The Myth of Innocence

I was really tempted to write about how Karma has no place in the Christian's worldview. You read correctly, I am saying that appealing to Karma in any serious sense is inconsistent with the Christian worldview. Instead I decided to continue with the "Ten Questions All Theist Should Answer." We are now on question three. I once again ask that those still under their parents get permission before watching the video due to the negative stance the video has toward the faith. Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKaJuoCrozc.

Why does God demand the death of so many innocent people in the Bible?

He doesn't. If you have not heard the debate between Paul Manata and Dan Barker I highly recommend you listen to it (Google it and you can find it for free on mp3). During the cross examination portion of the debate Paul asks Dan (I am paraphrasing from memory) "Dan, according to the Christian worldview are people innocent or are they sinners?" to which Mr. Barker responded (still paraphrasing from memory) "according to the Christian view, they are sinners." The Christian worldview is well equipped for this question because Christians understand that the Bible teaches that all people are breakers of God's law. Therefore, God does not command the death of innocent people, God commands the death of rebels in his kingdom. Once again, it is the atheistic worldview that is inconsistent because it cannot give an account for why the deaths of these people (under any circumstance) should be offensive. If I find out that the woman I am going to marry has slept with another man, why should I not kill her to make absolutely sure that his gene pool does not spread more than mine? If Dan Barker can arbitrarily assert that not doing harm (as stated in his debates with Manata, Wilson, and White) is what constitutes morality, then why cannot I arbitrarily choose killing women who sleep with someone before they get married as being the basis for morality? Who is to be the judge between us, and on what grounds? Any grounds the atheist gives outside of a creator is by nature subjective. As creator, God has the right to command obedience from all of his creatures. The reason this is a reoccurring theme in my answer to this you tube video is that it is a reoccurring weakness in each of the video's questions. The atheist cannot consistently use morality as an argument because he has no objective basis for morality. The atheist cannot use logic consistently because he maintains that man's thinking is the result of physical electrical reactions. Why should the Christian's physical electrical reactions be inferior to the atheist's physical electrical reactions? How does pure physical electrical reaction give us truth in the first place? The atheist's worldview is doomed to futility because without the existence of God there is no morality and there is no reason to believe that our minds operate logically.

The atheist has no grounds for calling what God commands evil, still lets think about these Bible passages. The atheist cannot say that God is commanding the death of innocent people because everyone who would have been put to death in these categories i.e. disobedient teens, people who work on Saturday (Sabbath), homosexuals, and sexually promiscuous women, are all law breakers. Therefore, the atheist can only say that he disagrees with the laws, and I think that the creator has a little more credibility in law making than the creature. However, I digress. It might be helpful to consider that these laws were given under a theocracy (a government directly ruled by God), and this theocracy was established among God's chosen people who were to in part be a shadow of the perfection that would come in Christ and his kingdom (the final establishment of the kingdom still to come). Today, Christians do not (or at least should not) expect to live in a theocracy until Christ returns. So no Biblicaly oriented Christian should argue that these Old Testament theocratic laws should be the law of the land today (although it is still a moral wrong for children to disobey, women to be sexually promiscuous, or to actively live a homosexual lifestyle). However, all of those things were violations against God's law for His people at that time. Why should the creator not command death where he sees fit for violation of His laws? There are some other things that I would like to mention about these passages. First of all, if one reads the Deut 21:18-21 passage carefully he will see that the parents could not just decide willy nilly that their child needed to die. The case needed to be presented before the elders of the city. Furthermore, all the men of the city were to participate. Deuteronomy is not talking about the little kid who mouthed off to his parents or did not help the father in the field and needed to be corrected by his parents. Deuteronomy is talking about youth who regularly participated in grievous sins against the parents and the community. As far as killing homosexuals and women who have sex before marriage, imagine all of the STDs that have come as a result of sexual immorality. Can anyone reading this imagine a world without AIDS? yet could AIDS have arisen if there was never a violation of God's sexual laws? Sexual impurity is a serious crime against God and against mankind. I think one of the reasons this kind of attack against Christianity is becoming more popular is that to many Christians do not seriously contemplate God's law and His Holiness. I think that in large part that it is Christians who have been content with surface level understandings of the Bible that would not challenge the mind of a knat who have opened the door for these kinds of attacks. Come men and women of Christ, let us not neglect a robust Biblical worldview.

This is a Great Hymn

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!What more can He say than to you He hath said—To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed, For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.
“When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless,And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;The flame shall not harm thee; I only design Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
“The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose, I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”