David and the census

Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:43 pm

Watching the history channel today I was presented with a biblical story I had either forgotten or didn’t know about. It seems David was ordered by God to take a census of the Israelites and was given specific instructions on how to conduct the census. It seems David didn’t want to conduct the census according to God’s plan and instead did a direct head count. As you can imagine, this disobedience greatly angered God, as he was prone too during the time. So what does God do? Does he punish David for his disobedience? No, he goes and whacks about seventy thousand Israelites who were obviously completely to blame for David’s error. As the story goes, David pleads with God to stop his murder spree and eventually God relents and concedes the entire thing was a mistake on his part. What, God makes mistakes?

But I guess this is completely consistent with this god’s reasoning, after all, he’s still blaming everyone for the two people he setup years ago in the Garden of Eden. And what’s with giving people the death penalty for incorrectly taking a census anyway? Didn’t he already know how many tax-paying Israelites there were, I mean, this simple feet of math shouldn’t be beyond a god right?

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:28 am

Seriously- Jehova is an insecure kid with an anger problem. He killed Moses for hitting the rock instead of speaking to it- even though it was OK earlier. So you're right- totally consistent

Newbie First Class Joined: Dec 21, 2005 Posts: 44

God can count hairs on heads but he can't count heads.
We can't see the forest for the trees and god can't see the heads for hairs.

The Learned Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 181

Funny, that just the other day I sent an email to a friend explaining the same problem. Please, see below.
...
Well, dear ... my comment on 1 Chronicles 21:1 follows this easy logic.
The verse reads thus: “And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.”
But check its “parallel” in 2 Samuel 24:1, which reads the opposite: “And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.”
Now, go read the obtuse comments of commentators like Adam Clarke, Scofield, Ruckman, and others who try desperately to defend a discrepancy in the Bible, using sophism and “theological fumes” to confuse the honest student.
Clarke is, together with many in his league, an exegete incapable of finding errors in the Holy Writ. (I would rather believe that he could see the errors, but he was trained to play the hypocritical defender of the faith.) Nobody should trust his studies.
The truth is that there are indeed MANY errors and discrepancies, together with horrendous contradictions in it; but since you were indoctrinated to be cowed by and FEAR a holy book, man, your intellect has to shrink to satisfy theological extremism.
The term “Satan” appears for the first time in the Bible some 500 pages from the beginning, a record for sure!
And, “Satan” in the OT doesn’t mean “Diabolos” in the NT, and it’s not a synonym with Lucifer, or Serpent; there is no spoken word from this “Entity” in the Bible as to determine exactly what “he/she/it” is.
The truth is that NOBODY knows what “Satan” is!
Nobody knows; that’s the reality [after 30 centuries of Bible inspection]. What we find is other actors in the Bible using a “NEGATIVE” connotation to express the “DARK” side of our human nature.
The Bible is never clear in anything you are to consider important; hence, the arrival of many [feline and contradictory] “Commentators” with “degrees”.
Therefore, we humans and our human nature seem to be the “devil”. That is a fact not of our doing, because it is apparent we were abandoned by some [Anonymous] Creator when we were contaminated with that “Energy” for the first time.
At that time, that Creator had an easy job in “his” hands, as it were, and could have saved us from EVIL, but went on holidays somewhere in the cosmos and the rest is a history of offences, crimes, struggles, suffering, pain, and finally a thousand and one ways to die. The most incompetent, pathetic and careless Creator we ever had in this universe, that is. What a pity we were not engineered by a better Omnipotent.
As the story goes, millennia later, when the problem was insoluble, the christs started appearing to help us come out of this horrendous rut, not of our doing, but NONE helped in real terms. Christ was soon engaged in WAR with other antichrists, and later with one of the most ferocious type, by the name of Mohammed, the Messenger [from the bottomless Pit of Hell!!!] of another deranged eastern god called Allah!
With “All power in heaven and on earth” he [the latest Jewish Christ] did NOTHING to stop the CARNAGE! Another failed little Middle East [Greek] “christos”.
So, David received an order from Jehovah to go check the number of soldiers in the effective (some half a million to commit all types of war atrocities; more than the USA forces in Iraq and Afghanistan*), but later one Israelite scribe of Chronicles informed that it was actually Satan “himself” who instigated David to do the counting, falling into the displeasure of Jehovah! It was that scribe who INVENTED the term “Satan” in old Hebrew [with no vowels: STN]. OK, Job uses the term freely, and we suppose the [folkloric] fable was written much earlier; conjecturally.
What’s going on? Well, if we had to take the Bible seriously, it was actually BOTH, Jehovah and Satan who in partnership did lead David to the “horrendous crime”. It’s a parody, really.
Then, Barnes and the majority of “fundamentalist” commentators conspired together to excuse Jehovah from the king’s act.
Come on! It is a clear contradiction; and like many others in the sacred text, to prove to the attentive student that hermeneutics is a balancing act to defend the Holy Book as if without inconsistencies [increasing its volume tenfold].
The verse serves also to prove that Jehovah is a god with an unbalanced character (when convenient he uses his enemies for his evil acts), for it says that his anger was kindled [against Israel].
Well, well; it is now some 30 centuries [THIRTY CENTURIES, my friend; for goodness’ sake!!] of never ending ANGER and punishment against fragile and innocent people of his own making [if we believe fables]. Had we been made stronger, we would not need any god to give us CONTRADICTORY orders!
On the other hand, when is this deranged god Jehovah going to be satiated with his own anger, and stop hurting humans? It is written that his final act of violence against us will be the most devastating: ARMAGEDDON, or something that diabolical!
Come on, what a god! Why did he allow things to get out of control so much that only NUCLEAR FIREPOWER will satisfy his sense of [IN]justice?!
AH, but after that, we will have the bliss of new heavens and a new planet!
Oh, oh, oh, alleluias in the highest, because even there the problems were not few and small. Even the heavens had to be remade, can you believe it! The old and outdated hardware had to be removed and new installed. ALLELUIA, in the highest… I said that already, sorry.
How’s that for a deficient, failed and incompetent [JEWISH] Creator? Huh?…
* Just the industry of SWORDS making was massive! Imagine Israel today, with long-range cannons, armoured tanks, and nuclear bombs! The end is nigh... [praise Jehovah…]

Grand Poster Joined: Oct 24, 2005 Posts: 2505

That's why Gnosticism is pretty cool

The Learned Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 181

Sword making in king David’s reign was a very serious and massive industry.
He had an army of almost ONE MILLION recruits.
The logistics to equip, feed and move that powerful army was massive!
David’s plan was to build a secure and strong empire around Palestine, but transportation wasn’t easy at all.
Later emperors also battled with that problem.
The larger the empire the harder to keep it cohesive and controlled.
Hence, their eventual destruction by enemies.
In David’s case, when he died, his son Solomon took over that massive army [of bandits, rapists and arsonists], imposing heavier taxes on the people, eventually resulting in the destruction of all that David achieved [with the help of swords, fire, carnage, pillage, and much crime in his life].
David, obviously, was the Devil incarnate, but today’s church bless him as a saint.

Resident Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 375

Why did god not know how many Israelites there were? Interesting how an omnipotent god needs a human leader to count heads for him. Interesting how an omniscient doesn't know in the first place. Interesting how in the OT god frequently punishes people's descendents, relatives, and subjects yet is much more forgiving in the NT.

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 5:18 am

Why worry with why he made someone take a census if he knew how many people there were when you could ask why he made David in the first place?

That's like asking why an orange tastes like an orange when the bigger question is why does the orange exist in the first place?

The Learned Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 181

Jehovah was not any Almighty Omniscient God, whatever.
"He" [the "Thing"] was a little TRIBAL IDOL Moses molded to further his political plans.
"Thou shalt not kill" was NEVER obeyed by either Moses or any other Jewish "Hitler".
Moses was the first to read the so-called "Ten Commandments", where killing was forbidden, but as soon as he arrived back in the camp, he ordered the killing of THREE THOUSAND innocent people (Exodus 32).
For what reason?
Simply because he had spent too much time on holidays up there in Mount of Sinai, "talking" to Jehovah, and smoking Marijuana, while the slave in the camp were worried about the future.
As they had STOLEN much gold from the Egyptians, plus much WINE, they molded an idol and got drunk worshiping the object.
Now, Moses, who was the first
HITLER
and
Insurgent,
the first
TERRORIST
of that Israelite crowd, he always ruled by FEAR of Jehovah.
He later killed all the Midianites (Numbers 31), where was included all the family of his wife Zipporah.
This woman had once called Moses
“a BLOODY HUSBAND”
(Exodus 4:25).
He killed at least a million people in his lifetime (all those whom he promised the “Promised Land” never arrived!).
Millions of “cattle” died in Egypt to remove the slaves too (if you believe in fables).
It is therefore apparent that Moses was a monster of a terrorist.
See, how we find David's census one more act of genocide in Israel?
David is an ugly name; sorry. But Moses is worse.

Resident Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 375

bronco2 wrote:

Why worry with why he made someone take a census if he knew how many people there were when you could ask why he made David in the first place?

That's like asking why an orange tastes like an orange when the bigger question is why does the orange exist in the first place?

You're making NO sense. We're just curious as to why god can't just TELL david how many Israelites there are, or why god killed thousands of people for David's error. So you're asking why we ask why god killed 70,000 people when we could be asking why he made them? I call bullshit.

The part of the bible is 2 Samuel 24:0-17

The Learned Joined: May 21, 2008 Posts: 128

MockingGods wrote:

Watching the history channel today I was presented with a biblical story I had either forgotten or didn’t know about. It seems David was ordered by God to take a census of the Israelites and was given specific instructions on how to conduct the census. It seems David didn’t want to conduct the census according to God’s plan and instead did a direct head count.

What causes you to believe God ordered David?

Resident Joined: Aug 31, 2006 Posts: 313

MockingGods wrote:

Watching the history channel today I was presented with a biblical story I had either forgotten or didn’t know about. It seems David was ordered by God to take a census of the Israelites and was given specific instructions on how to conduct the census. It seems David didn’t want to conduct the census according to God’s plan and instead did a direct head count. As you can imagine, this disobedience greatly angered God, as he was prone too during the time. So what does God do? Does he punish David for his disobedience? No, he goes and whacks about seventy thousand Israelites who were obviously completely to blame for David’s error. As the story goes, David pleads with God to stop his murder spree and eventually God relents and concedes the entire thing was a mistake on his part. What, God makes mistakes?

But I guess this is completely consistent with this god’s reasoning, after all, he’s still blaming everyone for the two people he setup years ago in the Garden of Eden. And what’s with giving people the death penalty for incorrectly taking a census anyway? Didn’t he already know how many tax-paying Israelites there were, I mean, this simple feet of math shouldn’t be beyond a god right?

You have to remember that in those days -- a read of ancient Greece and their gods at least suggests this-- that people were writing stuff about God, often projecting into that figure their concerns of the day. That story of David seems to say two things in particular: 1) Don't mess with God, or you will suffer terrible consequences; and, 2) David has God's ears and can influence the All-Mighty.

The Learned Joined: May 21, 2008 Posts: 128

My, Julio. You sure can rant and rail. Smile

If you had reported something other than a bitter critique of opinionated misinformation I might have had a comment in reply.

Resident Joined: Mar 26, 2008 Posts: 375

Missionary wrote:

My, Julio. You sure can rant and rail. Smile

If you had reported something other than a bitter critique of opinionated misinformation I might have had a comment in reply.

If it's misinformation, then why would you not have a comment in reply? After all, by replying, citing sources and refuting claims you could maybe discredit Jonas and show that he is wrong.

I, however, don't think he is. It says it in the bible that he made people drink the melted gold of the statue, which would have killed people (its molten metal, doesn't do any good to your internal organs). This was right after he had gotten the 10 comandments, one of which is 'Thou salt not kill'.

The Learned Joined: May 21, 2008 Posts: 128

Is that what the bible says? Can you point me to it?


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