Just realized I hadn't responded to this yet. Lets dig in:
Of course they do. They derive their authority from God and are answerable for how that authority is used.
So a government has the authority to make a law that says, "Every morning before you leave for work, you must pat your head and rub your belly for five minutes on your front porch"? :AMR:
No. They do not have the authority to make laws. Just like you can't make a new law that defines how physics work, so too it is impossible to make a law that redefines what is good and evil.
The problem is in revealed. Who determines what that looks like? Across cultures and faiths man fashions very similar laws, especially on fundamental truths and protections.
Because God wrote His law upon man's hearts.
Even the lawless, while doing unlawful things, will recognize that it's wrong to take money from them, or to steal their woman.
Actually, it's what stabilizes it. Other governments have fallen to civil war where we have managed peaceful transitions and revolutions in our thinking and actions as a people. Not that we haven't come perilously close to undoing it from time to time.
So the lack of a guarantee of stability is what stabilizes our government? :dunce:
Our government is on a downward spiral into wickedness, with extremely little chance of ever becoming righteous.
I didn't only note the irreversibility problem, but sure. Then it's a problem for us. Because as hard as we've tried, even going beyond eyewitness accounts required in antiquity, we've gotten it wrong. People have made mistakes that cost others their lives. Even honest mistakes. And therein lies the inherent problem and my objection. We take what we have no right to take and cannot compensate the individual in any sense for that taking.
And here's the problem with your argument.
I agree, people make mistakes. In fact, it's practically a guarantee that someone somewhere in ANY legal system will make some sort of mistake, because man is fallible. But that doesn't mean you get rid of God's commands. In fact, it's BECAUSE we try to improve on what God said to do, or even ignore it altogether, that we bring unnecessary harm to the innocent and put a burden on the people. God's ways are righteous, and following them puts the least amount of harm on the innocent and the most amount of justice on the criminal. That should be the model we base our justice system on. Our current system DOES NOT DO THAT. It takes the burden off of the criminals and puts it on the innocent, while at the same time allowing the number of crimes to increase.
Again, the problem with your argument is that we have no right to object to God's commands on how justice is served, no matter how nice you want to be, and as a result of trying to be nice, proponents have unwittingly condemned more innocent people to be harmed than if they had just followed God's command.
God promises that the death penalty is a reliable deterrent for crime.
Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel.And all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously. - Deuteronomy 17:12-13
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy17:12-13&version=NKJV
The only reason it isn't is that criminals spend a lifetime waiting for death, instead of being executed quickly. Wise King Solomon said:
Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. - Ecclesiastes 8:11
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes8:11&version=NKJV
I'm cutting out the system critique and popular misconceptions about it. I disagree and we can take that up elsewhere if you want. I've written on it at length in other threads and I'm ready to defend the best system going, flaws and all, but not here for the sake of space and to remain on point.
I know this will sound crazy to you, but we literally couldn't field enough judges and prosecutors to do what you want to do with our population.
Sure we could. It might sound crazy to you, but all a King would need to do is what Moses did here:
So Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “The thing that you do is not good.Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself.Listen now to my voice; I will give you counsel, and God will be with you: Stand before God for the people, so that you may bring the difficulties to God.And you shall teach them the statutes and the laws, and show them the way in which they must walk and the work they must do.Moreover you shall select from all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness;
and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.And let them judge the people at all times. Then it will be that every great matter they shall bring to you, but every small matter they themselves shall judge. So it will be easier for you, for they will bear the burden with you.If you do this thing, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all this people will also go to their place in peace.”So Moses heeded the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said.And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people:
rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.So they judged the people at all times; the hard cases they brought to Moses, but they judged every small case themselves. - Exodus 18:17-26
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus18:17-26&version=NKJV
There are about 325,000,000 people in the US currently. The head of the household would be responsible for matters of the house. Judges would not be excluded from being judged.
10:1 - 10 households to 1 "judge over ten"
100:1 - 100 households to 1 "judge over a hundred"
1,000:1 - 1000 households to 1 "judge over a thousand" (39,200 +/- a hundred or so judges for California at this point all part of the population)
Depending on the state's population, (such as for California) there could be another level or two of judges, "judge over ten thousand" and "judge over a hundred thousand".
To continue using CA as an example, to go from this point there would be about 393 judges, over which there would be 40 judges (one judge would only have three judges under him, the other 39 would have 10 each), over which there would be four judges (10 each), over which would be the judge over the state. 50 state-level judges would have 5 judges over them (10:1), and those 5 would report to one judge under the King, if not the King himself.
We actually have restitution in addition to other punishment for property offenses.
The restitution implemented in our current system is unjust. To put it in a nutshell, the government shouldn't get anything that is owed to the victim.
I'm just taking a few points as asides here...
I understand.
and when you have the DP for rape you mostly if inadvertently encourage rapists to kill their victims, which is one reason we took that off the plate a while back. It helped.
Could you please provide the statistics for the years leading up to and immediately following the removal of the DP for rape, along with the range of wait times for death to actually come to the rapist (either via old age or actual execution)?
As horrible as rape is, I suspect most of the victims would prefer to live beyond it.
They would rather their rapist be punished appropriately, so that they don't have to put up with their rapist mocking them and tormenting for the next however many years while he is pampered in prison.
It's more merciful to the victim to put the rapist to death, than to allow him to live and be able to mock his victcims.
Capital punishment for adultery is a really bad idea for any number of reasons, though I understand its utility when it was the rule of law.
Look at you, calling God's righteous standard "a really bad idea." :mock:
I don't agree that being imprisoned isn't punishment.
It's not that it isn't punishment, it's that it isn't sufficient enough punishment for any crime.
I doubt anyone in prison agrees with that either.
Putting misbehaving children in the same group together in the classroom is a poor idea of punishment for them. Why do you think it would be any better for adults?
Sure it can. The day you're imprisoned should come swiftly.
But then criminal sits in a jail cell for however long still being punished for what he did.
Execute justice swiftly, and there won't be a crime epidemic. Prison sentences are not swift.
Heck, by your scale one really quick, hard lash is more meaningful that ten over a few minutes. Or, it's a scale argument that I think fails when you start picking at it.
My point is that a short and swift punishment is far better than a long prison sentence.
How long does it take, normally, for someone who has been caught after committing a crime to even get into the courtroom, let alone actually sentenced? A day? two? A week? A month? A year? And people wonder why crime runs rampant in our society.
A verdict should be given by the judge within 48 hours of the criminal being caught, and the punishment should be executed within 24 hours of sentencing.
Here's why short and swift is better:
It's by far easier to remember 15 seconds of pain on one's backside from a few lashes, than it is to remember 5 years of sitting around doing practically nothing. And if he remembers the pain, then the criminal is far more likely to remember why he received the pain, which was that he was being punished for a crime. And in remembering that pain, he will not (unless he's mentally ill) want to experience that pain again, and in not wanting to experience the pain again, he won't commit the crime again.
That's a textbook definition of a deterrent.
Imprisonment is not a deterrent, in the same way that being offered free room and board, food, drink, medicine, legal representation, entertainment, gym membership, etc, are not deterrets.
How many of the capital crimes that were committed several years, even decades ago, if I were to list the criminals who committed them for you, would you be able to remember? None?
What if these same criminals did the same crimes, were caught, convicted, and then executed for their crimes within 48 hours? Would you be able to put a face to the crime committed?
Would that not be a deterrent to wannabe criminals to not commit those same crimes?
No and I've told you more than that. Rather, because the DP is uniquely irreversible, because there is no recompense for the failure
Not in our current system, of course not. There's absolutely ZERO accountability in our legal system. In this system of ours, if a judge hands down a bad judgment onto the one who is suspected of committing the crime, while they're actually innocent, he just says, "well I'm not the one who came up with the verdict, the jury did," and he points his fingers at the empty benches of the jury panel, of which the members have already dissipated into the faceless crowd.
I mean, who thought it would be a good idea to have a panel of (is it 12?) completely random, unbiased people to determine whether someone did something wrong?
· Justice by committee is a failure. Judges must once again become responsible for courtroom results.
· Juries have no accountability. Group action creates excuses and tends to dilute responsibility.
· A murderer prefers a committee to a judge, knowing that a jury increases his chance to evade justice.
· The wrongly accused stands a better chance of exoneration from a trained judge than an amateur jury.
· Even an evil judge has a reputation to consider, but a jury disbands into nonexistence.
· Men have been sold a bill of goods supposing that security lies in justice by committee.
· The criminal justice system must protect the innocent from, not subject them to, the public.
· Judges cannot be held accountable for jury decisions, but can be prosecuted for negligent bench
verdicts.
· The jury selection process typically involves seeking the most uninformed and apathetic.
· Systematic government accountability should exist where feasible.
· Today, a chain of accountability exists for a toilet purchase, but none for a kidnapper’s trial.
· Criminal justice ranks as government’s primary responsibility, thus courts need accountability.
· If a jury wrongly lets a murderer go to kill again, there is no accountability procedure.
AND because when we take an innocent life we inadvertently do that which we have no right to do, understanding that I object to it. I'm pretty sure I've set those out prior.
Then the goal should be reducing the number of innocent people who are put through the legal system.
The current system puts a burden on the people. In other words, more innocent people have to deal with the legal system than is appropriate. This results in few resources being available to combat crime, which leads to higher crime rates... I feel like I've mentioned this before, have I not?... which leads to more strain on the system, which makes it harder to process the small stuff, which puts burden on the people, which results in few resources to combat crime... Ad nauseum.
The system in Exodus 18, along with the criminal laws in the first five books of the Bible, reduces the burden, and the feedback loop it creates lessens the number of innocent people in the system at any given time, and coupled with judges who are accountable for their judgments, there will be very few innocent people who are caught up in the system on accident, while being able to handle the actual criminals with ease.
It helps if you wait for an answer. I know you were dying to use the mock and vomit emoji, but you jumped the gun and the shark with that one. Otherwise, answered above.
God tells you that governments derive their authority from Him.
Agreed.
Christ told his subjects and Paul told early Christians to obey and render. That was Rome they were speaking of and it wasn't in line with Mosaic law either.
And your point is? My point is that governments in the Bible that imprisoned people were always wicked governments. NO good authority in the Bible (of which there were very few) ever imprisoned their criminals, as far as I'm aware.
YES, we should respect the government. That doesn't make what they do righteous.
I'm also omitting the "Who are you" attempt to make it about me as a king instead of some guy giving an opinion, which is all I actually am. A reasoned and considered opinion, hopefully, but nothing more. I don't even have puffy sleeves, let alone a sceptre.
Look, I haven't pressured you once on taking all the time in the world to make whatever points you want to make, but I'm not going back over conversations that go on a bit unless you point to something with a quote.
:idunno:
I'm not pressuring you either. Just stating the fact that the conversation is there for you to go back and look through it if you need to.
Look JR, I know you'd rather make this about me, because then you can do the emojis and hand wave dismissal, but it isn't and I've answered on this point prior. You're misrepresenting me. So make your case or not, but leave off making mine and getting it wrong. God changes how we relate to Him. He's done it a few times. And the impact of that can be remarkable.
God's righteous standard HAS NOT CHANGED. execution is still the appropriate punishment for punishment for murder, regardless of how God interacts with us.
You need to show where in scripture that God has revoked the death penalty for capital crimes if you want to make the case that God doesn't require it anymore.
Ask the woman who was to be stoned. Ask Paul.
Paul says if he had done anything worthy of death, he would not have objected to dying.
Jesus did not repeal the death penalty when confronted with the Pharisees's rather feeble attempt at tricking Him into breaking Roman law.
In fact, if you read my post to Eider above, you'll see that even throughout the NT, capital punishment is still promoted, not condemned.
You left out the woman caught committing adultery.
You left out the part where Jesus repealed the death penalty for adulterers/adulteresses.
Jesus, being God, has the authority to pardon criminals. God never gave authorities permission to show mercy on criminals. In fact, it was forbidden for a judge to show mercy on a criminal for any reason. Jesus showing mercy on the woman (even though He knew she was guilty) is within his purview as God.
Christ looked right at her and knew she was guilty. Remember that stoning?
Again, Jesus saw right through the Pharisees' attempt to trick Him into violating Roman law, which was that only Roman authorities could sentence a criminal to death.
In addition to that, those who brought the woman (and rather obviously not the man she was caught with, if any at all) were, as implied by Jesus saying "he who is without sin cast the first stone," calling them out on their hypocrisy, probably guilty of being adulterers themselves, and probably with the woman.
I don't either.
Still isn't about me.
You're saying that God didn't require blood for blood and a life for a life in the OT? Or are you laboring under the impression that the law wasn't a purely moral instrument? If not I think you can pull that together without a map.
No, I'm making the distinction between punishments for crime (restitution, flogging, execution) and requirements for washing away sin (not crime).
All crime is sin. But not all sin is crime.
It's a sin to have another god above God, but it's not a crime. It's both a crime and a sin to murder. Only murder is punishable by law, and the the other required a sacrifice of an animal.
It was NEVER required, forbidden, even, to sacrifice a human for the cleansing of sin (again, sin, not crime).
Moses didn't bring down the tablets to take them back to Egypt.
Duh.
They were the law of His people. He set them apart. He also used them to teach the world a number of things, including our inability to meet the law.
And yet...
For several hundred years after Cain killed Abel, God said NO death penalty for criminals. What followed that was God repenting for even making man, and wanting to wipe man out and start over, but Noah found grace in the eyes of God, because he was a righteous man.
And IMMEDIATELY following the Flood, ONE OF THE VERY FIRST THINGS God does is implement the death penalty for murderers. (Genesis 9:6)
Which means that everyone since Noah and his three sons has been under that law, which God has never since repealed.
And even so, Cain knew immediately that what he did was wrong, and
feared that if someone were to find him, they would kill him for what he did to his brother. He feared death because he killed his brother.
So again I ask, is "Do not murder" an absolute law?
Take that one up with Jesus and the woman he sent on her way with an admonishment. I'm fairly certain that wasn't the proscribed punishment.
See above.
So am I what?
Without a law there is no criminal. Without a moral law there is no sin. So the law creates both the sinner and the saint. It is therefore a thing for both, as without it they cannot be defined and distinguished.
Incorrect.
What I said, that the law is not for the righteous, but for the lawless?
That's straight out of 1 Timothy:
But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully,
knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine,according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. - 1 Timothy 1:8-11 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1Timothy1:8-11&version=NKJV
Yes, the law is a tutor that leads one to Christ. But that doesn't make it for the righteous (aka, the believer). I'm gonna stick with what Paul said there, and not what you said, that it's for both the lawless and the righteous.
That's a fine declaration, but there's no objective truth in it. A man must respect and believe in eternality first. And a man who does that shouldn't be found within the camp of murderers outside of a failing on the point he must recognize without the penalty attaching to it.
Paul says this:
Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake.For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing.Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. - Romans 13:1-7 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans13:1-7&version=NKJV
If a person doesn't fear the authority, then he has no fear of God, because the authority is God's minister.
Again, restitution is a part of most criminal offenses involving property, to the extent it is possible.
See my comment above on our current system's "restitution."
Mercy is a part of His nature too, and where that mercy meets justice we find grace and the once unfathomable thing that follows it.
What does that have to do with what I said? What's your point?
I believe you believe that. I just think you're wrong on the point.
Huh? How does that response make any sense? I said what I'm going to do, not what I believe in doing...
If you want to know what I believe I'll tell you. If you want to use it for a, "No! This is what it means." I'm not interested. Let me know. I'm also fine with, "I don't read it that way. To me it is..."
:idunno:
