Sometime ago, I heard a pastor trying to justify what god did, or allowed to be done, to the original inhabitants of Canaan. Their territory, which the ancient Hebrews called “The Promised Land”, was forcibly taken away from the original inhabitants - the Canaanites. These original inhabitants were not chased away from their lands - they were exterminated. In many cases, every man, woman, child and even the animals, were killed. The Hebrews claimed that god ordered them to kill these people. In many cases, like Jericho, god actually helped in the genocide. Can god’s atrocities ever be justified?

According to the Hebrews, the land of Canaan was promised to Abraham - their spiritual father. In line with this promise and god’s order, starting with Moses and Joshua, the original inhabitants of Canaan were exterminated. If the bible figures are anything to go by, many hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were wiped out - all in god’s name (and with his help). Now, this aspect of history raises some serious ethical issues.

First of all, if god is so powerful, so powerful in fact that he can do anything logically possible, why did he see the need to kill all these people? Elsewhere in the bible, we are told how god can cause people to believe in illusions - believing in something that really isn’t true. Why did he not cause the leaders of these people to believe in an illusion that would have caused them leave the Promised Land voluntarily? While the Hebrews were in Egypt, the “evil” Pharaoh wanted to free them several times, but god took control of his mind and caused Pharaoh to keep the Hebrews in bondage. This was in order to teach the Egyptians a lesson. Why couldn’t god took control of the minds of the leaders of these “squatters” and cause them to order their people to leave?

Do you see how many alternatives the all-knowing and all-powerful god had to killing so many people? Or is it that god just likes killing people - including innocent babies? Killing people was not the only atrocity that god did. In the book of Numbers, we see how god ordered the mass-rape of about 32,000 virgins. As if this wasn’t bad enough, he ordered that a few choice ones were to be reserved for him. I wonder what was god going to do with those virgins? “Devirginize” them?

From time to time, we are reminded of how evil Hitler was. He is blamed, directly, for the deaths of some six million Jews and many others. Hitler is seen as the worse possible villain in all history. Many Christians see Hitler as the devil himself. How could this be, when Hitler claimed that he was the instrument of god’s vengeance on the Jews for their killing of “the good lord”? If Hitler was working for god, shouldn’t Christians see Hitler the same way they do Joshua, Moses, Samuel and the other bible leaders who, under god’s instructions, ordered similar acts? Isn’t genocide the same no matter who does it, where it happened or who suffers from it?

Most Christians are totally unaware of these “good” acts of god. The leaders of Christianity have re-invented their god from being a mass-murderer to being a loving, caring god who couldn’t even mash an ant. Those Christians who are aware of some of god’s atrocities have no problem with them. As far as they are concerned - once god orders it; it must be right.

If there can be any justification for what god did to those unfortunate Canaanites, then Hitler’s actions can also be justified. In fact, the atrocities of all the villains in history can be justified. Even those that the devil was supposed to have committed.

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