Only if you feel that the 'model' tribe isn't equally bad as any other - and of course, if that was the case, what would they be being able to 'model'?
Not really - it doesn't matter how good or bad they were in comparison to any others, it's the idea of a 'chosen' people that engenders the idea of special treatment and permits mistreatment of 'other'.
Maybe there are, but can you indicate where, in the Old Testament, this 'absolutely fine' thinking comes from?
It really doesn't matter whether I can, and to a degree it doesn't matter whether you can, it only matters that they can.
In fact, that is pretty well the standard Christian understanding. OK, I've put it into more modern language than many might be accustomed to, but that is the basic tenet of Christianity. I accept that there are a lot of other ideas - such as the place of celicacy, or of women in ministry, or the precise nature of substitutionary atonement, or ..., or ..., but what I have outlined above is pretty well core.
And yet we see groups that don't hold to that, or who claim to hold to that and then have caveats and provisos.
I'd use much the same way that historians might use about history - 'where does your interpretation fit with the totality of the documentary and other evidence we have?'
The overwhelming majority of believers, though, are not highly educated people with a knowledge of the historical context. Quite the opposite, the correlation is that people who are more highly educated are less likely to be believers.
As I said above - "That's your opinion - which you are perfectly entitled to, O. It's not mine." I have spoken to and with Christians from across the theological spectrum, cultural spectrum, wealth spectrum, etc. over the years, and what I outlined above, albeit fairly simplistically, is the core to their thinking.
And, again, it's exactly the same base materials that justified the Crusades, that justified slavery - and justified abolition - and justified the political manouevring of the English Civil War, and justified centuries of anti-Semitism... It's open to interpretation, it isn't precise and there's no way to update it, but at the same time the nature of the idea of gods embodies anyone's heartfelt interpretation with the weight of God behind it.
Can you produce a single verse, let a reasoned and scripture-wide theme, that says that Christians ought to be out killing people?
Metaphorically, yes. An absolute instruction to kill, not that I can immediately think of, but that's the object lesson of large swathes of the Old Testament that Jesus endorses (not that you accept THAT interpretation of THAT particular component); the description of segments of the populace (i.e. black people, homosexuals, women) as inherently less worthy or deserving of opprobrium. Couple those two concepts and violence is not only justified it's actively encouraged.
OK, but then you could replace the terms 'religious/religions' with 'political' and you'd have an equally legitimate argument.
Some political systems, yes, but not all. The problem, ultimately, is the idea of an absolute, unquestionable authority. In religion you have gods or god, in (say) Soviet Russia you had Stalin, in Nazi Germany you had Hitler and the Nazi party. Other political systems balance that power out so that it doesn't get focussed anywhere, so that no-one and nothing is the absolute authority.
I don't see people suggesting that politics - which is most definitely a man-made concept - should be 'got rid of' or that we ought to be 'nibbling away at the politic-ists', to adapt a phrase ippy introduced.
Politics, no, but fascism? Communism - some would say that's inherently centralised and authoritarian, others would contest that it doesn't need to be but the practical applications in history have happened that way.
O.
