Post by Squishalot
So I just found this statistic: Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365 not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers were given. Satan - 10
Meh. We all know that the Jewish God is a dictator, and a harsh one at that. I am curious how they added that up though.
Estimates of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki suggest that at least 250,000 people died as a direct result of the bombing, not counting all the other deaths in World War II, under Harry Truman.
God supposedly acted over 6000 years (low estimate), meaning that on average, he's killed about 400 people per year.
Harry Truman lived for 88.5 years (we'll round up to 90, for easier numbers' sake), meaning that he's killed about 2,700 people per year over his lifetime.
What's the purpose of all this? To remind you that the fact that God's killed a whole bunch of people is completely meaningless.
Edit:
By the way, I assume
this is your source. As with Wikipedia, you might want to check the details. Because, apparently, God killed
ninety thousand people here (the site's link to a highly random Bible), but I don't see it.
It also cheats, because it includes
people killed by the Israelites in the counter.
So at the very least, that number is somewhat inflated, for the purposes that the author is considering.
Edit 2: Great quote by one of the commenters on that blog:
I think you ought to make a distinction between different kinds of killing, although I have no doubt the total would be high. On one level, if you want to count anybody who died as a result of God's action, then that's everyone who ever lived.
What I think is perhaps worthwhile in looking to this list in detail is, who among these people were killed for what purpose? I would suggest these categories:
A) Killed as a result of their aggression against the nation of Israel. (example)
B) Killed as a result of enmity between them and Israel, but not specifically the violent agression of the victim in particular.(possible example)
C) Killed as a result of their sin that made God angry. (example)
D) Killed as a result of somebody else's sin. (example)
E) Reason not given. (example)
I think each of these categories deserve different consideration. Definitely A and maybe B are a matter of defensive killing. Many of those in category C make some sense from a theological point of view. I think D and E are the real tough ones.