Posted on 08/25/2013 5:04:17 AM PDT by Kaslin
Good article and I totally agree. “An eye for an eye” would work just fine for me, just don’t delay it for an entire life time.
I must demur with “Chancey wasn’t born evil.”
Unfortunately we are all born evil.
Judeo-Christian theology traces this back to events soon after the creation of mankind. The bible furnishes a few concrete details, and it reads much like a pan-human soul conspiracy to embrace a lie that one could spiritually stand on one’s own apart from God. This realization isn’t just gratuitous guilt-tripping. It is a realization that we have all been saying no to the blessings of God. And saying no to blessings means that what remains is — that’s right — curses. There is no neutral spiritual zone. Doing an attitude turn-around, with the help of God, opens us up to blessings where curses had prevailed in the past.
Still, to fail to recognize the gravity of the situation is to become more lost in evil ourselves. Forget for a moment the specifics of how this might be punished by other sinners on earth — the most fundamental problem is that people act as if there is no God to be accountable to or reconciled with.
Oldplayer
Ah, the Van Helsing Doctrine. And I suggest everyone re-read Stoker's incomparable novel, and this time with an eye toward its true meaning, which is the struggle of humanity against evil.
Yes, in the sense that we are born with no concept of good. It requires many years of constant education, most of it by example, to inculcate the qualities of good into the unmoulded clay that is an infant.
Sorry...how does the writer know that many criminals aren’t born evil? Do you think Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents taught him how to be a cannibal and a mass murderer. The myth that somehow many people aren’t born evil has to be exposed. Yes...some people are born evil. By claiming that being a good person is all societal indoctrination, these scribblers are saying we’re all basically born with blank slates or tabula rasas. That theory has been thoroughly debunked for decades. Society can enact laws that make it tougher for some people to act out their evil impulses, but it can only do so much.
This is the behavior exhibited daily in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iran and many other nations, it should NOT be so in the once “Melting Pot” nation.
I sit in Israel, sorrounded by insane Arabs and yet, I read about “8 killed, 37 wounded over the weekend in Chicago” - every weekend?
Who is nuts?
While as a philosophical matter I agree with the death penalty, do we really want to put that weapon against the criminally accused into the hands of Eric Holder, Angela Corey, Mike Nifong, Eliot Spitzer, Bill Lockyer, Scott Harshbarger, and a number of other rogue prosecutors whose only concern is their conviction rate and their political viability, your innocence be damned?
I will answer that question for you - NO!!
Yes we are all born evil.
None of us is more than a heartbeat away from committing the most heinous crime we can imagine.
Some of the responses here, and some of the responses of my own heart, in articulating what should be done with those who act on their evil imaginations, reveal just how evil we all really are.
The difference is whether a person acts on his evil imaginations.
I have known some children born into really good Christian homes that end up committed to living evil lives, even while their siblings are committed to Christ.
Ultimately, God allows us all to make our own choices. Some people are just inclined to make the wrong ones.
And, yes, the murderers must be put to death, if for no other reason than to prevent them from doing it again.
Assuming those in that "public" don't have the balls or do not their state's permission to protect themselves.
Don't go unarmed.
APB for Armed Neanderthal Biped (ANB), possesses independent deterrent. Arrest immediately.
Second, all this confusion about whether some or all humans are born evil or good can be really confusing, but it shouldn't be. Some, liberals in particular, believe people are "basically good." And too many conservatives misinterpret scripture and quickly adopt a reactionary view, that "original sin" means people are born evil. But the scriptures teaches "know" both.
More to the point, we are born "knowing good and evil," and, deny it though we will, we are therefore responsible, whether we choose to acknowledge or try to escape this awesome responsibility.
When a cat tortures a mouse to death we rightly assume the cat is probably just doing his natural born thing. But when people do the same thing we consider that person a criminal or psychotic, and we rightly say they are responsible for evil. The knowledge and the perception of good and evil do not make us good or evil, only responsible for how we choose to act.
“...unfortunately, taking the law into our own hands.”
Hmmm, I see nothing unfortunate about that.
“Unfortunately we are all born evil.”
No, we are born sinners—a big difference.
That's one of the worst parts of conservatism among people who pride themselves in being conservative and yet don't really have an appreciation of what the term signifies--particularly some who plume themselves on their Christianity.
Disagree with the bible then, if you must. From the Old Testament, “God created man upright, but men have gone after many schemes.” And from the New Testament, “We sinned in Adam.”
Understanding that this is our common position is key to understanding the need for the redemption from God, not just a “nice life on earth.”
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