Pointless

you fuckers need to get out more.

the majority of jews believe the conquest of Jericho was justifiable... its the foundation of our bloody religion!

You can't compare ancient times with contemporary practises, they are not one and the same andy... different eras command different moral values.

Existence was a lot more savage 3000 years ago.

I'd only talk about the same things

So what is the justification for the attack of Jericho?

Why was its existence and the people inside a threat to the israelites?

Dawkins point was that the Israeli children who were told joshua's story overwhelmingly approved his actions but when the name was changed to general Wu and was set in China they overwhelmingly disaproved.
The point being that your perspective is culturally conditioned.

Surely the purpose of such a god would be to provide moral guidance that didn't change - I mean, 3000 years is the blink of an eye in cosmic time; why should the values of humanity influence what actions god takes (IE facilitating both these war crimes, for want of a better phrase)? Surely it can't be that god has 'changed His mind'?

he's unknowable mate

getting back to the thread, Dawkins also said that if the whole history of the planet were to be represented by the length of his arm then the whole of recorded history is represented by one shaving of a nail file from his nail.
And doesn't it seem pointless arguing over who did what 3000 years ago.

The perspective you speak of isn’t culturally conditioned, its contextually conditioned.

The General Lin question in the Tamarin case study had no context, there was no history or cause for the events, where as the Joshua instance was rooted in history and the children had sat through terms of education justifying the siege.

Typical of Dawkin to use such a flimsy case study to support his anti-religious rants.

pot and kettle

i cant watch them videos at the min as im at work and teh boss is due back anytime and as soon as i see his car im offskies

If you reclaimed the land of a multi-tribed powerful people, they were likely to retaliate and destroy you.

This is without delving into issues of morality, assimilation and the purpose of the 12 tribes of Israel.

Why are you attempting to tell Jews the purpose of their g-d?

The story of Jericho is about ensuring the future generations of the nation of Israel (both physically and morally), think of hashem like a father, the younger a child the more involvement a parent has in his upbringing, but as this child blossoms the child is granted more freedom so that he can learn to stand on his own feet.

If the biblical chronology is correct it is likely that Hashem intervened in Jericho to ensure that the nation of Israel weren’t crushed at their birth.

I'm we agree, Joe, that by modern moral standards, the slaughter of civilian habitants of a city is not acceptable.

If you want to say that's par for the course 3000 years ago, I certainly have some sympathy with that - I'm a believer that you cannot judge the actions of people in different historical contexts.

Where this differs, however, is in the role of G-d, whom it is claimed facilitated this slaughter.

Assuming he hasn't changed over 3000 years, ie you're worshiping the same deity, I don't see how you can reconcile his actions with a supposedly peace-loving religion that provides, as you put it, 'moral backbone' in a modern era, on the background of his actions which we now consider to be hugely inethical.

If there is a conscious G-d then it would be logical that his relationship to man changes over time… Just as any relationship evolves over time.

This has nothing to do with morality.

I'm sorry I can't accept this, through historical antecedents.

If he interevened to ensure survival of Israel then, then where was he during the holocaust? Where was he during the Hezbollah rocket strikes? Why did he not merely nip all the attacks on Israel in the bud in the same way?

i'm hardly on here any more. it's YOU still trying to be controversial sunshine

Richard Dawkins spoke about his excellent book The Selfish Gene at the Centre for Life about this time last year.

Gutted to not get tickets