Robert Spencer, in his book, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)" [Washington, D.C.: Regency Publishing Inc., 2005, pp. 28-30, 145, 169] makes nauseatingly immoral rationalizations for canonized "God-ordained" Biblical killing of non-believers; of their children; of women of the enemy who are known to have had sex with men; and of "anything that breathes"--on the grounds that the slaughter was selective in nature.

Before attempting to excuse such inexcusable war crime-level inhumanity, Spencer first quotes the Bible's horrifically bloody passages in question:

--"When the LORD your God brings you into the land when you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canannites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you. And when the LORD your GOd delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenat with them and show no favor to them" (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)

--"When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, than all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you. However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all men in it with the edge of the sword. Only the women and children and the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you. Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes." (Deuteronomy 20:10-17)

--"Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has know man intitmately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves." (Numbers 31:17-18)
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Now comes the stunningly awful apologetics for a Bible believer's embrace of God-ordained murder:

"Strong stuff, right? . . .

"Wrong. Unless you happen to be a Hittite, Girgashite, Amorite, Canannite, Perizzite, Hivite, or Jebusite, these Biblical passages simply do not apply to you. . . . The Old Testament . . . records commands to the Israelites to make war against particular people only. That is jarring to modern sensibilities, to be sure, but . . . Jews and Christians haven't formed terror groups around the world that quote these Scriptures to justify killing civilian non-combatants."

(Oh, and the author then goes on to declare that "[t]he Crusades do not deserve the opprobrium of the world, but . . . the world's gratitude," arguing that they "may have made the full flowering of European civilization possible." Spencer further insists that contrary to "widespread" belief, "Pope John Paul II never [clearly] apologized for the Crusades"--which Spencer says was a good thing since "given the true history of the Crusades, such an apology would not have been warranted").

(see also: "The Crusades," at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEFP5yBBBME; "Crusades," from 20-installment series, British Broadcasting Corporation, at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERKDI-exAoE ; and "The Crusades: The Crescent and the Cross," from 10-part series, WorldNews, at: http://wn.com/the_crusades_crescent_and_the_cross_ep_1_part_3_of_10)
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There you have it.

As long as a crusading God is only ordering the targeted slaughtering of men; women; children; women who have had sex with men of the enemy; and/or "anything that breathes" in particular cities, it's OK.

In fact, it more than OK.

It's God's will.

Sleep well, all you Bible believers.



Edited 32 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2011 06:59PM by steve benson.

Apparently this guy hasn't heard of the State of Israel.

Exactly, sonoma. The state of Israel, and also every lying, leading rabbi that lives there. This Spencer is a blatantly lying tool.

"Jews and Christians haven't formed terror groups around the world that quote these Scriptures to justify killing civilian non-combatants."

Here's how I see it.

If someone believes the OT even in part, they have the problem of cherry picking out the "nice god" actions from the "evil god" actions. Usually they will say something like, "Well, that was just the interpretation and history of the people- not really literal of course."

If this is true, there is NO REASON to accept the OT as anything but the made up mythology of the culture who wrote it. Of course THEY are the chosen people- it's THEIR mythology. Duh.

So, dismissing the OT god or making excuses for him does not bode well for the New Testament claims. Christians have tied the human god Jesus to the OT god. So, by default, they have to accept that the OT god, with his psychopathic behavior is divine too.

(I'm not including the Christians who claim to be Christian yet don't actually believe Jesus was divine. They have cherry picked the whole thing to death and seem to be groping to identify with Christianity at all, IMO.)

It's kind of like Mormons making claims that require the flood to be literal yet they want to make the flood allegory.

So, the average Bible believer is stuck with being an apologetic for the OT god, because the NT god was spun from it. There's nothing funnier than listening to a Christian cherry pick the traits of the OT god then explain how Jesus is all about love.

I was busy composing my reply and hadn't read any of these before I posted. Dagny hits on the tricky bits. My attitude to the OT has generally been to gloss over it (boring, annoying, repetitious, with some really dense people scattered about) and then to ignore it. At one point, I had a pastor who was well schooled in it (somewhat unusual, in my experience) and who really pushed it. I took a class with him and learned more about the allegorical parts and came to understand some of the themes (seizing on the ones I could identify with, such as the standing stones that bridged the gaps down through the generations - I like that poetic concept).

I admit this is simplistic and puts a lot on the highest shelf for a very long time. I haven't paid much attention to the OT, happy to dismiss it as "Old Law" and to move onto the "New" stuff in the NT. "God is Love". I was satisfied for a long time that that's all you really need to know.

I get your point - but - when thinking of representatives of Christianity, Robert Spencer doesn't leap to mind for me.

1. First, he's Catholic. {{jk}}

Spencer is affiliated with the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. (Ask a decidedly Protestant Christian like me to name an example of a Christian and my thoughts don't easily drift towards Catholic believers (no offence intended but that's just the way it goes when you're Prot).

Excerpt from Wiki (I know, there are more accurate and trustworthy sources but Wiki is quick and I'm in a hurry and it's useful for overviews if you fact-check where indicated):

"The Melkites, Byzantine Rite Catholics of mixed Middle Eastern and Greek origin, trace their history to the early Christians of Antioch, Syria, of the 1st century A.D., where Christianity was introduced by St. Peter."

2. Second, I don't think that objectivity is one of Spencer's most apparent characteristics:

Source - Wiki, as above (see link below):

"The Melkite Church has a high degree of ethnic homogeneity and the church's origins lie in the Near East,,,"

Between the environment of "ethnic homogeneity", the territories involved, and his apparent political and religious sympathies, I consider Spenser to be biased in the extreme. These factors obviously influence his interpretation of scriptures and religious belief.

Wiki article (s/a):

"Spencer believes "Islam contains violent and supremacist elements," and that "its various schools unanimously teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers"…"

I do have issue with religious believers of any stripe who do not see or accept parallels between their own beliefs and those of others. Spenser apparently actively advocates for subjugating people of certain ethnicities, wanting to christianize them (according to statements in Wiki article). When the religious blinkers are on, it is apparent that many believers are cognitively incapable of applying the same standard to themselves that they do to others. I don't see that his statement above about Islamists describes anything different than what he believes and intends himself, the only difference being that he holds his beliefs and interpretations to be true and those of others to be false. This is no proof of actual fact or fiction, but good luck trying to get radical believers to see that distinction.

3. Third, Spencer is militant (not my idea of a good Christian exemplar).

Wiki excerpt:

"Spencer has supported ...one of the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs during the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims and called for the reconquista of modern day Turkey and its transformation through ethnic cleansing of the whole peninsula; driving out its Muslim Turkish inhabitants and replacing them with Christians..."

4. Fourth, Spencer is extreme:

"His views are supported by Ann Coulter" (source: Wiki article, as above) – perhaps enough said.

5. Fifth, Spencer's interpretation is suspect (as above):

Karen Armstrong states that he “cherry-picks” his scriptural quotes (source: Wiki article, as above).

I respect Karen Armstrong and would give weight to her statements, although if it were crucial to me I would check it out for myself before coming to a definite conclusion that I felt confident was correct. (If I had the time I would look up examples if she gives any). But cherry-picking scripture is conclusive for me of unacceptable bias, which negates a person's knowledge, authority, scholarship and opinion in my eyes.

As for understanding the OT, that's a tricky one. My former pastor (Mennonite Brethren) was an OT scholar and my memory of Bible classes with him is that the OT includes a mix of history, fact, belief, myth, fable, allegory, and symbolism, all intertwined with a whole mess of people, places, events and irritating repetition of stupidity and cluelessness, as well as a lot of incomprehensible actions and circumstances. It was interesting in some ways to me but not my idea of the crux of Christianity. I speed-read through it and hoped never to return (which is difficult if your pastor is hooked on it more so than any other you've ever met so uses it regularly in his frequent sermons).

I skipped forward to the "two greatest commandments" and found that concept capsulized my idea of the Christian message and in that I found my comfort zone - the way I "do" Christianity in my life. I don't consider that murder, militancy and mayhem, or wars on non-Christians (or atheistic RfMers for that of it) represent Christianity. As for the OT debacles, I have no knowledge of who that "god" is or what the hell was the matter with all those warmongering people. I think the answer lies somewhere in the mix of historicity, interpretations, understanding and beliefs. I don't point to anyone as personifying the entirety of Christianity and an individual Christian's actions, statements, and beliefs do not constrain or define mine.

For me, it's Love God, Love your Neighbour, help out where you can and don't be an unnecessary burden but rather give back.

All this ethnic contention, extremism, hatred and militancy is sorrowful, shameful, stupid and bizarre to me. What a waste of the potential beauty of life. It's no kind of creed that I want to espouse or follow.

To Robert Spencer I would say give your head a shake, loosen up, and your version of Christianity is completely alien to me.

Whether a person is a "good Christian" or a poor example of the species doesn't prove anything one way or the other, of course. I think we can at least agree on that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Spencer_%28author%29



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2011 05:59PM by Nightingale.

. . . like any Christian nut who agrees with him in whole or in part on his wackier notions (and--who knows?--they may be legion).

By the way, his bio (as it appears on the back cover of the book in question) reads as follows:

"Robert Spencer is the director of 'Jihad Watch' and an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation. He is the author of four books on Islam, including 'Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith' (Encounter) and 'Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West' (Regency), as well as eight monographs and hundreds of articles. He lives in a Secure, Undisclosed Location."



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2011 05:55PM by steve benson.

So if he's a "religious nut" (as he would seem to be, indeed) does that mean I can get away with my take on it - that such is not a good example of a Christian, therefore, I don't have to spend a single second refuting his obviously stupid stuff?

For me, militancy alone negates one's Christian appellation.

But true enough, that's my own interpretation of how things should go.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2011 06:00PM by steve benson.

When the Missionaries come over I tell them I'm afraid of Mormons and that living among them terrifies me.

Of course they ask why.

I point out that the Mormons' holy book (which they consider "the most correct book on earth and the keystone of our religion") begins with the hero, an exemplar of righteousness, decapitating a man because a voice in his head told him to.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2011 06:55PM by baura.

The part about killing the little ones really sickens me.

I've heard apologists claim that it just means to destroy threatening ideology, but I'm not willing to concede that. I have read the chapter, Numbers 31, and the killings are in context.