richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion
T H i : ' G O O IV Si O O K A N D T i l ! M O U A I. Z E I T C t : . I S T 255of nine heathens and one Israelite and have the misfortune to killthe Israelite? Hm, difficult! But the answer is ready. 'Then his nonliabilitycan be inferred from the fact that the majority wereheathens.'Hartung uses many of the same biblical quotations as I haveused in this chapter, about the conquest of the Promised Land byMoses, Joshua and the Judges. I was careful to concede thatreligious people don't think in a biblical way any more. For me, thisdemonstrated that our morals, whether we are religious or not,come from another source; and that other source, whatever it is, isavailable to all of us, regardless of religion or lack of it. ButHartung tells of a horrifying study by the Israeli psychologistGeorge Tamarin. Tamarin presented to more than a thousandIsraeli schoolchildren, aged between eight and fourteen, theaccount of the battle of Jericho in the book of Joshua:Joshua said to the people, 'Shout; for the LORD has givenyou the city. And the city and all that is within it shall bedevoted to the LORD for destruction . . . But all silver andgold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to theLORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.' . . .Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men andwomen, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with theedge of the sword . . . And they burned the city with fire,and all within it; only the silver and gold, and the vesselsof bronze and of iron, they put into the treasury of thehouse of the LORD.Tamarin then asked the children a simple moral question: 'Do youthink Joshua and the Israelites acted rightly or not?' They had tochoose between A (total approval), B (partial approval) and C(total disapproval). The results were polarized: 66 per cent gavetotal approval and 26 per cent total disapproval, with rather fewer(8 per cent) in the middle with partial approval. Here are threetypical answers from the total approval (A) group:In my opinion Joshua and the Sons of Israel acted well,and here are the reasons: God promised them this land,
256 T H t G O D 1) E L U S I O Nand gave them permission to conquer. If they would nothave acted in this manner or killed anyone, then therewould be the danger that the Sons of Israel would haveassimilated among the Goyim.In my opinion Joshua was right when he did it, one reasonbeing that God commanded him to exterminate thepeople so that the tribes of Israel will not be able toassimilate amongst them and learn their bad ways.Joshua did good because the people who inhabited theland were of a different religion, and when Joshua killedthem he wiped their religion from the earth.The justification for the genocidal massacre by Joshua is religiousin every case. Even those in category C, who gave total disapproval,did so, in some cases, for backhanded religious reasons. One girl,for example, disapproved of Joshua's conquering Jericho because,in order to do so, he had to enter it:I think it is bad, since the Arabs are impure and if oneenters an impure land one will also become impure andshare their curse.Two others who totally disapproved did so because Joshuadestroyed everything, including animals and property, instead ofkeeping some as spoil for the Israelites:I think Joshua did not act well, as they could have sparedthe animals for themselves.I think Joshua did not act well, as he could have left theproperty of Jericho; if he had not destroyed the propertyit would have belonged to the Israelites.Once again the sage Maimonides, often cited for his scholarlywisdom, is in no doubt where he stands on this issue: 'It is a positivecommandment to destroy the seven nations, as it is said: Thou shaltutterly destroy them. If one does not put to death any of them that
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T H i : ' G O O IV Si O O K A N D T i l ! M O U A I. Z E I T C t : . I S T 255
of nine heathens and one Israelite and have the misfortune to kill
the Israelite? Hm, difficult! But the answer is ready. 'Then his nonliability
can be inferred from the fact that the majority were
heathens.'
Hartung uses many of the same biblical quotations as I have
used in this chapter, about the conquest of the Promised Land by
Moses, Joshua and the Judges. I was careful to concede that
religious people don't think in a biblical way any more. For me, this
demonstrated that our morals, whether we are religious or not,
come from another source; and that other source, whatever it is, is
available to all of us, regardless of religion or lack of it. But
Hartung tells of a horrifying study by the Israeli psychologist
George Tamarin. Tamarin presented to more than a thousand
Israeli schoolchildren, aged between eight and fourteen, the
account of the battle of Jericho in the book of Joshua:
Joshua said to the people, 'Shout; for the LORD has given
you the city. And the city and all that is within it shall be
devoted to the LORD for destruction . . . But all silver and
gold, and vessels of bronze and iron, are sacred to the
LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD.' . . .
Then they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and
women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the
edge of the sword . . . And they burned the city with fire,
and all within it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels
of bronze and of iron, they put into the treasury of the
house of the LORD.
Tamarin then asked the children 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 disapproval). The results were polarized: 66 per cent gave
total approval and 26 per cent total disapproval, with rather fewer
(8 per cent) in the middle with partial approval. Here are three
typical answers from the total approval (A) group:
In my opinion Joshua and the Sons of Israel acted well,
and here are the reasons: God promised them this land,
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