The Religion of Blinding Bluster

[Hoping]

They have been deemed acceptable in many cultures throughout history.

That doesn't make it OK.
Or defensible.

Lots of people even today still think they are acceptable. Which is why they still occur.

Lots?
Data, please, unless you are just using hyperbole.

Why are you having such a hard time understanding this? Every human being and human society decides for themselves what is "right" and what is "wrong". This is apparently how God wants it. So why are you so insistent that everyone else should follow your opinions about it?

I am "insistent" because I am a Christian who loves instead of hates.
Christians get a new, divine nature when the Holy Ghost is given to us.
It won't accept harm to others being called normal.

 

[JudgeRightly]

I don't know why you keep bringing Rom 1 into the discussion.

To show you that the death penalty was not exclusive to the Old Testament.

The MADs shun anything to do with the Law,

False.

Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law. - Romans 3:31 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans3:31&version=NKJV

but you make me think the OT Laws' punishments are still to be enforced.

You need to stop thinking in terms of "OT laws" versus whatever else you're comparing them to.

It's impeding your thinking.

You need to think in terms of "God's laws." I repeat: God's standards of justice are absolute. If a man kills another innocent man, the just punishment for his crime is to be put to death. Life for life. It doesn't matter whether he's in ancient Israel or in modern day New York. As I just mentioned to Skeeter, what I want is for our nations laws to reflect God's laws, as Israel's Mosaic Law did. I am a theonomist.

The death penalty is not exclusive to the Old Testament. Even Paul, who was no longer under the law, said that if he had done anything worthy of death, that he should be put to death.

For if I am an offender, or have committed anything deserving of death, I do not object to dying; but if there is nothing in these things of which these men accuse me, no one can deliver me to them. I appeal to Caesar.” - Acts 25:11 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts25:11&version=NKJV

Paul upheld the death penalty!

OK, I see your perspective now...an insertion of your own POV regarding what Paul would have us do.
But Paul isn't calling for any death penalty.

For if I am an offender, or have committed anything deserving of death, I do not object to dying; but if there is nothing in these things of which these men accuse me, no one can deliver me to them. I appeal to Caesar.” - Acts 25:11 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts25:11&version=NKJV

Just that the sinner/criminal is worthy of death.

And the one to enforce that, here on earth, as far as crimes are considered, is the government:

Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. - Romans 13:1-5 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans13:1-5&version=NKJV

A sword is not something you use to beat someone with. A sword is used to kill people. Again, Paul is upholding the death penalty.

Christians are to love and forgive,

LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE TIME I have this conversation with someone, they always make this or a similar statement, that Christians aren't supposed to do these things, or we're to love and forgive, or "we're no longer under the law," all of which are irrelevant to what I'm talking about! I'm not talking about Christians! I am talking about how governments should enforce laws upon the general population!

And NO! We are NOT supposed to just "love and forgive"! You're sounding like PureX!

We are to love, yes, but we are to also HATE EVIL! That doesn't mean "hate the sin and love the sinner," it means hate the person who sins, while loving them enough to warn them that their sin will send them to hell when they die, but that Christ can save them! How do we do that? THROUGH THE LAW! The law is the very tutor we need to use to bring people to Christ, and that comes STRAIGHT FROM THE BIBLE!

We are to forgive, BUT ONLY IF (and that's a HUGE "if") the person repents! If they don't repent of their wrongdoing, and you forgive them, it teaches them that repentance is superfluous, unecessary, and that they don't need to repent before God because He'll just forgive them whenever they do anything wrong! When you forgive someone a) without rebuking them and b) without them repenting, you are quite literally forgiving them straight to hell!

but if the civil law enforcers want to kill, that death is on their heads.

Once again, IT IS THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY to punish criminals! It's NOT OPTIONAL.

Those of us who have been baptized into Christ won't usurp a power only God is entitled to.

If the government was to appoint you to be the head judge over the entire nation, would you be able to condemn the wicked?

 

[Hoping]

To show you that the death penalty was not exclusive to the Old Testament.

It, like all of the Mosaic Law and customs, were exclusively for the OT/OC.
That Covenant is over.
We don't stone witches anymore.
We don't worship at a temple or sacrifice animals for our transgressions.
But we still kill some sinners?
No.

False.
Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law. - Romans 3:31 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans3:31&version=NKJV

How much of the Law do you hold to?
More than nine of the ten commandments?
How about circumcision?
Still necessary for salvation?

You need to stop thinking in terms of "OT laws" versus whatever else you're comparing them to.

I'm comparing them to the NT ability to live without meeting out death for sins, (circumcision, tithing, feast keeping, and dietary rules).
Leave that to the Godless civil authorities.

It's impeding your thinking.
You need to think in terms of "God's laws." I repeat: God's standards of justice are absolute. If a man kills another innocent man, the just punishment for his crime is to be put to death. Life for life. It doesn't matter whether he's in ancient Israel or in modern day New York. As I just mentioned to Skeeter, what I want is for our nations laws to reflect God's laws, as Israel's Mosaic Law did. I am a theonomist.

The death penalty is not exclusive to the Old Testament. Even Paul, who was no longer under the law, said that if he had done anything worthy of death, that he should be put to death.

Look at the context of who he was talking to. (Acts 25:11)
Civil authorities, not the church.

For if I am an offender, or have committed anything deserving of death, I do not object to dying; but if there is nothing in these things of which these men accuse me, no one can deliver me to them. I appeal to Caesar.” - Acts 25:11 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts25:11&version=NKJV
Paul upheld the death penalty!

You surprise me, in light of your prior dismissal of all things Jewish.
I guess it may be time to ask if repentance from sin and water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins are necessary for salvation.
Those are actually NT (post resurrection) commandments, (Acts 2:38, 22:16), but I want to see how far your thinking has transformed.

 

[JudgeRightly]

It, like all of the Mosaic Law and customs, were exclusively for the OT/OC.
That Covenant is over.
We don't stone witches anymore.
We don't worship at a temple or sacrifice animals for our transgressions.
But we still kill some sinners?
No.

How much of the Law do you hold to?
More than nine of the ten commandments?
How about circumcision?
Still necessary for salvation?

I'm comparing them to the NT ability to live without meeting out death for sins, (circumcision, tithing, feast keeping, and dietary rules).
Leave that to the Godless civil authorities.

Look at the context of who he was talking to. (Acts 25:11)
Civil authorities, not the church.

You surprise me, in light of your prior dismissal of all things Jewish.
I guess it may be time to ask if repentance from sin and water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins are necessary for salvation.
Those are actually NT (post resurrection) commandments, (Acts 2:38, 22:16), but I want to see how far your thinking has transformed.

Accidentally typo'd in my formatting, there's more to my post than what you responded to.

 

[Rusha]

I think PureX is a good guy and has tried simply to express himself. It is disheartening to see his exchange with Arthur who I greatly respect. I do not want usual allies to tear each other up over an unlikely hypothetical.

I am fairly sure that AB, Anna and myself have normally held PureX as well as yourself in high regard. When I respond to someone, it means they are not on my ignore list. Insofar as calling people out who are normally allies, it’s not personal. AB was my first friend on this sight and he and I have disagreed on a few occasions.

I responded as I did because I am an advocate against child abuse, domestic abuse and any type of sexual and physical abuse. In my opinion, sexual abuse and rape is deserving of the death penalty and my reaction was to the dismissiveness of PureX towards these victims.

 

[PureX]

Objective morality exists but there are two central practical problems with it. There is one subjective presupposition needed to base the objectivity on AND we do not have unambiguous access to what is the most moral.

The value of human well-being over suffering is a central. If we refuse to acknowledge this value as true, multiple bases for morality spring multitudinous vicissitudes. If we can acknowledge this value, actions can be judged on a continuum of how moral the action is.

I would assert that there is an even more fundamental objective basis for establishing value than the avoidance of suffering, and that is that it is better to exist than not to exist. As evidenced by the nature of everything that does exist struggling in whatever ways that are possible, to keep existing. Even to the level of atoms and molecules. Everything that exists, seeks to maintain that state of being.

And yet for reasons unknown to us, existence has been designed in such a way that some forms of existential 'being' are required to destroy other various forms of existential being to maintain their own state of being. So that even though we may recognize the primary value of existence objectively and as a whole, we are forced to maintain it subjectively. And we do not know why this is so. But the result is that morality as an ideal is different from morality as it can actually be practiced. ... A fundamental truth that the 'absolutists' among us absolutely refuse to acknowledge.

 

[annabenedetti]

I am fairly sure that AB, Anna and myself have normally held PureX as well as yourself in high regard. When I respond to someone, it means they are not on my ignore list. Insofar as calling people out who are normally allies, it’s not personal. AB was my first friend on this sight and he and I have disagreed on a few occasions.

I responded as I did because I am an advocate against child abuse, domestic abuse and any type of sexual and physical abuse. In my opinion, sexual abuse and rape is deserving of the death penalty and my reaction was to the dismissiveness of PureX towards these victims.

You're right. I like PureX, I aways have. Just don't ask him about the three doors problem... I just looked for that thread, and it must be gone.

 

[PureX]

Do you think there are fundamental underlying moral principles that don't change even if the practices of various cultures do?

I think we first have to acknowledge that there is a difference between an ethical principal and a moral action. Morality is the ethical assessment of behavior. So to be precise, there are no 'moral principals', there is only moral and immoral behavior as determined by ethical assessment. But the ethical imperatives of one culture do not always align with the ethical imperatives of another. So the question becomes who's ethical imperatives are we using to assess the morality of a given culture's behavior? Does it even make sense to use the ethical imperatives of culture "A" to assess the moral behaviors of culture "B"? Isn't that like using the criteria of being an 'apple' to assess the value of an 'orange'? How is the information gained by such a misapplication of ethical ideology useful?

And, ... even if we were to establish a single universal ethical imperative with which to judge every culture's moral behavior, they are all going to have their own unique set of possibilities and limitations from which they are choosing to act, morally. Actions that may be an elective luxury in some cultures may be a fundamental necessity for another. Thus, even a universal absolute ethical imperative becomes subject to the relativity of circumstances when it's brought to bear in the actual world.

Do you make a distinction between relativism and subjectivism?

Sure. Existence is one big complicated event taking place. Everything within it exists and is what it is relative to everything else within it.

We are only a very small part of that whole event, and thus we are not capable of comprehending the whole of it. Because our comprehension of the whole is subject to the limitations that define who we are as a part of that whole. And there is simply no way around this.

 

[PureX]

Then humanity ends, because we would've lost the good part of our humanity.

There are MANY other 'good parts' of humanity. And the loss may only be for a moment in history.

Keep in mind this is all a hypothetical that has no current basis in reality.

 

[Right Divider]

Keep in mind this is all a hypothetical that has no current basis in reality.

That's for sure!

 

[PureX]

You're right. I like PureX, I aways have. Just don't ask him about the three doors problem... I just looked for that thread, and it must be gone.

Thank God!

 

[Right Divider]

Just don't ask him about the three doors problem... I just looked for that thread, and it must be gone.

What is the "three doors problem"? Is that the same as the Monty Hall Problem?

 

[marke]

What is the "three doors problem"? Is that the same as the Monty Hall Problem?

The three direct-access doors to Biden's White House are:
1. Foreign contributors to the Biden Foundation door.
2. Faithful, rich, famous, and influential democrat supporters door.
3. Soros owned or approved democrat media propagandist door.

 

[Arthur Brain]

I have no absolute right - that's for sure. Being in public carries inherent risks.

I live a block from a bar. If a bloke who looked somewhat like me just attacked someone's wife and I had walked out in the middle of events and the husband saw me walking toward his wife and hit me in an attempt to prevent harm from coming to her, he could claim mistaken defense of other, and would quite possibly avoid criminal charges.

Civil damages would likely apply but not necessarily. What good is my right when I must still suffer unprovoked consequences?


I may not be as eloquent as you, but it is not anything resembling word salad. I just read it again and it isn't my best work - a very clunky way to try to address what was said in the last four pages.

None-the-less, I think you are reacting emotionally rather than thinking through what PureX has said. You can do better.

Okay, firstly I retract the 'word salad' bit, that was uncalled for on my part. I don't consider myself any more eloquent then you either, I reckon there's a bunch of us who have a good grasp of vocabulary and can express ourselves well. Frankly, if there was a competition on the eloquence score I'd award the mantle to anna...

Back to the topic. I agree with Pure X more than I differ but where it comes to the topics of "absolutes" or lack thereof I've always held a contrary position to there being none. One irony being that declaring there to be none in itself is an absolute. Some things, on a moral and ethical level, at least in a modern and supposedly civilized society cannot and should not be defended. Rape is one of those AFAIC. It irks me when it's effectively reduced to some abstract that can be pontificated about in armchairs because it's a very real thing and causes untold damage to its victims, the after effects I've witnessed first hand. So, emotional about it, sure but it's also an affront to logic. There's a reason why we predominantly have laws that protect society from all manner of violent crime and it's common sense as well as moral to have such laws in place.

For society to function properly there has to be laws against rape, murder, molestation, violence, assault as otherwise there'd be chaos. Pure's hypothetical about humanity abandoning traditional relationships/sex in favour of some none defined tech hardly passes muster or the notion that once said tech has broken down that rape would be preferable or at 'best' no longer regarded as immoral. It fails scrutiny. All it effectively portrays is a future society that's become reliant on technology and abandoned principle in the process, hardly traits of an enlightened civilization but one that's reverted and devolved to primitive lawlessness.

Sure, there's risks in simply going outside and no guarantee of not coming to harm in the process. Your chances of being attacked by some nut with a baseball bat are exponentially reduced in a society that doesn't tolerate violent crime than one with a free for all however.

 

[Hoping]

Accidentally typo'd in my formatting, there's more to my post than what you responded to.

No big deal.
Thanks.

 

[Hoping]

I would assert that there is an even more fundamental objective basis for establishing value than the avoidance of suffering, and that is that it is better to exist than not to exist. As evidenced by the nature of everything that does exist struggling in whatever ways that are possible, to keep existing. Even to the level of atoms and molecules. Everything that exists, seeks to maintain that state of being.

And yet for reasons unknown to us, existence has been designed in such a way that some forms of existential 'being' are required to destroy other various forms of existential being to maintain their own state of being. So that even though we may recognize the primary value of existence objectively and as a whole, we are forced to maintain it subjectively. And we do not know why this is so. But the result is that morality as an ideal is different from morality as it can actually be practiced. ... A fundamental truth that the 'absolutists' among us absolutely refuse to acknowledge.

You will need to supply a reason you think that is true, much less fundamentally true, before I declare myself an "Absolutist".
I know the ideal morality, via Jesus and His and His prophets' words.
I also know that Jesus made it possible to accomplish here on earth.
Thanks be to God.

The morality of those not aligned with the words of Christ are the ones that can't "be practiced".
That morality is at the whim of contemporary culture, and wavers like a house built on sand.

 

[JudgeRightly]

No big deal.
Thanks.

Please respond to the rest of my post.

 

[annabenedetti]

And, ... even if we were to establish a single universal ethical imperative with which to judge every culture's moral behavior, they are all going to have their own unique set of possibilities and limitations from which they are choosing to act, morally. Actions that may be an elective luxury in some cultures may be a fundamental necessity for another. Thus, even a universal absolute ethical imperative becomes subject to the relativity of circumstances when it's brought to bear in the actual world.

Coincidentally, I finished watching the series Gaslit tonight. The two FBI agents waiting to pick up John Dean to testify in the Watergate hearings have a passing disagreement about slippery slopes and objective morality. : )

Anyway. I have no great thoughts here, only that it's possible to establish universal ethical imperatives that work across societies and across time (murder is bad), and secondarily that it would also be possible to have a ranked subset of ethical imperatives that allow for more relativity (killing in self-defense is justifiable). I guess I'll leave it at that.

Sure. Existence is one big complicated event taking place. Everything within it exists and is what it is relative to everything else within it.

We are only a very small part of that whole event, and thus we are not capable of comprehending the whole of it. Because our comprehension of the whole is subject to the limitations that define who we are as a part of that whole. And there is simply no way around this.

I wondered because it seems to me that some of what the thread is about seems to cross back and forth between: perception is reality, so there is no objective truth, and: everything in society is relative so there can be no universal truth.

 

[annabenedetti]

I agree with Pure X more than I differ but where it comes to the topics of "absolutes" or lack thereof I've always held a contrary position to there being none. One irony being that declaring there to be none in itself is an absolute. Some things, on a moral and ethical level, at least in a modern and supposedly civilized society cannot and should not be defended. Rape is one of those AFAIC. It irks me when it's effectively reduced to some abstract that can be pontificated about in armchairs because it's a very real thing and causes untold damage to its victims, the after effects I've witnessed first hand. So, emotional about it, sure but it's also an affront to logic. There's a reason why we predominantly have laws that protect society from all manner of violent crime and it's common sense as well as moral to have such laws in place.

For society to function properly there has to be laws against rape, murder, molestation, violence, assault as otherwise there'd be chaos. Pure's hypothetical about humanity abandoning traditional relationships/sex in favour of some none defined tech hardly passes muster or the notion that once said tech has broken down that rape would be preferable or at 'best' no longer regarded as immoral. It fails scrutiny. All it effectively portrays is a future society that's become reliant on technology and abandoned principle in the process, hardly traits of an enlightened civilization but one that's reverted and devolved to primitive lawlessness.

Sure, there's risks in simply going outside and no guarantee of not coming to harm in the process. Your chances of being attacked by some nut with a baseball bat are exponentially reduced in a society that doesn't tolerate violent crime than one with a free for all however.

Eloquently stated, Arthur. : )

 

[annabenedetti]

What is the "three doors problem"? Is that the same as the Monty Hall Problem?

Yes.