Too bad I cannot +1 that.
It is funny: on ANOTHER FORUM I [Trolled--Ed.] mentioned my usual "What about the genocides?" question regarding the "Loving God the Bible," [Tm.--Ed.]. I received the usual "lies!" and the like then "ur taking it out of contexts!" . . . yadda . . . yadda . . . until finally my target claimed that it was "good" that children were slaughtered--since YHWH "must" be good. Leave aside the passages where YHWH admits to doing evil!
I have seen that excuse a number of times: that it "must" be "good" since YHWH ordered it. The comparisons to the Nazi is, of course, obvious. In fact, the same rationalizations and pathetic apologies were made to justify slaughtering children. For example: the person claimed that "YHWH knew" that the children would "grow up to be bad." Yup, cannot let those Jewish children grow up to be adults, right? Same sick rationalization. Then there is the "well, they go to Heaven!" Awesome. Why did they have to die again?
[He pontificates on his past Internet triumphs for a few more pages.--Ed.]
Anyways, what I found--and continue to find--intriguing is I offer an "out." In reality, the Conquest stories never happened--just as the Matthean "slaughter of the innocents" never happened. Why would someone make up a genocide?
Because that is what other nations did to you. We do have records of victories over "Israel" which include devotion to destruction to the conqueror's deity. Sort of like imagining Rambo and Chuck Norris [PBUH--Ed.] going off to win Vietnam, win Afghanistan, and--I do not know--beat the French again. The stories of the Patriarchs-Conquest are just that--a mythic past. One mark of a great nation/empire is to squish other people; to carry off their people into slavery and worse. What is good in life Conan?
The "out" for believers is to accept that the stories are stories and move on. Few take it for to admit there are "mere stories" in "the Bible" suggest much of the rest is similarly just that: "stories." If the Bible is inerrant to you, than you have to justify all of the contradictions, nasty bits, and flat Earths!
So why does a Biblestudent bother? To feel a champion for his fairy tales. Why do atheists troll Rapture Ready? The negative reaction feels like validation: you have to be correct if what you say pisses off so many people, apparently. However, that emotion can only take you so far. At some point the contradictions pile up, so you have to go away and forget about them again.