The First Religious Suicide Killer

Amica

Amica

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Judges 16:26 Samson said to the young man who held him by the hand, “Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them.”
16:27 Now the house was full of men and women. All the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about 3,000 men and women, who looked on while Samson entertained.
16:28 Then Samson prayed to the Lord, “O Sovereign Lord, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”
16:29 Then Samson reached toward the two central pillars on which the temple stood. Bracing himself against them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other,
16:30 Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it. Thus he killed many more when he died than while he lived.
 
he had been captured had his eyes gouged out and was to to be paraded in front of his captures.

And he took them all out, so the story says.

suicide killings in this day and age seem to target civilians

20 Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!”

He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had left him.

21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison. 22 But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
The Death of Samson
23 Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god and to celebrate, saying, “Our god has delivered Samson, our enemy, into our hands.”

24 When the people saw him, they praised their god, saying,

“Our god has delivered our enemy
into our hands,
the one who laid waste our land
and multiplied our slain.”

25 While they were in high spirits, they shouted, “Bring out Samson to entertain us.” So they called Samson out of the prison, and he performed for them.
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Hi,

Well, one of the verses I quoted states that there were women and men among the Phillistines. In those days women were considered civillians.

By today's standards, this guy was a suicide-killer. It is not different from today's suicide bomber blowing up himself and bunch of other people he views as his enemies, trying to avoid being caught and tortured. Because if his enemies did catch him, he probably would be tortured.

Samson had his eyes gauged out. Oh, well. Who knows how many suicide killers today were paying back for someone they lost: wife, sister, brother, parents, maybe they were raped and tortured before?
 
Amica said:
Hi,

Well, one of the verses I quoted states that there were women and men among the Phillistines. In those days women were considered civillians.

By today's standards, this guy was a suicide-killer. It is not different from today's suicide bomber blowing up himself and bunch of other people he views as his enemies, trying to avoid being caught and tortured. Because if his enemies did catch him, he probably would be tortured.

Samson had his eyes gauged out. Oh, well. Who knows how many suicide killers today were paying back for someone they lost: wife, sister, brother, parents, maybe they were raped and tortured before?
Click to expand...

i disasagree there is no comparison between todays chick shit islamic militants and the Bible Story of Sampson.

He was captured and tortured and he took out those who had captured him, despite being blinded since his eyes had been gouged out, so the story says..

by comparison islamic suicide killers target mosques, markets trains and buses.

full of civilians, its quite simply not the same thing in my mind.

although you might like to think so, would you like to blow up a mosque or a market ?
 
Well, I respect your views, but I still consider this guy a suicide killer. In addition to killing the men who might have captured him (lets say all of those men were responsible) and tortured him, he also killed himself and women who were present. It is possible that there were children attending the religious rite.

As for "islamic" millitants who attack civilians, mosques and buses, is it fair to give them a title of "islamic" then? Also, how do you know that any of those suicide bombers were not tortured? Is it possible that some of them have been? If so, then by the standards set by Samson, these tortured millitants could be excused?

Why did not Samson pray to be freed or something like that? Why kill 3000 men and women? And himself? If that is not a suicide killer, then I do not know what is.
 
Amica said:
Why did not Samson pray to be freed or something like that?
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Goooood question. I've always wondered that, too. Why would he pray 'Let me die with the Philistines!' You got me thinking. Its a terrific question. Ordinarily he would've kicked some butt and gone on with life. I have an idea.

I will make the guess that he judged himself worthy of death and condemned himself. He was a judge, so he could do that. His blindness meant that Israel had strayed under his leadership. His cut hair meant he had broken his vows, and his captivity came from marrying a Philistine. I am guessing, but he felt that he ought to be condemned. If he had lived Israel would have used it as an excuse to imitate his mistakes which would have brought even more trouble on themselves. Perhaps it was his best attempt at repentance for his situation.

I'm not going to comment on the Muslims who have committed suicide except that it seems more like Japanese suicide missions. It reminds me a lot of those Kamikaze's of WWII that would crash their planes into ships.
 
Every culture has its "code of honour" (so to speak).

People often complain about "Western arrogance" and I think they may well have a good point. It is easy for someone who lives in a place with high living standards to point fingers at others who do not live the same way as he does. I think it is the case of having wood in one's eye and not seeing one's own faults and shortcomings.

The subject here, of course, isn't Western values, but a biblical character. However, it could very well be about Western values. The Middle-East has become infamous with stories of disgruntled individuals from Muslim cultures strapping bombs to their chest and killing themselves in populated civilian areas.

The issue here is why one Middle-Eastern culture is inferior to another: why a Jewish hero can commit suicide and bring an enemy people down with him and why angry Muslims can't do the same.

The reason is because of Western self-interest and snobbery. Westerners are so bent on their life of comfort that they will meddle in Middle-Eastern affairs, stir up trouble in the Middle East and provoke the anger of those living there. The damage that this meddling does is of no concern to the Westerner because it happens in a distant part of the planet (or "galaxy" if I may be allowed to exaggerate).

I believe there is a real injustice here, but life here is just too good to play nice. We could think of the Middle East as a kind of rubbish bin where we offload our "political waste" -- all our anger and frustration -- and keep our own world nice and tidy. We pick our nose and chuck the mucus into the Middle East and treat it like some kind of toilet.

But never fear. Your hero will come. Be patient. When the messiah comes, he will put an end to all meddling in the Middle East. The messiah will put an end to all terrorism.

They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Luke 21:24
 
Saltmeister said:
Every culture has its "code of honour" (so to speak).

People often complain about "Western arrogance" and I think they may well have a good point. It is easy for someone who lives in a place with high living standards to point fingers at others who do not live the same way as he does. I think it is the case of having wood in one's eye and not seeing one's own faults and shortcomings.

The subject here, of course, isn't Western values, but a biblical character. However, it could very well be about Western values. The Middle-East has become infamous with stories of disgruntled individuals from Muslim cultures strapping bombs to their chest and killing themselves in populated civilian areas.

The issue here is why one Middle-Eastern culture is inferior to another: why a Jewish hero can commit suicide and bring an enemy people down with him and why angry Muslims can't do the same.

The reason is because of Western self-interest and snobbery. Westerners are so bent on their life of comfort that they will meddle in Middle-Eastern affairs, stir up trouble in the Middle East and provoke the anger of those living there. The damage that this meddling does is of no concern to the Westerner because it happens in a distant part of the planet (or "galaxy" if I may be allowed to exaggerate).

I believe there is a real injustice here, but life here is just too good to play nice. We could think of the Middle East as a kind of rubbish bin where we offload our "political waste" -- all our anger and frustration -- and keep our own world nice and tidy. We pick our nose and chuck the mucus into the Middle East and treat it like some kind of toilet.

But never fear. Your hero will come. Be patient. When the messiah comes, he will put an end to all meddling in the Middle East. The messiah will put an end to all terrorism.

They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Luke 21:24
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your notion of the story being about western values and the superioroty of one culture over another is merely your own projection.

the Story of Sampson is a different story to the majority of suicide bombers and thats it really, nothing to do with Jew or Arab, Aryian or anything else.

of course there some similarities in that in the process of killing people he died himself, but thats about the only one really.
 
The issue here is why one Middle-Eastern culture is inferior to another: why a Jewish hero can commit suicide and bring an enemy people down with him and why angry Muslims can't do the same.
Click to expand...
i think it makes rather a large difference that samson was actually a captive of the philistines at the time and they were publicly humiliating him in order to blaspheme against G!D; he did not wake up one day and go down to their temple to attack them on market day. if you put anyone in a situation where they feel they have no choice other than to die and take their oppressors with them, i can see that happening.

however, it is a complete moral failure to suggest that suicide bombers have no other choice. they do. nobody is forcing them to kill, or preventing them from expressing themselves in any other way. frankly, it suggests that the sort of people who become suicide bombers can't be expected to come up with anything better, which i think is pure bigotry. are you seriously suggesting that, say, mohammed atta, who had a degree, lived in germany, had prospects if he had chosen to apply himself to making a life for himself, had no other option than to take pilot training and fly a plane into a tower? because, clearly, he had any number of options open to him, none of which he took. samson, by contrast, had no options open to him at all. he could stand there bound and be tortured to death (which was what was going on) or he could take matters into his own hands.

also, samson is regarded as somewhat less than a great religious leader; a controversial figure at best.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
See, if Yassir Arafat had paid attention to the e-mail I sent him when the Second Intifadah began, I think things would be a lot cleaner. I told him to watch "Gandhi" and adopt that technique... I believe that it would have (1) permanently devistated any support for Isreal in Europe, (2) seriously changed the attitude of the Israel-Evangelical lobby in the US, and (3) have fractured Israeli society.

Bottom line: terrorists have a choice as both Gandhi and Mandela proove.

Panta Rhei!
(Everything Flows!)
 
oh, arafat did actually understand what was necessary - he just didn't have the balls to do it and take on the entrenched opinions he had spent so many years building and supporting. he saw what happened to rabin, he saw what happened to sadat and king abdullah I - and he bottled it, preferring to stuff his own bank account and allow his cronies to do the same. this is the only courage the palestinians lack - the courage to admit that the facts have changed and that new strategies are called for. i feel bound to point out that the same is true of netanyahu. who knows what sharon would have achieved had he not been struck down in his moment of triumph - i always detested him, but he really seemed to have understood that business as usual wouldn't play. i never thought i'd miss the fat bastad.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
BB, I had come to the same conclusions... Rabin, Sadat, and Abdullah I stand (lay?) as testiment to what happens to those who want to change the situation. Think you hit the nail on the head for Arafat and Sharon (did not care for him either).
 
Samson was someone who couldn't handle himself.

check this out:
Judges 15

Samson's Revenge

1 Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson [took] a young goat [as a gift] and visited his wife. "I want to go to my wife in her room," he said. But her father would not let him enter. 2 "I was sure you hated her," her father said, "so I gave her to one of the men who accompanied you. Isn't her younger sister more beautiful than she is? Why not take her instead?"
3 Samson said to them, "This time I won't be responsible when I harm the Philistines." 4 So he went out and caught 300 foxes. He took torches, turned the foxes tail-to-tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails. 5 Then he ignited the torches and released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the piles of grain and the standing grain as well as the vineyards and olive groves.
6 Then the Philistines asked, "Who did this?"
They were told, "[It was] Samson, the Timnite's son-in-law, because he has taken Samson's wife and given her to another man." So the Philistines went to her and her father and burned [them] to death.​
 
well, as i say, samson is not someone who we particularly venerate; i mean, compared to, say, elijah, or deborah, or solomon. we were never much for action man heroes, even of the flawed type. however, in the context, samson was one of the best of a rather poor bunch - i mean, look at jephthah, notoriously the worst and stupidest leader we have ever had. i can never think about it but be reminded of groucho marx's comment on seeing the victor mature / hedy lamarr movie "samson & delilah":

Well, I mostly liked it, but you know what the main problem was? His knockers were bigger than hers.
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hur hur hur hur hur hur.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
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