All those populations of evil people God wanted to destroy were destroyed, and ceased to exist, because God killed them. In this story, the protagonist is a deity who commits mass murder. That is the case with all murders, or none. So? One of them is a protagonist in a story, who speaks and has motives and undertakes actions according to His intentions and so forth. One of those actions is the mass murder of entire populatiosn of people He has declared to be evil - men, women, children, the lot of them. . No, there isn't.
iceaura, They didn't ''cease to exist'', that's the point. That's what you have to take into consideration. The souls (persons) belong to God. They are part and parcel of God, and God can't die. Therefore His parts and parcels, being of the same nature as God, cannot die. How can you murder something that can't be murdered? Read above. Read above. Yes there is. jan.
According to the Bible, which is the version of the story in play here, they did - all those people perished, and Noah with his family alone was saved. Killing them is what God said he was going to do, and did, in the story. He killed entire populations of defenseless people, men and women and children, on purpose because he thought they were evil. With full access to all means available to an omnipotent Deity, He killed them by slow drowning and starvation over the course of a month or so. I'm reminded of the story "George's Dragon", in which the King - a character in the story - is shown selecting from a menu of execution options to find an appropriate one for the character George, who has done evil in His sight. He selects having him skinned and rolled in salt. Now that was not murder, because the King was acting according to declared law as recognized by all those involved - he did not have George's nieces and nephews, wife and family and entire home town's population and all his ethnic relations, skinned and rolled in salt. If He had, He would have been committing genocide. People can be murdered, the characters in stories can be murdered, etc. It's quite common to have people murdered by the characters in stories, although admittedly not so common to have one of the protagonists do it - normally protagonists only kill bad guys in self defense, or in the darker stories sometimes the innocent by accident or desperate choice, rather than entire cities full of children they happen to think are evil. But it's not unknown, and the Noachian Flood story is not the only example in literature of this - there are others in the Bible's story collection, even. And they make reasonable fodder for smart-Alec comedy, as well - professional comedians can hardly be expected to pass up fat opportunities like that. What's the problem with Maher again?
iceaura, They perished, but they weren't murdered. ''Murder'' can only be performed by another human being. But He didn't murder them. There is a difference. You mean...because they were evil. You forgot to mention that the entire population had (and carried out) nothing but evil intentions (including animals). If George's nieces, nephew's, wife and family and the entire home town's population, plus all his ethnic relation's had done evil in his sight, he would have treated them the same as George. Would that be considered genocide? By other people, yes. What's not common is the character, God. Maybe you should do more research on this character. Bring it. Let's discuss them, and look at them objectively. He's spreading disinformation, preying on the mainstream public's fear and ignorance. jan.
So they did cease to exist. Progress. Forgot about the hobbits and orcs already, did you? Protagonists in stories - characters with intentions and motives and freedom of action and awareness and so forth - can commit murder. That is kind of obvious, one would think. It's common. There is no such law mentioned, in that story - speculation as to the author's alternative constructions is kind of silly. By your description alone, without reference to the various alternatives that could be incorporated into the actual story, of course. Authorities who slaughter entire populations of defenseless people on the grounds that they are evil commit genocide. You need to ask? The children, the pet rabbits, the butterflies and kittens? We don't actually see this, in the story. All we have in the story is the protagonist's claim that they were all evil and He was going to kill them because of that - choosing, among all the means available to an omnipotent Deity, slow drowning and the other miseries of flood. His audience is not mainstream, not fearful, and by most evaluations less ignorant than average - about Bible stories, as well as everything else. Nothing he says is particularly and specifically false, or even unverifiable - we can all read the Bible for ourselves, for example, and find a major character committing genocide in the story of the Noachian Flood. And we can read right here the bizarre contortions and flat out amorality the people Maher is impugning find necessary in self defense - it's not murder if the murderer knows the victims's souls are immortal? That's Spanish Inquisition logic.
iceaura, If you regard one's destroyed clothes as the person ceasing to exist, then fair enough. But that's not the point the book in question. I'll tell you what, show where a hobbit or orc as murdered, a human being, or any other species for that matter. Or one that has commited genocide, then we'll progress further. Yes, and I'm saying that God cannot murder, because no one is killed from His perspective, which is a lot greater than any mere human perspective. Or don't you or Maher choose to read that part of His Characterisation? Go on! Have a guess. God IS. God, has authorities. Everyone is ''defenceless'' at the point of death. Corporal punishment is not murder, not even if it is sanctioned by an authority, let alone the Supreme Being (one without a second). It depends if you believe the entire world was flooded. What other means were there? What are they then? Can you present the data that concludes this, or is it just wishful thinking on your part? He speaks from the point of view of a simpleton. It's not murder, period. God is not a human being. Also, God say's ''all souls are mine'', and we understand that all souls are part and parcel of God's spiritual body (it also say's God is pure spirit). So if God believed He was murdering those humans, He would be, in effect, committing suicide. But as He is Pure Spirit, he can't die, let alone commit suicide. jan.
