuba38 if only all discussion could be like this. I am tired of pretentious debatebros
@@Mwgnophonk anyone knows if this episode will be put on Alex youtube channel? thanks
To be fair, this indeed was a dunk.
Alex is really the best atheist in my view, he's doing his best to not make a "gotcha" statement; he's framing actual ethical questions in the most sincere way he can. I personally am a Christian and have been impressed with his interactions with Jesus' heavy hitters.
He’s giving them just enough rope to hang themselves… and they do, every single time.
If these are heavy hitters, you’ve got a pretty weak army.
@ I love cheesy replies, keep it coming 😎
@@shatteredteethofgod lol thought I was having a bad day, I love this 🙌🏾
I am fascinated every time I see christians expressing enthusiam for alex. I think its great and admire your open-mindedness!
However given the atheism he fervently advocates, how exactly does this work?
Do you constantly sit there and think "ah, interesting argument but I disagree" or do you like roll with the ppunches, and not feel it necessarily debunking your wordview?
Genuinly curious! All the best
This is so good of a conversation 😌
This is how humans should interact.
Can I ask if you're religious or not? Pure curiosity. I'm not religious
@Charlies_stuff Yes, if you mean religion in it's unadultered and original meaning.
@@Charlies_stuffI was right in the middle of pouring my heart to you and got kicked out by an ad..ugh. I know your question was not for me but for the comment you replied to. But I just wanted you to understand it isn't about RELIGION. It's all about RELATIONSHIP with Jesus. I'm sure you have heard the prayer ..to repent your sins and ask Jesus in your heart and believe He died for our sins in our place and was raised in 3 days. That is only part of salvation. We must pray daily..WALK DAILY with Jesus...its all about RELATIONSHIP. When we are saved...we are all given the Holy Spirit ..He is becomes one with our soul to guide us and comfort us and to speak to Jesus when we can not find the words at times for our prayer. But the diff between religion and relationship is the true LOVE for Jesus and the love FROM. Jesus. And loving Him so much that you want to please Him and that allows Him to change our hearts and to walk the unique plan He has for each of us. And that brings so much more joy and purpose into your life. Forget RELIGION which focuses more on THE LAW and works. And it isn't simply obeying God's laws or the doctrine of some religion or our deeds which will get us to heaven. It is KNOWING CHRIST.. THE HOLY SPIRIT which will get us to heaven. A daily conversation with the Holy Spirit. Daily prayers to Jesus and the full desire to do whatever is PLEASING TO HIM simply because you genuinely love HIM SO MUCH. It really is life changing. 💗🙏
@@sarahgalang3727 It's good they have conversations like this :)
@@Charlies_stuff Yeah. This is rare even within the Christian community I must say.
Deuteronomy 9:5 “It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
And so this brings into question, has every act committed by man to another been an act of punishment by God upon those people for their perceived sinfulness? How are we to understand what then is right or wrong if all acts of evil are permitted in the name of "righteousness"?
And I even recall committing a sin for the greater good to be a moral no no in the Bible as well.
@@deecee796
What verse are you talking about that would be a sin for the greater good?
@@deecee796.... You are daft. If you had an ounce of reading comprehension and opened a Bible, you'd realize the context is Israel is the "chosen" people. Being chosen is not necessarily nothing but sunshine and rainbows for them. They were the ones to carry out and be the shining city on the hill which they failed at many times. So no, it's not a standard for every civilization
@@deecee796No, acts of sin are only possible through God given free will and are against God and will be punished when the person reaches judgment, they are not punishments. This is different, and even if the Bible said that God can not sin and this was an act of God
@@deecee796 The Bible is clear that we are not allowed to "sin" for the greater good. The Bible states that the ends do not justify the means. However, it is a self-defeating argument just by the definition of the word sin: Sin is to go against God (Who is All-Good).
This is why we discuss whether or not God's actions are good or bad (morally speaking). It is a fair argument, and that is why Christians should always be open to discussing the actions of God. However, it is also important to understand that Christians are not all-knowing and, as the Bible states in Job, we will not know the answer to every question we have until after judgement day. Of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't ask questions, but we should definitely not base our belief in God around whether or not we can understand every action He takes. Instead, if you are going to base your belief on God being moral (which is 100% fair), then you should ask yourself, "To my understanding: Is the vast majority of God's actions good?". If the answer is yes, then you can continuously try and figure out why God acted certain ways in other places, whilst following His commandments.
This leads to you gaining a deeper understanding, whilst also being on the Righteous side of the argument. This is my narrative alone though, so it's fair to disagree (Personally: if a God exists they must be moral. However, I am human and am flawed. I cannot decide what is moral 100% of the time. However, I can decide what is moral majority of the time, such as murder being immoral. Therefore, if the Christian God is moral to everything I understand, He is worthy of being followed, because He is better than I am. The Book of Job makes it clear that it is alright to have questions, and it is alright to have your foundations shaken: but you have to have Faith that there is a moral reason for the actions God takes.
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To answer the first part of your comment: "has every act committed by man to another been an act of punishment by God upon those people for their perceived sinfulness?"
No. It is made clear that there is an adversary who is actively seeking to trip you up. This is revealed in Genesis 3, and we see him rear his head all over the Bible. The Book of Job takes place with Satan actively trying to make Job sin. He did everything he could to make Job sin: Killed his entire family, stole all of his animals, gave Job a mysterious illness, and he even had Job's wife tell Job to curse God and die.
If Satan is allowed to do anything and everything to make us sin: then it is clear that not every act committed by man was an act of punishment by God. Instead, we have the argument of free will: We can choose to serve God or Satan. God wants us to uphold the moral good, and Satan wants us to hate God, and stray away from Him. Because of this, we are limited to the two options. So, if we choose to serve God, then we are choosing to avoid sin like the plague: where as if we choose to serve Satan, that doesn't mean you are bowing down to serve Satan: you could be doing whatever it takes to make you happy (which could result in you stealing a candy bar, or taking someone's bike, etc).
I also want to correct the part you have about "perceived sinfulness", there is no such thing. Sin is when you go against God. Therefore, God doesn't have a perception of sin, as it would be impossible for an all-knowing God to not know what He supports and what He doesn't support.
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"How are we to understand what then is right or wrong if all acts of evil are permitted in the name of "righteousness"?"
All acts of evil are not permitted in the name of righteousness (Romans 3, yes the majority/entire chapter is about this topic).
If you lie, but your lie leads someone to God, it is still a lie, and lying is a sin so you will be punished. The Bible is clear the presumptuous sinning is not easily forgiven (presumptuously sinning = sinning when you know it's a sin).
I've longed for this interaction between Cliffe and Alex
Same here, it was the first thing I asked for when I subscribed
Omg why is alex hot here...
I only started seeing clips of cliffe pop up in my ytshort feed a few months ago, and I have been wanting to see him talk to someone like Alex since I first saw him.
God be with you all amen
@@Baggerz182your on the wrong channel brotha 💀
Really great conversation. Thanks Alex
He posted it 2 mins ago ...
@@Redh4x_real😂😂😂
yeah you’ve barely watched a couple of minutes of it buddy
@@Redh4x_real The whole conversation was posted a day ago on Alex's Substack for subscribers. They may be a subscriber.
Bro watching at 10x speed
This was a powerful conversation! people analysing and confronting an idea not bashing the person
Alex, I just discovered you and your material and I love all of it. You're such a well-spoken, intelligent person which is unbelievably refreshing in these times we live. Thank you. Subscribed!
Watch his video on debunking free will!!
"We are more interconnected than we would like to admit" I LOVE this. It's not to say that I don't appreciate taking accountability for my own actions, but I do believe the choices of others, as well as my own choices affect both me and the people around me to a certain degree.
Absolutely! And evolutionary biology and the genome project have made this abundantly clear on a scientific level. I think it's a massive part of what the Bible has been trying to say all along. In my opinion science and faith only contradict each other if a person's view of with one or both areas is too narrow. There's a truth that both avenues tap into and I wish people would stop pinning them against each other so we can make progress.
@@joshuaWEC, Love your comment. Especially the quote you made about faith and science.
Yep. It doesn't make the bible any less of a demonic screed.
@joshuaWEC your faith is demonic trash. Pure evil actually.
Isn't it funny how pdf file atheists literally believe what atheist religion doctrines say that men can give birth, but then at the same time, they reject what doctrines of islame says that women can be pregnant for ten years? They're both huge lies with zero basis in reality, so what's the difference between these two religions?
"To confuse your enemy, you must first confuse yourself" ~ Sun Tzu
?
@deadcynic3004 Example number 1
@@fritzbow6676 LMAO good comment
Black Midi reference
Thats easy
What a respectable conversation this is how debates should be done. Imagine politics being 50% as respectful as this.
Alex, your rethoric is amazing, your biblical knowledge is fascinating and your habilities regarding the recognition of the interpretations of others on the biblical texts is just 🤌. You are such an inspiration! Much love❤
Although he does get it wrong that it was the Israelites who ran first and to draw the army of Ai out of the city . . .
@@augustosochalm lets worship him he is the god now
@@augustosochalm watch alex vs frank turek dont be deceive by alex
@@manicksgaming6949 Alex vs. Frank Turek? You mean that video from 7 years ago when Alex was just 17 years old? That’s what you have to judge by? You do realize a lot of things change since people were 17, right?🤣
@@manicksgaming6949Jesus is lord
Have to say. As a devout Christian. This gives me something to think on. Excited to see the full conversation! Love the respectable discourse.
It does, and reading the OT we have to read it that Christ is the necessity to come. All in the OT, I read it as Christ being prepared, even through the failures and atrocities throughout the OT. All are wrapped in fallen flesh that bare witness against us.
@@Nutterbutter123have you seen billiy carson? he answeres those questions regarding the old testamen God more like gods who are called Annunaki (people who came from above) on other olders scriptures than the Bible like the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Summerian Tablets.
@ I would agree
Atheist or not, remember that we still love you. I may have lost my faith, but you are still my brother.
@@philswiftreligioussect9619 I am still a devout Christian. God is too good. But it’s healthy to acknowledge when a good question or argument is posed.
I appreciate you for having these dialogues and asking the tough questions, Alex. God bless!
Why don't you like Alex?
‘God bless’ is just on point. Jesus christ
@@littlebitofhope1489 I have zero clue on how you came to that assumption
@@SDSwampert People who push their religion onto someone they know is an atheist do it because they have no respect for that person. They are simply pushing their beliefs.
@@gonthedriver 'Jesus christ' is just on point. Holy cow
More conversations like this about anything anywhere please. We need civil discourse.
Great conversation. And also, great production! From location and it’s sound signature, to video quality and lighting. I hope the rest of the conversation will eventually come to TH-cam for all us freeloaders. ;-)
Thank you :) We had a great time working on this with Alex and the Knechtles!
The moustache is really difficult to come to terms with
😂😂
It is the worst hate crime featuring or discussed in this conversation.
Gives off Freddy Mercury vibes.
Slug balancer!
It grows on you after a while
We condemned the Canaanites for killing children. But that’s exactly God ordered the Israelites to do. It does seem to work in conflict.
And god indeed favoured the israelites over any other civilizations. He only spoke to them, only guided them, only helped them.
Whichever is most morally convenient. It’s almost as though there is no divine creator and these religious scriptures are just the work of human beings claiming divinity.
In that time, sure. But we see now the message that Jesus brought which includes everyone@@chupapi-o5u
@@alanheyes694 yea especially considering the fact the israelites derive from the canaanites and made their own version of the "original" (canaanites) religion. Few hundred years later some israelite writes the exodus a mythological story about where they came from. But that never happened
Also, it should be noted that all that about child sacrifice comes from Hebrew sources, ie their enemies. And we already have archaelogical evidence that indicates that Hebrew sources in the Bible are less than reliable, much like other ancient sources when telling stories about their enemies. Later on, Romand wrote that Christians sacrificed children, and even later on Christians wrote that Jews sacrificed children. Quite frankly, it seems that any unsacrificed child must have felt left out.
Wow this is a stellar conversation and i cant wait for the full release. These are the type of even tempered congenial conversation people should be having not only about religion but politics as well. Its these types of conversations that can help strengthen your faith as a believer even Thomas doubted and i believe its healthy to have these kind of questions. As a Christian myself i find these conversations helpful in my walk with God because its forces me to grapple with the unknown and by proxy strengthen my prayer life. Alex did a phenomenal job of not trying to "win" the conversation but instead i feel like hes going about it with genuine intrigue which is healthy. If this same attitude was applied in our national politics we would be in alot better shape as a country. We need more of this kind of dialogue for the country and the world at Large. Thank You Alex for hosting a wonderful podcast and being part of the solution and not part of the problem. Thank you as well Cliffe And Stuart for continuing to shine a bright light on the Christian faith and bringing people closer to Jesus. All of you guys are great and i cant wait to indulge in more of this kind of content.
I left an in-depth response somewhere in the comments. IMO I found these passages disturbing as well, so as a Christian I spent hours reasarching this topic. Not to brag, but I think I gave a better answer than Cliffe and Stuart
@@motionpotionsaucecan you repost it here?
@@4Neighbors1Camera The issue with this entire debate on Violence in the Old Testament is that its completely based on our 21st century view of morality, religion and modern technology. It did not consider the life and culture back then, and TBH I don't think anyone in this room on either side did enough research on the topic.
1.Most importantly, Combat in that time period and region was not viewed as People vs People, but Gods vs Gods. The Israel God vs the Canaanite God. This fighting was not viewed as killing people groups, but vanquishing a Wicked God (who was viewed as 100% real). One who ordered their people to sacrifice Children to, cannibalize each other, had ritualistic orgies, stacked piles of their enemies skulls multiple feet high, and other nasty things.
2. Biblical scholar Fr Stephen De Young studied near-eastern history, and came to the conclusion that describing a complete wiping out of people was a very very common brag many countries would have. lots of other similar countries spoke the same way. Also in future chapters of the Bible, it forbids the Israelites to intermarry these same people groups they supposedly killed everyone. Well, I thought they were 100% killed? Clearly Not.
3. God doesn't declare any future offensive combat against other people groups in the rest of the Bible. and declares against offensive combat, taking women s*x slaves, and taking spoils of war. These were all concepts that were unheard of at the time, and although today might seem barbaric compared to our modern sensibilities, they were radical at the time.
4. If you are wondering why the Israelites NEEDED to go to the promise land where others already lived, I am convinced they needed to put their home there, so thousands of years later they would be right next to the Roman Empire (the largest empire at the time) when Jesus was born, allowing his message to travel quickly through the entire known world at the time.
5. The modern person can hardly comprehend how violent and vicious the ancient world was. In those ancient times, invading and killing every person, or taking all the women as concubines, and all the children as slaves was a common occurrence. There were no means or resources to take prisoners for life, and exiling someone to the vast wilderness was essentially a death sentence. If someone's parents were killed back then, what were the options: Keep the kid alive, and hope he doesn't revenge kill others, Kill him or exile him to his death. Or keep him as a slave. Also this cleansing of the area was to make sure none of their depraved culture seeped into the Israelite culture, which did end up happening eventually, proving God right,. their evil ways seeped into Israel life eventually,
6. Saying the canaanites and others weren't given specific instructions to stop their wicked actions is a ridiculous idea. As if they had no idea sacrificing children by burning them alive was not a good thing. It's not like they were being slightly unpleasant, they were monstrous violent people who needed to be removed from the developing world, same way you would remove a cancerous tumor to save the body. Atheists always like to talk about they don't need God to have morals.
7. God chose the Israelites and no other group, because they were supposed to be a shining example to others. God never intended to need to babysit our world and do everything for us. His goal was to lead one people group, that would be a shining light to others, and eventually let them on their own. clearly it did not happen. And when they failed, he sent Jesus as a savior to the entire planet, not just 1 people group.
8. The nature of God never changes, but the Nature of humans did. Jesus spoke of Forgiveness and humility, but if he came 2000 years earlier, he prob would've been ignored and killed. the Bible as a whole is a summary of Gods plan to win back humanity from their violent and awful ways, back to how they were always intended to be. Changing an entire planet takes time, and the full instructions were slowly spoon fed over time, People still had their free will, but were guided slowly towards a better life with Christ. Look at us now, just 5-6000 years since the Book of Joshua. We find these acts deplorable, because of how much we have morally improved in a (cosmically speaking) short time frame.
9. I know Atheists hate this response, so I saved for last. But as creator of Humans, God has the final say of their Life. If I loan someone 100$, then want it back, it's my Money in the first place to do with as I please. Humans killing each other is not the same as God giving judgement on wicked people. Also anyone who was a victim I am sure was given a special place in the afterlife, and eternity that would last infinitely longer than their time here,
Please help me understand how you Christians come into these comment sections saying the atheist made you “think”, but your opinions never actually change. That’s the problem with religion to begin with, you come into these conversations to seek confirmation bias to become a better Christian, not to actually evaluate the morality of Gods actions. Because at the end of the day we can talk about God literally commanding entire civilizations to be slaughtered, but you won’t see a problem with it or will have some twisted Frankensteined reasoning these Christian figures feed you as to why it was okay.
@@jonnystrat Well said Mr. Perfect, well said.
- What about this particularly evil thing done in those passages?
- Let me start by talking about other passages where that particular evil doesn't happen or happens to a lesser degree
well ya, cause then the god is moral sh9t goes out da window
Well, basically. If one would somehow discover that God really is moral ideal who can do no wrong, then all apparent evil committed by them would be just that - apparent
What's bothering - how was that supposedly discovered and confirmed?
Persons who own armies and command them to commit genocide while claiming to be well-motivated saviors who want best for their people while they oppress them are somewhat of a historical banality.
Those persons are called tyrants and are always labeled as evil for the reasons above. One does not seriously consult their propaganda writings to contradict those facts and those conclusions.
Mere Secular Legalese...pffttt...
try telling the truth for once, who knows, it might even set you free from your logical prison one day.
Jesus is Lord!
@@ShuggieEdvaldson telling someone else they are in a logical prison is hilarious while you yourself believe a virgin can give birth, jesus rose from the dead and many other made up stories.
@@ShuggieEdvaldson
Why should I care?
It’s almost as if these passages are a post hoc justification for the war crimes of the Israelites.
The evil one, who is to be "destroyed" is the winter season of hunger, cold, sickness, darkness, and death. Typically this is the five months as described in Revelation 9. The evil leader of these baddies is the scorpion constellation (Rev 9.5). Canaan, the fourth son of Ham, is Scorpio.
The "nation" of Israel is a collective of four signs as in Isaiah 9. The leader is the noble/royal lion (Leo) and the lying tail is the scorpion (Scorpio). Between the head and tail we find the palm frond/branch aka Virgo and the reed aka Libra.
@@harveywabbit9541 A myth then
That's been my view for years: Divine sanction for what they were already doing.
Or boasting and chest pounding when they lost, and turning it into a win. There is no way to know which, since that area has been full of conflict by all parties for thousands of years.
Relax - it couldn't happen today
I really enjoy Alex and his ability to have these difficult, probing conversations in while maintaining the highest standard of respect. I pray for Alex’s conversion, and even if not, I pray for him to continue this great work he is doing here.
Please, keep listening to Alex. But do so with an open mind. Allow yourself to question what you think is sacred. Some truths may be ugly, but accepting them will allow you to grow.
If you find answers, your faith will be stronger. If you don't, maybe faith isn't really the right path for you.
Just a thought, from an ex-believer.
A religion that sanctions geno-side only makes a person of conscience stay away from it.
Alex is too much of a deep thinker to fall for the countless logical fallacies and contradictions in the bible.
Their answer to literally any moral dilemma as prescribed by their god is always the same. “God knows what he’s doing” and “who are we to question a gods decisions”. Isn’t that convenient?…..
And then they bring up jesus
That’s why it’s called faith
So before the beginning of the Universe, and you literally had nothing to go on for inspiration, what would you have done?
Give a better solution then since ours is so bad
That's the whole point though. We're not God. If God being the uncreated creator, the unmoved mover, decided to create a universe with living creatures then what's wrong with Him decided to influence that world in whatever way he chooses.
What I would like to know why atheists seem to think they can judge God's actions but not other people. If God commands a pagan people who participated in child sacrifices to be killed as judgement to be immoral then why don't atheists judge individuals who practice abortion today?
And when atheists judge God, the creator of the universe for His actions I'd like to ask by what standard are you guys making this judgement?
If morality is subjective then what religious people believe about God is perfectly fine because it's all subjective in end, right?
ROMANS 9:14-23
"14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[a]
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[b] 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[c] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath-prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory-"
Release the whole thing my guy!!!!
It's on his substack right now as far as I'm aware, and it should be released soon enough on the channel.
A few days it will be.
@@lewismurphy1562 this is too good don’t you agree!?
@@JudahGuerra it’s too good so far
@@Allothersweretakenn 😂yea but I ain’t paying
bro, we needed this interaction. Cliffe and Alex going head to head. I quite liked the calm atmosphere of this discussion, as well the logic brought by alex in dismantling cliffes responses and explanations. To me Stuart seemed to yap up nonsense in response to alex, so I'm curious to see the full video to see if he has anything of substance to say.
EDIT: Otherwise, love your videos alex!
He dismantles their arguments in such a polite and non-aggressive way. He's brilliant
@@McCarthy1776where’s the dismantling? Can’t find it
@@c0ax where is your god? can't find him.
@@c0ax th-cam.com/video/B9bfq2ZzTG4/w-d-xo.html
@@c0axLet’s be honest as Christians we’re bias towards Cliffe the same way these guys are atheist and they’re bias towards Alex. So even if Cliffe did have good points these guys won’t see it the same way we won’t see if Alex has good points.
I love that these men were able to sit down and have a civil, intelligent conversation. Kudos to Alex for having them on and asking the hard questions.
Genocide is declaring a whole group is guilty of existing.
What Israel is doing to the Gazans
@@MohammedKhan-y3i No.
It is what it is.
@@wingamwila4113 is it though
@@DefenestrateYourself what else can it be other than not "it" 😂
"They were given over 400 years to repent"
"Oh yeah, what kind of instructions were they given?"
"I don't know, but they were bad, and the Chinese don't have an issue with genocide"
What a great point...
He’s just changing the subject to deter our attention so we get side tracked and forget the question we asked and start talking about something new. Classic liberal tactic
He just invalidated his own argument in 2 seconds.
Apparently god gave us free will but those who choose their own path as given by god will be slaughtered, he didn't seem to put this as one of his rules makes free will nonsense
What got me was when he said it "seems like we're all reading from the same sheet music" about morals, the very next thing he said was about how the Chinese have completely different morals than Westerners.
Claiming to know everything is also a great point…..
I've been waiting for someone to challenge cliff that is not some young student. First time I've seen him under this much pressure and he had no real answer. It's brilliant.
No real answer Sure 😂
No real answer…to you. The funny thing about these videos is both sides come into them with their own opinion, and leave with their own opinion stronger, thinking that the other side is crazier.
He literally said....i don't know! And yeah its a struggle to accept. That's not a real answer. And the hyperbole argument was magnificently put down by alex. He was in total control of this discussion.
@@patriot-g3e yeah, i'm pretty sure buddy 😂😂😂😂 much need for that laughing emoji 😂😂😂😂 at 19:07 these dimwits said "well, you know, at least they didn't rape 'em" 😂😂😂😂 mad funny i know. sad people
@@thebeatingcow595 well, at least one side is right
Congratulations on a million subs Alex. Well deserved and I hope you'll double it and double that and so on until you have 8 billion 👍
Thanks for asking the tough questions Alex ❤
First answer: "no, and here's why it's really a yes that I'm not willing to concede"
Cliffe 101
Or mayhe you just don't like the answer he gave?
@ratsandmice1612 of course he doesnt why would he like a hypocritical answer ?
@@phantommemes4315 Lol exactly. Cliffe didn't exactly leave a lot for us to like
2:15 "Innocent people are killed" So Cliffe's God is unjust or not omnipotent to leave innocents living.
Imagine bending your sense of justice so much, that you think “Innocent people being killed is still justice”
and not to mention very messy supposedly
But if u use god standard all of them sinned so not so innocent
@@manicksgaming6949It's a helluva thing to punish the entirety of somebody's lineage for all other generations to come because of a mistake they made ages ago.
@goldiffworks u dont make the rules ur not god. Go repent and accept jesus saved u
One will meet and it's will be a delight to be in this conversation
As someone who is not sure if moral realism is true, my biggest problem with these passages is not the morality per se, but the unimaginative way in which the deity allegedly solves "the problem". Isn't interesting that God didn't think of anything better than what an israelite scribe from the Ancient Neart East would probably conceive his deity doing?
How did you put in a search link??
What if the deity told him this is what's happening
@@SnakeLee1What if the sun exploded?
Honestly such a good point, and I bring this up in other moral arguments. If I can come up with a more humane way to deal with these problems, then surely an all-knowing god could come up with that too. And being all-powerful, there's no "well, he HAD to do it this way to maximize good later on down the line" argument, because if that's true, then he's not all-powerful.
@Radi0actvChickn He won't be all powerful if he could not show that death can be defeated either by bringing back life. God as the author of life can take it when he wants. There has never been a refutation to that idea. Only an appeal to emotion.
Respect to Alex for being able to entertain and meet these ideas where they are. I’d be incapable. Every time these dudes speak my head hurts a little more.
Yet you still choose to watch the video?
Thats called being an open and honest person. You wouldnt hold a candle to these two in a conversation about this subject
Interesting to see the Knechtles in this context. You've genuinely built up a cache of good will that has elevated the quality of the dialogues on display. Others should take note.
He had more patience than I ever will.
I'm a Christian, and as a Christian I habe full faith in God and His deeds. I cannot deny that the questions ppsed by Alex, here, are very interesting and thought provoking. Very well articulated. What I find curious, is that God the Father is not being discussed here as a parental figure. Since we have been created in the image of God, we ourselves are vreated to be parents. What do we do when our children misbehave? We try to teach them, and we punish them. Sure, we don't punish them to the point of killing them, because we do not have the right to take lives. But, you might ask, did the Israelites have the right to kill and enslave? Without the authority of the Father - no. How can we pass on judgement and punishment, without the authority the moral high ground? We can't, and if we do, we have sinned. But, and this is my understanding, a problem doesn't have to be one's responsibility only when it arrives on one's doorstep, ergo preventative measures - ultimate cleansing, only by the authority of God. God sent ultimate sinners to do what ultimate sinners have created. I can't seem to find a passage in the old testament where the sinners themselves justify the act of their sin, without still being sinners. Please, let's discuss this theory, and correyme where I went wrong. Thanks, Alex, great video.
"Since we have been created in the image of God"
Care to prove that? This is why it wasn't talked here, as no one managed to prove it to be the case.
"We try to teach them, and we punish them"
Not by burning them alive for eternity... Isn't it?...
"because we do not have the right to take lives"
Why does god have right to take lives?
"How can we pass on judgement and punishment, without the authority the moral high ground?"
Making shit up doesn't really provide you high ground here. You can't prove that your god even exists, let alone that we should follow what some book claims to be word of that god.
"God sent ultimate sinners to do what ultimate sinners have created"
Like punishing rest of the humanity for eternity because 2 of them eat an apple?
"Please, let's discuss this theory, and correyme where I went wrong"
You went wrong by assuming that god is real, that he is good god and so on. Aka you went wrong from the start.
Everyone is a sceptic until they experience it themselves. I learn from the experience of others and I trust 1000s of years of tradition and the stories of genuine people that I know personally instead of modernity.
Ask yourseves these questions
What has the world view of humans been for most of history?
Most people incorporated a spiritual worldview.
When did modern worldviews change?
Early to mid 1900s
What events simultaneously occurred at that time?
Electricity
Radio
Mechanization
Industrial war and murder
And most importantly the advent of nuclear weapons.
People started to place themselves on the throne of God. We have forgotten where we fit in the order of the universe and who we serve with our actions.
@@Zripas
@@garthxander9733
What changed? Education, technological progress and so on... You no longer can so easily brainwash people without being fact checked in few seconds due to access to internet.
I dare you to present sound and valid argument for god existence and lets see how you will end up here.
By the way, there been way way way way more murder before technological revolution.
@@Zripas @Zripas First of all, do you know what hell is? Second "Why does God have the right to take lives?" Day that again my friend, to say the all powerful God who created us, doesn't have the right to destroy us? That's like saying I can build a lego set, but I'm horrible for destroying the set. Thirdly, "You can't prove your God exists" your point? You can't prove anything at all, to prove means to show it cannot be another way, which is why people like scholars turned to evidence, this being morality and historical evidence. Fourth, God is t punishing all of humanity because two people sinned, God isnt forcing evil onto us, we have something called a free will. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, and even if they didn't sin, somewhere down the line someone else eventually would. And no God is not evil for giving us free will, he is not going to force us to love him. God is love, meaning you can't force it, getting rid of our free will would be forcing it. Fifth, back to your first point, again you cannot prove anything. Finally, despite my comment, I'm sure you will still disagree, so I have one question, if you had all the evidence, all the proof, God is real and Good, would you follow him?
@@Wind0watcher
"do you know what hell is?"
Imaginary theists created to scare people. Its quite similar to Santa bringing you coal if you missbehave.
"to say the all powerful God who created us, doesn't have the right to destroy us?"
Correct, he doesn't. Even if you could prove that your god is real and that he created us, will not mean that he has right to destroy us.
"That's like saying I can build a lego set, but I'm horrible for destroying the set."
Did you noticed that your "analogy" lacks one tiny thing in it... Actual living being...
Will try to fix it for you, as you clearly can't make valid one. You rise a kitten, not even make it, just find and rise it. Lets assume that it would have died without you. Do you have a right to kill that kitten?
" which is why people like scholars turned to evidence, this being morality and historical evidence"
? Morality is evidence now? Are you drunk or high or both? And historical "evidence" is extremely wage expresion, what do you even talk about here? Some texts in books? I mean, yea, we could say that its evidence, just like someone saying that they so bigfoot is evidence, its extremely bad evidence, but still evidence.
"God is t punishing all of humanity because two people sinned"
Original sin? have you heard about it?
"God isnt forcing evil onto us"
Didn't he created evil? And created humans who can take that evil in? isint everything is created by god, including children with cancer?
"we have something called a free will"
Feel free (irony) to prove that this is actually the case.
"Adam and Eve chose to disobey God,"
In which fictional reality was that a choice? By bible itself, it said that there was no evil before those two tasted that apple, which means that Adam and Eve should not have had a concept what evil is, or what doing something bad actually is, so then, how the hell punishing someone who had no idea what they are doing is actually a good thing?
Its like giving a grenade to a toddler and when he pulls that pinout you would start beating him... Do you see tiny issue here?
"somewhere down the line someone else eventually would"
So that justifies cursing remaining humanity for the rest of times?... basically, by your logic, because we could trace some of your ancestors being genocidal maniacs we should be able to put you in jail for that? Same logic, so same rules should apply, right?
" he is not going to force us to love him."
Yet there is only single thing you can do which will be unforgiven, its disbelief/worship of that god. You can go around and murder children, even that can be forgiven, but not worship of your genocidal maniac.
"God is love"
Purple is potato. This is how rational that sentence is.
"again you cannot prove anything"
Ok, so you admit that you can't prove your god, cool beans, we agree on that one.
"despite my comment, I'm sure you will still disagree"
What did you expected? Me doing 180 because you made some weird fallacious comment?
"if you had all the evidence, all the proof, God is real and Good, would you follow him?"
Cool beans, go for it, present evidence, proof and so on. Give me your BEST shot you have.
The Old Testament god is loving and kind. As long as you ignore all of the times that he is violent and merciless.
count the hits, ignore the misses. indoctrination 101
The gnostics kind of had a point
What god of the old testament are we even talking about? The Most High, El, one of the many Elohim, or El's son Yah???
@HoniTheCircleMaker13 someone has not even done one bible lesson and went straight to TH-cam comments
Actually, considering the people He dealt with, he’s incredibly merciful. I’d urge you to go read the Old Testament, and read it in context of global history.
Best and respectful Atheist I have seen on whole yt till now❤
I think any Christian or Jew struggle with the actions of God in the Old Testament when it comes to wiping people out.
I try to be objective. Whether I'm a believer or not is irrelevant. That has no bearing on what this God of the Bible is doing. I could not exist and God's actions would of still been the same.
Let's say God does exist, for argument sake, does God have the right to be God?
God is the author of reality, since he created it. I think it's safe to infer that since God authored reality, he's the boss. This includes dispensing judgement.
Alex has a problem with God's commands, which are judgements by God to deal with evil. Alex is imputing his sense of morality, which by his own admission, is moral relativism, onto God's decision making process.
Alex thinks since God's commands to wipe people out are below the threshold of his morality, then they are inferior, and if that is true, then how can God be all good and loving?
There lies in the million dollar question.
One of the hardest questions for any theist to answer that would give a satisfactory answer.
Like I mentioned before, does God have the right to be God?
If God is the standard for righteousness, which includes good, then our feelings about what's right or wrong are irrelevant in the context of them being the benchmark. Take yourself out of the equation. What is God's standard?
Good is just that, 100%. There's no flaw, no bad, no white lie, nothing. Humans are decent with the capacity to do good, but we aren't 100%. God is.
For argument sake, if the Bible is correct, then humanity and the world was once good, then it fell.
According to the Bible, sin is corruption. Sin simply means to fall short or to miss the mark. Not a certain type of behavior, but anything that falls short or misses the mark. Of what? God's standard.
Sin is separation. It cuts off anything from the eternal life source which is God. It's a top down one way street. Think of a glass of water. Now put a drop of cyanide in it. It corrupts all of the water, not just a portion. That's what sin does
Being that the world and humanity are tainted with sin's corruption, God has the right as the author of everything to judge anything and everything that falls short of his standard.
In fact, Genesis tells the reader that the corruption was so bad that God didn't just wipe out a city or a country, he wiped out the world. But, he also made promises or covenants to humanity to save/fix them and the fallen world.
According to the Bible, Israel is God's chosen people. Chosen to do what? Chosen to be the people by way the messiah comes to save the world.
Even though he chose Israel to be his people, he is dealing with sinning people in a sinful world. All of it is below his standard of righteousness, which is sinlessness.
God can deal with people on any terms he wants because he's the boss. If it's all corrupted, then he can judge however he wants according to his standard.
Sometimes God had Israel wipe people out, sometimes he had other nations wipe out some of Israel as well as enslave them.
Sin is no nonchalant matter with God in the Bible, it's like a stage 4 cancer that corrupts the whole body, makes it decay and die.
God has to deal with sin if he is perfect. He has to judge. If he wanted to, he could wipe out the universe and start over. It's his right, he's the creator and boss.
According to the Bible, the God of that book won't do that because he is a promise making and keeping, God. Faithful to himself, his word and his relationship to his word. He said he will fix the world.
I know it doesn't seem fast enough to literally everyone, including me, but what is 13.8B yrs to an eternal being, who is the creator of time and isn't bound by it?
In between the humanity's fall and it's restoration, God can choose to deal with corruption any way he chooses.
Doesn't matter if it's men, women, children or livestock, it's all corrupted. I can imagine this statement might trigger someone's morality heartstring, but it's not about any of us. It's what is God's standard and how he chooses to deal with the corruption of falling short. It doesn't matter how we view it in terms of how God conducts his business. If he is good and a just judge, he will judge correctly according to his standard.
According to the Bible, ultimately, God has a plan, restoration, and he will succeed in it. God deals with a world a certain way before Jesus, and he deals with it another way after him as far as I can tell.
This post isn't meant to be a gotcha or a definitive answer. It's an incredibly tough subject to give any type of satisfactory or sufficient answer that isn't just brushed away immediately.
In answering this problematic issue, I really do try and approach it like a crime scene. Be a set of eyes, pretend I don't exist so that I can be objective as possible in the analysis.
If we are talking about the God of the Bible, then we need to look at everything from the perspective of God. The Bible says God is a person with feelings. So, I think it's safe to assume there is motive. Motive produces action. That's the beginning of my approach to try and understand God.
A person can think or feel however they want to after that, and you have every right.
I was just trying to articulate some ideas. If you agree or disagree, that's fine. If you want to engage meaningfully like Alex would, that's fine to.
Hopefully this post has some utility. Thnx for reading.
Yo.you gave me a lot to consider. It's not easy to come with those terms that.he's God and has the right to make that decision. But at the end of the day he's the creator.
The thing Alex's argument really achieves is it damages a lot of the standard proselytising arguments Christians make. They often rely on "doesn't God/Jesus just feel good?" and other such appeals to our emotions and moral intuitions. I have much more respect for divine command theory than most atheists, "who cares how you feel, he's God" makes sense, but its certainly not going to convince many people to worship God. I feel similarly about the problem of evil, and God "loving" us. Clearly God's definition of love is quite different from our definition of love (I wouldn't allow something I love to be tortured, God would), so "God loves you, don't you want to be loved?" loses a lot of its persuasive force.
@@umothebeliever good stuff. Happy to contribute.
Also, something to think about. There's only one thing any being needs to be God... Absolute Power!
It doesn't matter how Loving or Good God is, if he isn't Almighty, then love and goodness would of been wiped out overnight when Lucifer tried to overthrow God when he rebelled.
God is Love, God is good, but love is NOT God, good is NOT God. Him being God isn't dependent on those characteristics being part of his nature.
There's nothing you cannot learn about a person that they don't reveal to you about who they are. To truly get to know a person, they have to reveal themself to you.
The Bible says God is a person. I think you would expect God to reveal himself, who he is and his ways to you. The Bible says God loves, he forgives, he has patience, he gets mad, he judges, he saves, he's faithful to his word etc.
If that God is real, then I say Thank God!
Because if it were another God that was almighty or has more power than the God of the Bible, but was evil in his nature, then we would have a completely different reality, probably rooted in suffering.
God is not on trial, humanity is. You are either going his way.. which produces life because you are connected to the source of life... Or... You are going your way, which produces separation from that life source and you decay and die, physically and eternally.
@@saulgoneman I'm not a fan of a watered down hippie approach to convince anyone to believe in God or Jesus. A big ole love fest where we are all eating cupcakes and candy canes. I'm also not a fan of the fire and brimstone Bible thumpers either. You shouldn't have to coerce or frighten anyone to get them to believe in God or Jesus. I would challenge their theology.
Using "Who cares what you think, he's God" wasn't a strategy for winning souls. I agree, it's not going to, and that statement wasn't it's intent.
I said that in the context of getting to the Truth of who God is as a person. Saying "who cares what you think" is another way of saying, "look at this as though you don't exist."
I understand that sounds contradictory. How can I look at something if I don't exist?
Let me streamline the concept. Be a set of 👀. Nothing else. No body, no brain, no Ego. Just a set of eyes that only sees evidence.
When you can do that, you see things for what they are. You see the truth. You haven't tainted the evidence with your subjectiveness. It allows you to be as objective as possible.
Once you see the truth of the evidence, you can bring your Ego back online and do analysis, draw conclusions.
This is the approach I take to understanding anything, including God.
If I was a set of eyes and those eyes could see God revealing his personhood in a book, those eyes could record everything that is revealed. I bring my ego back online and now I can analyze what type of person he is, his ways and what he wants.
Once I understand all that, now I can use that understanding to articulate what convinces me and the hope I have, how I came to my worldview. Plant the seed and see if it produces fruit.
Love in English is an all encompassing word. It is in the Hebrew and Koine Greek, but those languages all have more specific and nuanced words for love that is missed in English.
Love in Koine Greek
Eros - romantic love
Philia - a brotherly or friendly love. It's reciprocal.
Philautia - self love
Ludis - flirting or playful
Agape - selfless unconditional love that is freely given by choice, not obligation.
Philia is the root word for the city of brotherly love.. Philadelphia
In John 3:16, that love is Agape
It's easy to just throw around the English version of love and possibly miss the type of love or a more nuanced version of whatever love God is displaying. This goes for a lot of words in the Bible that are just taken at face value in English.
I'm not saying the translation is bad, just that further examination in the original languages unlock deeper understanding.
Thnx for the reply 😎
God's answer to Moses is " I AM THAT I AM. Total perfection without limitations. Let us make man in our image. God is not lonely, he is totally beyond our ability to fully comprehend, we need to put our useless intellect aside and know that He is God!
18:53 This is the kind of thing I really can’t understand.
“You’re reading judeo-Christian texts from a judeo-Christian point of view, that’s why you’re morally outraged.”
Uh, no. From the text’s POV this is completely justified. From our POV it’s immoral.
Clearly, our 21st century morality does NOT come from the referenced text.
@@charliekowittmusic you want humans to have free will, but you get upset when evil is allowed, then you get upset when evil is judged. Then you say the way and timing that God moves people into the next life is incorrect
@ I don’t believe in free will. Why are you assuming 10 different things about me lol? Stick to the subject matter.
I believe exactly what I said. If God commands immoral acts, then God is immoral. Or, indiscriminate killing and ethnic cleansing is moral, and we’re the ones who have morality backwards.
One of these must logically be the case.
So, tell me. Which is it?
@@charliekowittmusic if you don’t believe in free will then how is this immoral from your POV?
The Athiest worldview is that genocide/murder are not wrong in any absolute sense.
The Biblical worldview is that murder/genocide are always absolutely evil and God moving people to the next life is never murder/genocide.
@@domcruise274because it makes absolutely no sense you just can’t admit it to yourself because you desperately want to believe 😂
According to you.. this god former and created us and influenced the way we are.
This god also knows EVERYTHING we will ever do.
And then when we do what he knew we were going to do. He gets angry and kills us, and then damns us to hell for all eternity? 😂
@@dbossmotiv and you believe nothing created everything…
It's always amazing how one side is always left out of the conversation.
I dislike the arguments that claim since the bible was a long time ago, immoral acts are actually okay for the time period, but at the same time we all need to learn how to be moral from these exact same stories. I fail to see how that is not just nitpicking what you like and ignoring/justifying what you dislike about them.
you fail to see it because that’s all there is to see: cherry-picking.
You treat it as protomorality. Obviously there is a lot of immoral things compared to today but you can also see the vestiges of where our current morality comes from.
It’s the same way we can still gleam moral lessons from Greek and Roman myth even if a lot of it is also distasteful to our modern perceptions.
@@Waxican Of course we can glean good lessons from it. The problem is when people can't admit there were mistakes. Things that absolutely cannot be reconciled with an omnipotent, all-loving being.
Well that depends how you learn from stories. Do you just arbitrarily mimic what the characters do? Or do you integrate the stories with spiritual practices that develop awareness and sensitivity to suffering and conscience?
Your comment sucks, no one says since it’s a long time ago it’s okay, you just don’t have a moral basis to say it’s wrong
That very first question that Alex asked in counter, about whether these "cursed people" had the same opportunities to learn and repent as the Israelites did - that's a key point. God's mercy is unequivocally not uniform. For all that Cliffe said "actions have long-lasting consequences", God sure didn't seem to care about the long-lasting consequences of his disinterest in the salvation of the Canaanites.
What’s the difference is the canaanites would not listen to god and the Israelites did. The Israelites were flawed and soon punished later on.
@@blakevinccent4928 How do you know the Canaanites wouldn't listen to God? When God sent Jonah to Nineveh it was because they were wicked. When the people of Nineveh heard what God was gonna do they believed what Jonah said and proclaimed a fast. God then spared them. How do you know the Canaanite people wouldn't do the same if God sent a prophet instead of an army?
@@resinsminia simple, god knows everything he knows who will be saved and who will not. God knowing everything and the hearts of them knows they could not be saved. If god didn’t know everything he would have asked them, but he knew their hearts as he knows everything it’s stated in the Bible god is all knowing. He knows who can and cannot be saved.
@@resinsminia The Israelites were Canaanites there's no way they weren't aware prior.
@@resinsminia Everyone in Jericho knew about the God of Israel and knew about their feats in battle. Especially considering how god-minded (if that makes sense) these people were, sacrificing their own children for the favors of their gods, they 100% would have attributed the victories of Israel to the strength of their God, which they did. But only Rahab actually feared God, her family in turn having faith in her and choosing to fear God saved all of them. The people of Jericho knew.
If Amalekites were to be slaughtered because they ignored God's orders for 400 years to just pack up and leave, how much greater would be God's wrath to Israel for ignoring Jesus for 2000 years? Maybe the Jews were idiots for putting God as the justification for their conquering Canaan.
interesting point
@CosmicSkeptic Here's an Indian Spicy take.
I mean there was a Holocaust done by the Germans.
I hit $113k today. Thank you for all the knowledge and nuggets you had thrown my way over the last months. Started last month 2024. Financial education is indeed required for more than 70% of the society in the country as very few are literate on the subject.
wow this awesome 👏 I'm 37 and have been looking for ways to be successful, please how??
It's essential for you to have a mentor to keep you accountable. Myself, I'm guided by Evelyn Vera. for years and highly recommend her I focus on him. To be honest, I almost didn't buy the idea of letting someone handle growing my finance, but so glad I did.
I would really love to know how much work you did put in to get to this stage.
Sure!!..I have her WhatsApp digits
+1
“Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.”
Genesis 18:23-33 ESV
bible.com/bible/59/gen.18.23-33.ESV
THANK YOU! Exactly the example I used in my comment as well. The Holy Spirit is working within us. I heard Him tell me "remember Sodom?" when I was listening to Alex's remarks and I very rarely study OT scripture - these points Alex and others bring up make me struggle sometimes.
Struggle creates strength! Praise Christ!
that city must've had no babies
@@notanonymous3976 Or he spared them. aren't you prochoice? What do you care?
@@zacharyevans8152 what does choice have to do with babies not being in a city?
Sounds good. Except then he didn’t spare them, not even the children…. :/
Cliffe equating empathy as a temptation against god and doesn’t even realize it
Damn, good point. He deflected the question and made himself sound worse.
❌️
I'm a Christian and I think the questions you make are good for us to think about. Thanks for sharing.
Go see what Dr Ammon Hillman has to say.
He's an expert in ancient Greek medical texts and is translating stuff from Antiquity that has yet to be translated.
Warning, you may be shocked by what he's translating
Wait, how long have you been a Christian? And now you are just considering whether you approve of genocide in the Bible? It's amazing the cognitive dissonance of so many people. It's a disgusting and perverse act, then... now. .. in the future... doesn't matter. It should all be condemned. There is NO justification. To even try and justify it you have to give up your humanity. Disgusting.
@@SR-ry6hsGod gave them 400 years to repent of the evil acts listed in Leviticus 18
@Caleb_287 so it says in a Bible verse. What did this god provide in the way of help to make sure these people understood what was supposedly at stake? Where is the empathy and loving nature that your god supposedly has in this instance? It's all made up so I don't care, but people use this kind of rhetoric to do unspeakable and u ethical things even today. It's disgusting . There is never, ever a justification for mass murder or genocide, even for your made up god.
@@SR-ry6hs I don't know all the answers and I bet you don't either. So how can you call it genocide? If you would be a bit of a critical thinker and not just lean one way; it would be much better for you. God bless.
I Love This, It's an Actual Conversation!
God Bless ❤
The mental gymnastic is on another level here.
agree, and I'm disgusted
The mental gymnastics needed to accept we all came from nothing are, to me, on an even higher level. But whatever makes you happy, I guess...
Not to mention how an omniscient god can regret unforeseen outcomes.
@@masked_12 yup, Christians believe their god came from nothing. That's just bonkers! 😂
@@matsciguy-l9h, somewhat agree, God is a huge gap filler, but that's the point. He's inconceivable, time isn't going to matter.
4:50 I am abhorred by this reference to the Chinese people. Acceptance of collective punishment is not Chinese-specific. Just because Chinese and broad Asian cultures are more collective rather than individualistic, doesn't mean that they find genocide or killing of infants and children acceptable. Who actually think that such anti-humanity crime is acceptable? Only believers. You found Chinese being OK with biblical genocides because you asked Chinese Christians. If you ask White, Black or other racial groups who are also Christians, they are also going to say it is acceptable. But to non-believers, the vast majority of them will have trouble accepting that genocide is an appropriate form of punishment.
Anti Asian racism? In Christianity? Say it ain't so.
Discarding the Chinese comment.. Prove first that what is contained in the Bible is Genocide.
Chinese have a gene which makes them less empathetic don't be a science denier.
Go cry a river
@@andrewtsai777 Athiest worldview is that Murder and genocide is not evil in any absolute sense. Biblical worldview is that murder and genocide are always absolutely evil and that God killing someone is never murder/genocide. So which worldview is your comment based on?
Just a little bit into this, but this is probably the most sedated I've seen Cliffe Knechtle and he is infinitely more interesting and agreeable explaining why he believes these things than his normal schtick of just asserting his beliefs. I found myself agreeing with him on a lot of his interjections despite having the opposite overall conclusion. Very well done Mr. O' Conner and great job Cliffe, I'd like to see more of this!
Did we watch the same thing? All they did was the usual attempt at inserting beliefs.
What did you agree with?
you are comparing it with his usual shtick of proselytising at college campus.
Of course he is brazen there.
Alex wasn't born yesterday, has a degree in philosophy/Theology, and doesn't accept bs.
Not the same!
@@JDFREEMAN-e2n neither can you😭😭 I guarantee you’d get rhetorically dominated by a 3 year old with a diaper full of shit. I’ll debate you and embarrass you lol.
@@lukedegraaf1186 a lot of his contentions that if we try to interject modern ethics in established history, we're always going to come up lacking.
Like how when he brought up that it's only Western Cultures that seem to think that a god can't just order the death of people or cultures.
Cliff dropped some hidden gems this time
This was an outstanding interview. Mutual consideration in pursuit of truth.
In short, “It’s complex. I don’t understand it all. God didn’t mean exactly what he said.”
Cliffe acts like there aren't Bible scholars writing papers on every nuance of these issues. He could easily talk to them with his platform also. He's just a lazy grifter.
To be fair, I don't think Cliffe does the best job at explaining God's judgment here, but his argument was not "God didn't mean that," it was that God's judgment is impossibly righteous and absolute, no matter the circumstance. A just explanation given the incomprehensible being we're talking about.
Yo have to turn this biblical texts upside down and inside out to get anything positive out of them. Why not read them as they are written? Which I do! Which makes hod a monster, imo.
@@jeremycamacho8864is this the sort of idea William lane Craig follows ? That because god says X, it must be just ?
@@agitatedaligator5340 pretty much lmao
Perhaps the love of God is ... Hyperbole.
lol exactly 😂
Our God is love by nature
@@Jk-ow8ny we can see how he showered love on innocent children of canaanites.
@@Jk-ow8nya beautiful hyperbole?👀
@@Jk-ow8nynature is hyperbole ?
what an awesome video i have definitely already watched in its entirety
Alex is a gift. His heart seems genuine and is curious.
Unlike the demonic psychopath "god" these retards whoreship.
At 10:31. Much of the Old Testament text on genocide is really about obedience. God will punish those who are not following God's commandments, the victims of genocide. He will also punish the oppressors who do not follow commandments to exterminate all people and livestock from a particular ethnic group. When you contrast that with the concept of obedience in the New Testament it is a different approach. God and Jesus still love the sinner even though they constantly fail the obedience test.
Well, around min 1:30, Cliffe says it is an Exageration; that most people condemned to die is still alive in the next chapters... But that Neglectance to Kill Everyone as Ordered is Later portrayed as the Cause for much future Trouble.
So? The same is said about themselves later in as well.
8:30 Counterpoint, Alex. “Genocide” does not have to mean literally leaving no one alive. If that were the case, then there would be no such thing as genocide. Even Hitler did not succeed in killing all Jews. It was still genocide. It is “The deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people based on their race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion.”
What is done in the Bible fits the bill.
Alex is a crypto zionist, look at the kind of people he surrounds himself with; WLC, JBP, destiny, shapiro and then these clowns.
@@al-kimiya6962His sponsors are Zionists too, so it checks out.
great point
@@awesome3139 the Athiest worldview doesn’t believe genocide or what Hitler did is evil in any absolute sense. The Biblical worldview is that murder/genocide are always absolutely evil and God moving people to the next life is never murder/genocide. Do you know your own moral belief system?
@@domcruise274 Atheists don't have a world view. They have one shared thought, that they don't have a believe in a deity. That's it. You're referring to the idea that evil is relative to a culture, which is absolutely is. As societies mature and come together they solidify what acts are wrong to be similar, and ideally enforce that on those who commit those acts. Ideally.
So taking your statement on the afterlife - a wonderful loophole to absolve God from being judged in the same way a person would be. He's not killing or ordering murder, he's just...moving them along a bit ahead of schedule. Convenient.
Alex is the best atheist I’ve seen. He’s amazing. I’m glad he is here to challenge Christians to better understand the scriptures and theology
Twenty minutes of non-answers, truly amazing how they can't give an actual answer to anything! What was he even trying to say at 10:34, going on a full rant about God trying to separate his people?
I think the idea is “Israelites were VERY special, therefore they can do these things”
Absurd yes.
that's how you get nazis.
"We're the Supreme race and your death is a fare price to pay so that our people may live on your land."
And then 80million people get murdered en mass.
Many people fought every step of the nazis rise to power. and so do I plan to fight at every step, every street, every breath.
May such things of old not repeat themselves again in the new ere.
"The only thing that you need for evil to triumph,
is for good men to do nothing."
- A Fighter.
@@danielearl3591well if God had favoritism then why was it written that he used the Assyrians and Babylonians to judge Israel.
@@antcross8623 because that was God’s chosen punishment for his chosen people?
@@danielearl3591 I understand that he was trying to say that, but it was complete opposite of what the other guy said. Either these orders are hyperbole, or they have to be taken literally. You can't have the cake and eat it too. The moment you say the jews didn't have fo kill everyone, every statement and absurd order could be questioned on its hyperbolism. How could a perfect being not be perfectly clear regarding his orders?
- God, we killed everyone, as you asked.
- Nice! Wait... even Timmy, the little cripple boy and her widow mother who did everything to support her child?
- Yes, as per your orders.
- Come on guuuuys I was clearly using HYPERBOLE, you didn't need to kill them! But I said what I said, tee-hee you get a free genocide pass!
18:50 brain rot. To tell you how you feel comes from judeo Christian values then tells you that the root of those values are barbaric, cringe
Yeah, jainism existed 800 years before jesus and condems all violence against living beings, so i think you have brain rot.
So they want the bible to be wholly figurative and wholly literal at the same time. Got it.
it’s literal where it’s rhetorically useful for it to be literal and figurative where it’s rhetorically useful for it be to figurative. what’s not to get?
Who ever said that the entirety of the Bible should be taken in any of the two ways mentioned?
If Christians are correct in that Jesus is God, then God is wholly good. This means the OT must be reinterpreted.
@@TaeyxBlackJust because a certain interpretation is more useful than another doesn’t subtract from the immorality of the literal text. Using your logic we can justify just about anything, although I suspect that’s why you’re using it. It’s a good way to avoid confrontation.
@@masked_12 You missed the point. If someone is choosing each of the instances where they think it's literal or figurative then none of it can be taken seriously. 👌🏻
Alex Connor is the only Aetheist i truly respect 🙌 👏
13:02 "I believe that innocent children were killed by Israeli bombs, and they happened to be Palestinians; part of Hamas maybe, or Hezbollah."
What a great way to not only not answer the question Alex asked, even remotely, but also to show your complete ignorance. I can promise you, Cliffe, that there were no Palestinian babies that were members of Hamas or Hezbollah. It's disgusting how these guys have no problem dehumanizing their perceived enemies, whether it's the Amalekites or the Palestinians.
If innocent people are going to be killed, then we should not be going there to fight.
Its all fun and games until your ideology is being used to justify a very brutal, in progress genocide. If these men are saved, then no one is.
I’m really disappointed in Cliffe.
@@connorohara751
The point was to show you and I live in nations that do the same exact thing you judge God for but on a scale hundreds of times larger than was possible in the Bronze Age. If humans are so much more moral and good than God than why does it seem so impossible to trust our nations our rulers or even our neighbors. If you had your life savings on display in the street and told everyone “this wealth belongs to me I’ll return in 24 hours but if you steal it you won’t be punished” in your local city would you trust in the average person in your city of millions to NOT steal your stuff? I know if I did the same with Jesus I wouldn’t fear my money being stolen at all
@@CSS916 Athiest worldview is that Murder and genocide is not evil in any absolute sense. Biblical worldview is that murder and genocide are always absolutely evil and that God killing someone is never murder/genocide. So which standard is disappointed?
@@connorohara751 you want humans to have free will, but you get upset when evil is allowed, then you get upset when evil is judged. Then you say the way and timing that God moves people into the next life is incorrect
I didn’t think he was going to, but he did. “You can’t judge the morality of actions from thousands of years ago by standards of today.” It never gets old.
And in the same breath he says they're coming at it from a Judeo-Christian viewpoint. You can't make this shit up.
Then claim that their god is also timeless and unchanging. Theoretically, if someone convinced people like him that god wanted them to destroy a group of people, they’d do it. It’s happening right now.
do you believe in objective morals?
@@XxBoriHalaMadridxX I'm probably not the person you're asking, but no, I do not believe in objective morality.
@@jordanbtucker I meant to ask you. I’m just confused. Maybe I understood what you were saying but it seemed like you were criticizing Cliff and Stuart for what they said and I wasn’t sure why. Do you believe they were being inconsistent? Did it disagree with your set of morals? That’s why I asked.
It’s alright if we do it, and we can justify it for ourselves, but if anyone else does it - that’s wrong.
@@jellslixcy6168 yes.
But the same thing happened to the Israelites, at least twice. Being sacked by Babylon.
And the Bible writers of that say it was awful and justified.
@@SnakeLee1 Sounds to me like the Israelites came up with a justification to do the same evil that was done to them.
@@jellslixcy6168 Atheists don’t believe murder is wrong in any absolute sense. Biblical view is that murder is always absolutely evil and God moving someone to the next life isn’t murder
@ I think you mean people that don’t believe in objective morality don’t think murder is wrong. Not all atheists don’t believe in objective morality. I am an atheist and I believe murder is wrong.
This is some rabbi level debate here.
Well done, gentlemen! I could listen to you all day.
The mustache has really grown on me ❤ I like it now!
Stockholm syndrome in real time 😂
No
@@thcbenji42069I'm very confused looking up the definition of that just now
@@thcbenji42069 nah dawg that's Apologetics
11:35 "You have to kill off everything that's gonna cause temptation, because you're God's chosen people". And he finds that perfectly reasonable.
My thing is why would God not just destroy the devil then isn’t the devil the one causing this evil and temptation. Am I suppose to believe the Canaanites are these master minds that’s greater than the devil
@@zariamorrison14its God stepping back and giving us humans free will not necessarily the devil
You want humans to have free will, but get upset when evil is allowed, but also get upset when evil judged?
@@rodoxag9117
Well hey God can give the dead eternal heavenly paradise…… can you? Plus there’s a lot of context before you even get to that point. These nations did all kinds of things that would make satan blush. Say the nation of Cannane took over like role or Persia and their cultural practice took out globally…. In a situation like that was God not right to try to prevent those behaviors? And God shoes mercy if they repent look at ninivah.
@@Dorkeydaze god can also, supposedly, give eternal and unimaginable suffering, your points being?. Yes, yes, I already know the "context" (the golden excuse), but read the bible again and you will also find that god commanded many things that would also make Satan blush. And one thing is for god do something to prevent those things, and another completely different thing is sending humans to do their biddings, including blood baths, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Are you telling me that god, in his infinite wisdom, couldn't find more peaceful and better alternatives to turn those people around, other than brutally murdering them? This god sure seems very limited
Cliffe wearing "fashionable" jeans...didn't see that coming...
Did the Pope finally approve acid wash jeans?😂
Pretty typical when going for the “hip pastor” vibe.
@@CrustaceousByou’re a joke just letting you know
Alex I've been waiting for you to host Cliff🎉😆
I research this time period. Oh how I wish I could have a conversation with you.
There is so much that needs to be said about the Old Testament.
can you elaborate please?
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. No one has ever adequately refuted that argument.
@@semi4Literally every single existing Non-Christian religion does it, every single day.
@@rickbradlytchahatchokonthe9614 Ask any question.
@@semi4so you believe that a parent can legally kill their biological child?
Great guest to have 👏🏼
19:00 "self critiquing" is a funny way of saying contradictory
Demonstrably incorrect
Not at all contradictory… but what’s contradictory is Alex saying these things are objectively wrong when he doesn’t actually believe in objective wrong
@@domcruise274 where did he say that sorry?
Care to time stamp?
@@domcruise274 He said if these things aren't wrong, nothing is wrong.
@@domcruise274he actually argues for the opposite, I.e., moral relativism. You may need to listen a bit more carefully to what Alex actually argues. He says that if these things listed are not ‘wrong’ by the Christian metric, then nothing is. Lest the Christian concede that something can go for the people of one time and place, and not for another, and to do this would be to destroy the validity of the Christian position and actually bolster the validity of moral relativism.
I’ve been waiting for this one
Comparing modern war casualties to a specific order to destroy everything that breaths down to the children and the animals of a nation is pretty disingenuous.
THIS NEEDS to be TOP COMMENT
They called Palestinians Amalek.
Why ?
Modern wars have more casualties than those of the ancient near east including any Israelite war even per capita.
Absolutely not. Mass murder was wrong then and it's wrong now, and none of the excuses from any time period are valid.
😂at the end one of the Christian defenders sounded like a Nazi defender I heard that was saying it was more humane to kill the Jews rather than let them starve to death because they didn’t have enough food or housing for them 🤔
Atheists have killed more than theism by the esy
my favorite Atheist and Christian finally debate
Very nice conversation, loved it. Good debate
12:49 is wild that they just started talking about the modern-day Israel-Hamas war
Every time I watch these people justifying atrocities, I am more assured that leaving religion was the best thing I've done as a human being.
The evil one, who is to be "destroyed" is the winter season of hunger, cold, sickness, darkness, and death. Typically this is the five months as described in Revelation 9. The evil leader of these baddies is the scorpion constellation (Rev 9.5). Canaan, the fourth son of Ham, is Scorpio.
The "nation" of Israel is a collective of four signs as in Isaiah 9. The leader is the noble/royal lion (Leo) and the lying tail is the scorpion (Scorpio). Between the head and tail we find the palm frond/branch aka Virgo and the reed aka Libra.
@harveywabbit9541 schizo lvl 900000
Atrocities based on what? How does good and evil even exist without a God? They are religious terms
how do u define atrocities then? lol now ur just stuck in a subjective wasteland
You were never religious glad you left
3:21 understood have a nice day
But his wellbeing is in keep on beliving because he dont have any other skill to earn his living
Takes a big man to admit that you don't fully understand what you're talking about, but the way he speaks about the Bible with such confidence makes it seem like he doesn't actually mean that. Confidence breeds incompetence.
are you that narrow minded? What the hell did you want him to say?
@@goldiffworkshe surely is more competent than you
@@Kevin-xk3me Well as someone who has an undying faith in the all loving God, I would at least expect him to rationalise why the genocide of innocent children was necessary for the greater good. Nobody is perfect but if you can see a flaw, no, A FUNDAMENTAL FLAW within the character of God, I think it’s illogical to believe in such without a) not knowing any better b) being purposely ignorant
Great conversation!
So Cliff what god say shouldn't always be taken literally? What does and what doesn't?
One small thing I noticed when Alex was rebutting the first round of arguments, he reads that God regretted making Saul king...now how would that work at all with an all powerful creator? Why would God regret a thing he chose to do when he knew what the end result would be? That sounds an awful lot like he changed his mind and thought he was wrong, which doesn't track to terribly well with the idea that God doesn't make mistakes.
God, be it Christian or otherwise, is meant to be incomprehensible, so its laughable when atheists try to argue morals to disprove or undermine the concept of a just God. Same thing if it seems impossible for a just God to let someone burn in Hell, it is possible because this impossible being would have infinitely(impossibly) correct judgement and abilities. Time is also irrelevant. Cliffe, like many others, gets caught up in the emotional appeal of genocide when explaining. By the logic of atheism, you could call someone(Like Cliffe or Alex) evil because you don't like what they're doing, yet have absolutely no standing.
The concept of free-will is why God can task you with something yet be disappointed by the result(your actions).
Jupiter/Iupiter is often misunderstood.
Perhaps this god doesn't have free will. LOL.
How does regret make a perfect being imperfect? It's worth keeping in mind it was not God's idea to make Saul king. You seem to make a leap that regret automatically means a change of mind. Perhaps you can think of times where you regretted an action even though it was necessary?
god regretted creating all humans in the story of the flood.
I appreciate this conversation. I don't think we as modern humans can fully appreciate what life was like back then.
14:05 - come on Alex, surely you're well aware there is no rule of "proportional response". It's a recent invention aimed to restrain Israel's ability to respond to terrorist attacks. There is no mention of it as a "rule" at any other time in relation to any other conflict. The closest to it was the cold war concept of "symmetrical response" which was a way to avoid mutual destruction. And the example you're using isn't of "disproportional response" but of a war crime which are completely different concepts. You can do better.
who cares?
how does this change the conversation ?
You clearly haven’t heard of the concept of an “eye for an eye”. Which (even though it is condemned by Jesus himself) has been used all throughout history as a rule of “proportional response” in historical pretext in the Bible, in Hammurabi’s code, to the very basis of what systems of law and justice in the modern day are built upon. You can do better to understand that this isn’t some irrelevant point of view it’s a moral standard to prevent horrible atrocities (like genocide) from happening
Alex as a new christian its really enjoyable to listen to this intellectual debates. Keep up these conversations. You ask the same questions that many people have but not everyone has the possibility to ask them to people that really know a lot.
As someone who studies this stuff a lot, I can assure you there aren't better answers to these questions than the terrible answers you heard here. The apologists just assert that their god is morally justified in causing any amount of suffering, and when asked who made that rule, who says God gets to do whatever they want? What do you think the answer is? God says God gets to do evil so he does. Or they say, "Well, who can stop him?" As if having the ability to cause suffering means you're automatically justified in causing it.
Dr. Josh Bowen does a lot of debates with apologists about the herem bans, and the "devotion to destruction" of entire people groups, and as I said, nobody has reasonable answers for it besides, "They're just exaggerating!" But these same people will say if God commands a mass murder, you MUST do it... so the hyperbole excuse isn't actually relevant at all. These two men (and most who try to defend these books) defend actual genocide as a necessity. That should give everyone pause about relying on these books as moral guides.
@@sparrowthesissy2186 if morality truly exists at all...
@@gallowglass3764Exactly bc without God, it’s kind of hard to believe in morality as universal to everyone…
@@sparrowthesissy2186 you're missing one key detail, it's a fallacious illogical statement to question God's decision making as he is the objective truth and morality. The claim "God isn't moral" is self-defeating.
@@gallowglass3764morality can exist without the books being an explication for it. Have you ever considered this option? Let’s not make a false dichotomy here.
Just because something exists, doesn’t mean we can explain its nature. There are plenty of extant phenomena that we can observe but not yet explain fully, so why should morality, that being a particular cognitive construct associated with value judgements subject to inter-cultural and even inter-species variation, be exempt from this?
We need to understand with a humble heart. God sees the future. We don't. He knows what would had happened if evil generations would had been left alive. All we can do is guess. As a servant of God i believe Jesus died for my sins and I'm so grateful. Apart from that i leave everything to God. I have a limited brain which can only comprehend so much. Thank you Jesus! 💙🙌
God knows what would have if evil generations would had been left alive. then why did he create those evil generation in the first place, just to wipe them out, wouldn't it have made sense for him to not create those generation
@Mkhl4Sure God did not create evil. People have free choice to do whatever they want, just like you are doing right now. You choose to speak your mind yet you can't understand how God works. I didn't understand either until I came to Him with a humble heart. God ignores the proud but gives grace to the humble.
@@EAC23 God created everything in the world. Okay let's say I grant you that statement God did not create evil. I mean he is all knowing, he created everything knowing what would have happened from get go and he still decided to created which means he knew about the evil before it happens and he chose to create. So in fact God did create evil. God and devil are the same people
@@Mkhl4Sure He knows everything because that's who he is. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Now just because He knows it doesn't mean he cannot let it happen. Love by definition has to be freely given. In other words He could have just created robots but robots can't love. We were created to love Him like He loves us, but He also gives us the ability to choose without forcing us. I would recommend for you to read the book Is God A Moral Monster by Paul Copan. That should answer many of your questions.
@@EAC23 he knows what we will happen because he has set that way. Free will is just an illusion, if everything has been predestined and he knows the final outcome, why waste time of seeing who would come to heaven and who's goign to hell, i mean he already knows. Makes no sense. Just put people in their right place
Fantastic argumentation, Alex, like always!
The fact that it says god "regretted " making Saul king speaks volumes of his "omniscience "
theyre gonna argue against the fallacy of the idea of omniscience and note how it was hyperbole.
The Hebrew word for “regretted” means to suffer grief. So it is more accurate that Saul grieved the Lord with his actions.
God purposefully limited his omniscience for this universe He created as to not interfere with free will.
@@taylorw.m4558 so did god know he was going to be disappointed in Saul?
@@mountainmonkey15 so he can change his omniscience when he wants? Interesting
One thing I always hate apologists do is justify their atrocities by saying someone else would have done worse.
And atheists seem to judge from an assumed position of moral superiority and belief in their capacity to be 'truly' objective
@@MarkPatmosnope, just from our moral standard of today.
I could easily say "hey, just the laws and morals of the Israelites back then".
The problem starts when you insert an "all good, just, unchanging" god as lawgiver of absolute and objective morality.
so you want humans to have free will, but when evil is allowed you get upset, and then when evil is judged you get upset too??
Atheist really have no moral ground to stand on though. The point of Israel as a nation was to be the light of God shinning though the institution of a earthly kingdom. Since Israel’s will one day be the throne room of Jesus Christ and all nations will be subject to it what reason does God NOT have the right to establish his kingdom? Say God for whatever reason let the nations of man do as they please say the nation of Canaanite’s took over globally through military expansion like Persia or Rome did and they had a religious prophet like Jesus and child sacrifice was done in the millions of billions today…. People would surely say a worse act had be done because Gods neutrality in the situation. God shall kingdoms that displeased him and would displeased many billions of us and he acted. Atheist now sit here and argue why God would do such a thing.
TH-cam censorship is so annoying. Literally wrote a reply just got it to be deleted. Essentially my was if the nation of Canaan took over globally like Rome or Persia did everyone would be upset God didn’t step in and do something, but when God FOES do something atheist still get upset about it.
"Do you think it's good that God killed innocent children?"
"You went to college and other people built that college."
That was stunning. LOL. And very slippery.
The repercussions of sin always affects others! The same way the fruit of obedience always affects others as well!