God of the Old Testament - Mormon View
How do you explain the need for God to tell Israel as they came out of Egypt to kill all the children, women and men in the Promised Land in order to take the land for themselves?
The same way we explain Nephi to kill Laban.
God is the creator of the Law to not kill. (God is the one that controls Life, thus why the commandments that deal with life are the biggest ones)
God is the only one to even bring up the idea to kill.
Its better the some people die to save more people latter. I think this is Jack Bauer's theme.
Name: Sirius
Comment: Tubaloth I don't understand that reasoning. So God creates a law that himself breaks? And how exactly young innocent babies are better dead?
I do not see killing babies the same as killing Laban. Laban made choices and was given opportunities to do good, he purposely chose to steal and even tried to kill Lehi's sons. What crime do babies do that they must be all wiped out?
Society is made up of families. When a family is headed down the wrong path, the whole family is affected.
How do you destroy parents, but not kids? The habits of the parents had already affects some of the kids (Maybe not all) but some.
So based on your example all children whose parents are heading down the wrong path will themselves have no change of path and are subject to death. If I had 20 children and 10 were well behaved and 10 were not, should I now consider the behaved ones my children and kill the rest?
Thats up to you. The Lord felt that things had gotten so bad he had to start over. The Lord has done this a number of times, the flood is another example.
There comes a time were people are to wicked and they had to be cut off. I'm sure the Lord never wants to do this. But the Lord also sees the plan (And this earth) in probably a better perspective. Maybe it was better for the children to move onto the next life, instead of trying to live in sin.