View Full Version : No Studies on Efficacy of Torture
One of the pillars of the pro-torture backroomers is that torture is efficient, when used properly. Apparently there is no data (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011501204.html) to back that up.
"The scientific community has never established that coercive interrogation methods are an effective means of obtaining reliable intelligence information," wrote Col. Steven M. Kleinman, who has served as the Pentagon's senior intelligence officer for special survival training.
Kleinman wrote that intelligence gathered with coercion is sometimes inaccurate or false, noting that isolation, a tactic U.S. officials have used regularly, causes "profound emotional, psychological, and physical discomfort" and can "significantly and negatively impact the ability of the source to recall information accurately."
Full study can be read here (http://www.fas.org/irp/dni/educing.pdf).
Admittedly, "no evidence" is not the same as "it doesn't work," but I think it ought to be a factor when one feels all rah-rah about torturing another human being. The ultimate point of torture is torture. This is something our enemies understand very well. They aren't trying to get intel or secrets; they're inflicting pain and death as ends within themselves.
As evidence, I offer the Al Qaeda Torture Manual (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0524072torture1.html). Not safe for work, not safe for kids, not safe for your peace of mind.
Don Corleone
05-30-2007, 21:02
That manual is scary, almost like they've been watching episodes of "Jackass".
Wasn't that the manual that we found when we rescued 42 Iraqis from a Al Qaeda torture/re-education house? I really see no comparison between waterboarding someone like KSM vs torturing people as illustrated above until they agree to strap bombs to themselves. I'm sure waterboarding can be horrific, but given the choice I'd choose it any day, everyday when compared to anything they have illustrated in their manual. The link goes on to show that Al Qaeda apparently is following their manual to the letter.
I suppose the silver lining, if there is one, is that US forces were apparently tipped off to this torture chamber by local Iraqis. That's a step, however small, in the right direction.
macsen rufus
05-31-2007, 11:04
"significantly and negatively impact the ability of the source to recall information accurately."
Brings to mind:
"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?"
"How many do you want me to see?"
Ends don't justify means - means taint the ends, IMHO.
That manual is scary, almost like they've been watching episodes of "Jackass".
Hey now, "Jackass" is one of my guilty pleasures, lets not start slamming one of the greatest TV programs of all time. :yes:
What strikes me most is, that experts, studies whatever seem to conclude torture has no lasting value by way of usable data.
Yet since man has been at war, its been employed, torture seems to me to be a human condition of war along the lines of "to the victors go the spoils" no matter how gruesome those spoils may be.
Even in the enlightened age we live in today, torutre remains a feature of war and the human condition, its cause and rational, I think, go deeper then value of data derived from the act
Seamus Fermanagh
05-31-2007, 15:14
The primary use of torture and mutilation, historically, is to scare and horrify the opposition. Thus we have 99 blinded men led home by one who was only half blinded (somewhere in the Balkans, forget the specifics). Thus also the beheading of a journalist who's reportage was negative regarding the terror group. Goal: scare and/or sicken the opposition enough that they either will not (or at least don't care to pay the price to) oppose you.
If torture is being used to force a confession or otherwise "break" an individual it will usually accomplish its goal. Everyone has a breaking point, so unless the tortured person dies prior to reaching this point, there will be a "confession."
Obviously, this negates torture as a tool of law and makes any such confessions valueless. Many will confess simply to make the torture stop.
Setting aside, for the moment, the overarching morality question....
Will a "broken" individual reveal accurate or useful information? Information gathering is not the same issue as confession generation. Mixed answer here. The report suggests that the information gathered through this approach is no more (and possibly less) valuable than information gathered through other interrogation techniques.
Is the information gathered more quickly through torture? Not sure; and not sure if anything we've learned in the WoT was time-sensitive enough. Were there any proverbial "imminent attacks" prevented?
I am not privy to the "harsh methods" results, so I cannot evaluate whether the use of such methods was justifiable in terms of the rapidity with which the information was extracted or gathered from individuals who would not have responded to "normal" interrogation.
If not, then it becomes difficult to justify such techniques if normal interrogation procedures would produce the same quality and timeliness in overall intelligence.
I am not privy to the "harsh methods" results, so I cannot evaluate whether the use of such methods was justifiable in terms of the rapidity with which the information was extracted or gathered from individuals who would not have responded to "normal" interrogation.
If not, then it becomes difficult to justify such techniques if normal interrogation procedures would produce the same quality and timeliness in overall intelligence.
That's the problem -- nobody knows. No studies have been conducted, so all talk of what's more efficient is anecdotal at best. We have sullied our reputation and damaged ourselves for a complete intangible.
As Orwell wrote, the point of torture is torture.
Is the information gathered more quickly through torture? Not sure; and not sure if anything we've learned in the WoT was time-sensitive enough. Were there any proverbial "imminent attacks" prevented?
One more time, let me point out that according to Brian Ross, chief investigative correspondent for ABC news, and his CIA sources, that much information has been gained- including information about possible future attacks.
I've posted this before, but here (http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/20/bombshell-abc-independently-confirms-success-of-cia-torture-tactics/) it is for you Seamus- Ross interviewed by O'Reilly. :wink:
CrossLOPER
05-31-2007, 15:33
I've posted this before, but here (http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/20/bombshell-abc-independently-confirms-success-of-cia-torture-tactics/) it is for you Seamus- Ross interviewed by O'Reilly. :wink:
foxnews.lol
foxnews.lol
Nice refutation. You really pwnt me there. What a n00b I was. :shame:
One more time, let me point out that according to Brian Ross, chief investigative correspondent for ABC news, and his CIA sources, that much information has been gained- including information about possible future attacks.
Brian Ross being personally convinced of something is rather different than methodical studies showing that torture is more effective and/or efficient than normal interrogation. We're still stuck in anecdotal land.
And for what it's worth, Brian Ross was one of many, many reporters credulously reporting on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in 2003. He's good, but he ain't perfect.
Lastly, Crossloper does have a point. You're posting links to Bill O'Reilly's show? I mean, really, come on, is that in good taste? Ross is a serious reporter, but O'Reilly is an undiluted political hack. Likewise, there may be valuable information on Fred Phelps' website, but it's rather poor taste to link to it.
Nice refutation. You really pwnt me there. What a n00b I was. :shame:
:laugh4:
Well it is fox...
Brian Ross being personally convinced of something is rather different than methodical studies showing that torture is more effective and/or efficient than normal interrogation. We're still stuck in anecdotal land.When people are slinging about absolutes such as "Torture never yields useful intel", all you need is anecdotal information to prove such statements false. There's never been to credible study to say that torture can't work- what I'm saying is that we know it can and we know it has. We can't show, nor do I believe that it always will provide useful information in all situations- but to say that it can never provide useful information is absurd. Further, there may be no studies on the subject, but last time I checked, all special forces, covert operatives, ect are all subjected to harsh interrogation techniques as part of their training. And they all break and give up information before it's completed.
And for what it's worth, Brian Ross was one of many, many reporters credulously reporting on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in 2003. He's good, but he ain't perfect.This is astonishing to me. Of course he reported on it. It was the common wisdom at the time. Let's not buy into the government conspiracy gibberish here. Intelligence agencies, media outlets, and other NGO's all thought Iraq had at least some WMDs.
Lastly, Crossloper does have a point. You're posting links to Bill O'Reilly's show? I mean, really, come on, is that in good taste? Ross is a serious reporter, but O'Reilly is an undiluted political hack. Likewise, there may be valuable information on Fred Phelps' website, but it's rather poor taste to link to it.
Two points here. 1) It doesn't matter who's interviewing Ross, it matters what he's saying. 2) I believe Seamus is an O'Reilly fan, so I thought he'd appreciate seeing Ross's findings in that format. Lastly, did you watch the link?
Seamus Fermanagh
05-31-2007, 20:08
Lemur:
Hannity is an "undiluted political hack." His radio show could as easily be produced in a studio funded by Gingrich's PAC as anywhere else. O'Reilly is not, though he slants about 70-30 right wing with the national security, law & order, and econ stuff being right wing and a lot of the social issues/safety net issues fairly left wing -- which is a fairly mainstream mix for the USA.
Xiahou:
I wasn't arguing that the harsh methods do not get results. I was expressing concern that these harsh methods might not generate more, better, and/or faster results. I am skeptical of their use unless it does. Morally, its shaky ground at best and I am not willing to accept the moral cost without a practical payoff on the other end.
It may well be that harsh methods DO work with people who otherwise would reveal nothing, or much faster with people who would "break" anyway but would only do so after months of standard interrogation, or more completely "break" individuals who would otherwise hold back information. What we don't see is evidence that this is so -- or other investigators/ our representatives coming forward to assure us that they have seen that data and are satisfied that this approach is superior to standard techniques.
If that IS the case, I still wouldn't like it -- but would probably condone it (reluctantly) in the interest of protecting our citizens.
Gawain of Orkeny
05-31-2007, 20:43
When people are slinging about absolutes such as "Torture never yields useful intel,
They are either lying to themselves or very naive. Never say never :laugh4:
There's never been to credible study to say that torture can't work- what I'm saying is that we know it can and we know it has.
I realize you're making a limited argument, but we certainly don't know that it has been more efficient than normal interrogation. That's pure supposition on your part, backed by no data.
Consider, seriously, whether normal interrogation techniques could have helped us arrive at a similar place. It's not an incredible or outlandish idea. Then it becomes worth asking how exactly we know that it has been worth sacrificing so much prestige and power in exchange for so dubious a prize. It makes no sense, unless you accept what our enemies already know: The point of torture is torture.
Gawain of Orkeny
05-31-2007, 23:11
The point of torture is torture
The point is what constitutes torture.
Listen here (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10046000)
Rodion Romanovich
06-01-2007, 13:59
Good find Lemur! Let me also point out that torture, apart from being totally useless for finding information, also turns public opinion against the user of such methods. Innocent civilians no longer dare report information about terrorists to officials of a government that kidnaps and torture innocent people without proof or a trial. Say if you knew something about torture - would you report it to someone that had kidnapped several innocent civilians and tortured them for years before releasing them, and are still detaining and torturing many who have nothing that suggests they aren't innocent? I wouldn't.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-01-2007, 15:18
Let me also point out that torture, apart from being totally useless for finding information,
If you people would stop making ridiculous statements like this it would go much further in making your point.
ShadeHonestus
06-01-2007, 15:19
Good post Lemur, describing the ambiguity of information out there. You have veterans stating that it did or did not work on them. Hell McCain even stated how it worked on him, the parents of a friend of mine giving him medical treatment once he talked. Although we thirst for this knowledge now, a competent study of absolute yes or no to its value at 100% or nothing will not ever be accomplished. I believe we won't know its complete picture of effectiveness for many years as we really can't go about telling which plots torture has revealed, or the lives saved as Tenet suggests. Furthermore we really don't want to go talking about the concrete effectiveness of those techniques used by the CIA for the last 60 years. Unless the rogue organizations and terrorist groups around the world have been keeping a database of their own, why reveal to them a concrete study. If a theoretical study comes out that states waterboarding works 40% of the time, but breaking a guys ankles works 90% of the time, who does that benefit? Not us as we don't engage in the breaking of ankles...however we'll see more of those civilian captives worldwide who manage to retain their heads, possess broken ankles.
I firmly believe that our techniques have and do work, but do they work 100% of the time? Of course not and neither should we expect them to. What in life works 100% of the time for all time. The question is the threshold for the reality of the ratio.
The most compelling aspect of this is Seamus' point that if we can't tell whether torture is actually useful (over other techniques) then is it worth sacrificing the moral stance.
And you don't just lose the moral high ground. The sad fact is that the US lost alot of goodwill when it started building off shore prisons, secret rendition flights and admitted the use of "light" torture such as waterboarding. Lost goodwill translates to lost, unwilling or less cooperative allies. It doesn't matter whether or not the US actually starts removing fingernails or electrocuting people because the damage has already been done to their reputation. They have created a climate in which the use of torture is entirely possible (maybe even probable if you are a cynic).
A good torturer is not one who can gain the best information but the one who can keep the subject alive the longest.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-01-2007, 15:45
And you don't just lose the moral high ground. The sad fact is that the US lost alot of goodwill when it started building off shore prisons, secret rendition flights and admitted the use of "light" torture such as waterboarding. Lost goodwill translates to lost, unwilling or less cooperative allies.
They all do or did it too. Give me a break with the holier than thou crap. We learned out tecniques from the SAS:laugh4:
The most compelling aspect of this is Seamus' point that if we can't tell whether torture is actually useful (over other techniques) then is it worth sacrificing the moral stance.
Yeah Seamus has a pretty good nose for the middle ground of issues, and thats normally where the truth lies.
And you don't just lose the moral high ground. The sad fact is that the US lost alot of goodwill when it started building off shore prisons, secret rendition flights and admitted the use of "light" torture such as waterboarding. Lost goodwill translates to lost, unwilling or less cooperative allies. It doesn't matter whether or not the US actually starts removing fingernails or electrocuting people because the damage has already been done to their reputation.
That lost goodwill bit, well the horse has been out of that barn for some time, it wasnt going to get much worse then it was. However we do have Ms. USA being booed at the miss universe so maybe its all shot now anyway.
Torture for the purpose of information gathering has value, the problem is that the premise for the value gained (the war on terror) is suspect by many. That dosent mean you cant get good data from methods employed.
Is it okay to set humanity aside to garnish information that saves lives? Well I say it is, but it must be under the guise of having a creadable leader, policy, and threat and thats where I think the U.S. has tripped up.
that predates the rendition flights being exposed and admissions of techniques.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-01-2007, 15:54
that predates the rendition flights being exposed and admissions of techniques.
Yeah our biggest problem in the war on terror has been the New York Slimes. :laugh4: They should be brought up on sedition charges but people find Scooter Libby to be more of a security threat and leak lol.
They all do or did it too. Give me a break with the holier than thou crap. We learned out tecniques from the SAS:laugh4:
Although the morality and effectiveness of torture is oft debated why do you think it is currently an issue?
Gawain of Orkeny
06-01-2007, 16:02
Although the morality and effectiveness of torture is oft debated why do you think it is currently an issue?
Gee i wonder LOL.
Gee i wonder LOL.
Quite.
So why the aggressive response to my earlier post?
Gawain of Orkeny
06-01-2007, 16:17
So why the aggressive response to my earlier post?
__________________
Didnt you see the smiley? And Its not like no one else does or has ever practiced it. And again what constitutes torture?
Watchman
06-01-2007, 17:03
"But someone else does it too" and "but this isn't real torture" don't exactly cut it you know. Those are called "lame excuses" around here.
ajaxfetish
06-01-2007, 17:23
Good find Lemur! Let me also point out that torture, apart from being totally useless for finding information, also turns public opinion against the user of such methods. Innocent civilians no longer dare report information about terrorists to officials of a government that kidnaps and torture innocent people without proof or a trial. Say if you knew something about torture - would you report it to someone that had kidnapped several innocent civilians and tortured them for years before releasing them, and are still detaining and torturing many who have nothing that suggests they aren't innocent? I wouldn't.
Interesting thought. I hadn't considered it in these terms yet, but I suppose if I had suspicions about a neighbor but wasn't sure, I'd be a lot less likely to call up homeland security if I thought he might be tortured. I'd hate to be responsible for doing something like that to an innocent man.
Ajax
Gawain of Orkeny
06-01-2007, 18:16
"But someone else does it too" and "but this isn't real torture" don't exactly cut it you know. Those are called "lame excuses" around here.
Thats not the excuse thats just a fact. And again what constitutes torture? Incarceration itself can be seen as torture.
Watchman
06-01-2007, 18:25
You use it as an excuse though.
As for the rest, :dizzy2: . Stuff it Clinton. Semantics don't work here. Are you incidentally aware as of why incerceration came to replace legally applied violence as the standard form of punishement in "Western" legal system a few centuries back...?
Gawain of Orkeny
06-01-2007, 20:30
You use it as an excuse though.
I never use it as an excuse . Because it isnt one. I just state facts.
Semantics don't work here. Are you incidentally aware as of why incerceration came to replace legally applied violence as the standard form of punishement in "Western" legal system a few centuries back...?
And you are aware of what a total failure it has been. Ive been to jail and Ill take waterboarding for a few hours over a year or two in jail anyday.
Presumably though your incarceration was after due legal process? In which case it is slightly different from the individuals who are currently vulnerable to torture while imprisoned by, or on behalf of, the US. I suspect also that your incarceration was not utilised as a means of extracting either a confession or information and that if either of those were sought by the authorities then you had access to a lawyer. If you went to gaol then it was as a punishment as required by law.
I should probably note that I don't usually pay much attention to smilies, preferring to read the text instead.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-02-2007, 01:47
Presumably though your incarceration was after due legal process?
Well I went to court after spending 2 months in jail and then it was a railroad job because I had to take legal aid. First time I was ever arrested. My brother did something far worse and got off with probation because he could afford a lawyer. Torture goes on in every precinct I know of.
ShadeHonestus
06-02-2007, 01:59
Torture goes on in every precinct I know of.
By favor of those who wish to throw around the word torture liberally and have it defined as some do literally and all encompassing, then I could also claim that my basic human dignity and civil rights as violated should Mrs Clinton become Mrs President. Maybe we can make it a class action, I'm sure the U.N. would care.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-02-2007, 02:13
How about putting a phone book on your head and bashing you with a night stick is that torture? How about just smacking you around? If you get arrested even if your innocent they take you to the precinct strip search you and then put you in a cell where you cant even see anyone else. All you have is a board to sleep on with no pillow or anything to cover yourself with. If your lucky you will get an egg sandwich for breakfast and a baloney one for lunch.
ShadeHonestus
06-02-2007, 02:19
How about putting a phone book on your head and bashing you with a night stick is that torture? How about just smacking you around? If you get arrested even if your innocent they take you to the precinct strip search you and then put you in a cell where you cant even see anyone else. All you have is a board to sleep on with no pillow or anything to cover yourself with. If your lucky you will get an egg sandwich for breakfast and a baloney one for lunch.
Oh sure, this all falls under the broad interpretation. Hell an egg sandwich is torture for me. Being in handcuffs can be considered torture for many people and by the broad interpretation. Not to lesson your ordeal at all, but rather stating with you that the word "torture" is sought to cover a lot of ground these days.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-02-2007, 02:22
Oh sure, this all falls under the broad interpretation. Hell an egg sandwich is torture for me. Being in handcuffs can be considered torture for many people and by the broad interpretation. Not lesson your ordeal at all, but rather stating with you that the word "torture" is sought to cover a lot of ground these days.
Thats all I wanted to illustrate . We accept a certain amount of torture in our culture, all cultures do(this is not an excuse) the thing is where do you draw the line? Thats how Bush can claim we dont torture people. Its all subjective.
ShadeHonestus
06-02-2007, 02:28
Thats all I wanted to illustrate . We accept a certain amount of torture in our culture, all cultures do(this is not an excuse) the thing is where do you draw the line? Thats how Bush can claim we dont torture people. Its all subjective.
Well legally he can claim it as there aren't any legal bounds for how and where it is being carried out as has been the case for 60 + years. There isn't anything new about it either other than the press coverage and partisan politics. He can deny it also as he has no legal obligations under information privilege. We can do anything we really wanted to in the scope where these techniques are being used.
What's funny is that our restraint isn't being viewed and reported as a marked trait, but rather that these techniques are a wholesale equivalent to everything under the torture umbrella and we are barbarians making our enemies look like angels. If that isn't slant...I've got some lovely mountainside property that would make a perfect golf course...
Gawain of Orkeny
06-02-2007, 02:35
What's funny is that our restraint isn't being viewed and reported as a marked trait, but rather that these techniques are a wholesale equivalent to everything under the torture umbrella and we are barbarians making our enemies look like angels. If that isn't slant...I've got some lovely mountainside property that would make a perfect golf course...
Well then you and I are trying to make the same point .
Lord Winter
06-02-2007, 06:51
The problem with torture is once we start doing it, it leaves any of our captured soliders open to it on the grounds of they did it to us first. We should remember the golden rule more offten.
Duke of Gloucester
06-02-2007, 09:02
One aspect of torture I think we can be objective about: if you treat someone in a way that is designed to cause distress or discomfort in order to get them to confess or give you information then that is torture. The treatment could be physical abuse, mental torment or the threat of either to themselves or others. In such cases not only is the torturer acting imorally, the information so gleaned will not be reliable. Under this test, locking someone in an uncomfortable police cell to get them to confess to a crime is torture, but locking them up to keep them from absconding before you can get them before a judge is not.
Torture as a punishment, rather than to extract information is more subjective because it depends upon what people view as cruel. Perhaps a "humane" treatment test works here. You can incacerate people as a punishment and treat them humanely. You can't humanely waterboard someone.
Adrian II
06-02-2007, 11:42
The ultimate point of torture is torture.Sums it up.
Another Lemur home run. :bow:
Well I went to court after spending 2 months in jail and then it was a railroad job because I had to take legal aid. First time I was ever arrested. My brother did something far worse and got off with probation because he could afford a lawyer. Torture goes on in every precinct I know of.
As I said, due process. Not necessarily fair or even, but what was required by law. Mistreatment by the police is another matter.
When was this by the way? Two years ago? Forty?
Gawain of Orkeny
06-02-2007, 14:11
As I said, due process. Not necessarily fair or even, but what was required by law. Mistreatment by the police is another matter.
I forget which candidate said it in the republican debate but when asked about torture said I would tell me head of security to get me the information. Brilliant answer. The higher ups dont want to know. Its built into the system.
When was this by the way? Two years ago? Forty?
30 years ago
The problem with torture is once we start doing it, it leaves any of our captured soliders open to it on the grounds of they did it to us first. We should remember the golden rule more offten.
Their cutting our soldiers heads off lol. They have no such quams about torture, If you play a game by the rules and your enemy doesnt who do you think has a better chance of winning. When will you learn war is not a game. At leastin the real world. We sign things like Geneva for such reasons. These guys are not signatories of any treaty. I say fight fire with fire. Its a two way street. Hell Id have everyone over there greasing their guns with pig fat.See how happy they are to die then.:laugh4:
Seamus Fermanagh
06-02-2007, 14:16
The problem with torture is once we start doing it, it leaves any of our captured soliders open to it on the grounds of they did it to us first. We should remember the golden rule more offten.
U.S. Soldiers were treated to "harsh methods" and/or outright torture in virtually every conflict in which they have been involved since 1950. Prior to the WoT, you would be hard-pressed to assert that this was because of previous use of torture/harsh interrogation by the USA.
Their cutting our soldiers heads off lol. They have no such quams about torture, If you play a game by the rules and your enemy doesnt who do you think has a better chance of winning.
What goes down for torture I wouldn't call torture, moderate pressure at most. You have your weapons, they have theirs. Yours is raw power theirs is fear. Torture doesn't get them anywhere, and it benefits you guys not that much. Best to just don't do it imvho, although I can think of a few cases where fishing hooks could come in handy, not against it per se, but there is no necesity.
ShadeHonestus
06-02-2007, 17:16
Sums it up.
Respectfully disagree, if the purpose of torture was torture than there would be no rhyme to the reason and anyone who examines the issue can see there is.
Rodion Romanovich
06-02-2007, 19:29
Respectfully disagree, if the purpose of torture was torture than there would be no rhyme to the reason and anyone who examines the issue can see there is.
So you think all who use torture are rational and reasonable? Maybe you've not heard of witch processes? People who use torture are often people with grave mental disorders who try to vent their aggressions and sexual-sadistic ideas on someone, and they try hard to convince authorities and officials that what they do isn't just for their own fulfillment but that it is good for "the state", or similar. Witch doctors, human sacrifice priests, etc, are a nuisance that appear every now and then in history and manage to fool some persons because they play on things such as what these people already hate.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-02-2007, 20:07
So you think all who use torture are rational and reasonable?
So you think their different from everyone else? Are all of any group ALL rational and reasonable? To say the only purpose of torture is torture is silly statement on the face of it. Can it be used just for that? Why of course. So is that what your accusing the US of ? Is this government policy?
ShadeHonestus
06-02-2007, 21:45
People who use torture are often people with grave mental disorders who try to vent their aggressions and sexual-sadistic ideas on someone, and they try hard to convince authorities and officials that what they do isn't just for their own fulfillment but that it is good for "the state", or similar. Witch doctors, human sacrifice priests, etc, are a nuisance that appear every now and then in history and manage to fool some persons because they play on things such as what these people already hate.
The ultimate point of torture is torture.
Both these statements are nothing more than an exercise in passive aggressive rhetoric. They say nothing specific about the topic at hand, but rather hope to lump everything in one sum and cast venom upon any who advocate anything under that umbrella definition. Both statements are dishonest at their very best.
Watchman
06-02-2007, 22:06
Their cutting our soldiers heads off lol. They have no such quams about torture, If you play a game by the rules and your enemy doesnt who do you think has a better chance of winning. When will you learn war is not a game. At leastin the real world. We sign things like Geneva for such reasons. These guys are not signatories of any treaty. I say fight fire with fire. Its a two way street....and you actually had the nerve to claim you weren't using "but they do it too" as an excuse ? :inquisitive:
Side note: although I'll have to agree Legio doesn't quite seem to have a clue about what he's talking of with his historical references (which are by and large patently wrong).
Gawain of Orkeny
06-02-2007, 22:13
and you actually had the nerve to claim you weren't using "but they do it too" as an excuse ?
Only in war. Only if you want to win. We performed many atrocities in WW2 also but since we won you dont hear much about it. In war everyone does it. When its you or the other guy the hell with the damn rules. You sort those out later and leave it to the politicians.
Watchman
06-02-2007, 22:28
So... where does that actually leave you any different from the other side then ? And since when was the US situation so desperate as to require such measures anyway ? Heck, many of the participants of the damn World Wars were able to maintain the integrity of their relevant moral principles in genuinely desperate circumstances - so where do you guys get off with it and why, pray tell ?
:no:
So now you're adding "dire necessity of circumstance" and, implicitly, "just causes" to the list of hollow excuses then ?
Gawain of Orkeny
06-02-2007, 22:57
Heck, many of the participants of the damn World Wars were able to maintain the integrity of their relevant moral principles in genuinely desperate circumstances -
Yes even the Nazis. Theres good and bad in every group. How is that rellevant. Im saying when the rules of war say you cant use a 50 cal mg on soft targets IE humans and your being over run you shoot the damn bastards. You worry if its against the rules later.
So... where does that actually leave you any different from the other side then ? And since when was the US situation so desperate as to require such measures anyway ? Heck, many of the participants of the damn World Wars were able to maintain the integrity of their relevant moral principles in genuinely desperate circumstances - so where do you guys get off with it and why, pray tell ?
Be very careful with absolute statements such as this. The Fire Bombing of a certain German town belies such a stance. There are other exambles but for the absolute statement lets just start with that one.
And the Soviet Union had several instances where morality on the battlefield completely broke down.
Watchman
06-02-2007, 23:17
Sometimes I wonder just how many conditionals would be required for some people to not read things in an excessively absolute fashion...
Gawain of Orkeny
06-02-2007, 23:22
Sometimes I wonder just how many conditionals would be required for some people to not read things in an excessively absolute fashion...
When you stop making statements like this
Heck, many of the participants of the damn World Wars were able to maintain the integrity of their relevant moral principles in genuinely desperate circumstances
The point is many if not all of them did not. Every country was guilty if you look hard enough.
Watchman
06-02-2007, 23:25
:dizzy2:
We're talking torture of enemy combatants here, not carpet bombing or mustard gas. Even the damn Nazis were all civilized about Western Allied POWs as the standard policy AFAIK, you know.
Sheesh. Keep on topic people.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-02-2007, 23:26
We're talking torture of enemy combatants here,
Exactly. You think we didnt do that in WW2?
Watchman
06-02-2007, 23:43
I don't know, did you ? On a scale, level of systemacy and organization, and open BS excuses comparable to now ?
Gawain of Orkeny
06-03-2007, 00:21
I don't know, did you ? On a scale, level of systemacy and organization, and open BS excuses comparable to now ?
We will never know now will we. We werent so open and stupid with the press back then. And they werent as anti FDR.
Watchman
06-03-2007, 00:25
Do I even need to point out that rings hollow ?
Both these statements are nothing more than an exercise in passive aggressive rhetoric.
Passive-aggressive? I don't think that words means what you think it means ...
They say nothing specific about the topic at hand, but rather hope to lump everything in one sum and cast venom upon any who advocate anything under that umbrella definition.
We're lumping, summing, casting venom and giving out umbrellas? This statement is nothing more than an exercise in mixed metaphor and purple prose.
Both statements are dishonest at their very best.
Got hyperbole?
-edit-
By the way, the line I used was a quote from George Orwell. Clearly you are a special man if you can smell "passive-aggressive" prose from the master. You should think twice before lobbing bombs at other people's writing.
Full quote:
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?
Blodrast
06-03-2007, 02:03
I guess no further progress will be made in this thread, everybody'll just stick to their guns (as usual:beam:). We can just add its conclusions to the "Predefined Backroom stances" thread right there with abortions, religion, and gun ownership.
Lemme do a quick summary for y'all who didn't feel like plodding through 3 pages of this:
- it's not torture, it's "enhanced interrogation techniques"
- it's ok if we do it, because others do/did it, too
- it's not torture, I've already told you that!
- it's definitely not torture if we legalize it and categorize it
- it's not torture, and, besides, they're terrorists, so it's okay to use torture on them. How do we know they're terrorists ? Because the gov't thinks so, of course. And I've already told you it's NOT torture!
edit: I forgot to add: Oh, and torture *works* ! (not that we're using it, mind you).
Gawain of Orkeny
06-03-2007, 04:36
Lemme do a quick summary for y'all who didn't feel like plodding through 3 pages of this:
- it's not torture, it's "enhanced interrogation techniques"
- it's ok if we do it, because others do/did it, too
- it's not torture, I've already told you that!
- it's definitely not torture if we legalize it and categorize it
- it's not torture, and, besides, they're terrorists, so it's okay to use torture on them. How do we know they're terrorists ? Because the gov't thinks so, of course. And I've already told you it's NOT torture!
edit: I forgot to add: Oh, and torture *works* ! (not that we're using it, mind you).
Well that is how the liberal press would report it to be sure :laugh4:
And you and others would claim your post was unbiased.
Lord Winter
06-03-2007, 05:22
Their cutting our soldiers heads off lol. They have no such quams about torture, If you play a game by the rules and your enemy doesnt who do you think has a better chance of winning. When will you learn war is not a game. At leastin the real world. We sign things like Geneva for such reasons. These guys are not signatories of any treaty. I say fight fire with fire. Its a two way street. Hell Id have everyone over there greasing their guns with pig fat.See how happy they are to die then.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Just because marry pushed jimmey on the playground dosn't mean that it's ok for Jimmy to push her back. Netheir should it be okay to use what the enemy is doing to justify our actions. Does that mean that we have a right to sucide bomb civllians because it's already being done? Besides you can't tell me that this isn't creating more terriorist by lending to the evil U.S. image.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-03-2007, 05:26
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Are we cutting heads off. Are you comparing our treatment of POWs to theirs?
Besides you can't tell me that this isn't creating more terriorist by lending to the evil U.S. image.
They hate us anyway. Its ingrained in them at this point. Blame it on oil.
I had posted they learn it in school but I though nah. So I did a little search.
Heres a sample of a Saudi textbook. (After the intolerance was removed.)
FIRST GRADE
" Every religion other than Islam is false."
"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________."
FOURTH GRADE
"True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly."
FIFTH GRADE
"Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives."
"It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."
"A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion."
SIXTH GRADE
"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power."
EIGHTH GRADE
"As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."
NINTH GRADE
"The clash between this [Muslim] community (umma) and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills."
"It is part of God's wisdom that the struggle between the Muslim and the Jews should continue until the hour [of judgment]."
"Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him."
TENTH GRADE
The 10th-grade text on jurisprudence teaches that life for non-Muslims (as well as women, and, by implication, slaves) is worth a fraction of that of a "free Muslim male." Blood money is retribution paid to the victim or the victim's heirs for murder or injury:
"Blood money for a free infidel. [Its quantity] is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, whether or not he is 'of the book' or not 'of the book' (such as a pagan, Zoroastrian, etc.).
"Blood money for a woman: Half of the blood money for a man, in accordance with his religion. The blood money for a Muslim woman is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, and the blood money for an infidel woman is half of the blood money for a male infidel."
ELEVENTH GRADE
"The greeting 'Peace be upon you' is specifically for believers. It cannot be said to others."
"If one comes to a place where there is a mixture of Muslims and infidels, one should offer a greeting intended for the Muslims."
"Do not yield to them [Christians and Jews] on a narrow road out of honor and respect."
TWELFTH GRADE
"Jihad in the path of God -- which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it -- is the summit of Islam. This religion arose through jihad and through jihad was its banner raised high. It is one of the noblest acts, which brings one closer to God, and one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God."
Now how do we address that. It is even being taught here in the US now.
LINK (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html)
AntiochusIII
06-03-2007, 07:14
Oh the fear mongering. :dizzy2:
Torture is for teh weak. Real men fights his opponents with both sides armed, full gladiator fashion; swords, shields, rusty helmets and all. Televised.
Everything else is just neo-con cowardly swine-ness.
Lord Winter
06-03-2007, 07:15
Are we cutting heads off. Are you comparing our treatment of POWs to theirs?
I was attacking your response that because they cut off our soliders head we have a right to torture them. Once again an inhumane act is not justified by another inhumane act. No matter if it is more inhumane.
They hate us anyway. Its ingrained in them at this point. Blame it on oil.
I had posted they learn it in school but I though nah. So I did a little search.
Heres a sample of a Saudi textbook. (After the intolerance was removed.)
So every arab is automaticly inngrained to attack us? Then why didn't afganistan explode on us as well?
Duke of Gloucester
06-03-2007, 07:18
I think you have missed the point of DoH's post, Gawain. The "eye for an eye" bit is not the important part of his post. The bit that you need to read is:
Netheir should it be okay to use what the enemy is doing to justify our actions.
In other words, if something is immoral then it is wrong, no matter what the provocation.
As to the Saudi textbooks, I would like to make two points. Firstly in spite of what their children are being taught, the Saudi Arabian government are still a good ally to the US at the moment. The support the Saudis give is important and it would silly to do anything to jeopardize friendly relations on a government level. Indeed Turki al-Faisal has paid lip service to the notion that the state school system should not promote prejudice. A concerted campaign to win hearts and minds might persuade their government to match the words with effective action. Indifference to what Saudis think whether it is the government or the people of the country because "they hate us anyway" will not decrease the number of people willing to commit acts of terror against the west nor the number of non-terrorists who excuse their actions. Use of torture and the extra-legal detentions at Guantanamo Bay work against the interests of the West.
Secondly I am much more concerned about the attitudes of young Moslems in Bradford than I am about those in SA. Almost all of these attend state schools where they are not exposed to the Saudi textbooks. Most of them want the freedom to follow their religion and the opportunity to participate in the economic, cultural and social life of the UK. However the notion of brotherhood is very important in Islam and it is very easy to alienate them.
However neither of these points are the most important. Torture de-humanizes the victim, the torturer and those who support it. It undermines one of the finest attributes of mankind - our ability to empathise. Any individual, group or nation that accepts it diminishes themselves moral and spiritually and this is why it should be shunned by all.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-03-2007, 13:00
think you have missed the point of DoH's post, Gawain. The "eye for an eye" bit is not the important part of his post. The bit that you need to read is:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Destroyer of Hope
Netheir should it be okay to use what the enemy is doing to justify our actions.
My whole point is we are not doing what they are doing. Not even close. Cant you get that through your heads. Once more this is no game. You people need a reality check. What ever happened to covert action? Its now a dirty word.
PS I am not in favor of torture. Only in extreme circumstances . That is you know like in the child buried alive type scenario where you have only hours to get the info and you know this guy knows where the kid is and wont talk. How many of you would oppose a little torture there? No permanent bodily damage .
Watchman
06-03-2007, 13:18
So you're saying it's OK to beat people up if you only do it a little and don't wear brass knuckles ?
:no:
Wrong answer. Try again.
I also cannot fail to notice you're now rather silent on the issue we were discussing but a short time ago...
Gawain of Orkeny
06-03-2007, 13:41
So you're saying it's OK to beat people up if you only do it a little and don't wear brass knuckles ?
If it saves lives yes. I suppose you would let the child just die then. Which is the greater evil? Sometimes the means do justify the ends.
Do you favor war and killing? . Sometimes you must do evil things to accomplish good ones. I know its horrible but thats reality. You look for a way to justify it so you feel better is all you can hope to do.
I also cannot fail to notice you're now rather silent on the issue we were discussing but a short time ago...
And what would that be?
Watchman
06-03-2007, 13:55
If it saves lives yes. I suppose you would let the child just die then. Which is the greater evil? Sometimes the means do justify the ends.Please do not insult my intelligence by trying to imply we're dealing with an even remotely comparable issue here.
Do you favor war and killing? . Sometimes you must do evil things to accomplish good ones. I know its horrible but thats reality. You look for a way to justify it so you feel better is all you can hope to do.I fail to see where this hypothetical necessity would make it any less morally wrong you know. Nevermind now that for the patently dodgy "end justifies the means" argument to even try to carry any real weight, both the "ends" and the "means" would need to be subjected to rather thorough scrutiny - which I'm rather failing to see happening, seeing as how nobody seems to have any real or tenable idea what the "ends" in this whole War On Terror mess actually are to begin with.
And what would that be?Seems to come at an abrupt halt at post #64 of this thread. Don't feign ignorance, please.
Zaknafien
06-03-2007, 14:09
its all irrelevant since those who favor torture and military intervention in the first place are only serving to motivate and recruit more of the militants they claim to be trying to stop. So in effect, the torture-party is endangering lives not saving them.
Watchman
06-03-2007, 14:32
Subjecting what all too often amount to random passerbys to torture - regardless of severity - isn't generally regarded as a prime way to gain friends, respect and prestige, true.
ShadeHonestus
06-03-2007, 15:46
By the way, the line I used was a quote from George Orwell. Clearly you are a special man if you can smell "passive-aggressive" prose from the master. You should think twice before lobbing bombs at other people's writing.
Full quote:
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?
Clearly you must think yourself a special man if you think you can pull Orwell as a sacred cow to gloss your arguments' shortcomings. Does critical thinking stop in the presence of Orwell? Does one stop validating statements due to authorship alone? Ever tried defending a thesis by pulling out random quotes and wishing them to stand on their own merit or rather the author's merit and not your own? laughable
Orwell like anyone else is not above critique and he is, quoted separate from context in an attempt to prove your pathetic little point that waterboarding and belly slaps are a self feeding sadistic Georgia pig, wrong. Your point was nothing to the state of defining what torture is and then choosing to label it. We all know your position and how you choose the broad stroke seperate from point of principle.
Oh did you want me to point out the passive aggressive attacks in each one of your rebuttal posts where you are challenged? Surely you're special enough to see these yourself. From our previous exchanges I found you far above all of this.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-03-2007, 16:53
Do I even need to point out that rings hollow ?
Seems to come at an abrupt halt at post #64 of this thread. Don't feign ignorance, please.
Im not feigning anything. That was a question? And i was to know that was the particular one you meant? :inquisitive: I still dont know what to say.I thought it was an opinion.
Please do not insult my intelligence by trying to imply we're dealing with an even remotely comparable issue here.
Your right. Its like Lemur claims were torturing people for the sake of torture not to save lives, were just sadistic bastards. Me in particular.
Come down off your ivory tower and come live in the filth of the real world with the rest of us. Yeah I know its a horrible place.
Look I admire your ideals and your intellect, but it begs reality is my only point.
Seamus Fermanagh
06-03-2007, 17:26
its all irrelevant since those who favor torture and military intervention in the first place are only serving to motivate and recruit more of the militants they claim to be trying to stop. So in effect, the torture-party is endangering lives not saving them.
So we should scale back DoD spending to about 1.1% GDP, withdraw all forces to CONUS, and focus on direct self defense and never respond with violence to someone who does us harm? Defense a la Gandhi? Taking a mlitary intervention is always wrong stance isn't very practical.
Zaknafien
06-03-2007, 17:46
Woah dude, I never said it was always wrong. IN extreme situations, it may be the only choice, a la WWII. Youve got to look at your enemy and why you're fighting though. Terrorism is produced by occupation and hopelessness, not by religious extremism, which is a falsity many in the West have been led to believe.
Seamus Fermanagh
06-03-2007, 17:55
Both "sides" to this argument are "speaking past" one another while using the exact same facts/ideas/larger moral goals (an example of the Differend in Lyotardian post-modern views on communication btw).
Both major points of view expressed in this thread take as their larger goal that the betterment of the human condition is a key value. So far so good.
Both view torture (and "harsh methods") done for the purpose of causing pain, torture done as a punishment, or torture done to force a confession as an evil act and inherently wrong (as well as impractical vis-a-vis confessions). Still good.
Now for issues in divergence.
1. Views on what constitutes "torture" differ.
*One POV holds that some forms of interrogation -- "harsh methods" such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, interrogation under chemically altered states -- are not torture as they have not been demonstrated to do lasting harm or to induce levels of pain/discomfort that approach the cruelty associated with "classic" torture such as the breaking of bones, burning of flesh, electric shock, etc. Most expressing this view also reserve "harsh methods" for terrorists and do not advocate their use on a standard civilian population.
**The other POV holds that ANY form of coercion in ANY degree is wrong in ALL circumstances. Interrogation, from this perspective, must be limited solely to verbal interrogation conducted under reasonable cirmcumstances and without an "off-stage" threat by the questioners. From this perspective, "harsh methods" are exactly the same as any other "classic" torture and equally repugnant morally. As an aside, this POV would implicitly characterize as "torture" a substantial percentage of all routine police investigations done prior to 1970 or so.
2. Views on "harsh methods" as a tool for interrogation differ.
*One POV suggests that these techniques may be uniquely useful in generating information by "breaking" individuals who would -- because of fanaticism etc. -- simply not respond to standard interrogation, or who would respond so slowly that the information generated would be of limited use. Thus these methods take on role of "useful if unpleasant" tool in order to gather the information needed to protect and defend other innocents.
**The other POV, seeing these "harsh methods" as no different in nature to any other form of torture, also tend to view any information generated thereby as suspect. This argument runs thus: not only would the torturee confess to anything, but they will spew information that is unreliable just to get you to stop the torture. Thus all information generated is highly suspect and not practically useful (in addition to having been collected by immoral means).
Now, having summarized the perspectives, let me return to the central issue put forward by the Lemury one in the OP to this thread.
Do "harsh methods" work?
Answer -- we do not have (or at least have any access to) anything resembling hard data to say that they do. "Harsh methods" could only be justified morally if their use can be demonstrated to be a more effective tool in quality, timeliness, or access in getting needed information to protect innocents than would the more standard and commonly accepted techniques used by -- for example -- the FBI. Such data may exist or it may not.
I would like to think that it does and that US leadership resorted to these tools for the correct purpose. Unfortunately, neither congressional leaders tasked with intelligence oversight nor administration officials have made a clear statement on these points. I do not care to know whether or not such methods work -- I suspect they do, as anyone can be broken -- but do they work BETTER.
This concludes my rant.
Oh did you want me to point out the passive aggressive attacks in each one of your rebuttal posts where you are challenged? Surely you're special enough to see these yourself. From our previous exchanges I found you far above all of this.
If you're going to get all hot under the collar, we should take this to PM, darling. And by the way, passive-aggressive has a real definition that has nothing to do with the way you're using it.
Crazed Rabbit
06-04-2007, 01:56
Terrorism is produced by occupation and hopelessness, not by religious extremism, which is a falsity many in the West have been led to believe.
Right...so the middle class people in England don't mean it when they said they killed themselves (and British transit patrons) for Islam?
And all the terrorists claiming Islam as the reason to destroy the west and establish a great Muslim state are lying?
Sound reasoning, that. :rolleyes:
Crazed Rabbit
Zaknafien
06-04-2007, 02:03
the overwhelming majority of suicide attacks from 1980 until present were not conducted by followers of any religion at all. youve got to understand the underlying causes of terrorism, specifically suicide terrorism, before you can combat it. religion can be used to promote or legitimitize it, but is not the cause.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-04-2007, 05:20
The cause as Ive posted is their taught from childhood in school to hate and kill the infidel.
the overwhelming majority of suicide attacks from 1980 until present were not conducted by followers of any religion at all.
But wasnt it you who claimed that religion is bad and the cause of all this death and misery in the world?
KafirChobee
06-04-2007, 08:15
Knowing a couple of former interogators (Bro is one, OSI - another retired fbi) and their attirudes towards this. I will say this: one gets more cooperation using honey, than with a stick. It isn't a matter that the stick isn't there, it is a matter that if the threat of the stick is not enough to gain information - no amount of using it will get one real usable data. Playing the game on the terms of the one being interogated, letting them believe they are in control of the situation - opens them up. If they just sit there, lie - tell him things you suspect (only give it to him as if you know it as fact) and use names that if they are the real McCoy (terrorist, enemy combatant, etal) they will blink. Be patient, be polite (not submissive, but controlled) - once you demonstrate frustration (anger, violence) - they have won. They win because it is exactly what they expected - what they were trained for - it reinforces their belief in what ever they've accepted as being the "truth".
It is not a matter of becoming their friend, as much as it is showning them that you are both humans - that you have more in common than not. Get them to talk about anything.
It's like in car sales, once the salesman has made his speal - the first one to talk ... loses.
When I was in Korea we had to attend mandatory military training courses about every other week (occasionally more frequent). One that stuck in my wee mind was about the Korean War American POWs (a group of) returned by the Chinese. They (POWs) were placed in a game room and library type of setting while they awaited processing. Now anyone familiar with how GIs respond would expect them to shoot pool, play table tennis, start card games, or just sit around bs'ing. These guys did none of these things - they stayed seperate from one another, they either read or just sat or stood around. No communications with one another. The Chinese had totally broken down the trust between them, and they did it without torture. They did it by "being nice" - by making each of these men believe that one or more of the others had betrayed them. Not a slow process, btw. By rewards to the snitches and little to no punishment for those being snitched on. At first the POWs thought they were scamming the Chinese, I mean you get a reward (cigarettes, a coke, what ever) and nothing really happens to the guy you give up - so they started making things up. But, slowly, imperceptively they realized they couldn't trust anyone - especially when guys were trying to one up others to gain a reward. Pretty devious - don't you think?
The problem we have is - patience - we don't have any. And, since our government now says torture is OK. Why bother.
There are better methods than torture to extract information. Face it, if you were being tortured what would you admit to? Anything - nothing - everything. We are just to lazy to employ real interogation methods in favor of tried and true inquisition methods that work if your aiming at getting a confession - for being a heretic.
:balloon2:
:dizzy2:
We're talking torture of enemy combatants here, not carpet bombing or mustard gas. Even the damn Nazis were all civilized about Western Allied POWs as the standard policy AFAIK, you know.
Again don't be so sure - the Gestpo tortured all kinds of folks to included escaped POW from the western allies.
Ironside
06-04-2007, 09:41
*One POV suggests that these techniques may be uniquely useful in generating information by "breaking" individuals who would -- because of fanaticism etc. -- simply not respond to standard interrogation, or who would respond so slowly that the information generated would be of limited use. Thus these methods take on role of "useful if unpleasant" tool in order to gather the information needed to protect and defend other innocents.
**The other POV, seeing these "harsh methods" as no different in nature to any other form of torture, also tend to view any information generated thereby as suspect. This argument runs thus: not only would the torturee confess to anything, but they will spew information that is unreliable just to get you to stop the torture. Thus all information generated is highly suspect and not practically useful (in addition to having been collected by immoral means).
Have been thinking on how useful torture or "enhanced interogation methods" are in the "ticking bomb" scenario. IMO something worth remember is that the guilty person in question is also aware of that ticking bomb and therefore have a deadline.
If your family was in danger, but you knewed that they would be moved in the next 72 hours, while some was using "enhanced interogation methods", what would you do? We can probably assume that it's about the same level of devotion that the fanatic has to thier cause (they are fanatics after all).
IMO the conclusion is that forceful methods are far from a certain card in the ticking bomb scenario. So to be certain we would need statistical data, that we appearently won't get.
Banquo's Ghost
06-04-2007, 10:55
You make a good point, Ironside.
In most cases, the ticking bomb scenario is not a good example for utilisation of torture. This is because the captive is likely to know what the schedule is and when the deadline runs out. This gives him an edge, psychologically. One of the key strengths of effective torture is unpredictability - the captive not knowing when, or for how long.
If he knows that the torturers are under pressure, it gives him will to resist. He knows that a "victory" is in his hands. Even if techniques that are guaranteed to break his will are used, he can mislead. This buys time as the information is validated or proved erroneous. The torturers cannot be sure whether he is telling the truth, the half truth or sheer baloney that sounds right.
Unless one is dealing with a very low level and thus unprepared captive, it will usually be impossible to get accurate information from torture under the ticking-bomb conditions. If he is so low level, chances are he won't have a clue anyway - unless you are dealing with amateurs.
It is possible in this scenario to disorient the captive as to time, if you have long enough. People lose track of time quite quickly in stressful situations, and with more than a week to play with, one can probably get him to think the deadline has passed.
The latter however, works just as well with conventional interrogation methods, perhaps better (assuming of course, that such disorientation is not considered torture, which it is not in most jurisdictions).
Forensic interrogation by skilled persons is almost always a better bet to gain valuable information. Calm, cross-referenced questioning allows traps to be set - as Kafir pointed out very well, reward response behaviour is particularly effective.
Torture is a blunt instrument that is not worth the moral degradation that accompanies its use. It is wrong on political, utilitarian and ethical levels.
Zaknafien
06-04-2007, 12:03
Have you ever looked at why exactly they are raised to hate the infidel as you say? There ARE reasons, you know. They didnt just wake up one day in the 70s and say, you know what, now is a good time to take on America.
I completely agree with KafirChobee, and he makes an excellent point on the honey technique. We got a lot more information with Taliban prisoners by helping them and "making friends" than we did by threatening them with Gitmo for the rest of their lives and such. I never witnessed any "subversive methods", but the best interrogators were the ones who had emphathy for their targets, hands down.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-04-2007, 13:22
Have you ever looked at why exactly they are raised to hate the infidel as you say? There ARE reasons, you know
He he of course I have. Its in the Koran.
Torture is a blunt instrument that is not worth the moral degradation that accompanies its use. It is wrong on political, utilitarian and ethical levels.
You would think that a simple, sensible, decent statement like this wouldn't need to be called out and highlighted. You would be wrong.
Watchman
06-04-2007, 15:47
He he of course I have. Its in the Koran.Thank you for providing everyone with the required weekly dosage of rank ignorant xenophobia. Did you have any tenable contributions, or will I have to tediously debunk you again on this ?
ShadeHonestus
06-04-2007, 16:19
If you're going to get all hot under the collar, we should take this to PM, darling. And by the way, passive-aggressive has a real definition that has nothing to do with the way you're using it.
A real definition? I'm shocked at you now wanting to talk definitions, but will gladly take it to PM.
ShadeHonestus
06-04-2007, 16:25
Torture is a blunt instrument that is not worth the moral degradation that accompanies its use. It is wrong on political, utilitarian and ethical levels.
Although at first and on merit I see this statement as having value....without definitions, without the willingness to contrast cultures objectively, without actually looking at our own past present and future, and with the fast food sound byte posts it will only hold water for some, insult others and completely disregard facts for many. It is polarizing past the issue itself and onto lines of pathos at its best, therefore identifying those engaged by that alone.
Watchman
06-04-2007, 17:09
SH, "Western" cultures have been hard at work for the past century or so trying to take the worst barbarism off the somewhat unavoidable phenomenom of warfare (and for that matter the state machinery of legitimate violence, such as law enforcement, in general). And in spite of occasional setbacks have been fairly succesful thus far.
I fail to see how such "limits on pain" can be regarded as anything but categorically positive, and worth sticking to even if minor short-term practical benefit could be derived from breaking the taboo. As someone put it, "each generation has to be won back from barbarism"; and an seriously inferior and desperate opponent failing to display the same degree of moral integrity is hardly a valid reason (if there even is such a thing) to compromise these achievements.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-04-2007, 21:47
Thank you for providing everyone with the required weekly dosage of rank ignorant xenophobia. Did you have any tenable contributions, or will I have to tediously debunk you again on this ?
And do I have to post the quotes from the Saudi text book again? Thank you for providing everyone with the required weekly dosage of rank ignorant naivety.
MY my we seem to be falling into personal insults here no?
Watchman
06-04-2007, 22:10
I suggest you try a thing called "analysis". It sort of helps when trying to make sense out of raw data.
Do the Saudi textbooks stink ? Sure. Done so for a long time far as I know. A direct outgrowth of the way the not-so-terribly-popular oligarchy ruling the place has been buying reprieve from the local opposition (which is centered around religious movements for the simple reason even rank police states are wary about touching those in fear of public backlash) for a long time by making all kinds of little concessions to the religious nuts who have largely taken over what amounts to the local "popular front" among the Great Unwashed.
Would this have any connection to the little detail Saudis were noticeably numerous among Osama's generation of Al-Qaida at least ? Oh you bet. Throw in the little fact the militant-revivalist Wahhabi sect (which the Saud family allied with back at the day they took over the place and made it their very own kingdom) apparently established an outlier among the mountain tribes of what is now the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the early/mid-1800s (before the annoyed Ottomans - or rather their virtually autonomous Egyptian viceroy - stamped the sect flat in Arabia where it had been causing trouble), and the Soviets' Afghan War with duly about everyone with a beef with the USSR feeding the beardy hillmen guns and other support, and you ought to start seeing why that was.
Which nonetheless does not to my knowledge make the average Saudi citizen terribly interested in going on a jihad against the Infidel, and has absolutely no bearing on the situation in, say, Iran.
You might also ask yourself why all the international terrorism originating from what we now call the "Muslim world" before around Eighties if not Nineties, such as Gaddafi's spooks and their bombs or the aircraft hijackers extraordinaire, Palestinian militants of various stripes, were rather short on religious slogans. Especially before stating crap like
He he of course I have. Its in the Koran.which has about the BS content of claiming Das Kapital was the reason for the Russian Revolution.
Kralizec
06-04-2007, 22:18
which has about the BS content of claiming Das Kapital was the reason for the Russian Revolution.
Interesting analogy. Would you go as far as saying that the revolution would have happened even without the ideological baggage provided by Marx?
MY my we seem to be falling into personal insults here no?
These torture threads tend to go downhill. And this despite Seamus' and Kralizec's admirable injections of evenhandedness and empiricism, respectively.
Watchman
06-04-2007, 22:49
Interesting analogy. Would you go as far as saying that the revolution would have happened even without the ideological baggage provided by Marx?Of course. The Revolution happened because the Russian state and society had too many unresolved problems and too many unhappy people. Marx's writings just provided a vehicle for the irate masses (or rather their leaders - revolting peasants never having been all that good at the theory part) to articulate their disgruntlement by, as well as at least a rough scheme of a better future. Had ole Karl never existed, they'd just have found another framework to go by.
The exact same thing happened with several religiously tinted peasant uprisings all over the world, such as the "Protestantic" Peasant Wars of 1500s Germany or the assorted peculiar "cult rebellions" seen in China and Japan.
I'm not quite sure what exactly the French Revolution drew on for its ideological fuel (the ideas of Enlightement presumably), but later Communist and Anarchist ideas provided the ideological framework for revolutionaries in Europe from late 1800s to as late as the Seventies or so (what with all those Red Something Armies quite a few states had trouble with). Anti-colonial popular uprisings similarly often found them inspiring - although the possibility of support from the Soviets cannot but also have factored in that.
It's all the same thing. Ideologies and beliefs by themselves do not create revolutionary activity; that comes about due to whole different pressures and circumstances. But a revolutionary without a guiding ideology is not really anything more than a bandit and hooligan; the most he will manage is doing some damage to the local hated representation of "authority" before perishing - a lot of bandits of bygone days were in fact just this, social revolutionaries without a cause, who nonetheless derived a certain degree of popular support from the common masses for no other reason that they were the enemies of the resented rulers. In a way present-day crime gangs in slums aren't too much different.
Revolutionaries who want to be even remotely succesful need something akin to a proper ideology, something they can cite to legitimize their activities and present as the supposedly better alternative to the unacceptable status quo. Revolting peasants for example almost always sought sympathetic and/or disgruntled members of both the literati (clergy in European contexts usually) to act as their ideologists and mouthpieces and the warrior class (or equivalent - junior military officers tending to be the closest modern one) to act as their war-leaders and organizers - else they would never have been more than mobs of looters wandering the countryside torching manors until a military unit came and massacred them. (To be fair it didn't really tend to be much different when leaders and thinkers were succesfully recruited, but uprisings that did tended to be far more difficult to put down than disorganized packs of bandits; major ones required long and costly military campaigns to crush, and could put up surprisingly stiff fights.)
What exactly this ideology consists of does not really matter as such, although it tends to be dictated by prevailing ideological trends and similar circumstances; the main point is that something of the sort had better be found.
Ex-interrogator discusses his feelings (http://www.suntimes.com/news/mcnamee/412793,CST-NWS-mcnamee04.article) about enhanced interrogation techniques.
Ex-interrogator tortured by role in Iraq
June 4, 2007
BY TOM McNAMEE Sun-Times Columnist
Tony Lagouranis was telling me about how he used to torture people, when he was interrupted by his first customers of the night at the California Clipper.
"May I see your IDs please?" he asked, hands in his pockets.
This was a stylish group -- good haircuts, shoulder bags -- and obviously old enough, but Lagouranis had to ask. He's a bouncer -- that's his job.
They laughed, and dug into their purses and wallets.
I wondered what they made of Lagouranis. Probably nothing -- he was the doorman.
And if they considered him for even a moment, they might figure him for a neighborhood guy, or maybe for a grad student. Something thoughtful in the eyes.
But what would they think if they knew the truth?
That their soft-spoken doorman had been a U.S. Army interrogator in Iraq.
That he had forced dozens of Iraqi men and boys -- almost none of whom had done a thing wrong -- to kneel in the cold for hour upon hour, until they crumbled from the agony.
That he had forced men to stay awake for weeks, allowing them no more than a rare few hours of sleep, until they begged for mercy.
That he had allowed a quivering blindfolded man to believe he was being led to his execution.
That he had gone to Iraq eager to interrogate the bad guys and get that big piece of intel that would save lives.
And that he had returned to Chicago believing the United States had lost this war -- and that virtually everything he had done had helped us lose it.
"You, too," he said politely to a woman who almost blew past him, sunglasses perched above her blond-streaked hair. "I need to see some ID."
Fear up harsh
Lagouranis, who is now 37, joined the Army before Sept. 11, 2001. He saw it as a way to learn Arabic and do some good.
But the next thing he knew, after completing his training in Arabic, he was shipped to Iraq, where he interrogated prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Mosul and North Babel through most of 2004.
Lagouranis tells his story in a new book, Fear Up Harsh, which is the name of an interrogation technique. The book is published by NAL Caliber and is in bookstores this week.
I've read it, and here's my overall take on what went on:
Brave and decent American soldiers routinely rounded up Iraqis on the slimmest pretext. If a roadside bomb destroyed a Humvee, a hapless farmer in a nearby field might be dragged in for questioning. If some poor sap shared the surname of a suspected insurgent -- a name also perhaps shared by hundreds of Iraqis -- he might be dragged in for questioning.
And once a "suspect" was detained, he easily could be held for weeks or months, long after Lagouranis or another interrogator had concluded he was guilty of absolutely nothing.
Officers lived in fear of screwing up and releasing a real insurgent. They also felt intense pressure from above, right from the Pentagon, to produce useful military intelligence.
And if that meant they had to savage the lives of thousands of innocent men and women, turning potential friends into foes, so be it.
Besides, every detainee was a presumed "scumbag" or "dirtball."
All of which led Lagouranis, in his book, to blame President Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- and himself. He writes:
"My actions on Khalid (whom I tortured) and on Abdul-Aziz (whom I betrayed), combined with the actions of the arresting infantry who left bruises on their prisoners and the actions of the officers who wanted to get promotions, repeated in microcosm all over this country, had a cumulative effect. They were leading us from one event -- the invasion of Iraq -- to another event -- our retreat from Iraq -- with the certainty and inevitability of an oncoming train. I could blame Bush and Rumsfeld, but I would always have to also blame myself. The project in Iraq would die not of a single blow, but of a thousand cuts."
Really a torturer?
The embarrassing truth for me, as I read Lagouranis' book, is that I never saw him as a torturer.
He never used a cattle prod on anybody, never personally beat anybody or condoned a beating, never resorted to waterboarding -- the infamous technique, said to be used by the CIA, during which a victim is made to feel like he is drowning.
Lagouranis' methods were usually technically legal -- making a prisoner stand for long periods of time, for example, or forcing him into a "stress position," such as making him put his back against a wall and bend his legs, as if sitting without a chair.
In the last six years, I've probably read dozens of news stories about the debate over acceptable interrogation techniques. And at some point along the line, I apparently bought in to the Pentagon's disturbing mind-set that "torture" is a matter of what's legal, not what's moral.
At the California Clipper, that's what I told Lagouranis: "I don't think of you as a torturer."
We had been sitting in the front window of the bar, looking out on California Avenue, talking in normal voices. But now his voice rose.
"If you keep a man awake for a month, that's torture," he said, standing up. "If you subject a man to hypothermia, that's torture. If you keep him on his knees off and on for a month, that's torture."
A man with questions
Lagouranis has more questions than answers, which is always the most honest way.
He can't say for sure that torture never works.
He can't say for sure that a soldier, when told to do something that violates his personal moral code, should refuse to follow orders.
He's not even sure that what he did in Iraq, in each instance, was right or wrong.
But he feels certain that he crossed a dark line.
Soon after returning home from Iraq, Lagouranis talked to an Army psychiatrist who offered him an escape hatch from his feelings of guilt.
He had done nothing "evil," she said. He had only done his job.
Lagouranis couldn't buy it.
"If you don't include torturing helpless prisoners in your definition of evil," he replied, "your definition of evil is meaningless."
EXCERPT FROM 'FEAR UP HARSH'
"My actions on Khalid (whom I tortured) and on Abdul-Aziz (whom I betrayed), combined with the actions of the arresting infantry who left bruises on their prisoners and the actions of the officers who wanted to get promotions, repeated in microcosm all over this country, had a cumulative effect. They were leading us from one event -- the invasion of Iraq -- to another event -- our retreat from Iraq -- with the certainty and inevitability of an oncoming train. I could blame Bush and Rumsfeld, but I would always have to also blame myself. The project in Iraq would die not of a single blow, but of a thousand cuts."
Watchman
06-04-2007, 22:58
Isn't it a very standard insurgent strategy to provoke the stronger opponent into summary reprisals against the civilian populace, hence alienating them ? Particularly in situations where the guerillas win by default if they just can keep the other side from winning long enough...
Gawain of Orkeny
06-04-2007, 23:08
Which nonetheless does not to my knowledge make the average Saudi citizen terribly interested in going on a jihad against the Infidel, and has absolutely no bearing on the situation in, say, Iran.
Its their mindset Im speaking of. Did you see their reaction to 911? They certainly have no love for us and i doubt they feel too bad when infidels are killed. You cant have this stuff built into your culture and schools without taking effect.
You want an example. to hell with the French Revolution how about Nazi Germany. The average German had no problems with England or the US. Like Germany there is no freedom of the press in most Muslim nations. We are always portrayed as the evil infidel there.
And what has all this to do with Iran? You dont think many there want to go oin jihad against us. In fact havent many already done so?
As far as your argument that if we hadnt gotten involved there we wouldnt be in this mess I said the same thing in another post. But that doesnt mean they wouldnt still hate us. We have been fighting them almost from this nations inception long before the discovery of oil. We are infidels and are not worthy to be first class citizens. It all boils down to that or you have to a Muslim who doesnt take the Koran seriously. Some of us can be almost good.
Whew, bit of a latecomer here to this yet another doozy of a Lemur thread.
First off, I think Kafir's post about the figurative "honey vs. stick" was extremely well written and truthful. Another slightly relevant quote I am reminded of is "Willing obedience always beats forced obedience."
Second, have we discussed TIMELIENESS of data that's looking to be extracted? Obviously when someone is captured or taken into custody, the value of the information they possess is going to have some realistic temporal limits on how long it's 'good' for. Surmising if the individual has the data that is being sought and how quickly it is needed I would think would have a bearing on the individual situation. My gut reaction is that even if the need for the info is immediate, I highly doubt whether the 'stick' would be more effective than the 'honey' at rapidly obtaining or even determining if the person possesses the knowledge that's being sought.
Zaknafien
06-04-2007, 23:36
Gawain, do you honestly believe that Islamic radicals hate-- oh I dont know, lets say 1) Money, 2) Democracy and 3) "Freedom"? Its nonsense like this that will keep us involved in the ME for decades to come. I would suggest you study Deobandism and Wahabbism specificially and Islam in general before making such judgements. Do you think that the Wahabbists in Arabia all of a sudden decided that The USA embodied the Great Satan for no reason?
Watchman
06-04-2007, 23:59
Its their mindset Im speaking of. Did you see their reaction to 911? They certainly have no love for us and i doubt they feel too bad when infidels are killed. You cant have this stuff built into your culture and schools without taking effect.
You want an example. to hell with the French Revolution how about Nazi Germany. The average German had no problems with England or the US. Like Germany there is no freedom of the press in most Muslim nations. We are always portrayed as the evil infidel there.So ? By itself that amounts to nothing more than approval - and the reasons for that approval, in the case of the Saudis, ultimately trace back to the unpopular autocratic regime which the US just so happens to be cozy with.
And what has all this to do with Iran? You dont think many there want to go oin jihad against us. In fact havent many already done so? Not that many by what I know of it. Weren't they busy fighting the (partly US-backed) Iraqis for quite a while, while at the same time supporting the more or less same Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviets that the US also backed ? I get the impression they mostly work through various proxies, and actually rather rarely directly against the US which is really somewhat schizophrenic given the tensions between the two (conversely the US actually seems to be doing rather little directly against Iran).
And AFAIK these days the average Iranian is generally rather more irked at his or her own puritanical and somewhat autocratic governement (those tend to get unpopular pretty fast for some reason) than the distant US of A.
As far as your argument that if we hadnt gotten involved there we wouldnt be in this mess I said the same thing in another post.I do not recall saying anything of the sort.
But that doesnt mean they wouldnt still hate us.Nonsense. The average Muslim has far more pressing concerns than cering about some dumb infidels somewhere far away. The main reason they resent us (or rather, you) these days tends to be a feeling of being pressured and threatened, and in some cases evil-by-association due to links with the disliked local rulers. Well, and the still-unresolved mess with Israel.
We have been fighting them almost from this nations inception long before the discovery of oil....and what the Hell do you base this nonsense on, might I ask ?
Besides, after the Ottomans' grasping-for-straws failure before Vienna in the late 1600s, in the "West"-Muslim relations the latter have been markedly on the defensive all the way until the anticolonial uprisings after WW2 - and those were motivated by ideologies that had nothing to do with Islam. After that they mostly sat on the fence between the Cold War camps.
We are infidels and are not worthy to be first class citizens. It all boils down to that or you have to a Muslim who doesnt take the Koran seriously. Some of us can be almost good.:dizzy2: Not this batch of xenophobia again. It has no bearing on the practical relations between Muslim countries and others; it is, indeed, nothing more than an excessively and tendentiously literal reading of a part of the Scriptures which has only had internal relevance for around a millenia or so - and it must be noted that during much of that time the Muslim attitude was by far more tolerant of "infidels" than was the case in for example Europe, where those were more often than not allowed even second-class-citizen treatment but were outright persecuted instead.
For pretty obvious reasons Muslims living outside the "House of Islam" flatly ignore that whole thing.
Seamus Fermanagh
06-05-2007, 01:33
Of course. The Revolution happened because the Russian state and society had too many unresolved problems and too many unhappy people. Marx's writings just provided a vehicle for the irate masses (or rather their leaders - revolting peasants never having been all that good at the theory part) to articulate their disgruntlement by, as well as at least a rough scheme of a better future. Had ole Karl never existed, they'd just have found another framework to go by.
The exact same thing happened with several religiously tinted peasant uprisings all over the world, such as the "Protestantic" Peasant Wars of 1500s Germany or the assorted peculiar "cult rebellions" seen in China and Japan.
I'm not quite sure what exactly the French Revolution drew on for its ideological fuel (the ideas of Enlightement presumably), but later Communist and Anarchist ideas provided the ideological framework for revolutionaries in Europe from late 1800s to as late as the Seventies or so (what with all those Red Something Armies quite a few states had trouble with). Anti-colonial popular uprisings similarly often found them inspiring - although the possibility of support from the Soviets cannot but also have factored in that.
It's all the same thing. Ideologies and beliefs by themselves do not create revolutionary activity; that comes about due to whole different pressures and circumstances. But a revolutionary without a guiding ideology is not really anything more than a bandit and hooligan; the most he will manage is doing some damage to the local hated representation of "authority" before perishing - a lot of bandits of bygone days were in fact just this, social revolutionaries without a cause, who nonetheless derived a certain degree of popular support from the common masses for no other reason that they were the enemies of the resented rulers. In a way present-day crime gangs in slums aren't too much different.
Revolutionaries who want to be even remotely succesful need something akin to a proper ideology, something they can cite to legitimize their activities and present as the supposedly better alternative to the unacceptable status quo. Revolting peasants for example almost always sought sympathetic and/or disgruntled members of both the literati (clergy in European contexts usually) to act as their ideologists and mouthpieces and the warrior class (or equivalent - junior military officers tending to be the closest modern one) to act as their war-leaders and organizers - else they would never have been more than mobs of looters wandering the countryside torching manors until a military unit came and massacred them. (To be fair it didn't really tend to be much different when leaders and thinkers were succesfully recruited, but uprisings that did tended to be far more difficult to put down than disorganized packs of bandits; major ones required long and costly military campaigns to crush, and could put up surprisingly stiff fights.)
What exactly this ideology consists of does not really matter as such, although it tends to be dictated by prevailing ideological trends and similar circumstances; the main point is that something of the sort had better be found.
Nice post. I could argue your points, but probably won't since I more or less agree with the thrust of the argument.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 02:03
As far as your argument that if we hadnt gotten involved there we wouldnt be in this mess I said the same thing in another post.
I do not recall saying anything of the sort.
Is that so. I would have replied earlier and did so but the forum was down
So then what was this?
So ? By itself that amounts to nothing more than approval - and the reasons for that approval, in the case of the Saudis, ultimately trace back to the unpopular autocratic regime which the US just so happens to be cozy with.
Weren't they busy fighting the (partly US-backed) Iraqis for quite a while, while at the same time supporting the more or less same Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviets that the US also backed ? I get the impression they mostly work through various proxies, and actually rather rarely directly against the US which is really somewhat schizophrenic given the tensions between the two (conversely the US actually seems to be doing rather little directly against Iran).
I dont mean to suggest that your average Muslim has plans to rule the world. You seem to be arguing against yourself here. I say it is because we got involved over there in the 50s and they look at the Koran and it told them hey dont trust these guys so they dont. But their distrust of us goes back much further than that Now do you have a different opinion? Also we have been fighting them almost from the inception of our nation , long before there was any oil they were raiding our commerce. We even had to assure them when we made peace that we were not a Christian nation.
It was much the same in Nazi Germany. I dont think our opinions are really that far apart but the written word is not my forte as you people can obviousy tell.:laugh4:
Dont get me wrong Im glad that many have found the good in the Koran as there is more of that than bad. Its just that its so damn easy to quote it and use it for evil. If I were a Muslim Im afraid id be a terrorist. That is if I took the Koran at its word or even behaved as Mohamed did.
Don Corleone
06-05-2007, 02:24
Torture is an intolerable blight on society that must be eradicated.
Some people consider incarceration in any form torture.
We must abolish incarceration in any form???
I agree 110% with the arguments presented eloquently by Lemur, Watchman, Banquo KhafirChobee(some of the best writing I've seen in the 3 years I've read your posts, by ) and others in this thread. However, I must insert my definition of torture into your blanket statements.
But of all the people in this thread that I have identified with, Seamus echoes my sentiments better than any other. Again, I'm always forced to return to the misuse of the term torture. When torture is defined in light of specific actions, I can agree or disagree. But at what point does 'harsh measures' mean we're powerless to act in our own defense?
Do you on the 'mistreatment is always an absolute evil' side not recognize that 'mistreatment' is a gradient, relative term? I think it ends with causing suffering. You might think it ends with making somebody relatively uncomfortable. Somebody else might take it to mean mild discomfort. Somebody else yet might take it to mean restricing one's freedom of movement. And on the extreme edge of the gradient, wouldn't thwarting somebody's desire to commit an act be viewed as harsh and intolerable to them, from their point of view?
I mean, it's all well and good to rail against torture. It's a Mom and Apple Pie argument. But what do we mean by the word 'torture', there's the rub. The fact that I seem to have such a hard time getting a firm defintion of torture from those who continue to rail against it suggests to me that it's not a simple lack of communication.
AntiochusIII
06-05-2007, 02:45
Do you on the 'mistreatment is always an absolute evil' side not recognize that 'mistreatment' is a gradient, relative term? I think it ends with causing suffering. You might think it ends with making somebody relatively uncomfortable. Somebody else might take it to mean mild discomfort. Somebody else yet might take it to mean restricing one's freedom of movement. And on the extreme edge of the gradient, wouldn't thwarting somebody's desire to commit an act be viewed as harsh and intolerable to them, from their point of view?
I mean, it's all well and good to rail against torture. It's a Mom and Apple Pie argument. But what do we mean by the word 'torture', there's the rub. The fact that I seem to have such a hard time getting a firm defintion of torture from those who continue to rail against it suggests to me that it's not a simple lack of communication.It is all well and good to be cautious -- almost necessary, even. But truly, I personally could not find many people in this thread, or in my social circles in real life, to take such extreme positions as the one you illustrated. Viewed in that light, I find this caution to be altogether irrelevant for the time being, especially since people (not being you) seems to use that very argument to, well, advance torture as being somehow acceptable.
There is the gray area somewhere, sure, but the real events that this debate is coming from is just so obviously torture it's not funny there's even people defending it. Unless somebody can say with a straight face they can take on waterboarding like they're just water-skiing; or stand without sleeping more than five, six hours a week -- I'll continue to disagree absolutely with the other side of the debate and agree absolutely with said people you mentioned.
'Guess I have yet to see college and meet that supposed far Leftist bias just yet. Free Tibet eh? :sweatdrop:
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 02:47
I mean, it's all well and good to rail against torture. It's a Mom and Apple Pie argument. But what do we mean by the word 'torture', there's the rub. The fact that I seem to have such a hard time getting a firm defintion of torture from those who continue to rail against it suggests to me that it's not a simple lack of communication.
How many times have I said what this thread boils down to is what do you consider torture and the fact that it is subjective makes it impossible to really debate. I doubt anyone here is pro torture. It used to be entertainment.
But of all the people in this thread that I have identified with, Seamus echoes my sentiments better than any other
I think he did a pretty good job of representing everyones opinions :laugh4:
Zaknafien
06-05-2007, 02:51
I'd love to put you through a few days of sleep deprivation and light bulb technique and see what you consider torture then.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 02:59
I'd love to put you through a few days of sleep deprivation and light bulb technique and see what you consider torture then.
Let me remind you that you agree with me on the use of torture or do I have to go back and quote you? Besides Ive been through all that and in fact inflicted that and much more on people.
Heck didnt you go through that in basic? :laugh4:
If you must know I was an NCO at escape and evasion school and surprise ,surprise we did not follow the Geneva conventions with our prisoners.
I think we should all just agree to accept tickle torture as an acceptable method of extracting information. Problem solved. End of discussion. Close thread. :grin:
:balloon2:
Don Corleone
06-05-2007, 03:13
I'd love to put you through a few days of sleep deprivation and light bulb technique and see what you consider torture then.
If that was directed at me, I can very quickly and promptly make a list of behaviors I personally consider acceptable and unacceptable. Sleep depravation beyond 36 hours and waterboarding would both be on the unacceptable list.
@Antiochus: Funny, I know some people I consider fairly reasonable in other ways that consider incarceration 'harsh treatment', though they refer to it as cruel and unusual punishment. See, they're members of the ACLU. You should read the details on what they consider to be inhumane. No air conditioning? No conjugal visits? The horror...
AntiochusIII
06-05-2007, 03:30
@Antiochus: Funny, I know some people I consider fairly reasonable in other ways that consider incarceration 'harsh treatment', though they refer to it as cruel and unusual punishment. See, they're members of the ACLU. You should read the details on what they consider to be inhumane. No air conditioning? No conjugal visits? The horror...The ACLU is generally considered to be a "First Amendment extremist group," that is to say, in many senses, extreme libertarians. The coverage of their interest ranges from protecting Fred Phelps' Freedom of Speech to decrying the basic tenets of US criminology...to cases where they change from annoying extremists to admirable protectors of the Little Man's freedoms.
Surely not many of the org members really fit that bill?
Don Corleone
06-05-2007, 03:43
I figure the Org represents the breath of views that I come across in real life. The ACLU fans I know aren't whackos (other than that they're ACLU fans). They have rational reasons for what they believe. I don't think my concern about what defiinition of torture we use is spurrious.
AntiochusIII
06-05-2007, 03:50
I figure the Org represents the breath of views that I come across in real life. The ACLU fans I know aren't whackos (other than that they're ACLU fans). They have rational reasons for what they believe. I don't think my concern about what defiinition of torture we use.I see. Then I accept your premise. Your questions are valid, however, there is a need for definition -- at least, enough to draw a perceivable line -- and there is much need to adhere strictly to it.
What, then, would be your line between barbarism and acceptable practice? Or, if a line is too strict a demand, that gray area..?
Don Corleone
06-05-2007, 03:58
Well, I touched on it my staking out points on the gradient. Acts which are specifically designed to cause physical suffering should be avoided. Those which cause mental suffering should only be undertaken after careful consideration of the consequences and whether the goal is the suffering itself, or is tangential to the act. That is, solitary confinement may cause mental suffering. If the goal of the confinement is to cause that suffering, than it shouldn't be allowed. If the goal is to protect the safety of the inmate, or the other inmates in the prison population than it should be.
AntiochusIII
06-05-2007, 04:10
What if [and I'm just being particularly picky here] the goal is right and the method is wrong? There's talk about ends and means in this thread and I'm not sure that definition is the one I'm entirely secure on.
What if, for example, the prisoner is forced to either take to waterboarding or "fess up," and it is done to obtain information for a good cause, not because the torturer likes waterboarding people. Does that make it "right" and not torture?
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 04:17
hat is, solitary confinement may cause mental suffering. If the goal of the confinement is to cause that suffering, than it shouldn't be allowed. If the goal is to protect the safety of the inmate, or the other inmates in the prison population than it should be.
Isnt being sent to the hole still practiced these days in prison? Not only are you deprived of company but of light there as well. You food ration is also substantially reduced. I guess Tito would know more about it. This would certainly be considered torture no? Its only purpose is to make one suffer. Again Im not sure if its still in practice anywhere but no offense the south would be the place to check.
The fact that I seem to have such a hard time getting a firm defintion of torture from those who continue to rail against it suggests to me that it's not a simple lack of communication.
Hi Don, I remember posting several definitions for you in an earlier thread. You never wrote back. I felt lonely and rejected.
If I remember correctly, all I got for my pains was a lot of quibbling over how the federal legal definition of "torture" was irrelevant from one Orgah, and a general basting for wanting to cuddle terrorists from another. An altogether unrewarding experience.
I think you're quite right that "torture" is broad and malleable term, and it can be abused by many, many people. You can misuse it by defining it too expansively -- as with your line about incarceration being torture, which is obviously false. Likewise, you can abuse the word by defining it too narrowly, as regimes do when they want to hang people by their thumbs but not be in violation of the law.
I think that both over-expansive and over-inclusive uses of the word fail the smell test. If you're willing to be reasonable, it's not hard to say what's torture and what is not. The rather hysterical rhetoric that comes from the left and the right depends on abusing the word "torture" itself, and that same rhetoric gets in the way of having a meaningful discussion.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 04:25
as with your line about incarceration being torture, which is obviously false.
Would that not depend upon why you are being incarcerated and for how long and where and under what conditions just to name a few variables?
Don Corleone
06-05-2007, 04:26
No. The goal of waterboarding is to induce terror and a sensation of drowning. As opposed to simple stress or fear (you're gonna go away for a long time in a nasty prison if you don't confess), actual terror actually rises to my standard of physical suffering and thus isn't justifiable in my book. Similarly, sleep depravation beyond 36 hours and the induction of hypothermia would be taboo in my book. Playing offensive music or speech and forcing the recipient to listen, if I had valid information I had a reasonable expecation the target held would be allowable, as that would qualify as mental suffering but the intent is the extraction of the information, not the mental suffering itself.
Fair enough, Gawain. Locking someone away for life for spitting on the sidewalk is cruel and unjust. I don't believe it is torture, however.
Don Corleone
06-05-2007, 04:31
Hi Don, I remember posting several definitions for you in an earlier thread. You never wrote back. I felt lonely and rejected.
If I remember correctly, all I got for my pains was a lot of quibbling over how the federal legal definition of "torture" was irrelevant from one Orgah, and a general basting for wanting to cuddle terrorists from another. An altogether unrewarding experience.
I think you're quite right that "torture" is broad and malleable term, and it can be abused by many, many people. You can misuse it by defining it too expansively -- as with your line about incarceration being torture, which is obviously false. Likewise, you can abuse the word by defining it too narrowly, as regimes do when they want to hang people by their thumbs but not be in violation of the law.
I think that both over-expansive and over-inclusive uses of the word fail the smell test. If you're willing to be reasonable, it's not hard to say what's torture and what is not. The rather hysterical rhetoric that comes from the left and the right depends on abusing the word "torture" itself, and that same rhetoric gets in the way of having a meaningful discussion.
Me so sorry, Lemur-san. ~:pat: I usually give these threads about half a day (each time less than the last as my patience wanes) to produce somebody's view of torture. You're right, and my intent of introducing the concept of the definition of torture is not to introduce a straw-man I have the pleasure to knock down, though I understand where some might be concerned that might be my intent.
The reason I seek definition is because the term torture means inhumane suffering, which is a distinctly relative term. For laws and ethical principles to have any meaning, they must have some meat on their bones, i.e. objectiveness by which we may all understand the compact to which we agree.
As you fear the straw-man, I fear the unwilling bandwagon. I don't want to sign on with an absolute statement against torture, only to hear that law enforcement may no longer attempt to use verbal coercion (your partner already gave you up). Likely? No, but certainly plausible.
If we really are talking about the garden variety definition of terrorism and harsh methods, in all but the most extreme extenuating circumstances, I am opposed.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 04:32
Fair enough, Gawain. Locking someone away for life for spitting on the sidewalk is cruel and unjust. I don't believe it is torture, however.
Why dont you try it for a while? See how you feel after a few months. I did a year and it was torture believe me. Hit me few times and let me go please. Then again boot camp was much worse but you volunteer for that right? :laugh4: Unless your drafted. Is making some one chew on tin foil torture?
He he Maybe we should give criminals a choice of a whipping instead of jail time :)
Why dont you try it for a while? See how you feel after a few months. I did a year and it was torture believe me.)
Gawain, I understand what you're talking about. Some conversations with dull relatives are painful as well. Putting your penis in a mouse-trap because you want to be on TV is painful. Lots of things are painful.
However, in this context, torture means the deliberate induction of mental and/or physical pain. You were put away, as I understand it, because the system was messed up. There was no deliberate intent to induce pain, beyond the natural unpleasantness of incarceration.
And I agree with you, offering corporal punishment in lieu of jail time might be a better arrangement all around, especially when you consider how much it costs to keep a body in prison. It wouldn't fly with the voters, however.
Watchman
06-05-2007, 08:58
So then what was this?A statement as to one of the reason the average Saudi does not have all that much reason to like you too much. There's a bunch of others too, all more or less complicated naturally.
I dont mean to suggest that your average Muslim has plans to rule the world. You seem to be arguing against yourself here. I say it is because we got involved over there in the 50s and they look at the Koran and it told them hey dont trust these guys so they dont. But their distrust of us goes back much further than that Now do you have a different opinion?Nobody particularly likes colonial exploiters you know. The Brits happily used mustard gas to quell uprisings in what is now Iraq between the World Wars, remember ? Religion is quite irrelevant in this regard, and indeed far as I know the post-WW2 anticolonial movements in the Muslim world were by far more often based on ideologies like nationalism and modified Socialism than anything with a particularly religious bent. I'm pretty sure the Saudis - who weren't under the colonial thumb - took a fair while longer to start disliking you, as that had to develop primarily through the distaste US policies in the region were regarded with.
Also we have been fighting them almost from the inception of our nation , long before there was any oil they were raiding our commerce. We even had to assure them when we made peace that we were not a Christian nation.That's called "piracy", Sherlock. The exact only thing that made the Barbary corsairs different from most in that ancient if not respectable profession was that they could quote Scriptures to feel all warm and fuzzy about "fighting the Infidel" whenever they wanted. Well, and the fact piracy was a well-organized state-backed industry in that curious part of the North African coastline, but then you could say all that about the French Huguenots who raided the Spanish Main in the 1500s and "pirate towns" like St. Malo, nevermind now the Protestant English state-supported piracy also against the Spanish...
You should really read up on the history of that. Might give you some perspective. Did you know, for example, that the Barbary corsairs learned the art of making very good sailing ships (like most on the Med, they'd relied entirely on galleys until then) from a Dutch renegade (who, IIRC, eventually retired to live off his ill-gotten fortune in England or something like that) in the 1500s ? The institutions and practices for ransoming prisoners, buying back captured ships, and other such practicalities of mutual large-scale piracy that developed between the Christian and Muslim sea-powers of the region were also quite interestingly sophisticated and pragmatic; the standard result of people making a living off the exact same business at different sides of the border (which tended to be more than a little fuzzy too, when it came to that).
Heck, the only bunch with genuinely religious motivations in the whole region were pretty much the Knights of St. John - and they weren't too hesitant to prey on Christian shipping either. Although they were a little unusual in that whenever they boarded a grain shipment to fill their own granaries (and duly massacred most of the crew in process) they actually usually reimbursed the owners later - most Christian navies could not be bothered to do even that; more likely the owners had to buy back their ships from those...
It was much the same in Nazi Germany.:inquisitive: And what the Hell do the Nazis have to do here ? Don't tell me I need to start explaining those differences too...
I dont think our opinions are really that far apart but the written word is not my forte as you people can obviousy tell.:laugh4: No, I quite think they are.
Its just that its so damn easy to quote it and use it for evil.Show me a Scripture that isn't. Even Buddhists have proven quite well able to play rather fast and loose with theirs.
If I were a Muslim Im afraid id be a terrorist. That is if I took the Koran at its word or even behaved as Mohamed did.:dizzy2: Anyone would be a major war criminal if he behaved as the average Medieval European warlord did, these days.
Perspective.
And I agree with you, offering corporal punishment in lieu of jail time might be a better arrangement all around, especially when you consider how much it costs to keep a body in prison.Thinking Medieval, aren't we ?
KafirChobee
06-05-2007, 09:37
As I recall, there have been a number of threads that discussed and debated
what constitues torture. There was no resolve in any of these, because those that condone any or limited forms of torture see it as justifiable if the ends justify the means - or even if it doesn't and the wrong person is being tortured because of clerical error, or misidentification.
It is not so much a matter of what constitutes torture, but whether or not there are other means available that are in fact more conducive to attaining verifiable information - versus, the suspect saying anything the interrogator asks them just so the "interview" ends.
Someone mentioned the ACLU's position on torture. Though it is true the ACLU is handling a number of cases that challange the interrogation techniques of more than a few Police Departments - and have suceeded in getting more than a few cases over turned because of both excessive enthusiasm (on the part of detectives) and that the interviews weren't video taped (note, those that were aided in the dismissals). However, I think the ACLU is more concerned about equal justice for all, rather than the sliding rule we have today that is based on the economic scale of an individual being prosecuted. Wealthy people do not get interrogated, their lawyers have them out of jail in a matter of hours (some times even if the charge is murder) - and sweetheart deals get cut when they are guilty. Regardless, the ACLU is not happy about GITMO - but, not based on the torture being conducted there (though it is a factor), but on the denial of basic human rights that America has always claimed to be the spine of our democratic system of government.
This ought to PO every American that believes the USA is a shining light of moral and ethical fiber that Gitmo exists under a nation of laws. But, it doesn't bother some. Those people see it as a necessity, justified because of 9/11 and reinforced out of fear. Torture is just a byproduct of that fear, whether torture is affective is actually of less consequence than that it makes the true believers feel good that something is being done. Right or wrong, something is being done - and isn't that all anyone can ask for? Who needs laws when they have the righteousness of 9/11 on their side?
Regardless, it is not a matter of using tortue, or its morality, legality, or any of the other ___tys. It is a matter that there are better methods to accomplish the goals intended (gathering information) than using torture purports to achieve, and they aren't because .... because, why exactly?
:balloon2:
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 13:32
That's called "piracy", Sherlock.
Yeah like Drake. Its not Piracy when its sanctioned by the state Sherlock. Since when do we sign treaties with Pirates?
And what the Hell do the Nazis have to do here ? Don't tell me I need to start explaining those differences too...
Do I really have to show you the similarities?
No, I quite think they are.
Your being obstinate then.
Show me a Scripture that isn't. Even Buddhists have proven quite well able to play rather fast and loose with theirs.
You could start with the New Testament. I know weve been through this countless times. You would have to read The art of war to find a book that comes close to the Koran. Dont make silly claims that all religious books are as easy to find things telling you to kill the unbeliever in them.
Anyone would be a major war criminal if he behaved as the average Medieval European warlord did, these days.
My point is that the average person looking at the Koran would come away as a terrorist. That OBLs interpretation is correct.
Ive always maintained that religion can and often is used as an excuse for war. It is rarely the reason for war itself. I said if we hadnt messed around over there they would still hate us but they wouldnt be attacking us. Now where exactly do we part company here? The only part I can see is you think they wouldnt hate us anyway. Maybe hate is too strong a word. Look down upon us may be a better term.
Zaknafien
06-05-2007, 14:01
The average person reading the Torah should become a terrorist too, using your logic. The new testament is full of bigotry and violence as well, perhaps you've never studied it like you should. Jesus himself is shown to be a racist when he refuses to heal a non-Jew. "not wasting my time" as he puts it. I don't even want to get into the psychotic insanity of the "Revelation".
And please, if the "Art of War" is your nearest comparison to the Qur'an, clearly you've never read the "Old Testament" which is full of mytholgical genocides, murders, rapes, incest, and wanton destruction for no reason.
In fact, the Gospel of Judas claims that the "God" of the OT is in fact the evil one that should be avoided.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 14:02
The average person reading the Torah should become a terrorist too, using your logic.
Go back a few thousand years and tell me about it.
Yeah like Drake. Its not Piracy when its sanctioned by the state Sherlock. Since when do we sign treaties with Pirates?
1815? Although I think that was payment of protection money rather than a treaty.
Edit:
A pirate attacks anyone unless they have already paid for "protection" (and sometimes will do even then).
A privateer attacks the ships and holdings of specific nations as he is contracted to act against (for example Drake and the Spanish).
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 14:07
1815? Although I think that was payment of protection money rather than a treaty.
Thats the one Im speaking about. It was a treaty between us and the Bey of Tripoli . In other words the ruler. You can call him a pirate if you like.
Kralizec
06-05-2007, 14:55
Of course. The Revolution happened because the Russian state and society had too many unresolved problems and too many unhappy people. Marx's writings just provided a vehicle for the irate masses (or rather their leaders - revolting peasants never having been all that good at the theory part) to articulate their disgruntlement by, as well as at least a rough scheme of a better future. Had ole Karl never existed, they'd just have found another framework to go by.
The exact same thing happened with several religiously tinted peasant uprisings all over the world, such as the "Protestantic" Peasant Wars of 1500s Germany or the assorted peculiar "cult rebellions" seen in China and Japan.
I'm not quite sure what exactly the French Revolution drew on for its ideological fuel (the ideas of Enlightement presumably), but later Communist and Anarchist ideas provided the ideological framework for revolutionaries in Europe from late 1800s to as late as the Seventies or so (what with all those Red Something Armies quite a few states had trouble with). Anti-colonial popular uprisings similarly often found them inspiring - although the possibility of support from the Soviets cannot but also have factored in that.
It's all the same thing. Ideologies and beliefs by themselves do not create revolutionary activity; that comes about due to whole different pressures and circumstances. But a revolutionary without a guiding ideology is not really anything more than a bandit and hooligan; the most he will manage is doing some damage to the local hated representation of "authority" before perishing - a lot of bandits of bygone days were in fact just this, social revolutionaries without a cause, who nonetheless derived a certain degree of popular support from the common masses for no other reason that they were the enemies of the resented rulers. In a way present-day crime gangs in slums aren't too much different.
Revolutionaries who want to be even remotely succesful need something akin to a proper ideology, something they can cite to legitimize their activities and present as the supposedly better alternative to the unacceptable status quo. Revolting peasants for example almost always sought sympathetic and/or disgruntled members of both the literati (clergy in European contexts usually) to act as their ideologists and mouthpieces and the warrior class (or equivalent - junior military officers tending to be the closest modern one) to act as their war-leaders and organizers - else they would never have been more than mobs of looters wandering the countryside torching manors until a military unit came and massacred them. (To be fair it didn't really tend to be much different when leaders and thinkers were succesfully recruited, but uprisings that did tended to be far more difficult to put down than disorganized packs of bandits; major ones required long and costly military campaigns to crush, and could put up surprisingly stiff fights.)
What exactly this ideology consists of does not really matter as such, although it tends to be dictated by prevailing ideological trends and similar circumstances; the main point is that something of the sort had better be found.
There were two revolutions: the first was the Februari Revolution wich saw the Romanovs deposed. The October Revolution was against the provisional government set up after the Tzar's fall, and was arguably more a coup d'etat by Lenin's "working class vanguard"; while they were numerous they only amounted to a fraction of the total populace.
What distinguishes revolutions from rebellions is that the former is aimed removing and reinventing the socio-political order entirely rather then changing policy or replacing the governing elite. Ideologization of the proto-revolutionaries is vital because the "masses" have to be convinced that they're opressed, or beset by infidels etc. while their objective circumstances are not nearly as relevant.
You seem to be implying that the decision to resort to terrorism comes first, followed by the need to legitimize it with something - in this case, the Qu'ran and Sura. Just like a ideology allows for a revolution instead of just a rebellion, I'd argue that Islamic currents like Wahabism and Salafism contribute significantly to sectarian terrorism.
On that note, these two have their roots in broader Islam just like Marx-Leninism has its roots in Das Kapital and the Communist manifesto. To what degree Islamic scripture is "responsible" I can't say, moreso because my knowledge of it is anecdotal, but to say it has no role in causing terrorism equals sticking your head in the sand.
Zaknafien
06-05-2007, 15:01
Even if Iraq were a Christian nation, I'd wager you the level of violence would still be comparable to what it is now as an Islamic nation.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 15:09
Even if Iraq were a Christian nation, I'd wager you the level of violence would still be comparable to what it is now as an Islamic nation.
Im sure you can back that up LOL. I doubt many here share that opinion. For starts what would they have against Israel?
Zaknafien
06-05-2007, 15:13
You think the insurgency in Iraq has anything to do with Israel?
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 15:17
You think the insurgency in Iraq has anything to do with Israel?
What has this to do with the topic ? Is terrorism and torture limited to Iraq? What brought Iraq into the conversation anyway? Iran calls for the destruction of Israel because their Jews. How clear do I need to make myslef ? Do christians nowdays call for the destruction of jews or an end to Israel.
Seamus Fermanagh
06-05-2007, 16:35
...But, it doesn't bother some. Those people see it as a necessity, justified because of 9/11 and reinforced out of fear. Torture is just a byproduct of that fear, whether torture is affective is actually of less consequence than that it makes the true believers feel good that something is being done. Right or wrong, something is being done - and isn't that all anyone can ask for?...
Nice point, and one of the larger concerns I have. Unlike you, in times of war (side note: I wish the Bushies had had the stones to ask for and get such a full-on declaration btw), I am willing to have some limited "ends justifying means" come into play (e.g. individuals held in mental hospitals during WW2). But I am VERY concerned that we have the wrong end goal "feel tough/get revenge" in mind. That would be torture for torture's sake -- :shame: -- and would be a blot on our record.
Where is the data to suggest that these means are better than more normal means at producing the only worthwile/moral end -- valuable information? Have any of you seen such data? Any former interrogators out there who can confirm these tools as valid?
Having spoken with several who have served in Iraq/Afghanistan, I know of a minority sentiment among our troops that would obviate the need for Guantanamo Bay's incarceration facility. I admire their restraint in very difficult circumstances. Are tales of "harsh measures" being used to placate this sentiment? Would that be a good thing?
What has this to do with the topic ? Is terrorism and torture limited to Iraq? What brought Iraq into the conversation anyway? Iran calls for the destruction of Israel because their Jews. How clear do I need to make myslef ? Do christians nowdays call for the destruction of jews or an end to Israel.
Err, the recent debate on torture has come about due to US actions in the WoT which, like it or not, somehow involves Iraq.
Besides which you brought Israel into the discussion.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 16:59
You could have saved a bit of time by simply typing "I agree Kralizec"!
My mistake was my bad old eyes i read Iraq as Iran :oops:
But how can anyone support his statement
Even if Iraq were a Christian nation, I'd wager you the level of violence would still be comparable to what it is now as an Islamic nation.
On what basis? Its mere conjecture. Woulndt most here wager against him?
Zaknafien
06-05-2007, 18:23
Uh, because popular resentment to occupation is a UNIVERSAL effect, not religious. I thought you were somewhat of a student of history...
Gawain of Orkeny
06-05-2007, 18:41
Uh, because popular resentment to occupation is a UNIVERSAL effect, not religious. I thought you were somewhat of a student of history...
More than some what. I agreed that it was , whats your problem? Of course though we should ignore Muslim occupation because it was good.
Seamus Fermanagh
06-05-2007, 21:30
Actually, you could make an argument that resistance to Muslim aggression was one of the catalysts for the rise of nationalism in Europe that led to European domination of global affairs for more than 400 years.
Papewaio
06-06-2007, 01:24
Even if Iraq were a Christian nation, I'd wager you the level of violence would still be comparable to what it is now as an Islamic nation.
On what basis? Its mere conjecture. Woulndt most here wager against him?
Your statement Sir GoO would indicate that you are wagering against Mr Z and not agreeing with him. I'll take the wager that Zaknafien is correct.
Lets use WWII as an example.
French Resistance (Secular/Catholic state)
Okinawa (Shinto/Buddhist state)
Britain (Secular/Anglican state)... wasn't taken over but Churchill's speech was pretty much a description of what would have happened.
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-06-2007, 06:33
Your statement Sir GoO would indicate that you are wagering against Mr Z and not agreeing with him. I'll take the wager that Zaknafien is correct.
What a laugh. Comparing our invasion of Iraq to Germanys attack in ww2 is ludicrous. Its almost as bad as comparing our invasion of Iraq to the Invasion of Normandy. I hate to say it but its one of the craziest positions Ive ever witnessed here.
You also have no basis to make such a statement. I could claim if it were a christian nation it would be paradise and have just as much credabilty since I have no idea if it would or would not. Looking at the world today most people would imagine it allmer under christians. Its just about the most violent place on earth for Petes sake. It cant get much worse. I am not saying their right. Just Ill bet most people would side with me. Few see Islam as more peacful than christianity these days except select members of these boards and Rosie Odonell.
Zaknafien
06-06-2007, 11:51
Are you insane? Come on now.. was Vietnam a fanatical religious country? Is Tibet? (Ok, arguable) :) ... Out of the hundreds of popular insurgencies throughout history, how many have been Islamic? Out of all the wars in history, how many have been fought by Christians and how many by Muslims? Im not saying that Islam is necessarily more peaceful or less peaceful than Xtianity, both are equally evil. I'm saying that fighting for one's country and liberty are universal values, religion is only a factor in motivating patriots to fight their oppressors.
Im not saying that Islam is necessarily more peaceful or less peaceful than Xtianity, both are equally evil.
Well if you can show me 78 calls for war in the bible go ahead. Islam is a violent and emperialist religion, and no that doesn't necesarily mean all muslims are violent. No appeasement, people need to realise that the dhimmi-award is a price you pay.
Zaknafien
06-06-2007, 12:19
Well I dont know where you did your study of the Qur'an but it sounds like it came from Fox news or something. In actuality, a large part of the Qur'an is essentially the same as the Torah. And wheras the Qur'an does promote war agianst oppressors, the Torah promotes complete genocide in more verses than the "just war" promoted in the Quranic verses. Christianity and Islam have both been used as motivators for imperialistic expansion, but Islam's doesnt even compare to the Western Christian version which conquered most of the world. I suggest you check your facts.
Watchman
06-06-2007, 12:25
Actually, you could make an argument that resistance to Muslim aggression was one of the catalysts for the rise of nationalism in Europe that led to European domination of global affairs for more than 400 years.Well, you could. But I don't really see how you could make it stick. Europeans developed their proto-nation-states and later national ideologies expressly by fighting increasingly destructive and costly wars against each other, often under the fig-leaf excuse of sectarian differences.
Why do you think modern sovereign nation-states are called "Westphalian" ?
Well I dont know where you did your study of the Qur'an but it sounds like it came from Fox news or something. In actuality, a large part of the Qur'an is essentially the same as the Torah. And wheras the Qur'an does promote war agianst oppressors, the Torah promotes complete genocide in more verses than the "just war" promoted in the Quranic verses. Christianity and Islam have both been used as motivators for imperialistic expansion, but Islam's doesnt even compare to the Western Christian version which conquered most of the world. I suggest you check your facts.
Oh yeah, the sugarcoated 1001 nights version the intehellactuals love so much, the just war :laugh4:
here, a piece of peace
Allah is an enemy to unbelievers. - Sura 2:98
On unbelievers is the curse of Allah. - Sura 2:161
Slay them wherever ye find them and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. - 2:191
Fight against them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme. (different translation: ) Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is God's entirely. - Sura 2:193 and 8:39
Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it. - 2:216
(different translation: ) Prescribed for you is fighting, though it is hateful to you.
..... martyrs.... Enter heaven - Surah 3:140-43
If you should die or be killed in the cause of Allah, His mercy and forgiveness would surely be better than all they riches they amass. If you should die or be killed, before Him you shall all be gathered. - 3:157-8
You must not think that those who were slain in the cause of Allah are dead. They are alive, and well-provided for by their Lord. - Surah 3:169-71
Let those fight in the cause of God who sell the life of this world for the hereafter. To him who fights in the cause of God, whether he is slain or victorious, soon we shall give him a great reward. - Surah 4:74
Those who believe fight in the cause of God, and those who reject faith fight in the cause of evil. - 4:76
But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever you find them. - 4:89
Therefore, we stirred among them enmity and hatred, which shall endure till the Day of Resurrection, when Allah will declare to them all that they have done. - 5:14
O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other. Those of you who make them his friends is one of them. God does not guide an unjust people. - 5:54
Make war on them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme - 8:39
O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there are 20 steadfast men among you, they shall vanquish 200; and if there are a hundred, they shall rout a thousand unbelievers, for they are devoid of understanding. - 8:65
It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he has made slaughter in the land. - 8:67
Allah will humble the unbelievers. Allah and His apostle are free from obligations to idol-worshipers. Proclaim a woeful punishment to the unbelievers. - 9:2-3
When the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. - 9:5
Believers! Know that idolators are unclean. - 9:28
Fight those who believe neither in God nor the Last Day, nor what has been forbidden by God and his messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, even if they are People of the Book, until they pay the tribute and have been humbled. - 9:29 (another source: ) The unbelievers are impure and their abode is hell. (another source: ) Humiliate the non-Muslims to such an extent that they surrender and pay tribute.
Whether unarmed or well-equipped, march on and fight for the cause of Allah, with your wealth and your persons. - 9:41
O Prophet! Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites. Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey's end. - 9:73
Allah has purchased of their faithful lives and worldly goods, and in return has promised them the Garden. They will fight for His cause, kill and be killed. - 9:111
Fight unbelievers who are near to you. 9:123 (different translation:
Believers! Make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Let them find harshness in you. (another source: ) Ye who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers....
As for those who are slain in the cause of Allah, He will not allow their works to perish. He will vouchsafe them guidance and ennoble their state; He will admit them to the Paradise He has made known to them. - 10:4-15
Allah has cursed the unbelievers and proposed for them a blazing hell. - 33:60
Unbelievers are enemies of Allah and they will roast in hell. - 41:14
When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds, then set them free, either by grace or ransom, until the war lays down its burdens. - 47:4
(different translation: ) When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads, and when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly.
Those who are slain in the way of Allah - he will never let their deeds be lost. Soon will he guide them and improve their condition, and admit them to the Garden, which he has announced for them. - 47:5
Muslims are harsh against the unbelievers, merciful to one another. - 48:25
Muhammad is Allah's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another. Through them, Allah seeks to enrage the unbelievers. - 48:29
Prophet! Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal sternly with them. Hell shall be their home, evil their fate. - 66:9
The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn forever in the fire of hell. They are the vilest of all creatures. - 98:51
Fight them so that Allah may punish them at your hands, and put them to shame. (verse cited in Newsweek 2/11/02)
Your's sincerily,
Allah.
Zaknafien
06-06-2007, 12:32
uh, there is only one version of the Qur'an, dude, while there are many versions of the Bible and all are equally violent. The Bible in fact promotes killing of entire races of people, not just religious enemies. I mean, for Jeebus sake,the Christian God killed hundreds of thousands of innocent children in one night in Egypt for no reason! LOL
uh, there is only one version of the Qur'an, dude, while there are many versions of the Bible and all are equally violent. The Bible in fact promotes killing of entire races of people, not just religious enemies. I mean, for Jeebus sake,the Christian God killed hundreds of thousands of innocent children in one night in Egypt for no reason! LOL
Old testament thingie (and god does most of the killing not his followers), christians follow the new one remember? That jezus fellow, maybe you have heard of him.
ps: only one version, uh-huh, those quotes are from it.
Zaknafien
06-06-2007, 12:57
Oh please, if thats true why dont you get rid of the OT altogether? Not to mention Jesus agreed that all aspects of the revelation of Moses and Abraham applied to his followers as well. Acts of the Apostles confirms this as well, and sais all Mosaic law must be followed to the letter. I dont know what kind of watered-down Christianity you're talking about. Either take it or leave it, you cant have it both ways, since the "Good Book" is all inspired by God, right?
Oh please, if thats true why dont you get rid of the OT altogether? Not to mention Jesus agreed that all aspects of the revelation of Moses and Abraham applied to his followers as well. Acts of the Apostles confirms this as well, and sais all Mosaic law must be followed to the letter. I dont know what kind of watered-down Christianity you're talking about. Either take it or leave it, you cant have it both ways, since the "Good Book" is all inspired by God, right?
Well that would be a good idea, just as it would be a good idea to tear out at least half of the pages from the Qu'ran as my favorite dutch politician once said. Sadly won't happen. But you said equally evil, gave you plenty evil, and I am desperate for balancing all this. But do consider, in the bible it is god who kills, the Qu'ran tells his followers to kill. So gimme.
Zaknafien
06-06-2007, 13:11
Uh, how many times were the Israelites commanded to exterminate another people? Have you even read this thing? What about good ol' Jesus? Can't even bother to heal some lady cause she's not a Jew. Waste of his time, he says.
Uh, how many times were the Israelites commanded to exterminate another people? Have you even read this thing? What about good ol' Jesus? Can't even bother to heal some lady cause she's not a Jew. Waste of his time, he says.
There are a few occasions, this one is from the Talmud I believe
"When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you may nations...then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy."
"...do not leave alive anything that breaths. Completely destroy them...as the Lord your God has commanded you..."
76 to go.
Second example says 'not a believer'
Most scary passages in bible can be found here http://www.religioustolerance.org/intol_bibl.htm
Zaknafien
06-06-2007, 13:27
Sigh. Fine here.
Cruelty and Violence in the Good Book
Genesis
# Because God liked Abel's animal sacrifice more than Cain's vegetables, Cain kills his brother Abel in a fit of religious jealousy. 4:8
# God is angry. He decides to destroy all humans, beasts, creeping things, fowls, and "all flesh wherein there is breath of life." He plans to drown them all. 6:7, 17
# God repeats his intention to kill "every living substance ... from off the face of the earth." But why does God kill all the innocent animals? What had they done to deserve his wrath? It seems God never gets his fill of tormenting animals. 7:4
# God drowns everything that breathes air. From newborn babies to koala bears -- all creatures great and small, the Lord God drowned them all. 7:21-23
# God tells Abram to kill some animals for him. The needless slaughter makes God feel better. 15:9-10
# Hagar conceives, making Sarai jealous. Abram tells Sarai to do to Hagar whatever she wants. "And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled." 16:6
# Lot refuses to give up his angels to the perverted mob, offering his two "virgin daughters" instead. He tells the bunch of angel rapers to "do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your eyes." This is the same man that is called "just" and "righteous" in 2 Peter 2:7-8. 19:7-8
# God kills everyone (men, women, children, infants, newborns) in Sodom and Gomorrah by raining "fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven." Well, almost everyone -- he spares the "just and righteous" Lot and his family. 19:24
# Lot's nameless wife looks back, and God turns her into a pillar of salt. 19:26
# God threatens to kill Abimelech and his people for believing Abe's lie. 20:3-7
# Sarai tells Abraham to "cast out this bondwoman and her son." God commands him to "hearken unto her voice." So Abraham abandons Hagar and Ishmael, casting them out into the wilderness to die. 21:10-14
# God orders Abraham to kill Isaac as a burnt offering. Abraham shows his love for God by his willingness to murder his son. But finally, just before Isaac's throat is slit, God provides a goat to kill instead. 22:2-13
# Abraham shows his willingness to kill his son for God. Only an evil God would ask a father to do that; only a bad father would be willing to do it. 22:10
# Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, is "defiled" by a man who seems to love her dearly. Her brothers trick all of the men of the town and kill them (after first having them all circumcised), and then take their wives and children captive. 34:1-31
# "The terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them." 35:5
# "And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him." What did Er do to elicit God's wrath? The Bible doesn't say. Maybe he picked up some sticks on Saturday. 38:7
# After God killed Er, Judah tells Onan to "go in unto they brother's wife." But "Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and ... when he went in unto his brother's wife ... he spilled it on the ground.... And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; wherefore he slew him also." This lovely Bible story is seldom read in Sunday School, but it is the basis of many Christian doctrines, including the condemnation of both masturbation and birth control. 38:8-10
# After Judah pays Tamar for her services, he is told that she "played the harlot" and "is with child by whoredom." When Judah hears this, he says, "Bring her forth, and let her be burnt." 38:24
# Joseph interprets the baker's dream. He says that the pharaoh will cut off the baker's head, and hang his headless body on a tree for the birds to eat. 40:19
Exodus
# Moses murders an Egyptian after making sure that no one is looking. 2:11-12
# God threatens to kill the Pharaoh's firstborn son. 4:23
# God decides to kill Moses because his son had not yet been circumcised. 4:24-26
# God will make sure that Pharaoh does not listen to Moses, so that he can kill Egyptians with his armies. 7:4
# "And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD." Who else could be so cruel and unjust? 7:5, 17
# God tells Moses and Aaron to smite the river and turn it into blood. 7:17-24
# The fifth plague: all cattle in Egypt die. 9:2-6
# The sixth plague: boils and blains upon man and beast. 9:9-12
# "For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth." Who else but the biblical god could be so cruel? 9:14
# The seventh plague is hail. "And the hail smote throughout the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast." 9:22-25
# These verses clearly show that the mass murder of innocent children by God was premeditated. 11:4-6 (see 12:29-30)
# God will kill the Egyptian children to show that he puts "a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." 11:7
# God explains to Moses that he intends to "smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. 12:12
# After God has sufficiently hardened the Pharaoh's heart, he kills all the firstborn Egyptian children. When he was finished "there was not a house where there was not one dead." Finally, he runs out of little babies to kill, so he slaughters the firstborn cattle, too. 12:29
# To commemorate the divine massacre of the Egyptian children, Moses instructs the Israelites to "sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix" -- all the males, that is. God has no use for dead, burnt female bodies. 13:2, 12, 15
# After hardening Pharaoh's heart a few more times, God drowns Pharaoh's army in the sea 14:4-28
# Moses and the people sing praises to their murderous god. 15:1-19
# "The Lord is a man of war." Indeed, judging from his acts in the Old Testament, he is a vicious warlike monster. 15:3
# God's right hand dashes people in pieces. 15:6
# If you do what God says, he won't send his diseases on you (like he did to the Egyptians). But otherwise.... 15:26
# Joshua, with God's approval, kills the Amalekites "with the edge of the sword." 17:13
# "The Lord has sworn [God swears!] that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." 17:14-16
# Any person or animal that touches Mt. Sinai shall be stoned to death or "shot through." 19:12-13
# Like the great and powerful Wizard of Oz, nobody can see God and live. 19:21
# God gives instructions for killing and burning animals. He says that if we will make such "burnt offerings," he will bless us for it. What kind of mind would be pleased by the killing and burning of innocent animals? 20:24
# A child who hits or curses his parents must be executed. 21:15, 17
# An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 21:24-25
# If an ox gores someone, "then the ox shall surely be stoned." 21:28
# If an ox gores someone due to the negligence of its owner, then "the ox shall be stoned, and his owner shall be put to death.". 21:29
# If an ox gores a slave, the owner of the ox must pay the owner of the slave 30 shekels of silver, and "the ox shall be stoned." 21:32
# "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Thousands of innocent women have suffered excruciating deaths because of this verse. 22:18
# "Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death." Is it really necessary to kill such people? Couldn't we just send them to counseling or something? 22:19
# "He who sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed." If this commandment is obeyed, then the four billion people who do not believe in the biblical god must be killed. 22:20
# If you make God angry enough, he will kill you and your family with his own sword. 22:24
# "The firstborn of thy sons thou shalt give unto me." (As a burnt offering?) 22:29
# God promises to "send his fear before the Israelites" and to kill everyone that they encounter when they enter the promised land. 23:27
# Moses has some animals killed and their dead bodies burned for God. Then he sprinkles their blood on the altar and on the people. This makes God happy. 24:5-8
# Get some animals, kill them, chop up their bodies, wave body parts in the air, burn the carcasses, and sprinkle the blood all around -- in precisely the way God tells you. It may well make you sick, but it makes God feel good. 29:11-37
# Have your killed and offered your bullock for a sin offering today? How about the two lambs you are supposed to offer each day? 29:36-39
# Wash up or die. 30:20-21
# Moses burned the golden calf, ground it into powder, and then forced it down the throats of all the people. 32:20
# Whoever puts holy oil on a stranger shall be "cut off from his people." 30:33
# Those who break the Sabbath are to be executed. 31:14
# God asks to be left alone so that his "wrath may wax hot" and he can "consume them. 32:10
# God orders the sons of Levi (Moses, Aaron, and the other members of their tribe that were "on the Lord's side") to kill "every man his neighbor." "And there fell of the people that day about 3000 men." 32:27-28
# But God wasn't satisfied with the slaughter of the 3000, so he killed some more people with a plague. 32:35
# If you can't redeem him, then just "break his neck." Hey, it's all for the glory of God. 34:20
# Whoever works, or even kindles a fire, on the Sabbath "shall be put to death." 35:2-3
Leviticus
# God gives detailed instructions for performing ritualistic animal sacrifices. such bloody rituals must be important to God, judging from the number of times that he repeats their instructions. Indeed the entire first nine chapters of Leviticus can be summarized as follows: Get an animal, kill it, sprinkle the blood around, cut the dead animal into pieces, and burn it for a "sweet savor unto the Lord." Chapters 1 - 9
# "Flay the burnt offering; cut it into pieces." 1:6
# Burn the head, fat, and entrails for "a sweet savour unto the Lord." 1:8-9
# "Kill it and sprinkle blood round about." 1:11, 3:2, 3:8, 3:13
# "Cut it into pieces and burn it for a sweet savour unto the Lord." 1:12-13
# "Wring off its head and burn it." 1:15
# "For a sweet savour unto the Lord." 1:17
# "Part it in pieces... it is a meat offering." 2:6
# "It is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire." 2:10
# What to do with the fat, kidneys, and liver of your burnt offerings. 3:3-4, 3:9-10, 3:14-16
# "Kill the bullock before the Lord and take of the bullock's blood." 4:4
# "The priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle the blood seven times before the Lord." 4:6, 4:17
# "Pour all the blood at the bottom of the altar." 4:7
# What to do with the fat, kidneys, liver, skin, head, entrails, and dung from your burnt offerings. 4:8-11
# "The bullock shall be killed before the Lord." 4:14
# "Kill it and pour out the blood." 4:24-25
# "Slay it for a sin offering, pour out the blood, and burn the fat for a sweet savour unto the Lord." 4:29-31
# Slay it for a sin offering, put the blood on your finger, and pour out the blood at the bottom of the altar. 4:33-34
# Wringing off the heads of pigeons for God. 5:8-9
# Kill the sin offering before the Lord. "It is most holy." 6:25
# The holy law of trespass offering: Find an animal; kill it; sprinkle the blood around; offer God the fat, rump, kidneys, and caul; burn and eat it in the holy place, for "it is most holy." 7:1-6
# The priest must sprinkle the blood of the peace offerings. 7:14
# Be careful what you eat during these animal sacrifices. Don't eat fat or blood -- these are for God. (And he doesn't like to share!) 7:18-27
# God gives instructions for "wave offerings" and "heave offerings." He says these offerings are to be made perpetually "by a statute for ever." Have you made your heave offering today? 7:30-36
# Moses does it all for God. First he kills an animal; wipes the blood on Aaron's ears, thumbs, and big toes. Then he sprinkles blood round about and waves the guts before the Lord. Finally he burns the whole mess for "a sweet savour before the Lord." 8:14-32
# More killing, sprinkling of blood, waiving animal parts, and burning carcasses "before the Lord." 9:2-21
# Kill the calf, dip your finger in the blood, sprinkle the blood round about, burn the fat and entrails, and wave the breast for a wave offering before the Lord. 9:8-21
# Two of the sons of Aaron "offered strange fire before the Lord" and "there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord." 10:1-3
# If priests misbehave at the tabernacle by uncovering their heads, tearing their clothes, leaving with holy oil on them, or by drinking "wine or strong drink", then God will kill them and send his wrath on "all the people." 10:6-9
# After a woman gives birth, a priest must kill a lamb, pigeon, or dove as a sin offering. This is because having children is sinful and God likes it when things are killed for him. 12:6-8
# God's law for lepers: Get two birds. Kill one. Dip the live bird in the blood of the dead one. Sprinkle the blood on the leper seven times, and then let the blood-soaked bird fly off. Next find a lamb and kill it. Wipe some of its blood on the patient's right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle seven times with oil and wipe some of the oil on his right ear, thumb and big toe. Repeat. Finally kill a couple doves and offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. 14:2-32
# God "put the plague of leprosy" into the houses of the Canaanites. 14:34
# God explains the use of scapegoats. It goes like this: Get two goats. Kill one. Wipe, smear, and sprinkle the blood around seven times. Then take the other goat, give it the sins of all the people, and send it off into the wilderness. 16:6-28
# Sprinkle the blood and burn the fat for a sweet savour unto the Lord. 17:6
# If you upset God, he'll cause the land to vomit you out. 18:25
# "Whosoever shall commit any of these abominations ... shall be cut off from among their people." 18:29, 19:8
# Don't eat sacrifices on the third day or God will cut you off from among your people. 19:6-8
# Kill anyone who "gives his seed" to Molech. If you refuse, God will cut you and your family off. 20:2-5
# "For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." Couldn't we try spanking first? 20:9
# Both parties in adultery shall be executed. 20:10
# If a man has sex with his father's wife, kill them both. 20:11
# If a man "lies" with his daughter-in-law, then both must be killed. 20:12
# If a man has sex with another man, kill them both. 20:13
# If you "lie" with your wife and your mother-in-law (now that sounds fun!), then all three of you must be burned to death. 20:14
# If a man or woman "lie with a beast" both the person and the poor animal are to be killed. 20:15-16
# People with "familiar spirits" (witches, fortune tellers, etc.) are to be stoned to death. 20:27
# A priest's daughter who "plays the whore" is to be burned to death. 21:9
# God gives us more instructions on killing and burning animals. I guess the first nine chapters of Leviticus wasn't enough. He says we must do this because he really likes the smell -- it is "a sweet savour unto the Lord." 23:12-14, 18
# Don't do any work on the day of atonement or God will destroy you. 23:29-30
# A man curses and blasphemes while disputing with another man. Moses asks God what to do about it. God says that the whole community must stone him to death. "And the children of Israel did as the Lord and Moses commanded." 24:10-23
# Anyone who blasphemes or curses shall be stoned to death by the entire community. 24:16
# God tells the Israelites to make slaves out of their neighbors and their families. The "heathens" and "strangers" are to be their possessions forever. 25:44-46
# God tells the Israelites to "chase" their enemies and make them "fall before you by the sword." He figures five of the Israelites will be able to "chase" a hundred of their enemies, and a hundred will be able to "put ten thousand to flight." 26:7-8
# God describes the torments that he has planned for those who displease him. The usual stuff: plagues, burning fevers that will consume the eyes, etc. but he reserves the worst for the little children. He says "ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it," "I will send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children," and "ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters." 26:16-39
# All "devoted" things (both man and beast) "shall surely be put to death." 27:28-29
Numbers
# God shows his hospitality with the admonition: "The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death." 1:51, 3:10, 3:38
# Two of Aaron's sons are killed by God for "offering strange fire before the Lord." 3:4
# Don't touch or "go in to see when the holy things are covered." God kills people who touch or look at covered holy things. 4:15, 20
# God tells the people to expel from camp "every leper, every one that hath an issue, and whoever is defiled by the dead." So by God's instructions, the sick are abandoned and left to suffer and die alone. 5:1-4
# "And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it." (He had his hearing aid on.) He then burned the complainers alive. That'll teach them. 11:1
# "And wile the flesh [of the quails] was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague. "The Bible isn't too clear about what these poor folks did to upset God so much; all it says is that they had "lusted." 11:33
# Miriam and Aaron (Moses' brother and sister) criticize Moses for marrying an Ethiopian woman and thus breaking the law of God. But God makes it clear that his rules don't apply to his favorites, and he strikes Miriam with leprosy. Notice that only Miriam is punished, though both she and Aaron complained. 12:1, 9-10
# More plagues and pestilence sent by God. God repeats one of his favorite promises: "your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness." 14:12, 29, 14:32-37
# God punishes the children for the failings of their great-great grandfathers. 14:18
# God killed those that murmured against him with a plague. 14:36-37
# God gives more instructions for the ritualistic killing of animals. The smell of burning flesh is "a sweet savour unto the Lord." 15:3, 13-14, 24
# The Israelites find a man picking up sticks on the sabbath. God commands them to kill him by throwing rocks at him. 15:32-36
# Because of a dispute between Korah and Moses, God has the ground open up and swallow Korah, Dathan, and Abiram "and their wives, and their sons, and their little children." Then, just for the hell of it, God has a fire burn to death 250 "men that offered incense." 16:20-35
# After God killed Korah, his family, and 250 innocent bystanders, the people complained saying, "ye have killed the people of the Lord." So God, who doesn't take kindly to criticism, sends a plague on the people. And "they that died in the plague were 14,700." 16:41-50
# God threatens to kill those who murmur. To which the people reply, "Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish .... Shall we be consumed with dying?" 17:12-13
# Stay away from holy things and places -- like churches. God might have to kill you if you get too close.18:3, 22, 32
# God shows us how to make new friends by saying : "The stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death." 18:7
# God describes once again the procedure for ritualistic animal sacrifices. such rituals must be extremely important to God, since he makes their performance a "statute" and "covenant" forever. 18:17-19
# The purification of the unclean. These absurd rituals, cruel sacrifices, and unjust punishments are vitally important to God. They are to be "a perpetual statute" for all humankind. 19:1-22
# "And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities." This verse demonstrates the power of prayer: If you ask God, he will destroy entire cities for you. 21:3
# God sends "fiery serpents" to bite his chosen people, and many of them die. 21:6
# God delivers the Amorites into Moses' hands. (You're in God hands with Moses.) So Moses does the usual thing, killing everyone "until their was none left alive." 21:34-35
# God's people will kill like a lion and then "drink the blood of the slain." 23:24
# God, who is as strong as a unicorn, will eat up the nations, break their bones, and then pierce them through with his arrows. What a guy! 24:8
# After the people "commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab," Moses has them all killed. Then God tells Moses to hang their dead bodies up in front of him; God says that this will satisfy him. 25:1-5
# When one of the Israelite men brings home a foreign woman, "Phinehas (Aaron's grandson) sees them and throws a spear "through the man .. and the woman through her belly." This act pleases God so much that "the plague was stayed from the children of Israel." But not before 24,000 had died. 25:6-9
# For impaling the interracial couple, God rewards Phinehas and his sons with the everlasting priesthood. 25:10-13
# God tells Moses how to care for his neighbors by saying: "Vex the Midianites, and smite them." 25:16-17
# The ground swallow Korah and his companions and a fire consumes 250 men. 26:10
# "And Nadab and Abihu died when they offered strange fire before the Lord." When you go camping avoid making any unusual fires. 26:61
# In these chapters, God provides ridiculously detailed instructions for the ritualistic sacrifice of animals. The burning of their dead bodies smells great to God. Eleven times in these two chapters God says that they are to him a "sweet savour." 28 - 29
# Under God's direction, Moses' army defeats the Midianites. They kill all the adult males, but take the women and children captive. When Moses learns that they left some live, he angrily says: "Have you saved all the women alive? Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." So they went back and did as Moses (and presumably God) instructed, killing everyone except for the virgins. In this way they got 32,000 virgins -- Wow! (Even God gets some of the booty -- including the virgins.) 31:1-54
# God killed all the Egyptian firstborn. 33:4
# God tells Moses to exterminate the residents of Canaan and destroy all of their religious symbols and possessions. 33:50-52
# But if the Israelites don't kill them all, then God will make them pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides. And he will do unto the Israelites as he planned to do to the inhabitants of Canaan. 33:55-56
# "The revenger of blood" must murder the murderer just as soon as he sees him. 35:19, 21
# When a murder is committed the blood pollutes the land. The only way to cleanse it is to spill more blood by killing the killer. 35:30, 33
Deuteronomy
# "The Lord destroyed them before them" -- the general treatment of the people who were supposedly displaced by the Israelites. 2:21-22
# All nations shall be terrorized by the followers of Yahweh. 2:25
# God hardened the heart of the king of Heshbon and so that he could have him and all of his people killed. 2:30
# At God's instructions, the Israelites "utterly destroyed the men, women, and the little ones" leaving "none to remain." 2:33-36
# The Israelites, with God's help, kill all the men, women, and children of every city. 3:3-6
# When going to war, don't be afraid. God is on your side; "he shall fight for you." 3:22
# God destroyed the followers of Baalpeor. 4:3
# God brought the Israelites out of Egypt "by war ... and by great terrors." 4:34
# If someone makes an image of anything (like a bird or flower) then God will destroy the entire nation. 4:25-26
# If you worship the wrong god, God will get jealous and kill you. 6:15
# God instructs the Israelites to kill, without mercy, all the inhabitants (strangers) of the land that they conquer. 7:2
# If you do show any mercy to such strangers, "give your daughters to any of them, or "take" any of their daughters, then you'll get God so angry that he'll "destroy thee suddenly." 7:4
# God will kill those who hate him. 7:10
# God commands his people to "consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity on them." 7:16
# God will send hornets to kill your enemies, "for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible." 7:20-23
# "If thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods ... ye shall surely perish." 8:19-20
# God is "a consuming fire" that destroys people. 9:3
# "The blood of sacrifices shall be poured out ... and thou shalt eat the flesh." Isn't this the sort of thing that Satanists are accused of doing? 12:27
# Kill those of other faiths. 12:30
# Prophets and dreamers are to be executed if they say or dream the wrong things. 13:1-5
# If your brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend tries to get you to worship another god, "thou shalt surely kill him, thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death." 13:6-10
# If you hear of a city where another god is worshiped, then destroy everyone in the city (even the cattle) and burn it down. (Watch out Salt Lake!) 13:12-16
# Kill everyone who has religious beliefs that are different from your own. 17:2-7
# Anyone who will not listen to a priest or a judge must be executed. 17:12-13
# False prophets are to be (you guessed it) executed. How do you know who is a false prophet? By whether or not their predictions come true. (Watch out Jehovah's Witnesses!) 18:20
# Murderers and perjurers are to be executed -- "and thine eye shall not pity" them. 19:11-13, 18-21
# "And thine eye shall not pity. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." 19:21
# God travels with people and fights in their wars. 20:4
# In the cities that god "delivers into thine hands" you must kill all the males (including old men, boys, and babies) with "the edge of the sword .... But the women ... shalt thou take unto yourself." 20:13
# "But of the cities ... which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Kill the old men and women, the sick and the dying, the blind and the lame, pregnant mothers, nursing mothers, infants, toddlers, and babies. 20:16
# If you find a dead body and don't know the cause of death, then get all the elders together, cut off the head of a heifer, wash your hands over its body, and say our hands have not shed this blood. (That'll do it!) 21:1-8
# If you have a "stubborn and rebellious son," then you and the other men in your neighborhood "shall stone him with stones that he die." 21:18-21
# Hang on trees the bodies of those who are "accursed of God." They make nice decorations. 21:22
# If a man marries, then decides that he hates his wife, he can claim she wasn't a virgin when they were married. If her father can't produce the "tokens of her virginity" (bloody sheets), then the woman is to be stoned to death at her father's doorstep. 22:13-21
# "If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die." 22:22
# If a betrothed virgin is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough, then "the men of the city shall stone her to death." 22:23-24
# Legal disputes are settled by a judge who determines guilt or innocence. No lawyers or jury are needed. Those found guilty will be beaten with 40 stripes. 25:1-3
# If two men fight and the wife of one grabs the "secrets" of the other, "then thou shalt cut off her hand" and "thine eye shall not pity her." 25:11-12
# God commands the Israelites to "blot out the rembrance of Amalek from under heaven." A few hundred years later God orders Saul to kill of the Amalekites "both man and woman, infant and suckling." (1 Sam.15:2-3) 25:19
# If you don't obey all of the laws that are given in the Old Testament, God shower you with the curses that are given in the next 52 verses. 28:16-68
# "Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body." 28:18
# God will send you "cursing, vexing, the pestilence, consumption, fever, inflammation, extreme burning, the sword, blasting, and mildew." 28:20-22
# "And thy carcass shall be meat to all the fowls of the air." 28:25-26
# "The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and the emerods [hemorrhoids], and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst be healed. The Lord will smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart." 28:27-28
# "Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes." 28:31
# Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people." 28:32
# You will be enslaved and driven mad in another country. 28:33-34
# "The Lord will smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head." 28:35
# You will be ruled by other nations, forced to serve other gods, become a laughingstock among your neighbors, have your crops destroyed by locusts, your vines eaten by worms, and have fruitless olive trees. 28:36-40
# "Thou shalt begat sons and daughters, but thou shall not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity." 28:41
# "All these curses shall come upon thee ... and upon thy seed for ever." 28:48-49
# God will enslave you and destroy you with hunger, thirst, hardship, and all kinds of deprivation. 28:48-52
# "And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters." 28:53-55
# "The tender and delicate woman" will be forced to eat her own children "that cometh out from between her feet." 28:56-57
# If you don't do as God says he'll send plagues to torment and destroy you. 28:58-64
# "The LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind." 28:65-67
# God will have you sold to your enemies -- but even they won't buy you. 28:68
# If you serve the gods of other nations, "all the curses that are in this book" will fall upon you. 29:18-20
# "And the Lord will put all these curses upon thine enemies." See Dt.28:16-64 for some of the curses God has in mind. 30:7
# Moses tells the people that God will destroy all the inhabitants of the lands that they pass through. 31:3
# When God gets mad -- watch out! He'll starve you to death, burn you with fire, and send vicious beasts to devour you. He'll "destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs." Not even the helpless and innocent are spared by this psychotic God. 32:21-26
# God says, "To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense ... for the day of their destruction is at hand." 32:35
# God says, "I kill ... I wound ... I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh." Someone should take his sword and arrows away, at least until he's feeling better. 32:39-43
Joshua
# "And the city shall be accursed ... and all that therein, to the Lord: only Rahab the harlot shall live." God explains that Rahab is to be spared since she hid Joshua's spies and lied to those who were searching for them (2:4-5). But why was everyone else killed? Some of them were probably liars too. 6:17
# "And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword." 6:21
# After killing everyone, "they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein." Only the valuables (silver, gold, brass, and iron) did they keep to "put into the treasury of the house of the Lord." 6:24
# Joshua says that those who try to rebuild Jericho will be accursed by God, and will have to sacrifice both their oldest and their youngest sons in its construction. Well, Jericho still exists today, and is often considered to be the world's oldest, continuously occupied city. 6:26
# God tells Joshua to kill whoever tood "the accursed thing." 7:10-12
# If you happen to see "the accursed thing," don't touch it. If you do, you, your family, and all of your animals must be burned. 7:15
# "And Joshua ... took Achan ... and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his sheep... And all of Israel stoned them with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones." This is because Achan "took of the accursed thing" -- whatever that means. But why would God require that Achan's sons and daughters (and even his animals) be stoned to death along with him? The Bible doesn't say. But it does tell us that "the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger" when Achan, his children, and his animals were stoned to death and their dead bodies burned. 7:24-26
# "When ye have taken the city [Ai] ... ye shall set the city on fire: according to the commandment of the LORD. 8:8
# Joshua and his army, per God's instructions, slaughter "all the inhabitants of Ai." 8:22-26
# Joshua hangs the king of Ai on a tree until evening. 8:29
# After Joshua kills all the inhabitants of Ai, burns their city, and hangs their king on a tree, he kills some animals and burns them as a "peace offering" to his warlike God. 8:31
# God curses the Gibeonites to be slaves of the Jews forever. 9:21-27
# God slaughters the Amorites and even chases them "along the way" as they try to escape. Then he sends down huge hailstones and kills even more of them. 10:10-11
# In a divine type of daylight savings time, God makes the sun stand still so that Joshua can get all his killing done before dark. 10:12-13
# God tells Joshua to "pursue after your enemies and smite the hindmost of them." (Kick their butts.) Don't let any of them escape "for the Lord your God hath delivered them into your hand." 10:19
# Joshua tells his captains to "put your feet upon the necks of these kings." He says, "thus shall the Lord do to all of your enemies." Then Joshua kills the kings and hangs them on trees. 10:24-26
# Joshua, at God's command, kills everyone and everything that he can find (including babies and little children)-- or, as the Bible puts it, he "utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord commanded." 10:28-32
# God delivers the Hazorites into Joshua's hand, and he knows just what to do with them: he smites them all with (you guessed it) the edge of the sword until "there was not any left to breathe." 11:6-17
# "And Joshua did unto them as the LORD bade him: he houghed their horses." 11:9
# "For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly." Notice that God hardens their hearts so that he can have an excuse to kill them. 11:20
# Caleb offers to give his daughter to whoever conquers the city of Debir. Caleb's nephew wins the contest and is given his cousin for a prize. 15:16-17
# "Did not Achan son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel?" To find out see Joshua 7:1-26. 22:20
# God is jealous and will never forgive you for your sins. "He will turn and do you hurt, and consume you." 24:19-20
Judges
# God appoints Judah to succeed Joshua. The Lord delivers his foes into his hands and another 10,000 are slain. In the process, they capture Adonibezek and "cut off his thumbs and great toes." Nice guys. 1:2-6
# "They slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it ... And the Lord was with Judah." (You can tell by the number of innocent people he killed.) 1:17, 19
# The Israelite spies killed everyone in Bethel, except for the man (and his family) who showed them how to enter the city. 1:25
# Ehud delivers a "message from God" to the king of Moab. God's message consists of a knife thrust so deeply into the king's belly that it could not be extracted, "and the dirt came out." Just another lovely Bible story. 3:15-22
# God "delivers" more folks into the hands of his chosen people. "And they slew of Moab ... about 10,000 men ... and their escaped not a man." 3:28-29
# Shamgar kills 600 Philistines with an ox goad. Praise God. 3:31
# "The Lord discomfited Sisera ... with the edge of the sword ... and there was not a man left." 4:15-16
# Jael (our heroine) offers food and shelter to a traveler (Sisera, Jabin's captain), saying "turn in my Lord ... fear not." Then after giving him a glass of milk and tucking him in, she drives a tent stake through his head. "So God subdued on that day Jabin." 4:17-23
# For murdering her guest while he slept, Jael is "blessed above women." (Hail Jael, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women....?) 5:24-26
# "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord." (Let them all have their temples pierced by blessed women.) 5:31
# When Gideon and his water-lapping companions blow their trumpets, God forces all the enemy soldiers to kill each other, killing 120,000. 7:22, 8:10
# Two princes are killed and their heads are brought to Gideon. 7:25
# For refusing to feed him and his army, Gideon tears the flesh off the elders of Succoth and kills the men of the city. 8:7, 16
# Gideon orders his son to kill two kings, but he refuses. So Gideon has to do it himself since his son isn't "man" enough to do it. 8:20
# Abimelech kills 69 brothers "upon one stone." (He was trying to get in the Guinness Book of World Records.) 9:5
# God sends evil spirits that cause humans to deal treacherously with each other. 9:23-24
# God smites Sihon and all his people and gives their land to Israel. 11:21
# "Whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we [the Israelites] possess." 11:24
# When "the spirit of the Lord" comes upon Jephthah, he makes a deal with God: If God will help him kill the Ammonites, then he (Jephthah) will offer to God as a burnt offering whatever comes out of his house to greet him. God keeps his end of the deal by providing Jephthah with "a very great slaughter." But when Jephthah returns, his nameless daughter comes out to greet him (who'd he expect, his wife?). Well, a deal's a deal, so he delivers her to God as a burnt offering -- after letting her spend a couple of months going up and down on the mountains bewailing her virginity. 11:29-39
# 42,000 men are killed because someone mispronounces "shibboleth." 12:6
# Samson rips up a young lion when "the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him." Later, when going to "take" his Philistine wife he notices a swarm of bees and honey in the lion's carcass (a Divine miracle -- or just rotting flesh and maggots?). 14:5-8
# "And the spirit of the Lord came upon him [Samson], and he ... slew thirty men." (Samson might have been a decent person if he could have kept the spirit of the Lord off him.) 14:19
# Samson catches 300 foxes, ties their tails together, and sets them on fire; the Philistines burn Samson's ex-wife and father-in-law; and Samson smites them "hip and thigh with a great slaughter." 15:4-8
# "The spirit of the Lord came mightily upon" Samson and "he found a new jawbone of an ass ... and took it, and slew 1000 men therewith." 15:14-15
# Samson, with God's help, kills himself and 3000 Philistine men and women by causing a roof to collapse, setting an example for Bible-based terrorism. 16:27-30
# The Danites massacre the "quiet and secure" people of Laish. 18:27
# After taking in a traveling Levite, the host offers his virgin daughter and his guest's concubine to a mob of perverts (who want to have sex with his guest). The mob refuses the daughter, but accepts the concubine and they "abuse her all night." The next morning she crawls back to the doorstep and dies. The Levite puts her dead body on an ass and takes her home. Then he chops her body up into twelve pieces and sends them to each of the twelve tribes of Israel 19:22-30
# God tells the Israelites to send the tribe of Judah into battle and 22,000 men were killed by the Benjamites. 20:18, 21
# God tells Phinehas to fight against the Benjamites, saying he will deliver them into his hand. So the Israelites kill some more people for God. 20:38-41
# God tells them to go to battle again and another 18,000 are killed. 20:23, 25
# God helps the Israelites kill 25,100 Benjamites. 20:35
# The Israelites killed everyone in the city with the edge of the sword. 20:37
# Another 25,000 Benjamites are killed by the God-assisted Israelites. 20:44, 46
# The Israelites finish their massacre of the Benjamites by killing all the men, animals, and everything they could find in every Benjamite city. Then they burned the cities to the ground. (In this way God helped the Israelites make everything better after the rape and dismemberment of the concubine.) 20:48
# To find wives for the Benjamites (they were unwilling to use their own daughters), the other tribes attacked and killed all occupants of a city except for the young virgins. These virgins were then given to the Benjamites for wives. 21:7-23
1 Samuel
# "The Lord killeth ..." -- every chance he gets. 2:6, 2:25
# "The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them." If God doesn't like you, he'll send a thunderstorm your way to break your body into little pieces. 2:10
# God will kill those who sin against him. 2:25
# If you piss him off, God will cut off your arm, consume your eyes, grieve your heart, and kill your sons and grandfathers. 2:31-34
# God will punish Eli's descendants forever for the sins of Eli's sons. 3:12-13
# God smites the people of Ashdod with hemorrhoids "in their secret parts." 5:6-12
# God kills 50,070 men for looking into the ark. "And the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter." 6:19
# "I make a covenant with your, that I may thrust out all your right eyes." Deals like this can only be found in the Bible. 11:2
# "And the spirit of God came upon Saul ... and he took a yoke of oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coast of Israel." People do the darnedest things when the spirit of God comes upon them! 11:6-7
# "Saul ... slew the Ammorites unto the heat of the day." Then he took a little break. After all, killing is hard work. 11:11
# God delivers the Philistines into Jonathan's hand. And his very "first slaughter ... was about twenty men." Not bad for a first slaughter. 14:12
# Under God's influence, the Philistines killed each other. 14:20
# But later, Saul and his army kill all of those who had not already been killed. 14:36
# God orders Saul to kill all of the Amalekites: men, women, infants, sucklings, ox, sheep, camels, and asses. Why? Because God remembers what Amalek did hundreds of years ago. 15:2-3
# Saul killed everyone but Agag (the king) and the best of the animals. But still God was furious with Saul for not killing everything as he had been told to do. He said, "it repenteth me that I have set Saul up to be king." 15:7-26
# Saul is rebuked by Samuel for "doing evil in the sight of the Lord" by failing to kill all of the Amalekites. 15:18-19
# Because Saul didn't kill everyone as God commanded, God changes his mind about him being king. 15:23-26
# To please God, Samuel hacks Agag in pieces "before the Lord" [I bet God enjoyed that!] -- after Agag pleads with him saying, "surely the bitterness of death has past." 15:32-34
# After God rejects Saul for refusing to kill indiscriminately, he sends Samuel to find another king. David is chosen and anointed by Samuel, and "the spirit of the Lord came upon him from that day forward." 16:13
# The evil spirit from the Lord
"But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul [since he was not murderous enough for God], and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him." But if God is good, then how could he have an evil spirit? 16:14-16, 23
# David kills Goliath with his sling, beheads him, and carries the head back to Jerusalem. 17:51-57
# David and Saul have a contest to see who can kill the most people for God, and the women act as cheerleaders saying, "Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands." 18:6-7, 21:11, 29:5
# David kills 200 Philistines and brings their foreskins to Saul to buy his first wife (Saul's daughter Michal). Saul had only asked for 100 foreskins, but David was feeling generous. 18:25-27
# "David went out, and fought with the Philistines, and slew them with a great slaughter." 19:8
# Saul kills 85 priests of Nob and all men, women, children, and animals in the city of Nob. 22:18-19
# "David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the Lord said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines ... So David smote them with a great slaughter." 23:2-5
# David vows to kill "any that pisseth against the wall." 25:22, 34
# "And it came to pass about ten days after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died." This was convenient for David who then took his property and his wife, Abigail. 25:38
# "And David smote the land and left neither man nor woman alive." (No wonder God liked David so much!) 27:8-11
# Saul visits a woman with a "familiar spirit" and she brings Samuel back from the dead. Samuel once again explains that God is angry at Saul for not killing all of the Amalekites. He says God is going to deliver all of Israel into the hands of the Philistines. (Since Saul refused to slaughter innocent people, God will slaughter the Israelites. Fair is fair.) 28:8-19
# David spends the day killing more of those pesky Amalekites. They are completely wiped out again. (See 1 Sam.15:7-8, 20 and 27:8-9 for the last two times that they were exterminated.) 30:17
2 Samuel
# David tells one of his "young men" to kill the Amalekite messenger who claimed to have mercifully killed Saul at Saul's own request. 1:15
# Joab and Abner watch as the young men "play" a cruel game. "And they caught every one his fellow by the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow side, so they fell down together." 2:14
# Abner smites Asahel "under the fifth rib." 2:23
(It seems that in 2 Samuel this is the preferred place to get smitten. 3:27, 4:6, 20:10)
# When Joab (David's captain) kills Abner (by smiting him under the fifth rib of course), David says that he and his kingdom are not responsible. The blame, he says, lays with Joab. So David curses Joab, his family, and their descendants forever. Let them all be plagued with venereal diseases and leprosy, starve to death, commit suicide, or lean on staves. (The Revised Standard Version translates "leaneth on a staff" as "holds a spindle," apparently meaning effeminate -- real men don't spin or weave.) 3:27-29
# Some of David's men kill Saul's son (by smiting him under the fifth rib, of course) and bring his head to David, thinking that he'll be pleased. But he wasn't. David has the assassins killed, their hands and feet chopped off, and their bodies hung up (for decorations?) over the pool in Hebron. 4:6-7
# Whoever kills the lame and the blind will be David's "chief and captain." 5:8
# "David ... grew great, and the LORD God of hosts was with him." 5:10
# David asks God if he should kill some more Philistines. God says yes, and he'll even help. So David and God "smote the Philistines" again. 5:19, 25
# Uzzah tries to keep the ark from falling off the cart, and God kills him for it. I guess it was God's way of saying Thanks. 6:6-7
# David kills two thirds of the Moabites and makes the rest slaves. He also cripples the captured horses. 8:2-4
# "David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men ... and the Lord preserved David withersoever he went." 8:5-6, 14
# David tells Joab (his captain) to send Bathsheba's husband (Uriah) to "the forefront of the hottest battle ... that he may be smitten and die." In this way, David gets another wife. 11:15, 11:17, 11:27
# To punish David for having Uriah killed, God kills Bathsheba's baby boy. 12:14-18
# David saws, hacks, and burns to death all the inhabitants of several cities. Maybe this is what is meant by "the tender mercies of David" (Acts 13:34). 12:31
# Absalom has his servants kill his brother for raping his sister. (This chapter, which includes incest, rape, murder, should be rated NC-17.) 13:28-29
# Poor Absalom gets his head caught in an oak tree, and before he can get free, Joab thrusts three darts through his heart. 18:14
# Amasa is viciously slaughtered by Joab, who "shed out his bowels to the ground ... And Amasa wallowed in blood in the midst of the highway." 20:10, 12
# "And they cut off the head of Sheba ... and cast it out to Joab." 20:21-22
# A famine is sent on David's kingdom for three years. When David asks God why, God answers: "It is for Saul, and his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. "So God sent a famine to punish a kingdom for something that a former king had done. 21:1
# To appease God and end the famine that was caused by his predecessor (Saul), David agrees to have seven of Saul's sons killed and hung up "unto the Lord." 21:6-9
# "He teacheth my hands to war." Might as well learn from an expert. 22:35
# "Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies." 22:41
# The chief of David's captains killed with his own spear 800 guys at one time. 23:8
# God offers David a choice of punishments for having conducted the census: 1) seven years of famine ( 1 Chr.21:1 says three years), 2) three months fleeing from enemies, or 3) three days of pestilence. David can't decide, so God chooses for him and sends a pestilence, killing 70,000 men (and probably around 200,000 women and children). 24:13
1 Kings
# In David's last words, he commands his son Solomon to murder Joab. 2:1-9
# Solomon has his brother (Adonijah) murdered. 2:24-25
# Solomon carries out the deathbed instructions of his father David by having Joab murdered. 2:29-34
# Solomon justifies the murder of Joab by saying that Joab also was a murderer, and that the blood of Joab's victims "shall therefore return upon the head of Joab, and upon the head of his seed for ever." 2:33
# But Solomon is not done murdering yet. He has Shimei murdered -- or as Solomon put it, "The Lord shall return thy wickedness upon thine own head." 2:44, 46
# When the ark of the covenant was brought into the temple, Solomon killed more animals than could be numbered. 8:5
# When dedicating the temple, Solomon kills 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. All this blood and gore must have made God very happy. 8:63
# Joab (David's captain) spent six months killing every male in Edom. 11:16
# King Josiah is prophesied to sacrifice the priests of the "high places" on their altars. And he does so in 2 Kg.23:20. Note that this is a guy who "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" (2 Kg.22:2). 13:2
# Ever the playful spirit, God withers, and then restores, the hand of king Jeroboam. 13:4
# There were these two prophets. The first prophet lied to the second. To the punish the second for believing the first's lie, God sends a lion to kill him. Get it? 13:11-24
# God promises to "bring evil upon the house of Jerobaom," saying he will "cut off" anyone "that pisseth against the wall." Then, after he is done with them, their dead bodies will be eaten by dogs (if they are city dwellers) or fowls (if they are country folk). 14:10-12
# Baasha kills "all of the house of Jeroboam" leaving none "to breath." This slaughter was done "according to the word of the Lord." 15:29
# God says that "him that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth of his in the fields shall the fowls of the air eat." 16:4
# Zimri kills everyone "that pisseth against a wall ... according to the word of the Lord." 16:11-12
# When Hiel rebuilds Jericho, he lays the foundation with the body of his oldest son and sets up the gates with his youngest son's body "according to the word of the Lord." 16:34
# Elijah kills 450 prophets of Baal. 18:22, 40
# God delivers the Syrians into the Israelites hands, and 100,000 were killed in one day. Of those that escaped, 27,000 were crushed by a falling wall. 20:28-30
# There was this son of a prophet that said to his neighbor, "kill me." But the neighbor refused. So God sent a lion to devour him. 20:35
# The prophet tells king Ahab that he, and his people, shall be punished for releasing Ben-hadad: "Your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people." 20:42
# Although Naboth was set up here by Jezebel to steal his land, the text assumes that the proper punishment for "blaspheming God and the king" is death by stoning. 21:10-13
# "Thus saith the Lord, in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine." 21:19
# God will "bring evil upon" Ahab and "cut off" all those "that pisseth against the wall." 21:21
# Jezebel (Ahab's "strange" wife) "stirred up" Ahab to "work wickedness in the sight of the Lord." To punish her, God will feed her dead body to the dogs. (He also plans to feed the city folk to the dogs and country folks to the birds.) 21:23-25
# Jehoshaphat "did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord" and "took" the homosexuals (sodomites) "out of the land," or as the RSV says, "he exterminated" them. 22:43, 46
2 Kings
# Ahaziah was sick and sent messengers to Baalzebub to ask if he would recover. God was jealous of the attention given to his competitor and tells Ahaziah that he will die for asking the wrong god. 1:4, 17
# Elijah shows that he is "a man of God" by burning 102 men to death. 1:9-12
# God sends two bears to rip up 42 little children for making fun of Elisha's bald head. 2:23-24
# God instructs the Israelites, through the prophet Elisha, to implement a scorched earth policy on the Moabites. "Strike every fortified city and every choice city, and fell every good tree and stop all springs of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones." 3:19-25
# In a desperate attempt to halt the slaughter of his people by the Israelites, the king of Moab sacrifices his oldest son as a burnt offering. And it seems to have worked! 3:27
# Elisha not only can cure leprosy, he can also dish it out. Here he makes his servant (Gehazi) and all his descendants lepers forever. 5:27
# "So we boiled my son, and did eat him." Women killed, boiled and ate their own children because of a plague that God sent, or as the Bible puts it: "Behold, this evil is of the Lord." 6:28-29, 33
# A man is trampled to death for disbelieving Elisha. 7:17-20
# God sends a famine on the people that lasts for seven years. 8:1
# God says that the "whole house of Ahab shall perish," and that he "will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall." 9:8
# "And the dogs shall eat Jezebel ... and there shall be none to bury her." 9:10
# Jehu shoots an arrow right through poor old Jehoram's heart. 9:24
# God has Jezebel thrown off a wall. Her blood is sprinkled on the wall and on the horses, by which she is trampled. Her body is eaten by dogs and all that remains of it is her hands, feet, and skull. God says that she "shall be as dung upon the face of the field." 9:33-37
# All seventy of king Ahab's sons are killed, their heads put in baskets, and sent to Jezreel. He says, "Lay ye them in two heaps ..." 10:7-8
# Jehu kills all that remained of king Ahab's family. 10:11
# Jehu captures and then murders 42 men. 10:14
# Jehu shows off his zeal for the Lord by murdering "all that remained unto Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed him according to the word of the Lord." 10:16-17
# Jehu lied to the followers of Baal so that he could trap and kill them. 10:19
# Jehu warns his guards saying, "If any of the men escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him." 10:24
# Jehu, when he finishes his animal sacrifices, orders his men to "Go in, and slay them, let none come forth. And they smote them with the edge of the sword." 10:25
# God is greatly pleased with all of Jehu's killings, saying "because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart [Jehu murdered them all], thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel." 10:30
# Jehu captures and then murders 42 men. 10:42
# When Athaliah "saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all of the seed royal." 11:1
# The priest has Athaliah and her followers killed. 11:15-16
# The "Lord's people" destroyed the "house of Baal" and killed "the priest of Baal before the altars." 11:17-18
# Amaziah "did that which was right in the sight of the Lord" and killed ten thousand Edomites. 14:3, 7
# God strikes king Azariah with leprosy "unto the day of his death" for not removing the high places. 15:5
# King Menahem rips up all the pregnant women in Tizzah "because they opened not to him." Does God approve of such acts? It's impossible to tell from this passage; the mass murder is simply reported without editorial comment. 15:16
# God sent lions to devour the foreigners in Samaria because "they feared not the Lord," and even worse "they knew not the manner of the God of the land." Well that'll teach them about God's manners. 17:25-26
# An "angel of the Lord" kills 185,000 men while they sleep. "And when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses." I guess they all woke up and said, "Shucks, I'm dead." 19:35
# Josiah, apparently with God's approval, kills "all the priests of the high places" and sacrifices them to God on their altars. Note that this is a guy who "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord" (2 Kg.22:2). 23:20
# Even though Josiah did all that God asked of him, God still punished him and all Jerusalem for the acts of his grandfather. 23:26
1 Chronicles
# God killed Er for being "evil in the sight of the Lord." 2:3
# The sons of Reuben made war with the Hagarites and "there fell down many slain, because the war was from God." They did pretty well for themselves, too, in God's war, taking 250,000 sheep and 100,000 slaves. 5:18-22
# But the Israelites "transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them." So God inspired the Assyrians to go to war with the Israelites. 5:25-26
# Saul died for refusing God's order to kill all of the Amalekites (15:2-3, 18-19) and for consulting a witch (1 Sam.28:8-19). 10:13-14
# The chief of David's captains killed with his own spear 300 guys at one time. 11:11
# God kills Uzza for trying to keep the ark from falling. 13:9-10
# David kills 7000 men in chariots and 40,000 footmen. 19:18
# David's army "wastes the children of Ammon ... besieged Rabbah ... and destroyed it." 20:1
# David tortures all the inhabitants of several cities "with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes." 20:3
# God kills 70,000 men because David had a census. 21:7
2 Chronicles
# Solomon, when dedicating the temple, killed 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. All the blood, guts, pain, and suffering must have made God very happy. 7:5
# God kills the king of Israel and helps Abijah kill 500,000 Israelites. "The children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers." (That is, they had God on their side.) 13:15-20
# In the largest single God-assisted massacre in the bible, Asa, with God's help, kills one million Ethiopians. 14:8-14
# "Nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city: for God did vex them with all adversity." 15:6
# Whoever that does not seek the God of Israel should be executed. 15:13
# God inspired Jehoram's enemies to steal his wives and children. Then he made Jehoram so sick that his bowels fell out. 21:14-19
# Only Levites can enter "the house of the Lord". "Whosoever else cometh into the house, he shall be put to death." 23:6-7
# God told Jehu to kill everyone in the house of Ahab (and then later condemned him for it (Hosea 1:4)). 22:7-9
# The priest (Jehoiada) tells the people to kill Athaliah and her followers. So they find her and kill her. "And all the people of the land rejoiced: and the city was quiet, after that they had slain Athaliah with the sword." (Don't you just love happy endings?) 23:14-15, 21
# "Then all the people went to the house of Baal" and broke its altar into pieces and killed Mattan the priest of Baal. 23:17
# Amaziah (who "did that which was right in the sight of the Lord") killed 10,000 people; another 10,000 he left alive to throw off a cliff "that they all were broken in pieces." 25:1-2, 11-12
# God makes Uzziah a leper for burning incense without a license. 26:19-21
# Pekah killed 120,000 people in one day and enslaves 200,000 women and children "because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers." 28:6, 8
# The priests kill bullocks, rams, and lambs. The blood of the dead animals is then sprinkled on the altars. 29:22, 24
# God sent an angel to kill the Assyrian army. (According to 2 Kg.19:35 the angel killed 185,000 sleeping soldiers who woke the next morning to discover that they were dead.) 32:21
# God vows to "bring evil upon this place ... even all the curses that are written in the book." He says his "wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched." 34:24-25, 28
# God gets angry with his people, so he sends the king of the Chaldees to kill all the "young men with the sword." He has compassion for no one, not even old men that are "stooped for age." In his tender mercy and loving kindness he has them all slaughtered. 36:16-17
Esther
# Esther has two men "hanged on a tree." 2:22-23
# Esther has another man (Haman) hung. 7:6, 10
# Esther suggests that the ten sons of Haman should also be hanged. So "they hanged Haman's ten sons. 9:13-14
# The Jews kill 75,000. 9:16
Job
# To start off God and Satan's gruesome game, Job's slaves and animals are killed. 1:14-17
# God (or Satan -- it's hard to tell them apart) sends a wind that kills Job's sons and daughters. 1:18-19
# "So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown." 2:7
# Because of God's cruel wager with Satan, Job curses the day he was born. 3:1-3, 11
# God terrorizes people with arrows and poison. 6:4
# God terrifies people by sending them nightmares while they sleep. 7:14
# Speaking of God, Job says: "He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth." 16:9
Psalms
# If you ask God, he'll force heathens to be your slaves and help you "dash them in pieces." 2:8-9
# God has smitten his "enemies upon the cheek bone" and has "broken the teeth of the ungodly." 3:7
# Kiss the Son or God will get angry and might have to kill you. 2:12
# Christians often say that one should love the sinner but hate the sin. Perhaps, but God hates sinners and plans to destroy them. 5:5-6
# God has prepared deadly weapons (swords, bows, etc.) and plans to use them. 7:11-13
# If you pray to God, he will kill your enemies for you. 9:3-6
# God will rain fire and brimstone on "wicked" folks. 11:6
# The God of peace teaches us how to kill our neighbors in war. 18:34
# If you make God angry, he'll burn you and your children to death. 21:9-10
# God will shoot his adversaries in the back with his arrows. 21:12
# A sweet prayer for the destruction of one's enemies: Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the LORD persecute them.... Let destruction come upon him at unawares." 35:6,8
# God laughs at those that he will later torment. 37:13
# If you forget God, God will tear you into pieces. 50:22
# If you don't trust in God, he'll kill you and while you're dying the "righteous" will laugh at you. 52:5-7
# Referring to his enemies, the psalmist says: "Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell." 55:15
# The psalmist devoutly prays: "Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth ... let them be cut in pieces." 58:6-7
# The psalmist asks God to kill all "the heathen" and not show them any mercy. 59:5
# God will laugh at the heathen as he kills them. 59:8
# "The righteous" will rejoice when he sees "the wicked" being dismembered by God. He'll even get a chance to wash his feet in their blood. Now that's entertainment! 58:10
# "The God of mercy" will let the psalmist see his enemies tormented. 59:10
# "Consume them in thy wrath, consume them." -- more sweet prayers to a savage god. 59:13
# God will "wound the head of his enemies" so that the righteous can wash their feet "in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same." 68:21, 23
# The psalmist prays that his enemies be tormented and blinded by God. He asks God to "make their loins continually to shake." 69:23-28
# "The LORD heard this" (he had his hearing aid on) and became angry, and burned people "because they believed not in God." 78:21-22
# "The wrath of God came upon them" and God killed many of the Israelites for not believing in "his wondrous works." 78:31-34
# The psalmist asks God to " do unto them as unto the Midianites ... which became as dung for the earth." 83:9-18
# If you don't follow God's commandments, he will beat you with a rod. 89:31-32
# "I will ... destroy all the wicked of the land." 101:8
# God gives the lions their meat. The cruelty and brutality of nature are all part of God's plan. 104:21
# The psalmist recounts God's treatment of the Egyptians: "He smote the firstborn in their land." See Ex.12:29-30 for the gory details. 105:29-36
# God is praised for the creative ways that he kills people: drowning, earth-swallowing, burning, etc. 106:11-19
# God sent a plague on the Israelites for "committing whoredom with the daughters of Moab." But "then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment [by throwing a spear through a newly married couple]: and so the plague was stayed." But not before 24,000 (1 Cor.10:8 says 23,000) had died. (See Num.25:6-9 for all the gory details.) 106:29-30
# The psalmist asks God to do all sorts of unpleasant things to his enemies. "Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand .... Let his prayer become sin." He asks God to take away his possessions, kill him, and have his children suffer for the sins of their fathers. 109:6-14
# God will "fill the places with dead bodies" of heathens. 110:6
# God is praised for slaughtering kings, nations, and little babies. 135:8, 10
# "To him that smote Egypt in their first born: for his mercy endures forever." 136:10
# God "overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea: for his mercy endureth for ever." 136:15
# God "smote great kings: for his mercy endureth for ever." 136:17-18
# "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." 137:9
# The psalmist excels at hating. He hates people with a "perfect hatred" and asks God to kill them. 139:19-22
# A prayer that God will burn people to death. 140:10
# The God of Peace teaches us to kill each other in war. 144:1
# he saints praise God while they kill and enslave "the heathen." 149:5-8
Proverbs
# Beating your children with a rod is a sure sign of parental love. 13:24
# God made bad people for the pleasure of punishing them. 16:4
# Fools are meant to be beaten. 18:6
# Beat your children and don't stop just because they cry. 19:18
# Scorners (skeptics?) should be condemned; fools should be beaten. 19:29
# "The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil: so do stripes the inward parts of the belly." 20:30
# "The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous." 21:18
# Beating your children will make them less foolish. Have you beaten your child today? 22:15
# Beat your children hard and often. Don't worry about hurting them. You may break a few bones and cause some brain damage, but it isn't going to kill them. And even if they do die, they'll be better off. They'll thank you in heaven for beating the hell out of them. 23:13-14
# Whip horses and strike the backs of foolish people with rods. 26:3
# Beating your children will make them wise. 29:15
# Beat your servants (slaves), as though they were your children. 29:19
# If you mock your father or disobey your mother, the ravens will pick out your eyeballs and the eagles will eat them. 30:17
# "The wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood." 30:33
Isaiah
# "And ... instead of a sweet smell there shall be stink," with people suffering from baldness and burnings, and the men killed with swords. 3:24-25
# After God "washed away the filth" from the women and killed the men, he set up "a cloud and smoke by day" and a "flaming fire by night." 4:4-5
# God will kill those who despise his word and fail to follow his laws. Their carcasses will be "torn in the midst of the streets." 5:24-25
# If you associate or gird yourself, God will break you in pieces. 8:9
# God will have no mercy on the widows and children of hypocrites. 9:17
# God will make every man kill his brother and then force him to eat "the flesh of his own arm." 9:19-20
# God will "smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked." 11:4
# "I have commanded my sanctified ones ... to destroy the whole land." God has his holy ones do his dirty work for him. 13:3-5
# On God's day he will kill sinners with great anger, wrath, and cruelty. Those who die will have their faces consumed by flames. 13:6-9
# If God can find you, he will "thrust you through," smash your children "to pieces" before your eyes, and rape your wife. He will have no mercy, but will even kill your little children. 13:15-18
# God will slaughter children "for the iniquity of their fathers." 14:21
# After God destroys Moab, the rivers will be red with blood. He will send lions to eat any survivors. 15:9
# The God of Peace will set brother against brother and kingdom against kingdom. Then he'll make the survivors seed the counsel of "wizards," and subject them to a "cruel lord." 19:2-4
# The Apocalypse of Isaiah: God will destroy the earth, burning everyone and every living thing alive (except maybe a few men). 24:1-6
# "And the people shall ... be burned in the fire." 33:12
# God is furious at everyone and is ready to kill them all. Or as Isaiah so delicately puts it: "Their stink shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood." 34:2-3
# God's sword "will be bathed in heaven." Sounds like a place to stay away from. 34:5
# God's sword is "filled with blood," and he fully intends to use it. He'll kill so many people with it that the "land shall be soaked with blood." 34:6-8
# An angel of God kills 185,000 men. "And when they [those killed by the angel?] arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead men." 37:36
# God will "go forth as a mighty man" who cries and roars, and "will cry like a travailing woman." After he tires of roaring and crying he'll "destroy and devour." What a guy. 42:13
# God makes Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba pay for Israel's sins. He says that he likes Israel better than any other country so he's willing to sacrifice other countries for the Israel's sake. 43:3-4
# No astrologer, stargazer, or prognosticator will be able to save those that God plans to burn to death. 47:13-14
# God "will do his pleasure on Babylon." (He will mercilessly slaughter the Babylonians.) 48:14
# "I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine." 49:26
# "The heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner." (God plans to destroy the universe.) 51:6
# "I will ... trample them in my fury; and their blood ... will stain all my raiment." (God's clothes will get stained with the blood of humans.) 63:2-6
# "God's servants" will eat, drink, and be merry; everyone else will be hungry, thirsty, and ashamed -- until God kills them, that is. 65:13-16
# God will "plead with all flesh" with fire and sword, "and the slain of the Lord shall be many." 66:16
# The carcasses of those killed by God will be piled high. They will rot and burn forever. And although their stench will be revolting to humans, it will be a sweet savour unto the Lord. 66:24
Jeremiah
# God tries to "correct" people by killing their children. 2:30
# Circumcise the foreskin of your heart or God will burn you to death. 4:4
# God will bring evil to entire cities, destroying them and wipe out all of their inhabitants. 4:6-7
# What was once fruitful is now barren. Birds have fled, people are gone, towns are in ruins. All "by his (God's) fierce anger." 4:25-26
# God sends plagues and violence to correct people. 5:3
# God will send lions and leopards to tear people into little bitty pieces. 5:6
# God will kill those who believe and preach the wrong doctrines. 5:12-13
# God again talks of bringing a foreign nation to destroy his chosen ones and their lands. 5:15-17
# "I am full of the fury of the Lord; I am weary of holding it in." He's anxious to "pour it out" on children, young men, husbands, wives, and old people. 6:11-12
# God threatens to punish the men by taking away all of their property, including their wives, and giving them to others. 6:12
# God plans to kill pretty much everyone: fathers and sons, family, friends, and neighbors. God plans to kill them all after laying a stumbling block before them. 6:21
# God will send soldiers from the north that will kill everyone and have no mercy. 6:22-23
# God will pour out his anger on both man and beast. Not even the trees will be spared from his wrath. And the ground itself will burn forever. 7:20
# God will feed the people to the birds and the beasts, "and none shall fray them away." 7:33
# God will cover the earth with dead bodies that will not be buried. "They shall be for dung upon the face of the earth." 8:2
# People will choose to kill themselves, rather than be killed by their vicious God. 8:3
# God will give the people bad food and water, and then kill them with a sword. 9:15-16
# God will kill children and young men, and the dead bodies "shall fall as dung .... and none shall gather them." 9:21-22
# "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punish all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised." I guess that'd include just about everyone -- well, all the men anyway. 9:25-26
# Jeremiah prays for the destruction of people and families that don't call on God's name. 10:25
# God "will bring evil upon" people from which they will not be able to escape. And if they cry out to him for help, he will not help them. 11:11
# God forbids others from praying for his victims. Such prayers would go unanswered anyway, he says, because he "will not hear them in their time of trouble." 11:14
# God will punish the people by killing their young men in war and starving their children to death. 11:22
# Jeremiah asks God to drag away his enemies like "sheep for the slaughter." 12:3
# God delivered his people "into the hand of her enemies." He "hates" his "dearly beloved" people and plans to feed them to the birds. 12:7-9
# God's sword will "devour" everyone until "no flesh shall have peace." 12:12
# If any nation does not listen to God, he "will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation." 12:17
# God plans to make everyone in the kingdom drunk and then "dash the fathers and the sons together." The merciful God of Peace vows to "not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them." 13:13-14
# God tells Jeremiah not to pray for the people. God has decided to kill them all and he doesn't want to be talked out of it. 14:11
# God will ignore the peoples' prayers, and kill them all with war, starvation, and disease. 14:12
# God will destroy by famine and sword those who are misled by the prophets, as well as the prophets themselves. 14:15-16
# God tells Jeremiah not to bother praying for the people. Even if Moses and Samuel (and Jesus?) were to ask him to reconsider, he wouldn't. He's going to kill everybody and nobody can stop him! 15:1
# God plans to do four things to his people: 1) kill them with swords, 2) tear their flesh with dogs, 3) have the birds, and 4) the beasts eat their bodies. Why will he do these terrible things? Because of something some former king did. 15:2-4
# God again threatens Jerusalem with mass destruction. Here are some of the highlights: He will kill children, make more widows than there are grains of sand, terrorize cities, and then kill the survivors. 15:7-9
# God will have you enslaved and, if you make him mad enough, he will burn you to death. 15:14
# God tells Jeremiah not to get married or have children, because he's going to kill everyone (mothers and daughters, fathers and sons). They all "shall die of grievous deaths," and that shall neither "be lamented" nor buried, but "shall be as dung upon the face of the earth." For he has removed peace, "lovingkindness," and mercy from the people. 16:1-7
# God will kill children if their parents worship other gods. 16:10-11
# If you don't honor the Sabbath, God will burn you to death unquenchable fire. 17:27
# God admits that he does evil things to people. 18:11
# Jeremiah asks God to kill the young men in war and the children by starvation. 18:21
# God will do so much evil to the people that whoever hears of it will have their ears tingle. 19:3
# God will make parents eat their own children, "and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend." 19:7-9
# God will break those who worship other gods as though they were made of clay, killing so many that there will not be enough room to bury them all. 19:11-13
# "For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it." 20:4
# God himself will fight and kill everyone in fury "with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm." 21:5
# "I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence." 21:6
# God will deliver Zedekiah and those that survive the famine, disease, and war into Nebuchadrezzar's hand, and "he shall smite them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy. 21:7
# God tells the Judeans to either surrender to the Babylonians and become their slaves or die. "Behold, I am against thee." No kidding. 21:9-13
# God will have Jeconiah's enemies kill him and his mother and then ensure that he die without leaving any sons. 22:25-30
# God promises to kill everyone by war, starvation, and disease. 24:10
# God will force "all the kingdoms of the world" to drink "and be drunken". Then he'll kill "all the inhabitants of the earth" with a sword. 25:26-29
# God will kill so many people that the entire earth will be covered with their dead bodies. No one is to mourn them or even bury them; "they shall be dung upon the ground." 25:31-33
# God will destroy "the peaceable habitations" and make the land desolate "because of his fierce anger." 25:37-38
# Anyone who disobeys King Nebuchadnezzar will be punished "with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand." 27:8
# God kills Hananiah for prophesying falsely. 28:15-17
# God will send his usual blessings upon his people: "the sword, the famine, and the pestilence." He "will make them like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil." 29:17-18
# God will kill those who refuse listen to his prophets. 29:19
# God will deliver Ahab and Zedekiah into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar "and he shall slay them before your eyes" and Ahab will be "roasted in the fire." 29:21-22
# God will punish the children of Shemaiah for their father's false prophecy. 29:32
# God litters the ground "with the dead bodies of men" that he has killed in his anger and fury. 33:5
# God threatens again to send his people the sword, pestilence, and famine, saying he'll feed their dead bodies to the fowls and beasts of the earth. 34:17-20
# All those who move to Egypt will die by the sword, famine, or pestilence. None "shall escape from the evil" that comes directly from God. 42:15-18, 22
# When God pours forth his fury and his anger, entire cities are destroyed. 44:6
# God's not finished with Judah. He will bring more evil upon them. Even those Jews that flee to Egypt will not be spared. God will hunt them down and kill them all with war, famine, and disease. 44:11-13
# "I will watch over them for evil, and not for good." 44:27
# God says he will bring evil upon all flesh. 45:5
# The day of the Lord will be "a day of vengeance." On that day God's sword will become drunk with blood. 46:10
# God plans to drown the Philistines in a flood, and "all the men shall cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl." 47:2
# God plans to kill just about everybody. "No city shall escape." 48:8
# "Cursed by he that keepeth back his sword from blood." 48:10
# God will destroy everyone in Moab. Fire will burn their heads, and their sons and daughters will be taken captive. 48:42-47
# God will cause the daughters of Rabbah to be burned with fire. 49:2
# God will send such marvelous plagues on Edom that everyone will hiss in astonishment. 49:17
# God plans to "bring evil upon" the people of Elam. He says he'll kill them all with a sword. 49:37
# God says to do the usual thing to the inhabitants of "the land of Merathaim": kill them all. 50:21
# God commands that all Babylonian bullocks be slaughtered, that archers shoot all Babylonians, and that all their men be killed in war. 50:27-30
# God, the pyromaniac, will personally set the fires that will burn to death the inhabitants of entire cities. 50:32
# God plans to kill all the Babylonian horses, and to make the Babylonian men "become like women." (A fate worse than death to a misogynous god.). 50:37
# God wants us to be his "battle axe and weapons of war" to "break in pieces the nations" and "destroy kingdoms." 51:20
# God will "break in pieces" nations and kingdoms, horse and rider, man and woman, old and young, young man and maid, the shepherd and his flock, husbandman and his yoke of oxen, captain and kings. It seems that God intends to break us all into pieces. 51:21-23
# God will get the Babylonians drunk and then kill them all, leading them "like lambs to the slaughter." 51:39-40
Lamentations
# God tramples "as in a winepress" mighty men, young men, and virgins. 1:15-16
# "The Lord Was an enemy." 2:4-8
# God mercilessly kills everyone, young and old. He even causes women to eat their children. 2:20-22
# God is like a bear or a lion who secretly pursues you and then tears you apart. 3:10-11
# "Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them. Persecute and destroy them in anger." 3:63-64
# God punishes the Israelites by starving their children to death. 4:4-9
# God "accomplishes his fury" by making women eat their children. 4:10-11
Ezekiel
# If a good person does something wrong after God "lays a stumbling block before him," then God will kill him. "He shall die in his sin" and whatever good he has done will be forgotten. 3:20
# God will cause the fathers to eat their sons and the sons to eat their fathers. 5:10
# God will slaughter everyone by killing one third with plagues, one third with famines, and one third with wars. If any somehow survive, he'll send "evil beasts" to devour them. Finally, after he's done killing, he "will be comforted." 5:11-17
# God will decorate the land with the bones and dead bodies of those who worship a different god. 6:4-5
# God makes his presence known by killing people with famine, disease, and war. 6:7-14
# God will pour out his fury on everyone, with pity toward none. By so doing he says that "ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth." Indeed, who would else would behave so viciously? 7:3-9
# God's is mad at everyone and no one will escape his wrath. He'll kill them all with war, disease, and starvation. "Horror shall cover them" and "they shall know that I am the Lord." 7:14-28
# God promises again to slaughter everyone. He says that he will ignore them when they plead with him for mercy. 8:18
# God sends a "man clothed with linen" to mark the foreheads of the men who will be saved. Apparently only men are considered good enough to keep, the others (unmarked men, "maids", little children, and women) are to be slaughtered. God says he'll "fill the courts with the slain" and will have pity on no one. 9:4-10
# When you fall by the sword, you'll know that he is the Lord. 11:8-12
# When God kills everyone in the city, then you'll know that he is the Lord. (Who else would be so cruel?) 12:15-16, 20
# God gets mad at a wall and destroys it, along with those who worked on it. 13:14-15
# God again vows to destroy those that dare worship something or someone other than him. 14:6-8
# God deceives some of his prophets and then kills them for believing his lies. 14:9
# When really bad things happen (like you get eaten by wild beasts, get killed in war, get sick and die, etc.), then you'll know that it was God that did it to you. 14:13, 15, 19, 21
# God will burn the inhabitants of Jerusalem to show everyone that he is the Lord. 15:6-7
# For being such a whore, God punished Jerusalem by starving the Israelites and handing them over to the Philistines. 16:17
# After exposing her nakedness, God will give her "blood in fury and jealousy" and strip her naked once more. 16:38-41
# God gave the Israelites "statutes that were not good and judgments whereby they should not live." He "polluted" them so that he "might make them desolate" and force them to kill and sacrifice their children "that they might know" that he is the Lord. 20:25-26
# God will set a fire in the southern kingdom that will devour everything and burn everyone. "And all flesh shall see that I the LORD have kindled it." 20:47-48
# God will kill everyone -- good and bad, just and unjust. 21:3-4
# God describes the various ways that he will kill people. 21:8-32
# "Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land ... for I the LORD have spoken it." 21:32
# God will gather all of Israel and consume them in the fires of his anger. 22:20-22
# God couldn't find anyone to stand up to him, so he's going to destroy everyone. 22:30-31
# Two sisters were guilty of "committing whoredoms" by pressing their breasts and bruising "the teats of their virginity." As a punishment, one sister's nakedness was discovered, her children were taken from her, and she was killed by the sword. And the fate of the surviving sister was even worse: Her nose and ears were cut off, she was made to "pluck off" her own breasts, and then after being raped and mutilated, she is stoned to death. 23:1-49
# God gets all excited about cooking with "scum" and human flesh, saying "kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned." 24:3-14
# God kills Ezekiel's wife and then tells him not to mourn her. 24:15-18
# God will kill everyone that claps his hands or stamps his feet "against the land of Israel." When he's done with the killing everyone will know that he is the Lord. 25:6-17
# God says he will destroy Tyrus. He plans to kill everyone, but he is especially looking forward to killing all of the women. "And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain by the sword; and they shall know that I am the LORD." 26:1-21
# Now God has singled out the king of Tyre for his tirades. 28:7-10, 18-19
# Watch out or God will make you "die the deaths of the uncircumcised," which is, no doubt, a most unpleasant death. 28:10
# God says that Zidon will know that he is the Lord when he sends "pestilence and blood into her streets." 28:22-23
# God tells Ezekiel to prophesy against the pharaoh and against all Egypt. God says he will feed the Egyptians to the birds and beasts. 29:2-5
# God makes "all their loins to be at a stand." When this is achieved, God will get out his sword and "cut off man and beast out of thee." Ouch! 29:7-9
# God will punish Egypt and her allies by sending Nebuchadrezzar to "fill the land with the slain." Then he will make "the rivers dry," sell the land to "the wicked," make "the land waste," light fires, and kill all their young men with the sword. 30:4-26
# "And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have set a fire in Egypt." (The Divine Pyromaniac) 30:8, 30:14, 30:16
# God will treat Pharaoh like a whale fished out of the sea. Every bird and beast in the world will feed upon him. 32:3-6
# God will vex the hearts of many people, destroy entire nations, brandish his sword, kill animals, and cause floods. In this way people will come to know him (just before he kills them?). 32:9-15
# God takes a break from killing people while he kills all the animals in Egypt. 32:13
# Pharaoh and all his multitude, along with the uncircumcised, will be killed with the sword. 32:20-32
# If a "righteous" person does something wrong, God will forget every good thing that that person has ever done. Then God will kill him for the single mistake. 33:13
# God plans some more killing by the sword, beasts, and the pestilence. 33:27-29
# God will kill everyone in the cities, "and thou shalt know that I am the LORD." 35:3-4
# "And I will fill his mountains with his slain men, and ye shalt know that I am the LORD." 35:6-9
# God will return their own anger and hatred upon them, "and they shall know that I am the LORD." 35:11-15
# Someday the God of Peace will start a war between Gog and Israel. 38:16
# God will cause each man's sword to be against his brother; he will send disease and make it rain fire and brimstone. He says that by doing this he'll magnify and sanctify himself and let everyone know that he is the Lord. 38:21-23
# God will have birds and beasts eat human flesh and drink human blood until they are full and drunken. 39:4, 17-20, 28
# God "will send a fire on Magog ... and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord." 39:6-7
# God hid his face from the Israelites, refusing to hear their prayers, while giving "them into the hand of their enemies: so fell they all by the sword." 39:23-24
Daniel
# Nebuchadnezzar, after first trying to burn to death the three Hebrews, now decrees that everyone who says anything against the Hebrew god "shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill." 3:29
# King Darius, after trying to feed Daniel to the lions, orders those who accused Daniel (and their wives and children) to be cast into the lion den. "And the lions ... brake all their bones in pieces." 6:24
Hosea
# God (or Hosea?) tells his children that their mother is a whore who is not his wife. He asks them to tell their mother to "put away her whoredoms" and "her adulteries from between her breasts" or he'll "strip her naked ... and slay her with thirst." 2:2-3
# God will tear up Ephraim like a lion so that "in their affliction they will seek me." 5:14
# "Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them!" 7:13
# For ignoring God "their princes shall fall by the sword." 7:16
# "I will send a fire upon his cities." 8:14
# God will induce miscarriages and kill the children of Ephraim. 9:11-12
# "O Lord: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts." 9:14
# "I will slay even the beloved fruit of their womb." 9:16
# God will punish Israel by "dashing" together mothers and their children. 10:14
# The blame for Ephraim's bloody destruction falls on Ephraim, not on God. Even though God is the one who brings it about. 12:14
# God will rip humans apart and then eat them like a lion.13:7-8
# Because the Samaritans chose to worship another deity, God will dash their infants to pieces and their "women with child shall be ripped up." 13:16
Joel
# "Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears." 3:10
Amos
# The divine pyromaniac threatens to "send fire unto" Hazael, Gaza, Tyrus, Teman, Rabbah, Moab, and Judah. 1:4, 7, 10, 12, 14; 2:2, 5
# God will "slay all the princes" of Moab.2:3
# God destroyed the Amorites who were a race of giants as tall as cedars and as strong as oaks. 2:9
# God afflicts the Israelites with "cleanness of teeth" (famine) and drought. And then he wonders why they don't turn to him. 4:6-9
# God sends the pestilence, kills young men with the sword, and makes t1e "stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils." 4:10
# God tells the Israelites to seek him or he'll kill 90% of them. 5:3-4
# Seek God or he'll burn you to death. 5:6
# When there is wailing and mourning, you'll know God's been there. 5:16-17
# In the first of Amos' visions, God makes some grasshoppers and sends them to devour the peoples' crops. 7:1-2
# Next God sends a fire that consumes both land and sea. 7:4
# God will kill the house of Jeroboam with the sword, and force the Israelites into captivity. 7:9-11
# Amos tells Amaziah that his wife will become a whore, his children will be killed, and he'll die in a pagan country. 7:17
# God tells Amos that the end has come for the people of Israel. He won't wait any longer to kill them all. 8:2
# God will kill so many people that dead bodies will lay everywhere. 8:3-14
# God will "slay the last of them with the sword." Any that try to escape by diving to the bottom of the sea will be bitten, at God's command, by a serpent. God will set his "eyes upon them for evil, not for good." 9:1-4
# God will destroy the "the sinful kingdom" and "all the sinners" among his people. 9:8-10
Obadiah
# The Israelites hear "a rumor from the Lord" telling them to start a war with the Edomites. 1, 8
# God tells Israelites to "destroy the wise men out of Edom" and to slaughter "everyone of the mount of Esau." 8-9
# God will burn all the heathen to death, "for the LORD hath spoken it." 16-18
Micah
# God will destroy Samaria with stones. 1:6
# Plucking off skin, flesh from bones, eating human flesh, flaying off skin, breaking bones, chopping bodies in pieces, making human stew. All this and more will happen to God's favorite people. But when they "cry unto the Lord, he will not hear them." 3:2-4
# God will strengthen the Israelites so they can "beat in pieces many peoples" and give the booty to God. 4:13
# "They shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword." 5:6
# Like a young lion "the remnant of Jacob" will tear the Gentiles to pieces. 5:8
# "Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off." 5:9
# God will "cut off" the witches and soothsayers. 5:11-12
# God will destroy entire cities, and "execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen such as they have not heard." 5:14-15
# God will make his people sick, hungry, and desolate. Those who survive he will "give up to the sword." 6:13-16
# The Gentiles will be made deaf, shall lick dust and be forced to crawl like worms from fear of God and his people. 7:16-17
Nahum
# God doesn't just get even. He drowns his enemies. 1:8
# "Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots." 2:13
# "There is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcasses; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses." Now that's a lot of dead people. 3:3
# God punished Nineveh by enslaving the people and smashing the little children in the streets. 3:10
# God says that "the fire shall devour thee, the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm." 3:15
Habakkuk
# "Before him [God] went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet." 3:3-5
# Habakkuk praises God for slaughtering "the heathen." 3:12
Zephaniah
# God plans to kill every living thing. 1:2-3
# God will "cut off" all those who "have not sought the Lord" or who worship another god. 1:4-6
# God will "bring distress upon men" so that they "walk like blind men." He will pour out their blood like dust and "their flesh as dung." 1:17
# God will kill all the inhabitants of the sea coast. 2:5
# God will destroy Moab and Ammon just like he did to Sodom and Gomorrah. 2:9
# God will be "terrible" to humans and will "famish all the gods." 2:11
# God will kill the Ethiopians with his own sword. 2:12
# God destroyed entire cities, killing all the inhabitants. 3:6
# "All of the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy." 3:8
Haggai
# God will make the horses and their riders be killed by "the sword of his brother." 2:22
Zechariah
# "For I set all men every one against his neighbor." 8:10
# God will cast out Tyrus and devour it with fire. 9:4
# God will mercilessly "feed the flock of slaughter" by making every one kill his neighbor. 11:6
# "Let the rest eat every one the flesh of another." 11:9
# "Woe to the idle shepherd." He will be mutilated and blinded. 11:17
# God will open his eyes and smite "every rider with madness ... and every horse ... with blindness." 12:4
# A prophet must be killed by his own parents by "thrusting him through when he prophesieth." 13:3
# God will make "all nations" fight against Jerusalem. The women will be "ravished" and half its people enslaved. 14:1-2
# God will smite the people with plagues that will cause their flesh, eyes, and tongues to rot away. 14:12
# God will make everyone fight and kill his neighbor. 14:13
# God sends his plagues on animals too. 14:15
# Whoever survives all these plagues and slaughters must worship God. 14:16
# God will "smite the heathen" with a plague. 14:18
Malachi
# God continues to demand animal sacrifices. And not just any animals will do. He is insulted when blind, lame, or sick animals are killed for him. 1:8, 13-14
# God will burn "the wicked" and the "righteous" will walk around on their ashes. 4:1-3
# The Old Testament ends fittingly with these words: "lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." 4:6
# God will burn "the wicked" and the "righteous" will walk around on their ashes. 25:1-3
Matthew
# Those who bear bad fruit will be cut down and burned "with unquenchable fire." 3:10, 12
# Jesus strongly approves of the law and the prophets. He hasn't the slightest objection to the cruelties of the Old Testament. 5:17
# Jesus recommends that to avoid sin we cut off our hands and pluck out our eyes. This advice is given immediately after he says that anyone who looks with lust at any women commits adultery. 5:29-30
# Jesus says that most people will go to hell. 7:13-14
# Those who fail to bear "good fruit" will be "hewn down, and cast into the fire." 7:19
# "The children of the kingdom [the Jews] shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 8:12
# Jesus tells a man who had just lost his father: "Let the dead bury the dead." 8:21
# Jesus sends some devils into a herd of pigs, causing them to run off a cliff and drown in the waters below. 8:32
# Cities that neither "receive" the disciples nor "hear" their words will be destroyed by God. It will be worse for them than for Sodom and Gomorrah. And you know what God supposedly did to those poor folks (see Gen.19:24). 10:14-15
# Families will be torn apart because of Jesus (this is one of the few "prophecies" in the Bible that has actually come true). "Brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." 10:21
# Jesus says that we should fear God who is willing and "able to destroy both soul and body in hell." 10:28
# Jesus says that he has come to destroy families by making family members hate each other. He has "come not to send peace, but a sword." 10:34-36
# Jesus condemns entire cities to dreadful deaths and to the eternal torment of hell because they didn't care for his preaching. 11:20-24
# Jesus will send his angels to gather up "all that offend" and they "shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." 13:41-42, 50
# Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees for not washing his hands before eating. He defends himself by attacking them for not killing disobedient children according to the commandment: "He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death." (See Ex.21:15, Lev.20:9, Dt.21:18-21) So, does Jesus think that children who curse their parents should be killed? It sure sounds like it. 15:4-7
# Jesus advises his followers to mutilate themselves by cutting off their hands and plucking out their eyes. He says it's better to be "maimed" than to suffer "everlasting fire." 18:8-9
# "And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors." 18:34
# In the parable of the marriage feast, the king sends his servants to gather everyone they can find, both bad and good, to come to the wedding feast. One guest didn't have on his wedding garment, so the king tied him up and "cast him into the outer darkness" where "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 22:12-13
# Jesus had no problem with the idea of drowning everyone on earth in the flood. It'll be just like that when he returns. 24:37
# God will come when people least expect him and then he'll "cut them asunder." And "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 24:50-51
# The servant who kept and returned his master's talent was cast into the "outer darkness" where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth." 25:30
# Jesus tells us what he has planned for those that he dislikes. They will be cast into an "everlasting fire." 25:41
# Jesus says the damned will be tormented forever. 25:46
Mark
# Jesus explains why he speaks in parables: to confuse people so they will go to hell. 4:11-12
# Jesus sends devils into 2000 pigs, causing them to jump off a cliff and be drowned in the sea. When the people hear about it, they beg Jesus to leave. 5:12-13
# Any city that doesn't "receive" the followers of Jesus will be destroyed in a manner even more savage than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. 6:11
# Jesus criticizes the Jews for not killing their disobedient children as required by Old Testament law. (See Ex.21:15, Lev.20:9, Dt.21:18-21) 7:9-10
# If you're ashamed of Jesus, he'll be ashamed of you. (And you'll go straight to hell.) 8:38
# Jesus tells us to cut off our hands and feet, and pluck out our eyes to avoid going to hell. 9:43-49
# Jesus says that those that believe and are baptized will be saved, while those who don't will be damned. 16:16
Luke
# God strikes Zacharias dumb for doubting the angel Gabriel's words. 1:20
# Those who fail to bear "good fruit" will be "hewn down, and cast into the fire." 3:9
# John the Baptist says that Christ will burn the damned "with fire unquenchable." 3:17
# Jesus heals a naked man who was possessed by many devils by sending the devils into a herd of pigs, causing them to run off a cliff and drown in the sea. This messy, cruel, and expensive (for the owners of the pigs) treatment did not favorably impress the local residents, and Jesus was asked to leave. 8:27-37
# Jesus says that entire cities will be violently destroyed and the inhabitants "thrust down to hell" for not "receiving" his disciples. 10:10-15
# Jesus says that we should fear God since he has the power to kill us and then torture us forever in hell. 12:5
# Jesus says that God is like a slave-owner who beats his slaves "with many stripes." 12:46-47
# According to Jesus, only a few will be saved; the vast majority will suffer eternally in hell where "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 13:23-30
# In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man goes to hell, because as Abraham explains, he had a good life on earth and so now he will be tormented. Whereas Lazarus, who was miserable on earth, is now in heaven. This seems fair to Jesus. 16:19-31
# Jesus believed the story of Noah's ark. He thought it really happened and had no problem with the idea of God drowning everything and everybody. 17:26-27
# Jesus also believes the story about Noah's flood and Sodom's destruction. He says, "even thus shall it be in the day the son of man is revealed ... Remember Lot's wife." This tells us about Jesus' knowledge of science and history, and his sense of justice. 17:29-32
# In the parable of the talents, Jesus says that God takes what is not rightly his, and reaps what he didn't sow. The parable ends with the words: "bring them [those who preferred not to be ruled by him] hither, and slay them before me." 19:22-27
John
# As an example to parents everywhere and to save the world (from himself), God had his own son tortured and killed. 3:16
# People are damned or saved depending only on what they believe. 3:18, 36
# The "wrath of God" is on all unbelievers. 3:36
# Jesus believes people are crippled by God as a punishment for sin. He tells a crippled man, after healing him, to "sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." 5:14
# Those who do not believe in Jesus will be cast into a fire to be burned. 15:6
# Jesus says we must eat his flesh and drink his blood if we want to have eternal life. This idea was just too gross for "many of his disciples" and "walked no more with him." 6:53-66
Acts
# Peter claims that Dt.18:18-19 refers to Jesus, saying that those who refuse to follow him (all non-Christians) must be killed. 3:23
# Peter and God scare Ananias and his wife to death for not forking over all of the money that they made when selling their land. 5:1-10
# Peter has a dream in which God show him "wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls." The voice (God's?) says, "Rise, Peter: kill and eat." 10:10-13
# Peter describes the vision that he had in the last chapter (10:10-13). All kinds of beasts, creeping things, and fowls drop down from the sky in a big sheet, and a voice (God's, Satan's?) tells him to "Arise, Peter; slay and eat." 11:5-6
# The "angel of the Lord" killed Herod by having him "eaten of worms" because "he gave not God the glory." 12:23
# David was "a man after [God's] own heart." 13:22
# The author of Acts talks about the "sure mercies of David." But David was anything but merciful. For an example of his behavior see 2 Sam.12:31 and 1 Chr.20:3, where he saws, hacks, and burns to death the inhabitants of several cities. 13:34
# Paul and the Holy Ghost conspire together to make Elymas (the sorcerer) blind. 13:8-11
Romans
# Homosexuals (those "without natural affection") and their supporters (those "that have pleasure in them") are "worthy of death." 1:31-32
# The guilty are "justified" and "saved from wrath" by the blood of an innocent victim. 5:9
# God punishes everyone for someone else's sin; then he saves them by killing an innocent victim. 5:12
>1 Corinthians
# If you defile the temple of God, God will destroy you. 3:17
# Paul claims that God killed 23,000 in a plague for "committing whoredom with the daughters of Moab 10:8
# If you tempt Christ (How could you tempt Christ?), you'll will die from snake bites. 10:9
# If you murmur, you'll be destroyed by the destroyer (God). 10:10
Ephesians
# We are predestined by God to go to either heaven or hell. None of our thoughts, words, or actions can affect the final outcome. 1:4-5, 11
# God had his son murdered to keep himself from hurting others for things they didn't do. 1:7
# The bloody death of Jesus smelled good to God. 5:2
# Those who refuse to obey will face the wrath of God. 5:6
Colossians
# God bought us with someone else's blood. 1:14
# God makes peace through blood. 1:19-20
1 Thessalonians
# God is planning a messy, mass murder in "the wrath to come" and only Jesus can save you from it. 1:10
2 Thessalonians
# Jesus will take "vengeance on them that know not God" by burning them forever "in flaming fire." 1:7-9
# Jesus will "consume" the wicked "with the spirit of his mouth." 2:8
# God will cause us to believe lies so that he can damn our souls to hell. 2:11-12
Hebrews
# God will not forgive us unless we shed the blood of some innocent creature. 9:13-14, 22
# Those who disobeyed the Old Testament law were killed without mercy. It will be much worse for those who displease Jesus. 10:28-29
# God ordered animals to be "stoned, or thrust through with a dart" if they "so much as ... touch the mountain." 12:20
James
# If you are merciless to others, God will be merciless to you. (Two wrongs make a right.) 2:13
# James says Abraham was justified by works (for being willing to kill his son for God); Paul (Rom.4:2-3) says he was justified by faith (for believing that God would order him to do such an evil act). 2:21
1 Peter
# We are all, according to Peter, predestined to be saved or damned. We have no say in the matter. It was all determined by "the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."1:2
# "The precious blood of Christ ... was foreordained before the foundation of the world."
God planned to kill Jesus from the get-go. 1:19-20
# God drowned drowned everyone on earth except for Noah and his family. 3:20
2 Peter
# God drowned everyone else on earth except for Noah and his family. 2:5, 3:6
# God will set the entire earth on fire so that he can burn non-believers to death. 3:7
# When Jesus returns, he'll burn up the whole earth and everything on it. 3:10
1 John
# Jesus' blood washes away human sin. 1:7
Jude
# "The Lord destroyed them that believed not. 5
Revelation
# Jesus "washed us ... with his own blood." 1:5
# Everyone on earth will wail because of Jesus. 1:7
# Jesus has "the keys of hell and death." 1:18
# Repent -- or else Jesus will fight you with the sword that sticks out of his mouth. (Like the limbless knight in Monty Python's "Holy Grail.") 2:16
# "I [Jesus] will kill her children with death." 2:23
# "Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." God created predators, pathogens, and predators for his very own pleasure. One of his favorite species is guinea worms. 4:11
# God gives someone on a white horse a bow and sends him out to conquer people. 6:2
# God gave power to someone on a red horse "to take from the earth ... that they should kill one another." 6:4
# God tells Death and Hell to kill one quarter of the earth's population with the sword, starvation, and "with the beasts of the earth." 6:8
# The martyrs just can't wait until everyone else is slaughtered. God gives them a white robe and tells them to wait until he's done with his killing spree. 6:10-11
# God tells his murderous angels to "hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of your God on their foreheads." This verse is one that Christians like to use to show God's loving concern for the environment. But the previous verse (7:2) makes it clear that it was their God-given job to "hurt the earth and the sea" just as soon as they finished their forehead marking job. 7:3
# 144,000 Jews will be going to heaven; everyone else is going to hell. 7:4
# Those that survive the great tribulation will get to wash their clothes in the blood of the lamb. 7:14
# God sends his angels to destroy a third part of all the trees, grass, sea creature, mountains, sun, moon, starts, and water. 8:7-13
# "Many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." 8:11
# The angels are instructed not to "hurt the grass [how could they? He already had all the grass killed in 8:7] ... but only those men which have not the seal of God on their foreheads." God tells his angels not to kill them, but rather torment them with scorpions for five months. Those tormented will want to die, but God won't let them. 9:4-6
# God makes some horse-like locusts with human heads, women's hair, lion's teeth, and scorpion's tails. They sting people and hurt them for five months. 9:7-10
# Four angels, with an army of 200 million, killed a third of the earth's population. 9:15-19
# Anyone that messes with God's two olive trees and two candlesticks (God's witnesses) will be burned to death by fire that comes out of their mouths. 11:3-5
# God's witnesses have special powers. They can shut up heaven so that it cannot rain, turn rivers into blood, and smite the earth with plagues "as often as they will." 11:6
# After God's witnesses "have finished their testimony," they are killed in a war with a beast from a bottomless pit. 11:7
# Their dead bodies lie unburied for three and a half days. People will "rejoice over them and make merry, and shall send gifts to one another." After another three and half days God brings his witnesses back to life and they ascend into heaven. 11:8-12
# When the witnesses ascend into heaven, an earthquake kills 7000 men. This was the second woe. "The third woe cometh quickly." 11:13-14
# "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world"
God planned to kill Jesus before he created the world. 13:8
# Those who receive the mark of the beast will "drink of the wine of the wrath of God ... and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone ... and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." 14:10-11
# "The great winepress of the wrath of God ... was trodden ... and the blood cam out of the winepress, even unto the horses bridles." 14:19-20
# Seven angels with seven plagues are filled with the wrath of God. 15:1, 15:7
# The seven vials of wrath: 1) sores, 2) sea turned to blood, 3) rivers turned to blood, 4) people scorched with fire, 5) people gnaw their tongues in pain, 6) Euphrates dries up, 7) thunder, lightning, earthquake, and hail. 16:1-21
# God gave the saints and prophets blood to drink. 16:6
# "They shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire." (Are they going to eat her first and then burn her?) 17:16-17
# To punish her God will send plagues and famine, and "she will be utterly burned with fire." 18:8
# God will send plagues, death, and famine on Babylon, and the kings "who have committed fornication with her" will be sad to see her burn. 18:8-9
# Jesus makes war. 19:11
# With eyes aflame, many crowns on his head, clothes dripping with blood, a sword sticking out of his mouth, and a secret name, Jesus leads the faithful into holy war. 19:12-15
# "Come ... unto the supper of the great God." An angel calls all the fowls to feast upon the flesh of dead horses and human bodies, "both free and bond, both small and great." 19:17-18
# The beast and the false prophet are cast alive into a lake of fire. The rest were killed with the sword of Jesus. "And all the fowls were filled with their flesh." 19:20-21
# God will send fire from heaven to devour people. And the devil will be tormented "day and night for ever and ever." 20:9-10
# Whoever isn't found listed in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire. 20:15
# All liars, as well as those who are fearful or unbelieving, will be cast into "the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." 21:8
Nice guy that god, but like I said, here he is doing all the dirty work not his followers.
About jezus going to war, there is some controversy here. Many claimed to be the messias, and in later translations it became jezus. These texts probably refer to Bar Kochba, who led a rebellion against the romans.
KukriKhan
06-06-2007, 14:36
Fascinating exchange fellas. For the readers' sake, can we bring this back around to the Efficacy of Torture?
Good idea, it's obvious that just arguing isn't enough to convince this Zakniefin fellow.
ow okok :creep:
KafirChobee
06-08-2007, 06:30
Er, one last comment on this exchange. You do know that the Old Testament is a part of Islam, as well as Christianity?
Zak won, btw. :smg: ~:argue: :hmg:
Papewaio
06-08-2007, 11:05
What a laugh. Comparing our invasion of Iraq to Germanys attack in ww2 is ludicrous. Its almost as bad as comparing our invasion of Iraq to the Invasion of Normandy. I hate to say it but its one of the craziest positions Ive ever witnessed here.
You also have no basis to make such a statement. I could claim if it were a christian nation it would be paradise and have just as much credabilty since I have no idea if it would or would not. Looking at the world today most people would imagine it allmer under christians. Its just about the most violent place on earth for Petes sake. It cant get much worse. I am not saying their right. Just Ill bet most people would side with me. Few see Islam as more peacful than christianity these days except select members of these boards and Rosie Odonell.
What I am saying is that when a country is taken over you can expect resistance regardless of the religion or secular nature of the nation. There are plenty of examples of non-muslim groups putting up a very fierce resistance to an invading force. I'm not saying that Christian's are out crusading... I'm saying that when a country is invaded the locals and others tend to get a their backs up more then would be expected based on how they normally do things... and it seems to be more of an emotional response then one based on a system of thought... Heck look at Ireland and how long it went fighting on, then look at Northern Ireland... it would seem to be a bit long to be practical and not really based on turning the other cheek... the Swiss are one of the most 'docile'/nice/gracious/well mannered/learned people of Europe, but I'd be an idiot to invade that country as they have a fierce reputation of turning back invaders...doesn't even the Geneva convention recognise this trait in humans? That people will spontaneously rise to fight an invading force... I don't think that was written in to just account for muslims... we are a territorial bunch and tend to be very protective of our home turf.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-08-2007, 13:42
What I am saying is that when a country is taken over you can expect resistance regardless of the religion or secular nature of the nation.
We didnt exactly take it over.
There are plenty of examples of non-muslim groups putting up a very fierce resistance to an invading force.
Not in Iraq :beam:
They are not fighting to get us to leave but to start a war and take the country for themselves. Its a war again of Muslim vs Muslim over religion.
Er, one last comment on this exchange. You do know that the Old Testament is a part of Islam, as well as Christianity?
The Koran is mostly plagerisim of the bible.
Zaknafien
06-08-2007, 14:00
Uh, you're wrong. There are sectarian sects fighthing for local control, but the majority of the Iraqi insurgency are local people opposing the occupation government. Normal guys without jobs and whose families are starving or being killed in the violence. I know, I was there. I also have dozens of friends who are there right now. This is not a "Islam hates America" war. That's blatant propaganda.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-08-2007, 14:28
There are sectarian sects fighthing for local control
How many non muslims are there fighting for control. Wouldnt that be stupid since they know they have no chance in a Muslim nation. The main battle is between the sunnis and the shias as usual with us stuck in the middle.
This is not a "Islam hates America" war. That's blatant propaganda.
I said its a Islam hates Islam war. Learn to read.
Zaknafien
06-08-2007, 14:33
Hm, if that's the case, then why has Moqtada declared that all violence against Sunni brethren is prohibited?
Gawain of Orkeny
06-08-2007, 14:37
Do you really need a reply to that?
Zaknafien
06-08-2007, 14:42
No, I could think of many reasons. But your overgeneralizaton of the Iraq conflict is just that. It is much more involved than a religious war. Certainly Shiite consciousness has risen dramatically since 2003 and will continue to do so. But the Shiite militia groups are only one factor of the conflict, as are the AQIZ cells in the country. These are smaller groups. The majority of resistance fighers are normal moderate Iraqis, former civlians and former military, all working together against the occupation forces.
There are hundreds of normal men and young boys even, who fight against the occupation because they have nothing else to do. there is an entire generation that has grown up knowing nothing but war and violence. There are men whose families are starving and they are willing to place a few IEDs or lob a mortar or three on the Americans for a wad of money to buy food. They have nothing against Americans, but are resentful of the occupation nontheless, and, most importantly, are committed to survival.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-08-2007, 14:44
Look if the sunnis stopped fightings the shias we would be out of there in a few months. Give it up.
Zaknafien
06-08-2007, 14:46
On the contrary, if that happened, we would be ******, because the combined forces of both would overthrow the puppet government and overrun several occupation military outposts.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-08-2007, 14:53
On the contrary, if that happened, we would be ******, because the combined forces of both would overthrow the puppet government and overrun several occupation military outposts.
Why would they have to. They could vote it out. You really think if left a miracle would happen and they would no longer kill eachother. Keeping the peace was the only thing Saddam was good for.
Zaknafien
06-08-2007, 14:55
well first of all theyre not going to quit fighting. Sunnis hate Shias. Sunnis are among the most, for lack of a better term, racist people in the world. They refer to the Shia as fleas, insects, monkeys. Shias on the other hand believe the end of the world is nearly at hand, and that Sunnis will receive their final day of reckoning for centuries of persecuting them. Hence the crazy talk by AJ in Iran.
Gawain of Orkeny
06-08-2007, 15:03
My you are a mighty conflicted man. Now you agree with me.
KafirChobee
06-09-2007, 06:13
Er, what happened to the "efficacy of torture"?
Btw, Gawain, pull up your pants - your crack is showing again.
:beam:
Gawain of Orkeny
06-09-2007, 14:04
Btw, Gawain, pull up your pants - your crack is showing again.
Im just following your lead you trend setter.
KukriKhan
06-09-2007, 14:53
Er, what happened to the "efficacy of torture"?
I guess you're right - we've said all there is to be said on the topic, for now anyway. Side conversations about religion and war can/should go to other threads.
So: thanks for all contributions. Closed. :bow:
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