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In our first exchange on the Amalekite massacre, Lindell Mitchell accused me of poor logic and evasion of the issue, but the readers should have no difficulty seeing whose logic is faulty. As for evading the issue, Mitchell's article was a typical fundamentalist masterpiece of evasion. My position on the Amalekite slaughter was clearly stated in my first article: "The killing of just one Amalekite woman or child or infant, solely because of her, his, or its nationality, would have constituted moral atrocity by any civilized standard of morality" (p. 2), if such an event as this did in fact happen. If, however, the massacre involved the killing of not just one or two but hundreds of women, children, and babies, then its moral repugnance should be all the more apparent, except, of course, to those whose sense of moral decency has been anesthetized by blind allegiance to the doctrine of Bible inerrancy.
That hundreds or possibly even thousands were killed in the massacre cannot be denied without admitting that biblical records are sometimes errant. I established the extent of Saul's massacre by citing passages from Mitchell's own inerrant word of God that indicated hundreds of Amalekites were killed by David's guerrilla forces after Saul had presumably utterly destroyed all of the Amalekites except for their king, Agag. Mitchell seemed to misunderstand my purpose in introducing David's military adventures. I didn't cite David's massacre of the Amalekites in order to establish a discrepancy between this story and an earlier one that claimed Saul had already "utterly destroyed" the Amalekites, although my position is that there certainly is a discrepancy in the two accounts. My only purpose in bringing David's massacre into the picture was to show that if hundreds of Amalekites were alive for David to kill, then surely at the time of Saul's slaughter, which was described as an utter destruction, there had to be several thousands of Amalekites. Of those thousands, surely many would have been women, children, and infants. Hence, by implication, Saul's massacre of the Amalekites entailed the slaughter of hundreds of women, children, and babies.
I asked Mr. Mitchell to tell us just how he is able to determine that the massacre of such a large number of women, children, and babies could possibly be considered "morally proper," but, of course, he quickly informed us that he wasn't going "to chase that rabbit." He preferred instead to chase straw men. The first straw man he went after was my position on abortion, as if that had any- thing to do with the issue of moral atrocity in the Amalekite massacre. Admittedly, I mentioned the anti-abortion stickers that Mr. Mitchell affixes to his letters but only to suggest that they indicated a concern for children that is incompatible with his position on the many massacres of children recorded in the Bible.
No doubt, he will argue that he was attempting to show an inconsistency in my position, but he obviously doesn't even know my position on abortion. I once told him in a letter that I didn't agree with his "pro-life" stance, but that doesn't automatically make me an advocate of abortion. I am not an advocate of abortion; I am simply anti-prolife in the sense that I cannot accept the dogmatism of those who look at the issue in the typically black or white way that Christian fundamentalists assess most moral situations. To me, the fact of abortion is regrettable, but something even more regrettable is the biological order on this planet, created presumably by Mitchell's "Omniscient God," that contributes to the social necessity of abortion.
Let's compare, then, my view of abortion with Mitchell's to see just who is being inconsistent in the matter of the Amalekite massacre. Mitchell is apparently opposed to abortion, period. In moral matters, everything is absolute to him. There are no gray areas; everything is either black or white. So in the matter of abortion, the question is settled. Abortion is wrong at any stage of pregnancy, and it would be murder to abort a zygote even ten seconds after the moment of conception.
Yet he refuses to condemn Saul's massacre of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Amalekite women, children, and babies whose lives were not at any stage of embryonic development. They had already been born! Likewise, he refuses to condemn the many terminations of pregnancy that would have necessarily occurred in the massacre of a complete society experiencing normal population growth. In his mind, it is horribly immoral to terminate the development of a day-old zygote that has no nervous system, no brain, no organs, and has never drawn its first breath, never nursed its mother's breast, never heard its mother's voice, and never taken its first step, but morally proper to kill hundreds of children who had undeniably become living, breathing humans. And he had the gall to apply to me that old saw that's so dear to Church-of-Christ preachers: "The legs of the lame are unequal." Yes, they certainly are, aren't they? And I make that statement with my apologies to the physically handicapped and my assurances that I make it not for purposes of ridicule but only to reply to the sarcasm of my opponent.
Mr. Mitchell, of course, considered the statement appropriate because it is a biblical quotation, just one among many, incidentally, that are derogatory to the physically handicapped. Since he introduced it, I will pursue it just long enough to look at the statement in the entirety of its context: "The legs of the lame are not equal; so is a parable in the mouth of fools" (Prov. 26:7 ). The latter part of the statement is certainly applicable to Mr. Mitchell, for only a fool would issue a blanket condemnation of abortion while extolling the virtue of killing babies who had already been born at the time of their slaughter.
The second straw man Mitchell chased was my epistemological philosophy, which he has apparently familiarized himself with by watching video tapes of my oral debates. Epistemology is a high sounding word, but it simply means the branch of philosophy that investigates the origin of knowledge. In that regard, I am an objectivist, so I believe that all reality is objective and external to the mind and can therefore be perceived only through the senses. To discuss epistemology would require much more space than a single article, so I will have to limit myself to just a brief response to Mitchell's quarrel with this straw man.
Like his fundamentalist cohorts who seem to believe that they have a monopoly on truth, he ridicules the fact that I have admitted in public debate that (1) the scope of my knowledge is very limited in terms of all available empirical information and that (2) it is actually possible for me to be wrong in the propositions that I publicly debate. If he wants to consider these admissions indications of inconsistency, he is free to do so. I will simply leave it to the readers to decide how much importance should be attached to such a remonstrance as this from someone who believes that he is right in every detail of his religious beliefs and couldn't possibly be wrong.
As for my objectivist philosophy, I challenge him to prove that I am wrong in saying that all knowledge must be acquired through the senses. To do that, all he must do is tell us one thing--just one--that he knows that he did not learn through one or more of his senses. He will probably label it another rabbit that he doesn't want to chase, but I will ask him a question that I presented to two of his fundamentalist cohorts in other debates. They couldn't--or wouldn't-- answer it, so I don't expect him to either. Anyway, here it is. If a baby should be born quintuply handicapped with an absence of all five senses, would it be possible for this person ever to learn anything?
Mr. Mitchell's problem is that he cannot see the difference in knowledge and reasonable certitude. I am reasonably certain that Napoleon Bonaparte was a real person, but I don't actually know, in an absolute sense, that he was. I didn't exist when he did, so I never saw him, heard him, felt him, etc. to know absolutely that he was real. Although extremely unlikely, it is entirely possible that Napoleon didn't exist and that a colossal hoax was perpetrated, in the same way that the Jesus hoax was perpetrated, to make people of succeeding generations believe that Napoleon was a real person.
All of this is really beside the point, because it doesn't address the issue we are supposed to be debating. If the Israelite massacre of the Amalekites actually happened--and I am not saying that it did--then it constituted moral atrocity. That is all that I am arguing. I am not arguing that it did happen in the manner described in the Bible but that if it did so happen, it must be regarded as a moral atrocity. To argue otherwise is to argue that it is morally right to kill babies for no other reason than ethnic origin.
Mitchell's only defense, of course, is that "the Omniscient God" looked down "the corridors of time" and saw that "the babes of Amalek were destined to become vicious beasts like their ancestors," and so this wonderfully merciful God of his ordered the slaughter of these innocent "babes" so that they could fly away to "the protection of his [God's] holy city" rather than growing up to become "vicious beasts" like their parents. Didn't I predict that he would resort to this? So now that he has retreated to this ignominious position, let's look at the problems in it.
ONE: God is both omniscient and omnipotent, but he was unable to solve a problem except by resorting to the massacre of babies.
TWO: To keep them from growing into vicious beasts, the Israelites could have taken the "babes of Amalek" back as captives and raised them as Yahweh- fearing Hebrews. There are ample precedents in the Bible for rearing captives as Jews--the law of Moses even made specific provisions for it (Dt. 21:10-14 )-- so no divine laws would have been violated, but apparently Mitchell's omniscient God didn't have the intelligence to think of this bloodless alternative.
THREE: It assumes without proof that the Amalekites were indeed "vicious beasts," but I would like for Mr. Mitchell to explain exactly how he happens to know this to be the case. A study of all biblical references to the Amalekites will reveal that they were no worse than the other nations of that time and area, including even the Israelites. So Mitchell needs to cite the source of information that he relied on to determine that the Amalekites were "vicious beasts" who deserved to die.
He cited the Amalekite attack on the Israelite stragglers during their passage through Amalekite territory at the time of the exodus (Ex. 17:8-16 ) and the Amalekite blockade of the entry into the promised land (Num. 14:45 ) as justification of the massacre in 1 Samuel 15 , but there is nothing in either passage to prove that the Amalekites were "vicious beasts." In the first place, both of these events, if they happened, would have been normal defensive actions by a nation concerned about three million foreigners coming into its territory. Furthermore, the Amalekite blockade in Numbers 14:45 in no way impeded the progress of the Israelites, because Yahweh, according to this fanciful little yarn, had already decreed that the Israelites would not be allowed into Canaan because of their fear and rebellion upon hearing the report of the spies who had come back with tales of a land inhabited by "men of great stature" (Num. 13:32-33 ; 14:1-23 ). So what was so terribly wrong about blocking the entry of the Israelites into a land that Yahweh wasn't going to allow them to enter anyway?
For the sake of argument, however, let's just concede to Mitchell that these were both despicable acts that made the Amalekites "vicious beasts." This would prove only that the Amalekites of that time were "vicious beasts," but the Amalekites that Yahweh ordered Saul to utterly destroy lived about 450 years later. So what would be moral about killing an entire nation of people--women, children, and babies included--for something their ancestors had done 450 years earlier? Yet the Bible states that this is exactly why Yahweh
commanded Saul to destroy the Amalekites: "Thus saith Yahweh of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel , how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, camel and ass" (1 Sam. 15:2-3 ). To save his life, Mitchell could not find a single reason stated in this passage to explain why the command to slaughter the Amalekites was given, except for the reference to the Amalekite attack on Israel 450 years earlier. It was purely and simply a matter of longstanding grudge, if we are to believe the Bible. That is certainly a high plane of morality, isn't it?
It is time, then, for another question for Mitchell to evade. I asked him one in my first article, but he refused to answer it on the grounds that he is not the affirmant. I have found in my correspondence with him that he just doesn't like questions, period, because he has yet to answer any I have submitted to him. Maybe I will have better luck with him this time, so here goes. Will Mr. Mitchell please tell us why it would be moral to exterminate an entire nation-- women, children, and babies included-- for something that its ancestors had done 450 years earlier? Now that rabbit shouldn't be too fast for him to chase for a while. He has an audience of several hundred freethinkers that he will not likely have available to him too often, so I would think that he would welcome the opportunity to enlighten them on a matter that many, in his opinion, are confused about.
As he considers whether he wants to chase this rabbit or not, maybe he will want to think about just how long 450 years would be. If we had a time machine to take us back 450 years, we would have to wait on the coast of Virginia for 63 years before we could welcome the first permanent settlers at Jamestown. I know that I am just a lowly, unenlightened atheist, but it seems to me that it just wouldn't be right to punish people for something done by their ancestors that long ago. I really don't think the citizens of this country would tolerate it if our army should attempt to massacre all known descendants of any Native Americans who may have offered resistance to the Jamestown settlers. I don't think Mr. Mitchell would approve it either, yet he apparently thinks that it was morally right for his god to order such a massacre. So whether he realizes it or not, he has a lot of explaining to do to us stupid freethinkers. He can talk about chasing rabbits all that he wants to, but if he evades this issue, some of us just might think that he has no reasonable explanation to give.
FOUR: Justifying the Amalekite massacre on the grounds that they were "vicious beasts" merely has one nation of vicious beasts exterminating another nation of vicious beasts, so what moral good did Yahweh expect to achieve from such a swap off as this? According to the Bible, from the time that Yahweh brought the Hebrews out of Egypt, he had problem after problem with their morality. In the book of Judges, Yahweh was constantly punishing the Israelites with foreign domination for their iniquity, and this continued throughout their history, until finally (according to the Bible) Yahweh permanently destroyed the nation of Israel. There were continual problems with idolatry, and even human sacrifices were commonplace (Ps. 106:37-38 ; Ez. 16:20-21 ; 2 Kings 17:17 ). So if there is any merit at all to Mr. Mitchell's "explanation" of Yahweh's reason for ordering the Amalekite massacre, he has a duty to explain to us the justice in using one ungodly nation to eradicate another.
FIVE: The massacre of the Amalekites violated Yahweh's own edict that said iniquity would be borne by the one who committed it, not his descendants (Ez. 18:20 ; Dt. 24:16 ). Whatever the Amalekites may have done at the time of the exodus, their descendants during the reign of Saul, 450 years later, were not responsible for it. Certainly, the children were not guilty of anything, yet if Mitchell is right, they bore the iniquity of their fathers in a horribly brutal way.
SIX: Mitchell's position exempts Yahweh from the absolute moral law that presumably exists. Certainly, it is clear from Mitchell's article that he believes in the existence of an absolute morality, but how could it be an absolute morality if Yahweh can violate it at whim? Perhaps this is another rabbit that Mitchell won't want to go after, but many of the readers would like to see him give it a chase.
This finally brings us to the crux of the matter. Unless he is an unusual fundamentalist, Mitchell would never say that it would be morally right for any army to massacre civilian populations. No, certainly not; it would have to be "God's army" acting in a "holy war" under direct orders from God. In that event, nothing done--no matter how grisly-- could be considered moral atrocity, because the "Omniscient God" would be directing it all. The problem with this scenario is that it consists of nothing but assumptions.
ONE: It assumes first of all that this "Omniscient God" even exists, but before anything in Mitchell's rebuttal can stand, he must prove that there actually is an "Omniscient God." This, of course, he can never prove. All arguments for the existence of God (ontological, teleological, cosmological, etc.) are illogical and have been answered hundreds of times.
TWO: It assumes that the "Omniscient God" is morally good, but there is no logical reason why that would have to be true. Even if an omniscient god did exist, he would not by logical necessity have to be infinitely good. It would be just as possible for him to be infinitely evil.
THREE: It assumes (after assuming the first two points) that the "Omniscient God" has revealed absolute morality to mankind, but there is no logical necessity for an omniscient god to reveal absolute morality. If Mitchell thinks that his "Omniscient God" did make such a revelation, he is obligated to prove it before he criticizes my position on the grounds that it excludes the existence of absolute morality.
FOUR: It assumes that Yahweh of the Hebrews is the "Omniscient God," and that would not logically follow from any proof that an omniscient god does really exist. In fact, many biblical statements about Yahweh could be cited to prove that if an omniscient god does indeed exist, Yahweh could not be that god.
FIVE: It assumes (after assuming that Yahweh is the "Omniscient God") that Yahweh actually did order the massacre of the Amalekites. This would not necessarily follow from proving that Yahweh is the omniscient god, because it would have been possible--not even to mention probable--that the writer of 1 Samuel 15 just mistakenly thought that Yahweh had ordered the massacre.
In typical fundamentalist fashion, Mitchell depicted my position as an utterly hopeless one, because he has absolute morality on his side and I don't. As the above points demonstrate, however, Mitchell has exactly nothing on his side until he proves unequivocally that absolute morality exists. Without proof of that, he has nothing but conjecture to offer in support of his position, and conjecture proves exactly nothing.
He presented a scenario of everything that he could do to me personally-- beat me up, spoil my goods, kill my children, ravage my wife, and mercilessly torture me--and yet be free of moral guilt unless there is this thing that he calls "absolute morality." As I read this, I wondered just how Mitchell expects to convince rational thinkers that his position on morality is superior to mine. I don't believe that objective (absolute) morality exists, yet I would never even consider doing any of those things to him. So I have to wonder why, if he should suddenly realize that objective morality does not exist, he would want to do them to me. Is he trying to say that he needs some spook-in-the-sky to restrain him from torturing and killing his fellow man. If so, does he seriously consider this to be a moral position superior to mine?
As ridiculous as Mitchell's position on the Amalekite massacre is, his belief that "(i)t is impossible to have a moral atrocity in the absence of an objective moral standard against which to measure thoughts, words, and deeds" is even more ridiculous. In the first place, his own inerrant "word of God" clearly recognizes that man is capable of making correct moral decisions without divine enlightenment. In Romans 2:14 , the Apostle Paul referred to Gentiles who "have not the law" [special revelation] but who nevertheless "do by nature the things of the law" and are therefore "the law unto themselves." If this doesn't mean that the chief architect of Mr. Mitchell's religion thought that correct moral decisions could be made without receiving moral revelations from God, then perhaps Mitchell can chase this rabbit just long enough to tell us exactly what Paul did mean.
So if Mr. Mitchell wants my authority for classifying as a moral atrocity the killing of babies nursing their mothers' breasts, he now has it. It is the ability of human beings, by virtue of common- sense intelligence, to become a moral law unto themselves. That common-sense intelligence is sufficient for any reasonable person to understand that it is wrong to kill children and babies solely because of their ethnic origin. The matter is as simple as what I said in my first article: If killing hundreds of children and babies for no reason but their ethnic origin is not wrong, then nothing is! If this answer doesn't please Mitchell, I will just let him argue with his own beloved Apostle Paul.
Mitchell's position on morality is essentially the same as the one that Bill Lockwood takes in his article on pages 8-9 of this issue. My response to it (pages 9-11,16) clearly shows that even without the existence of objective morality, human intelligence can make proper moral judgments.
If Mitchell will bother to investigate the facts on this subject--and I seriously doubt that he will--he will find that human societies formulated moral concepts long before Moses allegedly trekked up Mount Sinai. The moral principles of the ten commandments existed in Egypt centuries before the formation of the Israelite nation. They existed in the Code of Hammurabi, which was written long before the time of Moses. They existed in the Zoroastrian cultures of ancient Persia. So what is Mitchell's explanation for the pre-Mosaic existence of moral principles in non-Hebraic societies? Will he argue that the god Horus revealed to the Egyptians an absolute standard of morality and that Marduk did the same for the Babylonians? We sincerely hope that he will chase this rabbit long enough to enlighten us on the matter.
So far Mitchell has refused to tell us what he would have done had he been born an Israelite in the time of Saul. Would he have willingly and gladly participated in the Amalekite massacre? Would he have willingly and gladly killed Amalekite women, children, and babies? Would he have ripped open any pregnant women he encountered, as was the postbattle custom in those days? If not, why not? Why would he not willingly and gladly do the will of God?
Until he answers these questions, I am afraid that many of our readers will remain suspicious of his sincerity. It is one thing to preach theory; it is quite another to practice it. So we want to know what he honestly thinks his involvement in the Amalekite massacre would have been if he had had the opportunity to be a participant.
If he doesn't want to chase this rabbit, maybe he will at least fire a shot at it.
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