Can A God Commit Genocide?

[keilj]

I am speaking more about the Christian idea of a Creator - not Zeus and his bunch.

Suppose a Creator wiped out a whole group of people. Does the fact that he is a deity make him transcend the culpability of such an act?

I use genocide - but what really made me think about this topic is how a natural disaster can wipe out 60,000 souls in one swoop - while even humans with war would, typically, take a while to amass that kind of kill total

But again, does being a deity put one beyond the concepts of blame for killing your own creations

[Hawkman]

Well, assuming one actually believes in a creator God, especially in the Judeo Christian monothiestic belief systems, the the answer is obviously yes. Can one assign humanistic morality to a diety? The answer is probably no. It would depend, I suppose, to what extent one accepts that man was created in God's own image. Given the irrationality of man, then, if we are imbued with all the characteristics of our creator, why should the creator not be capable of humanly irrational acts of willful, wanton destruction? As for how many people, people can knock off in one go, the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the first day of the Battle of the Somme must rate fairly high on the list. I accept though, that in recent years, we seem, as a species, to have been behaving with admirable restraint. 2 or 3 thousand in one go would appear to be the current limit.

[keilj]

Good answer. And you hit on a point that I have pondered as well. The issue of man being created in God's image - and how, for example, the Old Testament has many examples of God's petty wrath and impulsive killing of his own creations.

You're right about the nukes that the U.S. dropped on Japan. Though, I'm sure if the guys in Somalia had nukes instead of machetes back in the late 90's- we would have seen some real sparks fly

I suppose the culpability issue of a creator might come down to the "created in His image" notion. That is, if we are culpable for our own acts, why shouldn't the model after which we were copied (God) be culpable for His

I guess, even if He is, there's no one higher up the food chain to punish Him

[Des Essientes]

The Judeo-Christian God of the Old Testament commited genocide- the flood, Sodom and Gommorah, the Egyptian Plagues, etc., and he ordered the Hebrews to commit genocide against the Canaanites as well. The OP is sorely misguided when he wants to exclude Pagan dieties from the conversation because he assumes that they would be more inclined to be genocidal. Zeus, while not wanting man to have fire, never wiped mankind out because of disobedience. He rather kept recreating humanity after mankind wiped itself out.

[keilj]

The Judeo-Christian God of the Old Testament commited genocide- the flood, Sodom and Gommorah, the Egyptian Plagues, etc., and he ordered the Hebrews to commit genocide against the Canaanites as well. The OP is sorely misguided when he wants to exclude Pagan dieties from the conversation because he assumes that they would be more inclined to be genocidal. Zeus, while not wanting man to have fire, never wiped mankind out because of disobedience. He rather kept recreating humanity after mankind wiped itself out.

I don't mind including pagan gods. I just didn't want this to get too far away from real implications.

Twain wrote a great, scathing piece about the flood - how Noah must have been crawling and bubbling with infirmities, in order to keep every parasite and hookworm and bilious disease alive. It's a great piece in his Letters from Earth novel

[Theunderground]

'GOD',the most ludicrous idea ever conceived my man. Just a cursory analysis of life experience reveals his non existence. Even the concept of a 'pagan pantheon' is ludicrous upon a closer inspection of reality or 'cause and effect'.
And the fact is that god has been created in mans image,and particularly nasty,bigoted men have revelled at that.Thats not to say that religion is the cause of bloodshed,religion is the effect not the cause. The cause is egotistical men with access to power. The shame is that 'good' people have also been infected with this lethal life sapping theology. I think as poverty decreases and life improves people will listen less to theologians and warmongerers.

[Brett Cottrell]

Sometimes Homer has the best answers. As in Homer Simpson:
"Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?"...

Can a God commit genocide depends largely on your framework. Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Pagan...I would think some gods are more good or evil or more or less powerful - some may not even be able to microwave a burrito at all.

And then, if there is such a thing as a singular creator, I don't think my mind could comprehend it. I think a lot of myself, but I'm not that smart.

[cafolini]

Well, genocide is something that's commited by man against man. Otherwise it's called natural desaster.
But I can guarantee you that whenever there has been genocide, it has been led and followed through by some god and a bunch of angels.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are small events compared to what Hitler and his angels left in the slaughterhouse. 100,000,000 if we count both civilian an military. Napoleon is calcualted at 200,000,000.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki counted for about 200,000. But to invade Japan in 1945 would have cost 500,000 Americans plus millions of Japanese smashed by heavy artillery from the sea and aircraft raids from Iwojima.
It's obvious that the improvements in nunbers that followed in the 21st century are due to the power of self destruction more than anything else. The Japanese did not surrender with Hiroshima, and the Nagasaki that followed a few days later still left then uncertain. But the Japanese aristocracy had to adapt to the news that the next time it was going to be on top of their own palaces as well as everywhere else. So they finally did what was logical and surrendered unconditionally.
It seems that the atomic age is also an age of inevitable negotiations when it comes to world wars.

[Ecurb]

Napoleon is calcualted at 200,000,000.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki counted for about 200,000. .

Since the population of Europe was about 150 million in 1800, this seems highly unlikely. Of course Hitler did not slaughter 100 million (the estimated number of deaths from WW2), since that number includes military and civilian deaths in the Pacific Theater, for which Hitler can take neither credit nor blame.

[cafolini]

You are thinking of Napoleon in Europe. Obviously you don't know that Napoleon invaded Russia and got to Moscow. Ignorance is no excuse to speak boldly. Regarding Hitler, the civilian deads and the handicaps physical and psicological the Germans left, including their own communities are calculated at that number by umbiased probability analysis. On record are 50,000,000. But that's like saying that those who went to the fire during the times of the inquisition are 32,000 because that's the Church's record. We know that there is a high probability, based on the narrations of those present in the unrecorded wilderness, the number was many many times higher. If we are going to talk about Japan, a stern allied of Hitler, in the Shoganish empire with a highly concentrated population of 100,000,000 in the small islands, it is likely that many many million died in the main island as a result of the tons upon tons of firebombs dropped there, totally unaccounted. Less accounted than all the great Sunamis. You should not jump so fast without investigating upon a horse too wild for your knowledge.

[Scheherazade]

~

Please do not personalise your comments.

Posts containing personal/inflammatory/off-topic remarks will be removed without further notice.

~

[Ecurb]

You are thinking of Napoleon in Europe. Obviously you don't know that Napoleon invaded Russia and got to Moscow. Ignorance is no excuse to speak boldly. Regarding Hitler, the civilian deads and the handicaps physical and psicological the Germans left, including their own communities are calculated at that number by umbiased probability analysis. On record are 50,000,000. But that's like saying that those who went to the fire during the times of the inquisition are 32,000 because that's the Church's record. We know that there is a high probability, based on the narrations of those present in the unrecorded wilderness, the number was many many times higher. If we are going to talk about Japan, a stern allied of Hitler, in the Shoganish empire with a highly concentrated population of 100,000,000 in the small islands, it is likely that many many million died in the main island as a result of the tons upon tons of firebombs dropped there, totally unaccounted. Less accounted than all the great Sunamis. You should not jump so fast without investigating upon a horse too wild for your knowledge.

The last time I looked, Moscow was in Europe, and has been since before 1812.

Here's the wiki page on WW2 casualties, which shows that of the estimate 62 to 79 million total deaths, 18 to 29 million were in the Pacific Theater. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

Here WKI links the total civilian and military deaths attrbutable to the Napoleonic wars as between 3.25 million and 6.5 million. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars_casualties

That's a far cry from 200 million -- which would have constituted the entire population of Europe, although, acc. this wiki article, some 3 million souls may have survived. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

[cafolini]

The last time I looked, Moscow was in Europe, and has been since before 1812. [/url]

I see, excuse my ignorance. It's not the first time that I pose as an idiot. Sorry.

[Des Essientes]

If, as some have written above, the genocide of human peoples can only be committed by humans, and never by God because gods and humans are not of the same genus, then we still could answer this thread's query affirmatively, if we agree that there is a "divine genus", for gods slay each other in the stories we have of them. Perhaps one may even pin charges of genocide on the most famous God by saying that the monotheistic Abrahamic God has slain myriad pantheons, all over the world, by supplanting their worship and consigning them to either oblivion or demonhood.

[cafolini]

If, as some have written above, the genocide of human peoples can only be committed by humans, and never by God because gods and humans are not of the same genus, then we still could answer this thread's query affirmatively, if we agree that there is a "divine genus", for gods slay each other in the stories we have of them. Perhaps one may even pin charges of genocide on the most famous God by saying that the monotheistic Abrahamic God has slain myriad pantheons, all over the world, by supplanting their worship and consigning them to either oblivion or demonhood.

Not a single live demon has been seen. Yet the astonishing hypothesis is that they exsted without qualification.
And in the age of science to say that there is a divine genus might be even more astonishing. Where do you get your information? But it is okay to believe it as well as disbelieve it, just so long as you don't know it. The latter would definitely be psychotic.