As a Christian...

Originally posted by sumydid
Christ never said that killing someone in order to protect someone else, is a sin. Never.

And in the verse you quoted, He also did not say if an evil person tries to kill you, do not resist.

What you are basically arguing is, if one takes any action to protect one's self, or stop a murderer from killing an innocent, the person is not a follower of Christ.

You are incorrect. As usual.

Agree. Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. Christianity embraces all four divine Instutions (Free Will, Marriage, Family and Nationalism). Christianity in no way requires its adherents to become mealy mouthed doormats. As such, these basic tenets of morality (as opposed to spirituality) demand protection of life and property. Capital punishment as an option within the legal system is the order of the day, no matter how many misguided bleeding hearts may be dismayed. A Christian should be the most accomplished killer in his battion. Killing external enemies who would harm us is part and parcel of the principle of Freedom through Military Victory. 'Turning the Other Cheek' refers to a relaxed mental attitude dynamic which absorbs slights without responding in kind. Once the line of privacy, person and property is crossed all best are off. Kill the fxxx bxxx at the doorstep rather than allow intrusion within your household. The destructive attitudes prevailing in many sectors of the USA today are pure nonsense or as my dear departed bride, Evelyn, would say, "Asininity personified". God, I miss that elegant lady's understated perfume and presence in my life in the jungle. gb
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Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Agree. Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. Christianity embraces all four divine Instutions (Free Will, Marriage, Family and Nationalism). Christianity in no way requires its adherents to become mealy mouthed doormats. As such, these basic tenets of morality (as opposed to spirituality) demand protection of life and property. Capital punishm I miss that elegant lady's understated perfume and presence in my life in the jungle. gb
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P.S. Inadvertently omitted mention of the Mosaic Law. Codex 1 (Freedom Code) and Codex 3 (Establishment Code) emphatically underscore the validity of much of the content in the OP, in Sumydid's posts as well as mine. One point worthy of mention is the commandment which is mistranslated as, "Thou shalt not kill". Correct translation is "Thou shalt not murder", an egregious criminal felony both then and now. It does not refer to either capital punishment within the legal system or to killing external enemies of a sovereign state or nation in war.
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Originally posted by VoidSpirit
it uses the old testament to justify disobedience to christ. christ changed a few things from the old testament.

Mat 5:38 "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'

Mat 5:39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

sorry, there ...[text shortened]... intention of killing a christian, it is the duty of the christian to die without resisting.

Christ did not change one jot or tittle, you are mistaken...He fulfilled the law....in any case, Jesus is actually part of the Old Testament...

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Agree. Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. Christianity embraces all four divine Instutions (Free Will, Marriage, Family and Nationalism). Christianity in no way requires its adherents to become mealy mouthed doormats. As such, these basic tenets of morality (as opposed to spirituality) demand protection of life and property. Capital punishm I miss that elegant lady's understated perfume and presence in my life in the jungle. gb
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Bravo, I agree wholeheartedly....God is a Warrior , and the scripture says so! Thank God our forefathers agree with you too...

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Agree. Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. Christianity embraces all four divine Instutions (Free Will, Marriage, Family and Nationalism). Christianity in no way requires its adherents to become mealy mouthed doormats. As such, these basic tenets of morality (as opposed to spirituality) demand protection of life and property. Capital punishm ...[text shortened]... I miss that elegant lady's understated perfume and presence in my life in the jungle. gb
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Agree. Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.

I really don't know why people keep saying stuff like this but Christianity is a religion.
It involves belief in an afterlife, and a god, and a system (or collection of systems) of faith and worship... It's a religion.

It's what the word religion means.

Anyhow...

Christianity embraces all four divine Instutions (Free Will, Marriage, Family and Nationalism)

Free will doesn't exist.

Marriage and family tend to get screwed up by your religion, for example by preventing bad marriages from ending
and by blocking good people from getting married and having kids because of your bronze age homophobia.

And Nationalism??? Seriously, you think nationalism is divine?

Capital punishment as an option within the legal system is the order of the day, no matter how many misguided
bleeding hearts may be dismayed.

Yes because JC was all about the killing glad you admit that.

People who support capital punishment go on about how those criminals don't deserve to live and deserve to be killed and
that anyone who opposes capital punishment is just being soft and wimpy and cares too much about these evil people who
have done terrible things, how could they....

Which might make a good argument if it were remotely close to the reasons why capital punishment is bloody stupid as well
as cruel and immoral.

Frankly there are plenty of 'evil' people who I for one really don't care about whether they live or die.
What I do care about is how WE behave, and how I behave.

I would not execute someone not because I care about them (assuming we have a genuine bona fide evil doer here I'll get to
the miscarriages of justice in a minute) but because I care what I do and how I behave.

Killing people for anything other than self defence or defence of others (wars can be included in this) is morally wrong.

This isn't hard to work out, I need no god to tell me this.

I don't care about the fate of the evil doer but I care that I don't become evil myself by doing things as morally reprehensible as
killing someone in cold blood.

And I also care that the society I live in and those that live in it lives up to the same standard.

I don't care how evil you are, it would reflect badly on me and would harm me to kill you once you are captured and imprisoned.


However even if that were not true.


You can't create a perfect criminal system where every criminal is caught and prosecuted and no innocent is found guilty.

It's just not possible.

So you will get miscarriages of justice... Quite a lot of them actually.

And when you kill people you remove the ability to ever correct the mistake of a false conviction. (and incidentally reduce the chance of
catching and prosecuting the person or persons who actually did it)

This coupled with the fact that the death penalty tends not to act as a deterrent and actually leads to more violent crime as people fight
harder not to get captured.


I believe in punishment for people committing crimes.

People who are alive can be punished, Dead people can't.

And no, god doesn't punish anyone in any afterlife because neither god nor the afterlife is real. period.

Originally posted by Suzianne
>sigh<

Don't you get that the very millisecond you receive your proof it will be too late?

There is a reason why faith is required.

Because you have no evidence, because in fact the evidence exists that shows you are wrong.

And you can't justify believing in an afterlife or god with reason and evidence so you have to use faith to do it.

And abandon any and all pretensions to caring about truth.

Originally posted by checkbaiter
Christ did not change one jot or tittle, you are mistaken...He fulfilled the law....in any case, Jesus is actually part of the Old Testament...

saying "he fulfilled" it is semantic nonsense. he changed it. period.

Mat 5:38 "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'

Mat 5:39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
saying "he fulfilled" it is semantic nonsense. he changed it. period.

Mat 5:38 "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'

Mat 5:39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

After Jesus defeats the enemies that now threaten the earth and sets up his 1000 year kingdom (Rev. 20:4-6), he will not rely on the “good nature” of people to keep order in society. Scripture is clear that he will keep order by wielding a “rod of iron” (Rev. 2:27; 12:5; 19:15 KJV). Although this may seem cruel and harsh, it is not, because no one has to be a criminal, and being harsh on criminals protects the innocent. Christians and civil authorities should take note: if Jesus will rule his kingdom with a rod of iron to keep order and protect the innocent, why would we think our society should be ruled differently? Our lenient laws have caused our unsafe society, and we and our children will not be safe until we decide to be as harsh on the guilty as Jesus will be.
It is important to remember that just a few hours before Jesus was arrested, he said to all his apostles, “If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:36), but then told Peter while he was being arrested, “all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). Jesus would never tell his followers to buy swords and then say it was wrong to use them. Why did Jesus make that statement to Peter? The answer is that although the priests and soldiers who arrested Jesus were immoral, what they did was not illegal, because they had the governmental right to arrest Jesus. Thus, Peter, although he thought he was doing the right thing in defending Jesus with his sword, was actually breaking the law. Had Jesus’ trial been fair and unbiased, he would have been released soon after his arrest. Many innocent people are falsely accused, arrested and jailed, but then released at trial. By using his sword, Peter was breaking the law, and neither God nor Jesus give us the right to do that.

http://www.truthortradition.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1053

Originally posted by googlefudge
Because you have no evidence, because in fact the evidence exists that shows you are wrong.

And you can't justify believing in an afterlife or god with reason and evidence so you have to use faith to do it.

And abandon any and all pretensions to caring about truth.

I'm sure that there will be an angel of the Lord there to make it clear to you why it is now too late, and why a lifetime of giving lip service to truth gained you nothing. At that time, it will finally become clear to you that your so-called evidence means nothing in the face of actual facts. What's sad is that you will probably find some way to twist your situation around in your mind to figure that you are being mistreated when countless people have told you exactly how it's going to go down, and you laughed at every one of them. Wailing and gnashing of teeth, indeed.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I'm sure that there will be an angel of the Lord there to make it clear to you why it is now too late, and why a lifetime of giving lip service to truth gained you nothing. At that time, it will finally become clear to you that your so-called evidence means nothing in the face of actual facts. What's sad is that you will probably find some way to twist yo ...[text shortened]... ing to go down, and you laughed at every one of them. Wailing and gnashing of teeth, indeed.

Your being sure doesn't make you right.

We have mental models of the world, maps if you will.

And then there is the world, the territory.

Truth is the world, the reality, the territory.

Our maps are not the truth, just approximations to it.

All we can do is make them as accurate as possible.

Not just the best but the ONLY way to do this is to rationally and
scientifically analyse the evidence (our observations of reality) to
iteratively make our maps as close to reality as possible.

To make them less and less wrong as time goes by.



The evidence we have indicates that souls, angels, afterlives and gods don't exist.

This is now demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt (way way beyond).

It's still possible they exist of course, it's just unbelievably and astronomically improbable.

Thus believing in them is not just wrong it's stupid.

It's irrational.


Religions worst aspect is promoting such irrationality as a virtue.

All other defects of religion pretty much stem from this, as you can justify or believe anything
if you allow yourself to be irrational.

And most of those beliefs will inevitably be wrong, and worse you have abandoned the only
method of telling what is or is not true/real.



You DON'T care about truth.

You can tell this because you actively promote and utilise a method of forming beliefs (faith) that
is known and proven to be pretty much the worst possible method of discerning the truth short of
learning the truth and then believing the exact opposite.

Nobody who believes anything on faith actually cares about the truth.

You believe what you WANT to be true, not what actually is true.

When someone dies they just stop, there is nothing else.

Neither you nor I will ever meet anyone in any afterlife because they don't exist.



However if one did exist, as you imagine it, and your god really does require people to believe in him
with no evidence for his existence and masses directly contradicting it and the punishment for failing
to be that idiotic and intellectually bankrupt was ETERNAL torture...

Then your god is an evil morally bankrupt A'hole who doesn't deserve to be worshipped.

And if you worship such a being and think that that being is right then so are you.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I'm sure that there will be an angel of the Lord there to make it clear to you why it is now too late, and why a lifetime of giving lip service to truth gained you nothing. At that time, it will finally become clear to you that your so-called evidence means nothing in the face of actual facts. What's sad is that you will probably find some way to twist yo ing to go down, and you laughed at every one of them. Wailing and gnashing of teeth, indeed.

Do you actually believe that a lake of fire really exists Suzianne?

Originally posted by Agerg
Do you actually believe that a lake of fire really exists Suzianne?

Answering your question directly, with no assumption made as to any probable follow-up, and with no explanation, as that will probably just bore you, I will say yes.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Your being sure doesn't make you right.

We have mental models of the world, maps if you will.

And then there is the world, the territory.

Truth is the world, the reality, the territory.

Our maps are not the truth, just approximations to it.

All we can do is make them as accurate as possible.

Not just the best but the ONLY way to do this

And if you worship such a being and think that that being is right then so are you.

Despite your ignorant and frankly offensive diatribe, I might remind you that your opinion in this is strictly your opinion, and does not affect me at all.

What's sad is that you will probably find some way to twist your situation around in your mind to figure that you are being mistreated

How could I possibly have known this in advance?

Originally posted by Suzianne
Answering your question directly, with no assumption made as to any probable follow-up, and with no explanation, as that will probably just bore you, I will say yes.

I assume you don't mean one of these...

http://jtkiwi.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/goma-volcano-trek-april-2010_-183-of-290.jpg

cos they really do exist.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I assume you don't mean one of these...

http://jtkiwi.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/goma-volcano-trek-april-2010_-183-of-290.jpg

cos they really do exist.

I did naturally assume that what he meant was the lake of fire as described in Revelation. And no, that picture is not of that.

And oh, btw, I do recognize a volcano's caldera (that's what I assume it is, anyways). I embrace science, unlike our friend, RJH.