An aggressive atheist asks Frank if he would kill his family if God told him to, and then further questions Frank about killing the Canaanites. What would you do? And isn’t God barbaric for ordering these things in the Old Testament?
dr sherek i’m only asking if you would
murder your wife or children to prove
your devotion
it’s a simple question i don’t know what
would happen and by the way
when god decides that someone should die
it’s not murder for him dr cherek
god commanded you to murder your wife or
children
to prove your faith in god is your
current devotion
not enough to prove your faith must you
murder your children
as abraham was instructed
this is a simple yes or no question i
don’t know what i would do in abraham’s
position
that’s a good question you know who
really struggled with that soren
kierkegaard who wrote a book called um
is your faith strong enough to murder
your own children or whatever
i’m thinking and since i’m from new
jersey it’s really hard for me to do so
give me a minute
uh the word the the book is called fear
and trembling by soren kierkegor
so i don’t know what i would do just
like i’m never going to say if somebody
put a gun to my head or a gun to my wife
said
what would you do because peter tried
that i’ll never deny you lord and what
did he do
he denied him three times yes that’s
crucifixion i don’t know what i would do
okay but let me point out if your friend
is an atheist there’s nothing wrong with
god doing anything because by atheism
there’s no standard of right and wrong
anyway
so in order for you to bring up the
objection you’re actually stealing a
standard from god
in order to try and say god doesn’t
exist dr sherek i’m only asking if you
would murder your wife or children to
prove your devotion
it’s a simple question i don’t know what
would happen and by the way
when god decides that someone should die
it’s not murder for him
because god kills all of us at some
point and he’s the only one that can
resurrect us
so we don’t have the right to murder
people but god has the right to kill
people anytime he wants he can strike me
down today tomorrow anytime he wants and
it’s completely in his prerogative
god has the right to slaughter the
amalekites down to the last man woman
and child
god has the right to take us out anytime
we want because if christianity is true
men don’t really die we just change
location
and god can do that any time he wants
thank you for your question
[Applause]
it is it it it is stunning to me
that massacre and genocide gets applaud
in this building
god demands slaughter massacre and
genocide
all right cody um there’s nothing wrong
with genocide if atheism is true
are you serious if atheism’s true there
is nothing wrong with genocide
i am an atheist and i oppose genocide
every possible
in every way but that’s just your
personal opinion because there’s no
standard beyond you
which says it’s wrong the standard that
says is correct
that i will help my fellow human up to
and including you especially you doctor
that i would never harm anyone in this
room okay
atheism are you suggesting that atheism
allows
or or or or proports or wants
genocide i know you wouldn’t say you
would never say that yes
atheism does allow it you can ask mao
you can ask stalin
you can ask pol pot because if there is
no authority beyond the government they
are god
i would i could not possibly agree i
could not possibly disagree that those
people
were atheists but as richard dawkins and
christopher hissons would both argue
as you well know none of those people
slaughtered millions
in the name of atheism there are
countless millions cody
cody this isn’t a debate okay i know i
think so i i thank you for thank you
but let me let me deal because i you
know i i
cody i love talking about this stuff but
there’s a line of people behind you
and uh so we can’t keep going back and
forth but i do want to answer
is god immoral for massacre slaughter
and racism and slavery
uh cody look we don’t have time to deal
with all those trust me i have slides
for every one of them
okay let me just deal with the canaanite
one if you’d be so gracious as to sit
down i would be so gracious thank you
doctor
and i’ll deal with that thank you so
much thank you doctor all right thank
you
so uh as i just mentioned
uh with the canaanite issue if there’s
no god why would any old testament
atrocity be wrong
but cody is correct about this he has a
fair point to ask me
um despite the fact that he being an
atheist has no objective standard by
which to judge anything right or wrong
he he is correct to ask me you’re saying
your god is a god of love so why does he
do such things so that’s a fair question
okay all right secondly though is god
arbitrary or does he give reasons in the
old testament for
judging people because that’s what it is
in the old testament it’s judging
god is not a cosmic mafia boss he
doesn’t wake up one day and say
canaanites i want him dead no
there’s a reason that he has decided to
push the canaanites out of the land
and it’s because they’ve had 400 years
of iniquity including
murdering their children sacrificing
their children on the molten hot metal
god
molech and it wasn’t just the new or the
old testament that talks about this
the greek writer plutarch says that when
the canaanites would do this the
drummers in the town would pound their
drums louder so the children or the
parents couldn’t hear the screams of
their own children being sacrificed
also i hear this quite a bit why
complain that god doesn’t stop
evil but then complain when he does in
other words
sometimes atheists will say why didn’t
god stop such and such a tragedy
yet here god sees that this culture is
so
is so degraded that he finally says
these people must be stopped and he
sends the israelites in to stop them and
now atheists are complaining about it
uh and the question i always ask people
is god committing
murder by ending lives on earth and the
answer is no god doesn’t murder anyone
he can’t murder
on he is the creator of life he can
resurrect it
only people who are other creations
can commit murder when god in somebody’s
life
it’s not murder and as i mentioned a
minute ago god has the right to usher
people into the next life whenever he
wants whether we’re 82 or 2 years old
that’s up to him
people never die they just change
location and we also need to remember
that the old testament theocracy was
unique and temporary it was not the
ideal for all time
but the means to a promised new covenant
and the best book on this topic is by
paul kopan
is god a moral monster and and cody’s
actually bringing up good questions that
christians need to deal with
and kopan goes through all of those
issues one is the canaanites another
slavery these kinds of issues
and you can get that book if you want to
go further but this is not genocide
it’s actually judgment why how do i know
because god did the same thing to israel
god took out the israelites through the
babylonians
and the assyrians and he also took out
the israelites after they worshiped the
golden calf
it was judgment not genocide