You're very keen on asking questions but not so much on answering them. Does God abhor the shedding of innocent blood?
As I already said, YES.
If you or anyone could make a convincing argument as to a system that would reduce the amout of innocent people being killed then I'd listen. It would have to be a lot different to what you've been proffering so far though.
Why would it have to be different?
If my system was shown to reduce the number of innocent people killed (by criminals and by bad judgments on the part of the government), would that not be an inherently better system than the current system? Would it not also mean that you would adopt my system because it inherently protects more innocent people than the current?
Considering that I've already acknowledged that the current system isn't perfect you should already have been able to draw an answer to this. However, the current system doesn't tend to acquit murderers as a matter of course.
Of course it does.
https://newsok.com/article/5510226/...an-inflate-perceptions-of-how-many-get-solved
No, I don't claim that you intentionally want innocent people killed but that you support a system where such would inevitably happen and also where such numbers would increase
Since the system you currently support does in fact have innocent people killed as a result of it's policies, I don't see why the systems you defend are even on equal footing, let alone better, when those systems do not and cannot protect the innocent who are killed or harmed by the criminals, and indeed has innocent people caught up in it as a result.
given how you'd deny any subsequent appeal process. It was pretty clear.
Have I not given the reasons why an appellate system is bad?
Here's the reasons again:
· Appellate judges have a tendency to reverse convictions to demonstrate their own importance.
· A speedy trial and swift sentence are critical to the deterrence of crime.
· The delays inherent in an appellate system destroy the deterrent effect of swift justice.
· Criminals favor having an appeal process, which encourages crime.
· Appeals delay punishment and extend the suffering of the victim’s family.
· An appellate option makes it more difficult for criminals to respect the authority of a judge.
· Appeals enable criminals to shop for gullible judges.
· Appeals increase crime; denying appeals reduces crime, the caseload, and thus, judicial errors. |
Not really.
Do you seriously think that commandments made in ancient times to tribes are meant to be taken literal verbatim now?
I think that it has always, is, and always will be, wrong to steal, bear false witness, murder, and commit adultery. Or, to summarize, it's always been wrong to harm your neighbor.
Just as the laws of physics have not changed since creation, so to God's moral laws have not changed.
There was no such thing as forensic evidence in those days or anything akin to techniques available today.
Of course there was.
If a woman was raped by a man out in a field somewhere, where no one was around to hear her cries for help, and she managed to scratch him on the left side of his face, and tear a piece of his cloak off while she was resisting him, and then when she accused him of raping her, she could point out that she had scratched him on his face, and show the piece of the cloak to the judge, and he could investigate who has a torn cloak, and a scratched face.
You seem to think the people were stupid back then. I assure you, they were much smarter than we are, even sans the technology we have today.
Pretty much the only way guilt could be ascertained would be through eyewitness testimony corroborated, else what would you expect the bible Bible
If you could please capitalize the name of the book that God wrote, that would be great, thanks.
to specify for people of the time?
See my example above.
How DNA evidence would come into being?
Did you miss my definition of "forensic" that I provided above?
One does not need technology (though in this day and age, it helps) to solve crime.
They wouldn't have had a clue what that meant back then.
You seem to think that DNA evidence is the only kind of evidence that matters.
I assure you, you're wrong.
Do you think God would be happy with shedding innocent blood when it can be prevented or would He abhor it?
Pretty sure I answered this. You're starting to sound like a broken record, Arty.
Under the system you would have in place there'd be no appeals process that has exonerated plenty of people in the past as Barb explained to you.
See above. Those innocent people would have never been caught up in the system in the first place with my system. The reason those people were caught up in the current system is that they, among countless others, are victims of a system that suffers from extreme inefficiency due to a high crime rate caused by it's inefficiency. A nasty feedback loop that clogs up the gears of justice and puts a heavy burden on the people.
You don't "improve" a system by simply speeding up a conviction and execution process and being satisfied of a person's guilt without irrefutable evidence.
Please explain why your standard of "irrefutable evidence" is better than God's standard of "two or three witnesses".
Also, please show how having a lengthy appeal system does not put a burden on the people, as shown not only with our current system, but also shown in Exodus 18.
And the miscarriages of justice would skyrocket because of it along with the innocent death toll. Yay...
You keep asserting that the number of innocent people caught up in the system and be killed, but you haven't explained why? Is it not logical to think that having less crime would result in more resources being freed up, which would result in more convictions due to more evidence overall being found, which would result in more criminals being punished, which would deter more criminals from committing crimes, which would mean less crime overall, which would result in more resources being freed up... etc?
It seems logical to me, yet our current system is unable to do this, because it has no way of breaking the current feedback loop resulting from a high crime rate.
Would the above not be the best solution?
If you think perjury is the biggest cause of miscarriages of justice then you need a reality check. Is it serious? Sure, but it wouldn't impact anything like you seem to think.
I don't think it's the most serious. By the way, you never told me what the punishment for perjury is according to common law.
If God abhors the shedding of innocent blood
:deadhorse:
then your system would perpetuate it.
Alright, enough with the hypocritical accusations.
The current system currently perpetuates innocent people being killed by not punishing criminals and deterring them from committing crime.
My system asserts that the crime rate would drop to almost zero within, say, a month, sparing countless innocent lives.
You have no room to accuse my system of killing innocent people, when you, yes YOU, Arthur, support a system that can do very little to protect the innocent, let alone prevent them from dying at the hands of a criminal who has no fear of the government.
Stop being a hypocrite, Arthur.
You deny an appeals process
Correct. It is unnecessary for the reasons provided above. :deadhorse:
and are okay with people being convicted and executed without absolute proof which is a lot easier to ascertain with current procedures than it was back in the OT.
:deadhorse:
If you can explain why your standard for convictions is better than God's, I'll accept your standard over His.
Otherwise, shut up about "absolute proof" for convictions. It's not a convincing argument against God's standard, and there's nothing to support it.
You should ask yourself the very same question.
Considering that I'm using God's standard as my argument...
Fine, but that's pretty much what it would have been back then.
Nope, not at all. The standard would have been "witnesses", people or objects that testify to a crime that happened, and two or three witnesses at that.
Seems pretty obvious it was referring to people.
Nope.
“Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God,
that it may be there as a witness against you; - Deuteronomy 31:26
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy31:26&version=NKJV
That's ironic considering it's exactly what you'd be doing if you execute people who aren't mentally capable of understanding their actions. Do you think children should be tried, convicted and executed as well?
I think that if someone commits a crime, they should be punished.
Murder is the calculated and premeditated act of killing another person, "innocent" or otherwise.
Murder is the intentional killing of an innocent person.
No, but then you don't seem to have a handle on the subject anyway. I highly doubt that God would see the actions of someone with mental illness or retardation as being a "murderer" if they killed someone.
If they did so intentionally, yes, God would view them as a murderer.
Lennie isn't a murderer in "Of Mice And Men" but a grown man with the mind of a child who doesn't know his own strength, a peaceable guy who didn't mean to kill the woman and George kills him at the end to spare him from a brutal lynching, not because he deserved to be "executed".
Ok, so, after thinking about this a bit, I realize my position, that Lennie was a murderer, was wrong.
Now, the correct position to take in Lennie's case is this:
http://www.biblestudy.org/maps/cities-of-refuge.html
No, I think common sense ties in with it and you're not showing much. If you seriously think that people like Lennie should be regarded the same as those fully aware and calculating in their actions and are one and the same then you have a serious disconnect.
You may have read the words but you sure didn't get the gist...
:rain:
I think that murderers, adulterers, rapists, and pedophiles should be put to death, regardless of mental health, because their crimes are worthy of death.
If man is a part of that system, with that understanding, it absolutely makes the system imperfect.
Fair enough.
That said, it's not about being perfect. No one is arguing for or against any system using that criterion.
That seems to be Arty's problem.
Relying on witnesses when forensic evidence is available would be inviting a greater degree of injustice and imperfection because we know witnesses are frequently unreliable.
Still making this argument, even after I have defined that "witness" does not necessarily mean "eyewitness," but that it also can mean evidence.
Read the following, please, so that you stop making this straw man against my position.
So it was, when Moses had completed writing the words of this law in a book, when they were finished,that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying:“Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a witness against you; - Deuteronomy 31:24-26
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy31:24-26&version=NKJV
H5707 is used both in your verses and in the one I quoted above. "Witness" in the verses I shared is referring to the "Book of the Law, . . . that it may be there as a
witness against you.
"Witness" can refer to both a person OR evidence. But in the case of "two or three witnesses" it's inclusive of both.
Try the actual definition of "witness":
1 : attestation of a fact or event : testimony
2 : one that gives evidence; specifically : one who testifies in a cause or before a judicial tribunal
3 : one asked to be present at a transaction so as to be able to testify to its having taken place
4 : one who has personal knowledge of something
5 a : something serving as evidence or proof : sign
b : public affirmation by word or example of usually religious faith or conviction
Done? Good, now you can actually address the argument I'm making, instead of addressing the argument I'm not.
And recognizing that any system is open to error, eliminating the appeal and presumptions of our legal system would invite foreseeable additional miscarriages of justice without recourse.
Appeal? presumptions?
If two or three witnesses (again, not "eyewitnesses"), according to God, establish a matter, then what's the sense of appealing? It would only delay justice being served.
And a criminal is guilty the moment he commits a crime, but even in my system he is presumed innocent until shown to be guilty.
Saying people are dishonest for disagreeing with you, which is what that reduces to, is a bad idea.
Having people recognize that it is dishonest to not acknowledge that a system that tends to acquit murderers thereby leads to the killing of the innocent is not a bad idea. It's just common sense. Forcing someone to face reality is never a bad idea. If someone denies reality in favor of their own position on a matter, then that person is dishonest, plain and simple.
Heck, Barbarian inferred something much less certain and more arguable and got tossed for it. You might want to reconsider that one.
Nope. No need.
Rather, I've said that for its day you couldn't really do much better.
So you think we have a better system today than what God came up with 3500 years ago?
But we can expect more now. I don't fault God for not demanding what men were incapable of providing, but we can do more today.
And because both sides, the right and the wrong, can do more today, the standard, which has not changed since God implemented it, remains "two or three witnesses," because two or three are enough to establish a matter, no matter the situation.
In the same spirit I don't condemn medical practioners of the day for failing to prescribe a course of antibiotics to help fight off an infection. But if a doctor practicing today didn't I'd say it was reasonable to investigate whether or not he should be licensed.
Um... What does this have to do with anything?
You lost me.
The system we have in place doesn't tend to acquit murderers.
Uh... Yes it does.
https://newsok.com/article/5510226/...an-inflate-perceptions-of-how-many-get-solved
As with any system that's going to happen, but it's the exception to the rule, not the rule or tendency. The rule with our system is that it tends to convict well over 90% of people charged with any crime and it comes with protections for the innocent wrongfully convicted.
That's a good thing.
That number should be 100% convictions for criminals and 0% convictions of innocents.
And will you profane Me among My people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, killing people who should not die, and keeping people alive who should not live, by your lying to My people who listen to lies?” - Ezekiel 13:19
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel13:19&version=NKJV
It's all just totally shocking......
What, putting criminals deserving of death to death is shocking?
Someone needs a reality check.
It seems like reversing various bible verses as required into a careless, callous and crazy theocracy.
You're either intentionally lying to yourself about my position, or you're not using the correct word.
The word you're looking for is "theonomy."
I'm a theonomist and a monarchist.
I want God's laws to be the standard for government, and I want a human king to rule under those laws.
I perceive a World with some kind of twisted Christianity which has discarded humanity. :idunno:
You need to get your eyes checked then...
It looks like it's all quite unhinged.
Coming from someone who is unhinged, that's not surprising.
Do you actually understand what a straw-man is, and how it's used?
Yup.
Laugh...... you might like to think you're a monarchist, but clearly you don't want to obey, but just subject the World to your own distorted ideas about what your monarch wants.
"Monarchist" - someone who wants a king to rule
"Theonomist" - someone who wants God's laws to be the standard by which a nation is governed
:think:
No......... you get the Eider badge of 'theocratic in denial'.
:deadhorse: straw man
Matthew {9:13} But go ye and learn what [that] meaneth, I will have mercy, and not
sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Ok, and?
You ooze of theocracy, and your own subjective view of, and selection of the verses that suit you, imo.
If you want to ask me a question, please bother to copy/paste it.
Considering that the post you replied to contained the question ... in question ... I'm surprised you couldn't just leave it in your quote of my post and copy paste it yourself.
However, since you seem to be too lazy to do it, I will ask it again, just for you!
I need you to, or at least I am hoping you will, acknowledge that a system that tends to acquit murderers is a system that thereby leads to the killing of the innocent. Can you do that?
The streets of your town centres would be running in blood if you publicly executed all those on your list of Capital crimes.
Nope. Well, maybe for a few days, as all the current death row inmates are executed... But after that, the streets would be peaceful, and hardly a capital crime would be committed.
Sharia Law at it's worst.
See, it's funny that you condemn Sharia law because you recognize (and rightly so) that it's standard for justice is off.
But it's also sad that you misrepresent my position by accusing God of being unjust.
Please don't call God's law "Sharia law" again. You will be reported next time for blasphemy.
That sentence could be turned back upon you.
Not at all.
But you have forgotten those verses from the Old Testament which you wish to ignore, true?
Which verses? Serious question.
Clearly you've got the above wrong?
You're not going to explain why?
I've been told by other zealots that where God instructs 'Israel' that it doesn't extend to the gentiles.
Or is that wrong? Do all commands (except sacrificial ones) extend to all people?
Waiting.............
Answered by GO.
I haven't read much in this thread outside of what I've responded to.
In the words of Adam Savage...
Well there's your problem!
I don't recall that in what I have read.
Not surprising, considering you didn't read everything.
What do you necessarily mean? Because if it isn't particular it's not very applicable.
See the posts I gave you to read above.
Noting a thing has been answered numerous times prior isn't that.
Then don't bother telling me what you believe he said. Eyewitness accounts even made by people who mean to report fairly are notoriously problematic and frequently unreliable.
:deadhorse:
I said "witnesses," not "eyewitnesses," for a reason. If you can't figure it out, then that's on you, not us.
Sure it does. The rest is just the sound of your feet, ironically enough.
You and many people like you seem determined to live under the law. Well, good luck with that, but it's a terrible idea. It was meant to be.
Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law. - Romans 3:31
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans3:31&version=NKJV
Absent anything new I'm just going to let you stamp about and declare how right you are and whatnot. :e4e:
:think:
I'm about as interested in your critique of my efficacy as you would be in a friend request from Obama.
I would love a friend request from Obama. Would give me a chance to have a nice chat with him about where he'll exist for the rest of eternity.
Which I haven't read and which is then as helpful as you tend to be, and as clear.
Which, as I stated above, is your problem.
The fact that you admit that you have a problem is the first step to remedying that problem.
Why don't you go through and read what you have not, so that you can stop making straw man arguments against our position.
All evidence to the contrary. I've hit the mark I meant. The one you avoid through misstatement and concentration on the messenger.
I need to do what suits me in advancing the argument and addressing the points I find actually set before me, as I have done and continue to do.
Not the issue I mean to address and do. So, no.
No, I didn't. But it's like you to keep repeating it in the face of a clear rebuttal. I won't make the mistake of revisiting it in this, because I know the working definition of insanity is continuing to make a point someone is determined not to understand.
That's ironic.
Because you're definitely determined not to understand our position.
I think you're beyond reason. Now do something childish and I'll just write you off again.
That'll do.
:AMR:
Lots of folks here cherry-pick from the OT law, so the above is a joke.
Nope.
If you want to pick from OT law, then pick it all,
Why?
if you want to ignore or change any of it, then you'd better support laws for today, not thousands of years back.
Considering that most of our laws today stem from God's laws, why not just use His standard instead of man's perversion of it?
Your choice for opinion, but not for action, I'm glad to say.
Whatever that means...
No mock horror.
I don't know what corner you live in, but we have a legal tenet called Mens Rea, that's latin, you know....
mens rea
nounLAW
the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime, as opposed to the action or conduct of the accused.
And? Your point?
You see, a person 'beyond reason of the mind' often cannot commit a criminal offence!
We don't execute anybody here, but we certainly shouldn't be executing folks who are clearly beyond reason of mind, and this can include the mentally disabled, extreme passions, children, etc.
And will you profane Me among My people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, killing people who should not die, and keeping people alive who should not live, by your lying to My people who listen to lies?” - Ezekiel 13:19
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel13:19&version=NKJV
If you want your public rocky horror shows then hope on.......... but all you're doing in reality is keeping millions of folks far away from your particular Creed of Christianity, or whatever it is.
No, that would be you.
