jnelson@trwrba.UUCP (John T. Nelson) (12/13/84)
>>> Where there is sin, there must be payment for sin. [BICKFORD] >> WHY must there be payment for sin? [NELSON] > John, your obtuseness is beyond belief. It's basic justice: recompense > for an offense. You do the crime - you do the time. And the recompense > is appropriate to the crime, as I noted in my previous article. [BICKFORD] The teachings of Christ were so simplistic they seemed obtuse and beyond belief. Your belief system obviously doesn't allow you to answer this question because your belief system provides no answers.... save the conclusion that "it is an obtuse question to start with and not worth answering." You will never realise a conclusion that contradicts your beliefs, no matter how true it might be. But I'll spell it out for you anyway.... The only constructive purpose for "doing the time" as you say, is to teach the offender a lesson in a manner that is related to his crime. Thus, it is hoped, he will not commit the crime again and return to join society and not defeat its tenets. The offended derives satisfaction from knowing that the bad guy has been punished. Punishment is a way of purging someone of his crime... cleansing him of the seed of his wrong which also assures the offended that the wrong-doer has been tested... and his offense will not be committed again. Like training your dog. Vengence is another form of seeing your own thoughts and ideas forced on someone else... in this case the beliefs of the offended, and of "society." The offended has his wrongful actions corrected retroactivly (*BAD* doggy...) so that the wrong is recognized and "prevented" after it happened. The public display of punishment (or the fear of it) then keeps the rest of society in line. Notice that forgivness has a place here becasue once the crime is "payed" for... it is forgotten. But this kind of punishment is not always so ideally constructive, and certainly not to an all-mighty God who needs no such public displays of his supposed innocence. So what constructive purpose does hell serve? The offender is condemned to hell forever so that he or she can never return to the world of God. Whether this person reforms or not is of no consequence.... he is stuck forever to burn in eternal torment. The only purpose hell serves is... 1) To seperate the good guys from the bad guys. 2) Serve as a deterent to those considering defying God. 3) Give God something to fulfill his infinite ego (?) Fans of Larry Niven's InfernoLand will appreciate the value of having some escape from hell. In this way you can have reform, a constructive way of handling all of those evil doers, and still have the concept of "due payment." You might peripherely argue, "But you can't BUY your way into heaven like that!" That's right... you can't. But if no one deserves eternal bliss in heaven, then doesn't it make sense that NOTHING we do, say, believe, suffer or experience will see our way to God. If those who suffer in hell have not paid for their crimes, then no one has. If so... then hell has no purpose and neither does religion since God will choose those he wishes to join him. A purely subjective choice that NO ONE can anticipate or presume to speak for. > If you can't understand justice, my trying is futile. I havn't noticed you actually trying. As I have said many times before, you are blinding yourself to the truth only to fulfill what you WISH to be the truth.... Your need for these blinders is to protect you from such insightful questions as.... "why." "FEAR... will keep the local systems in line." - John
tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) (12/14/84)
Very good, John! Re the reference to Niven & Pournelle's "Inferno" having an escape hatch, an argument could be made for such a view from Christian scripture. I am thinking of the parable of the unforgiving debtor, Mat. 18:23-35, particularly verse 34. "And in his anger the master handed him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt." -=- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim CompuServe: 74176,1360 audio: shout "Hey, Tim!" "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains." Liber AL, II:9.