[Vision2020] Religious Diversity Education

[Ted Moffett]

Luke wrote:

>     There have been a considerable number of murderers who have been 
>locked
>up, then broke out and killed again. Serial killers are truly a threat to
>society, behind bars or not, but they also took away something from someone
>that cannot be given back. They no longer deserve the right to breathe once
>they've stopped another human's heart.
>     BTW, I've never actually met another Christian who thought that the
>death penalty was wrong. It seems more of a leftist position.

Ted replies:

Luke, there are churches right here in Moscow where you can meet Christians 
who do not follow Karl Marx who also do not believe in the death penalty.  
Are you joking about this?

Is support of the death penalty characteristic of dictatorships and so 
called right wing regimes?  I could say it's a right wing position.  Your 
casting of the death penalty as "left wing" reveals a bias on how you view 
the issue, it seems.  So you think the Vatican is "left wing?"  That Canada, 
Australia, France, England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, etc. are all "left 
wing?"  I am so totally bored with this simple minded linear left vs. right 
wing scheme for analyzing politics.  It is so inadequate to truly describe a 
complex set of political beliefs for someone who thinks independently.

Ted wrote:


> > But you think the State killing someone in cold blood is a side issue?
>What
> > sort of morality do you really represent?
>

Luke replied:

>     Oh, it's important, all right. I was saying that it was a side issue 
>to
>our discussion. We were debating how difficult it was to understand the Ten
>commandments, not whether the death penalty is right. Although there is a
>debate over that, it doesn't come because people read the T. C.'s and said,
>"?"  It comes from someone actually disobeying the command to not murder.

Ted replies:

I must have not been clear in my meaning.  If one of the commandments is 
"Thou Shall Not Murder," and it is determined by Biblical scholars that for 
the State to kill someone who is no longer a danger to society locked up in 
a jail is "murder," then there is a controversy over the death penalty 
linked to differing interpretations of one of the Ten Commandments. The 
evidence is overwhelming that such a difference of opinion in Christianity 
does exist, is fervent and fundamental, involving millions of people who 
disagree.  The point of emphasizing this disagreement over the 
interpretation of one of the Ten Commandments is to argue that indeed it can 
be difficult for the flawed and limited human mind to gain perfect knowledge 
of God's laws.

You, however, appear to be superior, in flawless understanding of God's law, 
to the millions of Christians who disagree with you on the death penalty's 
contradictory and troubling connection to the Commandment "Thou Shall Not 
Murder."  Though brilliant Biblical scholars disagree with you, you have no 
doubt that you are correct and know God's law perfectly with no error.

Correct?

Ted wrote:

>
> > You are absolutely wrong!  How about that for certainty!  I do not 
>support
> > the death penalty, and if you killed someone I loved it is possible I
>would
> > lose my temper and take you apart, but that is entirely different than
> > giving the State the power to kill in cold blood in a jail, which is 
>what
> > supporting the "death penalty" means.
>

Luke replied:

>     I believe you are incorrect. I don't know a whole lot about the legal
>system, but my understanding is that first you went through something 
>called
>a trial, where a jury decides what penalty there will be for a crime. The
>State has no power to enforce the death penalty unless the verdict is 
>guilty
>as charged (unless, of course, the defendant was foolish enough to opt out
>of a jury trial, or he knew he was guilty and pled accordingly). The
>principle behind the courtroom, which you will hear in any trial, is
>innocent until proven guilty. And if someone kills a loved one of yours, 
>you
>will try to prove them guilty, Mr. Moffett.
>     BTW, Idaho's methods of authorized execution are lethal injection and 
>a
>firing squad. Just so you know...
>

Ted replied:

Yes, of course, I meant that the killing of the convicted by the State after 
a trial has determined that death penalty is to be enforced is still cold 
blooded deliberate killing of a person when they are restrained and in jail.

Ted wrote:

> > Perhaps I can suggest that you are an empiricist of a sort when you 
>assert
> > that your absolute code of conduct and morality comes from a book which
>you
> > believe to be divinely revealed.  Therefore the empirical data that are
>the
> > foundation for your belief system are contained in the Bible.  You will
>only
> > accept what you can determine when the Bible is under your microscope.  
>No
> > facts from the Bible, no religion.
>

Luke replied:

>     If you mean that I am a Christian because my ears heard the gospel or 
>my
>eyes read the Bible, then of course. All of us use our faculties to gather
>information about the world around us - it's known as the Five Senses.
>You're using them right now to read this post. But that's not the same 
>thing
>as denying the existence of something unless you can chemically diagram and
>manipulate it, which is empiricism.

Ted replies:

I don't want to get into a technical discussion of empiricism vs. 
rationalism etc.  I am not an empiricist in the strict meaning of the term, 
anyways.  But scientific methods and theory involve all sorts of amazing
inferences from fact using theory to unobserved inferred realities.  So the 
"invisible" beyond our senses is very much a part of science, and some 
scientists attempt to study "invisible" para-normal phenomena, for example, 
that many people think rather unscientific.

Science is a method of gaining knowledge based on replicable experiments 
and/or data gathering using theory to make inferences from the facts, but 
this method does not, as you state, "deny the existence of something unless 
it can be chemically diagrammed or manipulated."  If something cannot be 
chemically diagrammed or manipulated, it may not be understood in these 
terms, but why does it follow it does not exist, according to science?  
Scientific method indicates that many possibilities exist, and none can be 
ruled out till they are examined with experiment and observation and theory. 
  Even then, many explanations for a given phenomena may still be possible.

What is your point?

I think you are arguing from a negative view of science trying to make 
science look bad by making a case that it somehow demeans or degrades life 
and spirituality etc.  a common tactic by those who do like certain 
conclusions science has come to.

I don't care if you spell my name with one t or two.  Minor issue.

Ted

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail