Capital Punishment and the Bible(particularly New Testament)

snood wrote:

...which completely does not address the point that those truly seeking orderliness in the bible can find it. If one is looking for conflict (as it is obvious some are, and will), one will find it.

Confirmed. This atheist knows Christians who have seeked orderliness in the Bible and found it. While the Bible does contain contradictions, even if considered solely as a source of law and morals, it is no worse in this than the Common Law, or Das Kapital, or the Democratic Party Platform, or whatever source we heathens might seek moral guidance from.

0 Replies

Thomas, LOL, thanks for today's laugh. It's the second one, I believe.

0 Replies

Thomas,
Thanks for not comparing the bible to the Republican party platform. The bible at least has some reasons for its contradictions.

0 Replies

headofthefield wrote:

Who said that is was literal? There are metaphors that are translated into a modern day sense now. I know you all hate to hear the metaphor comment but if you truely believe the bible you will see the metaphoric sense.

Recently there has been a lot of flap over the Ten Commandments due to the Supreme Court cases. Do you consider them metaphoric?

0 Replies

cicerone imposter wrote:

Hey, I'm just going by what the bible says... That's the confusion, old covenant, new covenant; how do you guys keep it straight in your brain? We were always told the bible was god's literal word.

the Bible isn't just a book of poetry and songs. it is many a Historical book(s) + poetry + songs + commands + more history + some more history.
if you want to know Jewish history you read the Torah/Kings/Prophets. You want to know the history of Christianity, you read the new testament and see it spawn from Jewish history, that is, old covenant. How that kind of narrative history is confusing as application in your life / nonapplication in your life is beyond me. Clarify your confusion and perhaps we'll all be able to be... "enlightened".

0 Replies

mesquite wrote:

headofthefield wrote:
Who said that is was literal? There are metaphors that are translated into a modern day sense now. I know you all hate to hear the metaphor comment but if you truely believe the bible you will see the metaphoric sense.

Recently there has been a lot of flap over the Ten Commandments due to the Supreme Court cases. Do you consider them metaphoric?

No. But they sit within a framework, and you need historical and cultural understanding to know the Laws.

Do you try to drive a car underwater?

Understand the context.

0 Replies

Biliskner, what is stopping you guys from saying "Hey, we just wanna live biblical lives and we don't care what science tells us" instead of trying to force everything and everyone to conform to your view of the world by distorting and ridiculing people who have spent their whole lives seeking answers the hard way?

0 Replies

EorI, You are asking for the impossible; you know that, right? These people have been brainwashed so well, all common sense and logic has been removed from their cranium. The bible is the answer to all things, past, present and future. How they're able to reconcile all of the contradictions and errors in the bible is their ability to determine which verse is "the word of god," and all the others as metaphorical - but you must have reached "enlighttenment" through the blessings of god her/himself to understand it.

0 Replies

Biliskner wrote:

mesquite wrote:
headofthefield wrote:
Who said that is was literal? There are metaphors that are translated into a modern day sense now. I know you all hate to hear the metaphor comment but if you truely believe the bible you will see the metaphoric sense.

Recently there has been a lot of flap over the Ten Commandments due to the Supreme Court cases. Do you consider them metaphoric?

No. But they sit within a framework, and you need historical and cultural understanding to know the Laws.

Do you try to drive a car underwater?

Understand the context.

Now you are cookin Bili. The context is that a primitive and superstitious people needed a God to explain their world and protect them, so they invented one, just as nearly every culture on this earth has done.

0 Replies

Re: Capital Punishment and the Bible(particularly New Testam

thunder_runner32 wrote:

I used to think that the death penalty was justified...but now I am not so sure. I would like to see what others think about this. I am particularly interested in what Jesus had to say. Thanks! P.S. Please do not just post a bunch of crap or links...I would like real discussion.

Inflicting the death penalty on anybody anymore is more of a hassle than it's worth. To my thinking therefore there have to be three conditions at least before I'd want to hang anybody:

1. Guilt beyond any doubt whatsoever. The normal criteria of guilt beyond a 'reasonable' doubt does not cut it for the death penalty.

2. The culprit is viewed as a danger to society should he escape or otherwise get out of prison.

3. Same is sufficiently messed up that nobody is doing him any favors keeping him around.

Somebody like Charles Manson for instance would easily meet all three criteria.

0 Replies

I like those criteria gunga, but I'm still totally against the fact that they have to be killed BY someone...by the jury, by the judge, by the executioner, by the electrician who built the chair...everybody. I think nobody should ever be allowed to kill someone in cold blood.

0 Replies

Eorl wrote:

I like those criteria gunga, but I'm still totally against the fact that they have to be killed BY someone...by the jury, by the judge, by the executioner, by the electrician who built the chair...everybody. I think nobody should ever be allowed to kill someone in cold blood.

In tribal days no one killed the person, they merely severed them from contact with the tribe. Though it was a death penalty it wasn't enacted by anyone. Modern culture does not allow exile as a possibility due to the massive spread of mankind, death is the only one someone can be effectively cut off from the human sphere of influence.

Perhaps a new possibility, (beyond severing them from the culture by whatever means necessary), will need to be invented before punishment can move beyond its present form.

0 Replies

Capital Punishment and the Bible(particularly New Testament)

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know