So You Think You're A Christian?

Bible warning sticker.

It's a constant source of amazement and amusement how so many people claim to be Christians whilst acting like anything but a Christian. For example, in Women. Are You Free Or Christian? I showed Christian women should see themselves and behave according to the Bible and the founding fathers of their religion. In this blog, let's look at the way good Christian parents should be treating their children, again according to the Bible and some well-known apologists for Christianity.

Firstly, a warning. Almost all of what the Bible tells you to do to and with your children is very probably illegal, especially if you live in a civilised society. Under no circumstances should you do the things the Bible tells a good Christian parent to do in respect of your children. The least you could expect would be to have them taken into care.

Here goes:

You should have no worries about selling spare daughters into slavery for life.

And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.

If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.

Exodus 21:7-10

At least if you sell her to a Christian he can sell her on if she doesn't please him, or he can give her to his son as a wife. Even if he marries someone else she will at least be fed and clothed - but she'll still have to have sex with him whenever he fancies it.

One thing you might need to warn her about before selling her though is the 'Raped By The Master' sin, for which she will have to be whipped.

And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free.

And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, even a ram for a trespass offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the trespass offering before the Lord for his sin which he hath done: and the sin which he hath done shall be forgiven him.

Leviticus 19:20-22

The rapist gets let off, of course, provided he makes a gift of a ram to a priest. Any owner of a flock of sheep will have lots of spare tasty little rams born every year. What better use for them, eh? And how lucky for the priests!

A good Christian father can get good money for daughters, especially if they get raped.

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29

And even if they don't get raped, you can still be paid for their services.

And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.

Exodus 22:16-17

Just make sure she's not engaged to anyone first. I don't know what the dowry of a virgin is worth in real money these days but maybe your local church could tell you. There doesn't seem to be any limit to the number of times you can pull this one either.

Here is a novel use for spare daughters. You could do what Saul did and sell one for 200 foreskins! Wow! How cool is that?

Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.

1 Samuel 18:27

Michal! Moving swiftly on...

But it's not just the care and upbringing of daughters that the Bible offers good parenting advice on. Here's how to deal with stubborn and rebellious boys (and what normal teenage boys aren't?):

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

What could be simpler than that? You can be absolutely sure there'll be no recurrence as well! All you have to do is remember the magic words, "This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard". Note that he doesn't need to be a glutton and a drunkard, only stubborn and rebellious, but you have to say he is or they won't stone him to death. Maybe they just stone him half to death.

Here's a couple more reasons to have your son killed:

He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.

Exodus 21:15

---

He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.

Exodus 21:17

But if he doesn't go so far as cursing you, a disobedient son can still have his uses. He can be a useful source of food for the bird table, for example:

The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.

Proverbs 30:17

Now, don't you just hate it when your children call someone names like 'baldy'. Oh, the shame!

Well, all you need do is curse them in the name of God and he will provide a solution:

And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

2 Kings 2:23-24

I bet they won't do that again!

Feeling a little peckish? No problem if you have some children.

And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.

Leviticus 26:29

---

And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:

Deuteronomy 28:53

---

And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.

Jeremiah 19:9

If you're feeling a bit down and need cheering up, the Bible has the answer:

Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Psalms 137:7-9

If you're American, or English, you're probably not used to having conquering armies attacking your cities. Most of the rest of the world, and especially mainland Europe, Scotland and Ireland has experienced this most generations for the last several thousand years. Luckily for Christian girls, many of the soldiers will have been Christian too so, if they're good Christians and do what Moses commanded, they'll take care of the virgin daughters after killing their mothers, brothers, married sisters and fathers.

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Numbers 31:17-18

It doesn't say what the soldiers are to do with the virgins after they've used them for themselves...

So much for what the Bible teaches about rearing and caring for children.

How about how modern Christian thinkers view child-care and how we should react to children in distress?

Here's the current darling of conservative Christianity on the subject of genocide and infanticide, something that seems to fascinate them inordinately:

The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel's being set exclusively apart for God.

Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God's grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven's incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.

So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli (sic) soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalizing effect on these Israeli (sic) soldiers is disturbing.

Source: Reasonable (sic) Faith - Slaughter of the Canaanites
William Lane Craig

Let's read that again:

"Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into
some house and kill a terrified woman and her children?"

Yes, he really did ask that! And he really did imply that we should pity them - the murderers, that is. Don't worry about the children. Murdering them makes them happy!

Incidentally, did you like his argument for preserving racial purity by genocide and ethnic cleansing? Where have we heard those arguments before?

When told by an acolyte called "Peter" that he was becoming increasingly known as the apologist who defends genocide and infanticide, William Lane Craig put good Christian's minds to rest by explaining that the emotional response of repugnance and revulsion normal people feel for the idea of genocide and especially for the murder of innocent children, is merely a character flaw on their part and something good Christians should avoid.

I've seen those kinds of responses, too, Peter, and find them disappointing because they fail to grapple intellectually with the difficult questions raised by such stories. Emotional outbursts take the place of rational discussion, leaving us with no deeper understanding of the issues than before we began.

I find it ironic that atheists should often express such indignation at God's commands, since on naturalism there's no basis for thinking that objective moral values and duties exist at all and so no basis for regarding the Canaanite slaughter as wrong. As Doug Wilson has aptly said of the Canaanite slaughter from a naturalistic point of view, "The universe doesn't care." So at most the non-theist can be alleging that biblical theists have a sort of inconsistency in affirming both the goodness of God and the historicity of the conquest of Canaan.

Source: Reasonable (sic) Faith - The "Slaughter" of the Canaanites Re-visited
William Lane Craig

Well obviously. If it isn't in the Bible, how are good Christian parents supposed to know how to treat their children properly? They can't rely on their emotions.

So the above list of do's and don't should be perfectly adequate for those good Christians requiring William Lane Craig's 'deeper understanding of the issues'. Don't worry about those feelings of horror, revulsion and pity for the children which William Lane Craig finds 'disappointing' and 'emotional'. If it's in your holy book it must be good, just like genocide to preserve racial purity is.

---

Advertisement

Ten Reasons To Lose Faith: And Why You Are Better Off Without It

This book explains why faith is a fallacy and serves no useful purpose other than providing an excuse for pretending to know things that are unknown. It also explains how losing faith liberates former sufferers from fear, delusion and the control of others, freeing them to see the world in a different light, to recognise the injustices that religions cause and to accept people for who they are, not which group they happened to be born in. A society based on atheist, Humanist principles would be a less divided, more inclusive, more peaceful society and one more appreciative of the one opportunity that life gives us to enjoy and wonder at the world we live in.

Available in Hardcover, Paperback or ebook for Kindle

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Tweet Link