▣ The World's Worst Dictators
11 Comments added to this post
- Tags:
- FromTheEditor
Like Taliban leader and terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarquawi, who once had a woman stoned to death for gathering sticks to make a fire on a cold day.
Or Ugandan President Idi Amin, who sent his soldiers into cities with orders to kill all of the men (including male children) and take for themselves the virgin women.
Pol Pot, Prime Minister of Cambodia in the 1970s, threatened to punish disobedience by making parents eat the flesh of their children.
King Leopold II of Belgium, in the 19th Century, ordered his soldiers not only to kill the opposition, but to cut the hamstrings all the horses, cruelly crippling the animals.
Japanese dictator Emperor Hirohito plundered a local village, decapitated the leaders and had the severed heads delivered to his general as a trophy.
Russian Czar Nicholas II had his general kill 185,000 men who opposed him.
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein threatened the crime of adultery with stoning, impalement, the execution of relatives, and the burning of their homes.
And here’s the most shocking thing:
The atrocities mentioned above? They weren’t actually perpetrated by the dictators mentioned.
The one responsible for each of these horrible acts was…Jehovah-The God of the Old Testament.
• Stoning for firewood: Numbers 15:32-36
• Kidnapping the virgin women: Numbers 31:17-18
• Threatening to make parents eat the flesh of offspring: Deuteronomy 28:53
• Hamstringing the horses: Joshua 11
• Severed heads delivered: Judges 7:19-25
• 185,000 killed: 2 Kings 10:7
• Stoning, execution and burning for adultery: Hosea 13:16
Now…consider how horrified and appalled you were when you felt men were responsible, and ask yourself why you wouldn’t be horrified and appalled that your God was.
-Ed
last edited on June 17th, 2009 at 12:11 PM
Comments
Hikari says:
I didn't think it was this hard to understand. No, the author does not believe that any sort of God was responsible for these acts, because they never took place in the way described. They were taken out of the bible and put in a different context to reveal the hipocrisy of religious peoples' reactions (as in they are shocked when they believe actual humans are responsible for these acts, but not shocked when they read of these things in the bible where they are mentioned as punishments God handed out). Sometimes I seriously doubt the ability of most adults to read and comprehend a simple enough text.
July 13th, 2010 at 1:22 PM
Rain says:
I think this was more to illustrate the hypocrisy in religion rather than trying to disprove anything. The hypocrisy alone is reason enough not to give religion any merit.
May 19th, 2010 at 9:13 AM
Sabih says:
The same thing happened in Bangladesh in 1971. Pakistani soldiers killed, raped and looted Bengali people to 'save' Islam.
May 3rd, 2010 at 6:20 PM
Joel says:
The only real logic that this story tells me is that God after all .... exists.
May 1st, 2010 at 1:23 PM
Martin says:
Let me see if I understand you. You don't believe that God exists. So one of the ways you prove He doesn't exist is to say that this non-entity endorsed all of things from the Bible which you say is fiction. Wow that is logical.
If you believe that, then the Bible is true and God exists. So then you’re a theist that does not agree with the way that God has run this world.
February 20th, 2010 at 4:59 PM
Martin says:
Let me see if I understand you. You don't believe that God exists. So one of the ways you prove He doesn't exist is to say that this non-entity endorsed all of things from the Bible which you say is fiction. Wow that is logical.
If you believe that, then the Bible is true and God exists. So then you’re a theist that does not agree with the way that God has run this world.
February 20th, 2010 at 4:59 PM
Martin says:
Let me see if I understand you. You don't believe that God exists. So one of the ways you prove He doesn't exist is to say that this non-entity endorsed all of things from the Bible which you say is fiction. Wow that is logical.
If you believe that, then the Bible is true and God exists. So then you’re a theist that does not agree with the way that God has run this world.
February 20th, 2010 at 4:58 PM
Bornagainvulcan says:
You are like an ex wife or ex husband who are at odds. You are so opposed to the other side, that no explanation will suffice. Even a kind deed would be presumed ill-intentioned. I checked each reference you gave (I didn't take your word for it). In my view they are misrepresented. The same way any strongly opposed party may misrepresent the other point of view. There are reasonable explanations for these events. We speak from the comfort of a modern lifestyle free from direct military conflict. If your family suffered at the mercy of a heinous dictator like Kahn you may not care so much about how you would treat an enemy. Many countries now sign agreements concerning methods of war and diplomacy. Yet those agreements were not in place at those times. Even a few hundred years back we know that armies thought nothing of plundering and raping and be rewarded for it. How is it that we feel justified to judge an ancient culture by our own modern standards? People did what they needed to ward off evil aggressors.
January 21st, 2010 at 1:28 PM
Codswallop says:
Ah, I knew something was up when you said Hirohito. The late emperor of Japan probably never heard a shot fired in anger in his life, and by most accounts was completely uninvolved in military matters beyond the merely ceremonial.
Good post, though.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:11 AM
Cybercommuter says:
Makes on wonder about the title "The World's Worst Dictators" -- shouldn't "dictators" be singular instead of plural?
June 18th, 2009 at 9:31 PM
Aydan says:
As for me it is a very useful post.
July 30th, 2010 at 7:53 PM