Someone at a party i was at tonight tried engaging me in a religous convrrsation, since she found out i'm Asatru and she's a hardcore Catholic. I said i only talked religion online.
When you can name your God, I am, and mean yourself, you will begin to know the only God you will ever find. Becoming a God is to become more fully human.
Before Jesus they killed animals to escape responsability.
After christian redemption nothing is guaranteed, you still have to take personal reponsability, assumedly following the example of someone who died for the sake of others -reponsable not only for yourself but the future of others?-.
That wasn't the morality in the second half of the Bible?
yea if you deserve punishment then justice is you receiving that punishment, not someone else receiving it on your behalf so you can be inspired by what a great person they are. just my opinion.
Without focusing in the Jesus example, part of the vision you suggest gives a very personal responsability on human acts.
I understand your take on justice, but it's limited so morality is obliged to go beyond just punishment. Condeemning bad acts won't make the effects of such acts disappear, if all your justice and all your responsability ends with death you're not building for the future.
Probably the christian argument on justice is weird because the teachings aren't really about that. Jesus doesn't seem to make a huge argument on justice, I consider he focuses in responsability (not just personal responsability), given that he died knowing he was wrongly accused.
i understand that point but at the end of the day no justice system is perfect, really the best thing we can do at this point is to mete out personal responsibility through punishment in order to deter crime as well as to separate the dangerous elements from society.
i look at it like this: if i was good friends with charles manson and i somehow convinced him to be a better person and in exchange agreed to take on his prison sentence for him, is that justice? to me it's kind of silly. i take this example cause it was basically the argument christians have tried to recruit me with, saying something along the lines of "what if you committed a crime and you had a friend who would take your prison sentence for you, wouldn't that make him a great friend?" and my response was that it might make him a great friend, but it's wrong for me to accept that agreement and would make me a shitty friend to do so.
Well, those are some twisted arguments indeed. The problem I have with that argumentation is that it places you as an outsider just receiving help from Jesus, you're being sold a passive religion which is a half-ass*d religion as an extension. That and I think is quite liberal as a Bible reading, but that's secondary.
To their defense, selling responsability is kind of hard. "Hey man, come here, you'll die for others to build a better world" isn't an awesome line to reel people in either
but to back track a little it's kind of odd to question that punishment = justice to me when the very premise of christianity relies on the assumption that you deserve punishment for your sins. if punishment isn't justice then why should people be punished for their sins in the first place?
We all get annoyed at the door to door salesmen. But at least you could choose not to answer the door.
I had to face a group in college, whom I mosty hung with through association with a few other friends. And one day, they decided to make the pitch.
Most uncomfortable moments of my college experience.
But I can't fault religious groups for recruitment, any more then I can fault non believers for trying to argue their peace. The only types I can't stand, are those who can't take a hint and drop a subject, or try and play "King of the Mountain/convince everyone how wrong they are" games, no matter the subject.
__________________ What CDTM believes;
Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
Well, there is also mercy. The very existence of mercy makes it so justice and punishment are not strictly the same thing. There are maybe other differences here and there if you go deep in the doctrine, but mercy is pretty major.
The part of punishment in christianity it's a huge topic, very divisive. Some of it's theological elements are hard to swallow for most people, the implications of going to hell alone are enough to inspire conflict (check Shaky and BWR discussing for example). If you ask me, those problems are likely because the doctrine was never meant to be about punishment, and that such elements are very losely defined.
mercy as in, taking mercy on the sinner after he sinned by not punishing him, right? but that still means he deserved the punishment for sinning. which still seems to imply that punishment and justice do go hand in hand.
maybe i'm missing something here.. i'm thinking about it basically like this: before jesus, the appropriate response to sin was punishment. after jesus, if you don't accept his sacrifice on your behalf then the appropriate response to sin is still punishment. basically the only thing saving you from punishment is the fact that someone else was punished for you. cause for whatever reason god demands punishment for sin.
Mercy is not something exclusive to God, Jesus encourages his disciples to forgive.
I kind of wonder if punishment was expected for personal offenses too. In the West duels were considered to be outside the jurisdiction of the law for a good deal of time, I think it's obvious that they were harmful for society in general and then became illegal.
Punishment was never meant to be mandatory.
There was punishment from sin in one side, but you could also buy god, in a way, by sacrificing an animal and paying money to the priests your sins were cleansed. After Jesus the concept of buying your faults is no longer valid, but punishment is still not obligatory. Jesus's death replaces the old animal sacrifices.
You're probably asking yourself "why did I have to sacrifice animals to begin with"? Well, as I said before, doing a bad deed can get you punishment, but it still doesn't undo the damage. The sacrifice is meant to restore that balance, you're giving away something to make up for the evil you did. If you offended someone or -for example- killed someone's son, then you also gave them some sort of payment, but the "sin" side of the equation was carried by animal sacrifices (sin read as an offense towards God).
Gender: Male Location: Stuck In the future where Akus evil
I really wont argue with that..I mean that would certainly be stirred up because of religion. A long time ago I could understand it to a degree. Threats of going to hell and promises of redemption but I feel like todays time should know better. At least have better sense. But then again there is senseless blood shed that has nothing to do with religion so I guess I should know better lol
i understand that. wasn't trying to imply that it was. but let's say you don't forgive someone for a crime and decide to press charges instead. that's still just since they committed the crime and deserve to pay for it.
maybe not, but it is still warranted at the end of the day is it not? like say god decides not to shed mercy on you for a sin and punishes you instead... is that unjust? if not then the punishment is basically justice. mercy is basically god being a nice guy. if the mercy is justice too then biblical justice and morality seems even more arbitrary than human justice and morality. basically boils down to "whatever god decides to do in any particular occasion."
yea.. complex is one way of putting it. it seems a bit nonsensical to me to think that offering a sacrifice to god could cleanse you of a sin. that sacrifice doesn't erase the bad deed any more than you being punished would erase the bad deed.
KMC Community Forums
Dec 3rd, 2014 06:22 AM
