I Samuel 15:1 Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. 2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' "
Taking one verse and trying to make a case for it doesn't work. It wasn't slaughter for slaughter's sake, although since you don't believe in God I'd guess that you just figure that they use the *God told us to do it* as an excuse. God was punishing them and He did institute the death penalty. God, being the giver of life, also has the right to decide when it is time for someone to die.
Do you condemn all others who slaughter tribes and children as well? You're not bringing any of them up. Just like the usual selective condemnation of anything perceived as wrong when a religious group is involved with deafening silence when the left does it. How do you feel about the ritual slaughter of babies by abortion that is promoted by the left? Are you going to condemn Planned parenthood as well?
Only problem with that “explanation”, as was discussed ad-infinitum, was that even animals had to be slaughtered, besides children.
Surely you don’t believe children, infants and animals to have been guilty of whatever crime they deserved being slaughtered for? Their lives were not taken by God, but by men. That is what makes the command, disgusting.
There is no contextual explanation to this flaw. If you have one, please elaborate in detail. No one so far has been able to explain it satisfactorily, and as yet, remains unreconciled with any message of benevolence in the rest of the text.
As for condemning others, I think it was pretty clear when I mentioned Islam, or other faiths as well. I am curious, however, as to why you feel the urge to distract, when we’re discussing this particular verse. Does declaring “Oh, but others did it too!” make this crime any less vile, in your view? It certainly seems so.
I’ll await your explanation to the “context” for 1 Samuel 15: 2-3, elaborating how it was righteous and worthwhile, to slaughter children and infants.
Blind accusations are such a bore. Please look up my posting history, and find the umpteen number of times I've posted an old table depicting the annual per-capita statistics of abortion all over the world. Again, the original comment was not by me, but I found it on FR, using the same algorithm described before, and present on my home-page.
Situational ethics never applies when the left is assigning guilt.
Incidentally, try Psalm 137:8-9 on for size.
Or, for that matter, you might note that God punished Israel with some pretty nasty stuff too -- see Deuteronomy 28:54-57 and compare to 2 Kings 6:25-30.
So it isn't just "territorialism masking itself under the rubric of religion."
Cheers!