According to 1st Samuel chapter 15, God orders the complete extinction of the Amalekite race, even including all the children. It was a complete extinction so wasn’t it genocide? And why the children too, when they are innocent?
So before I get beef about this, I’m not Catholic. So, you’re getting an ex-Catholic’s opinion on this, so if this is not what you’re looking for, then please ignore what I am about to say:
The God of the Old Testament does this a lot. I’m not sure what it is with children, but He sure does talk about unaliving them a lot. When Moses had beef with Pharaoh, as a last measure, Moses says to Pharoah “If you won’t let the people go, then all the first born in Egypt will die including your son, is what God told me.” (Yes I’m paraphrasing here, but basically God was going to wipe out all the 1st born in Egypt if Pharaoh didn’t let the Israelite slaves leave). And Pharoah, being the stubborn person he was, said no. So God killed all the first born, including Pharoah’s 1st born son, and Pharoah finally said “Fine, the slaves are free.”
Now before we go on, I am not in any way saying that “God just likes killing people” or “God is an angry 6 year old dictator who has Hitler-like tendencies.” Again, I can only speak for myself, but this is one of those situations where I put a reading like that in my questionable column. I also don’t know the surrounding context of that reading either. I just remember, when I was a Catholic, I thought the whole Moses and Pharoah debacle was a little bit much. So you’re going to kill all of the first born in Egypt? Children who are very innocent? That doesn’t really go well with me. And, another thing to keep in mind, was Pharoah was warned before all of the bad stuff happened to him (Like, it didn’t start out with God saying “I’m going to kill all the first born.” No, there was like a series of plagues that Pharoah was warned would transpire if he didn’t let the israelite slaves go, like complete darkness, or a plague of locusts.). The death of the first born was the very last thing that happened to Pharoah, and it was that last plague when Pharoah finally let the Israelites go.
I just find it really odd and weird that a God who created everything would be willing to kill the first born just so Pharoah can let the Israelites go. Like yeah…you gave Pharoah all sorts of chances, but since when is it ever ok to kill an innocent? And the other thing is, this religion does help people. But for me, it’s just something I question, and I put in the “questionable” category.
I don’t know if I am much help, but I personally would like to know the thought process for wiping out those who are innocent or those who we would consider “collateral damage.” I’ve never gotten a reasonable answer for this question, other than “God’s ways aren’t our ways” or “I’m honestly not sure.”
Good luck. I’m just like you, I just want to know the truth. If someone says I’m “too skeptical” I take that as a badge of honor. Yeah…I am too skeptical, cause I believe that the truth should make sense. Most of the time it does, so why does something like this not add up for me? Just something to think over.