“Is it working? Is your crime rate heading down?
Do you feel safe in your home?
You cannot have a proper justice system based on punishment alone. All you end up with is a hardened and willful people who are not deterred from punishment to do what they intend to do.”
I simply asked a question. Your response is a little confusing to me because you seem to be arguing both sides of the debate.
Up thread you use mooslelimb tactics in your example (cutting the hand off a thief). You say that by using those tactics we would have a safe and crime free society. Now you are saying those tactics don’t work and that punishment alone doesn’t work. I’m trying to figure out what your point of view is.
I have taken matters into my own hands at times. I am safer for it. Crimes against me are way, way down. I’m very safe in my home.
If someone, by their own free will, decides to take from me, hurt those I care for, injure or corrupt innocent people - I’ll hurt them. Is that the way it should have to work? No. Can I depend on some gov’t entity to do the right thing? Hardly.
I appreciated your reference to Scripture. I think it’s pretty close to being right on. In the end though the ultimate lesson is that if you do not abide God’s word - you die. You suffer and are eternally damned. No do-overs. You only have so much time to set things right with Him. If you don’t - you lose. That is a pretty good lesson in itself.
I’m not arguing from both sides. I’m arguing for completeness.
Biblical justice puts the victim and the accused on the same level playing field. In principle, whatever the victim has lost, the guilty loses the same way, with retribution thrown in to give some incentive to not commit the acts in the first place.
It is supposed to be balanced, where the victim receives justice and the guilty party is able to find his way back into society, unless the crime the guilty party commits cannot be made up in any way. In which way, death is the only suitable punishment.
When I referred to how Muslims handle crime, it was a sarcastic response to those who think if the punishment is hard, vicious, and often enough, we would create a safe society.