I agree that this verse is very confusing,, killing women and youngs are unacceptable!

However the thread's Title is disturbing too, please change it.

Firtsly, I am an atheist and I can see no relationship between Hitler's atheism and his fundamental hatred of Judaism. Indeed, many of the greatest enemies towards Judaism today are in fact, devout religious believers from other faiths rather than atheists. The notion that Hitlers atheism is relevant to his crimes is misleading and incorrect.

Hitler believed the Jews were the enemy of Germany and justified his slaughter both in terms of eugenics and his belief that they were a genuine threat to the stabilty of Germany. As such his justification to alienate and later murder the Jews can comfortably be argued as identical to Joshua's war crimes, they were an enemy, hence fair game; the difference in interpretation on this subject comes from the partisan attitude of the reader. To demonstrate this point further.....

George Tamarin, the Israeli psychologist, presented the story of Joshua at Jericho to more than a thousand Israeli school children aged between eight and fourteen. After reading the account of the battle of Jericho the children were asked a simple moral question:'Do you think Joshua and the Israelites acted rightly or not?' They had to choose between A (total approval) B (Partial Approval) and C (Total disaproval). The results were polarized: 66% gave total approval and 26% total disaproval, with rather fewer 8% in the middle with partial approval.

For those children who gave total disaproval for the masacre many did so for backhanded religious reasons. One girl, for example, disapproved of Joshua's conquering Jericho because in order to do it he had to enter it: "I think it is bad since the Arabs are impure and if one enters an impure land one will also become impure and share thier curse."

Now the really fascinating part of this experiment is that a control group of 168 Israeli children were given the identical text from the book of Joshua, but with Joshua's own name replaced by 'General Lin' and Israel replaced by 'A Chinese Kingdom 3,000 years ago.' Now the experiment gave opposite results. Only 7% approved of General Lin's behaviour and 75% disapproved. In other words, when their loyalty to Judaism was removed from the calculation, the majority of children agreed with the moral judgements that most modern humans would share. It all looks different from a religious point of view.

The above is the crux of this matter and arguably reinforced by your assertion that Joshua "had the moral permissive to take life" owing to the fact he was, "Taking orders directly from the being who has providence over life and death." I believe it is this faith that is the precursor to genocide, rather than a lack of belief in God.

Those who make extraordinary assertions, as in the case of Joshua taking orders directly from the 'One True Creator,' need extraordinary proofs to persuade the open minded atheist, that the resultant genocide was just and divinely inspired.

However, I am open minded and happy to recant all of the above if a better proof is available, I look forward to your replies.

 

_{Primary argument and quantitive data from Richard Dawkins, the God Delusion}

Was the passage you cited a morality lesson or a history lesson?  If you look at the book which is the foundation of two independent and distinct faiths as ALL simply a book of morals, then you just don't get it.....and as an atheist, I wouldn't expect you to.

Strange how applying reason to the bible brings out such venom in people. It was neither a history lesson or a morality lesson, merely a demonstration as to the fallacy that religion is responsible for morality.

Reasoned Faith

Well, I think all abrahamic religions are legitimating self-defense- none discusses that point.

But how do you see that killing youngs and women, herd are consistent with religious or divine orders? is it acceptable?

"destoryed all that was in the city, both man and women, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass with the edge of the sword"

take this:
In the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites--as the LORD your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshipping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.
(Deut.20:16-18)

Do you really think it's God words

The difference? Luckily one never existed, but unfortunately one did.

Marvellous answer, but a few hundred years too soon I guess!