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From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: The horrifying Old Testament
Message-ID: <1195@ames.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Oct-85 14:42:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1195
Posted: Mon Oct 14 14:42:33 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Oct-85 01:02:36 EDT
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Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
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>The particular problem you bring up has been explained to me like this:
>the most important thing in the world was for the Israelites to preserve
>the Truth about God and the coming Messiah.  This was more important
>than any person's life or well-being, because it concerned the eternal
>life and eternal well-being of all generations that were to come.  To
>protect the Truth, God sometimes had to require things that seem quite
>harsh to us.  Anything that might distort the Truth had to be
>obliterated at any cost, because the Truth was beyond cost.  That is
>why He often commanded that conquered peoples be destroyed - so that
>the Israelites could not learn of their gods, turn to them, and so
>lose the Truth.

	This out-of-context quote from Charli Phillips was in defense of the
actions of Jehovah as described in the OT. Not to put the finger on Charli in
particular, but I think it's a good illustration of why the rest of us
are sometimes apprehensive of True Believers of any stripe. Do your favorite
substitutions: replace "Israelites" with "Crusaders" or "the Spanish
Inquisition", or put "Allah" for "God" and "Mohammed" for "Messiah". Nor would
it take much greater rewording to make it about dialectical materialism or
Aryan purity. It's really all summed up in one sentence, no substitutions
necessary: "Anything that might distort the Truth had to be obliterated at any
cost, because the Truth was beyond cost."

-  From the Crow's Nest  -                      Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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