I have not said that to follow Jesus' example we should nave no laws and no consequences. On the contrary, I am suggesting that we have laws and consequences which provide forgiveness and reconciliation rather than revenge and punishment.
Perhaps I misunderstand you. I’ve already stated that I don’t believe legal consequences should be based on the desire to punish, but rather the desire to protect society. Forgiveness and reconciliation can take place within that paradigm, although it is quite a subjective and personal issue.
I'm sorry, are you just talking about Mormonism, or are you talking about whether or not Jesus' example is a good one to follow. I thought we were discussing the latter.
I brought up Jesus’ example because it is direct conflict with BY’s teachings, or anyone else’s teachings, about enacting the death penalty for adultery. I think that Jesus’ teachings, in this particular instance, are good to follow. Don’t kill people who have committed adultery. Adultery is not a legal crime, but a personal violation of private covenants between two people.
While this particular conversation is obviously geared toward the LDS configuration, any theocracy that enacts the death penalty for adultery or the many other “crimes” theocracies usually attach to the death penalty ought to be condemned.
Great, then what's wrong with following Jesus' example? That's not punitive.
I interpreted your earlier remarks to me that while Jesus’ example may be nice on paper, it is unrealistic in today’s society, and the Law of Moses could be superior. Perhaps I misunderstood you.
Quote:
Decent and civilized means being extremely cautious and conservative when it comes to enacting the one irrevocable consequence – death. Decent and civilized means being aware of the awesome power of the state, and hence, taking it seriously enough to err on the side of caution.
Could you explain why this constitutes 'decent and civilized' as opposed to any other action?
It is decent and civilized for people with power to refrain from abuse of that power. Death, in particular, is an irrevocable sentence. No room for error, because there is no way to compensate for error. The state has the power to take life. It is decent to err on the side of caution in exercising that power.
If you are really disputing this point, then further conversation is likely pointless.
I am not trying to broaden the discussion far beyond its narrow scope. I am looking to understand your objections to the death penalty for adultery. So far I understand that you object to it because the punishment is disproportionate to the crime, is that it?
Fort, are you serious? Do you hang around, in general, with people who support the death penalty for adultery? Do you really have to probe to understand my objection? Yes, it is disproportionate to the crime. It also makes no sense from a social point of view. It is not going to resolve any problems. People commit adultery for a myriad of reasons, and threatening them with death isn’t going to resolve any of them. What is God’s purpose in killing them? In Brigham Young’s viewpoint, it was due to the necessity of spilling their own blood to atone for a sin Christ’s atonement couldn’t cover. You aren’t LDS, although I don’t quite understand your religious perspective, so I’m assuming you wouldn’t support the death penalty for adultery as an act of blood atonement. So why does God need to kill people who commit adultery? Is it just to frighten them into behaving?
Yes, that's a good understanding of the issue. Fortunately I believe that God has communicated with 100% clarity and certainty that we are not to take life. Isn't that great?
If God had communicated that with 100% clarity then there wouldn’t be people killing one another in God’s name, would there?
100% clarity doesn’t mean that it’s enough to totally convince YOU. It means it’s enough to totally convince any sane person.
Quote:
There is nothing, nothing, in the history of the world in general and religion in particular to justify either of these beliefs.
What evidence do you have for this claim?
See above. The mere existence of wildly contradictory beliefs, all held by quite sincere individuals, all seeking God, is evidence for this claim. God does not communicate with 100% clarity to human beings. If he did, people wouldn’t dispute over what he is saying.
Quote:
So, in the end, what we are left with is human beings who are either so arrogant or filled with hubris, or perhaps mentally unstable, that they insist on not only believing these two things despite the complete lack of supporting evidence for them, but then insist that THEY or their particular leaders can then be these reliable transmitters of divine information.
I think that's a very extreme and imbalanced view.
The history of the world in general, and religion in particular, demonstrates my point. The question of God – not even the specifics of what he is trying to communicate to human beings or what he wants from us – but his mere existence – is a question that the greatest minds of our species have struggled with for thousands of years. So yes, it is arrogance and hubris for anyone to claim that, despite all the sincere and persistent attempts of the millions of other human beings who have preceded them and have grappled with this question, this one group or this set of leadership is the “real” reliable transmitter of divine information.
It is arrogance and hubris because it ignores the history of the world. It presumes that, for some reason, one group – be it Mormon or EV or Moslem or JW or Moonie or Scientologist or catholic- has a privileged source of information, has that 100% clarity, that the rest of humanity is just too stupid, wicked, or lazy to figure out.
I look back on my Mormon conversion at the age of nineteen as an example of the arrogance of youth. I was so certain I was right, now I “knew” the answer, I “knew” what God was saying and what he wanted… a nineteen year old kid who really knew nothing about the world and how it works. Yet I “knew” when far greater minds and faiths than mine still struggled with the issue, sometimes after spending their lifetimes dealing with it.
My hubris had a relatively minor cost. But the hubris and arrogance of someone with the power of state and the will to kill behind it has a great cost.
Quote:
Certainly all societies are hypocritical when it comes to human rights, although, in general, the world has made progress in that regard. But that is no reason to shrug and allow the most arrogant among us to make a decision of such magnitude for society.
I agree. But we do. We even vote them into office.
Yes, that is true. Anyone who wants that much power ought to be automatically disqualified from having it. But at least most societies build some sort of checks and balances into their system to try and compensate. A theocracy, like a dictatorship, does not.
rankly I don't care how you feel about that. But since I don't believe in the concept of human rights (rights based societies are inevitably selfish and grossly destructive), and since I believe in the social contract, it's no problem for me.
You don’t believe in any human rights?
Quote:
That is what a valid theocracy looked like??? A God who tells his followers to kill everybody except virgins, so the men can then have the virgins for themselves?
That is what one particular valid theocracy looked like, yes. It does not mean that this is what a valid theocracy always looks like. By the way, I think you need to check the text of Numbers 31:18 (see the LXX).
If you have a different translation, fine. But you stated that it could look like that, so why does it matter?
God gets to do whatever the heck he wants to whatever the heck he wants. If he wants the female virgin children of the culture that his people just massacred and “give” them to the males who just massacred their families and friends, God gets to do that, right? And sure, he nor you have to care about my feelings about that. But I will have my own personal integrity by refusing to worship such a god if, by some bizarre chance, he actually does happen to exist.
Could you show me an example of God striking people dead 'because their faith was mistaken'?
The priests of Baal.
I've dealt with this before in a thread with Sonohito. The law you're talking about only applied to one single family in the entire nation of Israel, the family from whom the High Priest came. No other individual but the High Priest (one man in the entire nation), ever had 'full access to his house of worship', and even then he only had such access once a year (on the Day of Atonement). I really don't see the issue here, since nobody but the High Priest, from one family in the entire nation, every had 'full access to his house of worship', on one day of the year. I'd like to see this as a law telling us 'God hates cripples' just as much as you, but unfortunately it just won't fly. Every perfectly able-bodied individual in the entire nation except for one man once a year was also restricted from 'full access to his house of worship'. And since complete and full worship of God by the individual did not require or involve 'full access to his house of worship' (as He said many times), it's really a non-issue.
Why would it matter even if it did apply to every crippled person? There are no human rights, and God can do whatever he wants. If you don’t like it, too bad.
The fact is simply this: descendants of Aaron were disqualified from performing this function due to one fact and one fact alone: they were physically “blemished”.
Quote:
Once again, I have to ask: even if you are certain that such a God exists, why would you worship and love Him? I can understand feeling fear and demonstrating loyalty, like a member of the mafia demonstrates to his don, but love? Respect? How do you wrap your mind around that?
I'm sorry, but I'm lost. Could you explain the problem please? I gather it's something like 'How could you respect a God which punishes people for sin?', or 'How could you love a God whose punishments I disagree with?'.
How could you respect a God who tells his followers to engage in mass murder of entire town, and then take the female virgins for themselves? Something like that.
If a human parent engaged in equivalent activities as God has, that parent would be in jail for child abuse. So yes, how can you love a God like that?
I don't believe in the eternal torments of the fictional 'hell'.
We agree on that.
