6 ms·

It seems to me "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty clear and unambiguous. All I can say is history is inevitably determined by the sick fucks that rise to the top.

by bregma 2y ago

gjsman-1000 2y ago
Even an amateur Christian theologian can tell you that this only refers to unjust death / murder; as the original Hebrew text also espouses more clearly than the English translation (לא תרצח - lo tirtsah, form of ratzach, murder). The Ten Commandments also come from the book of Leviticus Chapter 19 and not just Exodus, and Leviticus 20 onward is well known for the death penalty for several offenses described in the broader Mosaic Law; forming the religious objection that otherwise, God's chosen leader (Moses) himself ordered violations of the 10 Commandments in the very same book.
- mr_toad 2y ago
  > Even an amateur Christian theologian can tell you that this only refers to unjust death / murder It’s only an assumption that the mis-translation was unintentional. It could have been quite deliberate. Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    If it was deliberate, how do you know it was innocent? Also, while I know the quote, that’s not the same as never dealing death and judgement. Tolkien was not a pacifist, but a soldier.
- havblue 2y ago
  Funny story. On YouTube someone posted the following verse in response to current events. "When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them." Leviticus 19:33... So I of course responded that there are a lot of verses that they don't agree with in chapters 18-20 related to the death penalty. YouTube subsequently shadow banned me.
krapp 2y ago
It isn't, because there are numerous instances in the Bible of God directly commanding people to kill, and even punishing people for showing mercy. "Thou shalt not kill" isn't a sin because human life is inherently valuable to God (reading the OT, it clearly isn't) but because humans are God's property, and so only God, who created humans, has the right to decide when and how they die. Under the particularly cruel and brutal Bronze Age ethics from which the Abrahamic God as a concept was derived, killing is perfectly justifiable when God wills it, and is only a sin otherwise because it defies God's will. ...which shouldn't even be possible if God is omnipotent but that's a whole other can of worms.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  I don’t think you grasp what “omnipotent” means. That literally means unlimited power, which would actually be an argument for why God has this authority. On that note, who is being cruel here: A God who imposed rules on how he wants his creatures to behave to his other creatures; or a creature who hurts his other creatures, and then calls God cruel for stopping it? Edit, to your reply: > I know what omnipotent means. The contradiction is that it shouldn't be possible to violate the will of an omnipotent God. You will have to provide some citations for such an axiom that aren’t based on an atheist stereotype of “omnipotent” and “will.” TLDR of a Christian perspective: God is love. Love does not exist outside of God. Love is defined as willing the good of another person. As such, love is fundamentally a choice. As such, humans must have a choice to love. To do otherwise, would make a human a robot. God knows what choice we will make, but does not force it. (A parent who knows the teen will not resist the cake on the counter, does not force the teen to eat cake.) It does not follow, that if humans refuse to love, God should nullify all consequences. On that note, Hell was not made for humans but for Satan, and we as humans have only the ability to choose love (God) or absence of love (Hell). A person who has chosen to not love, logically cannot live with love itself. Viewing it as humans choosing to damn themselves by refusing to love, would be a more accurate perspective.
  - krapp 2y ago
    I know what omnipotent means. The contradiction is that it shouldn't be possible to violate the will of an omnipotent God. You can invoke "free will", but that's just another layer of abstraction for the same problem. If free will truly exists, then God isn't omnipotent. If He does, free will cannot exist. >On that note, who is being cruel here: A God who imposed rules on how he wants his creatures to behave to his other creatures; or a creature who hurts his other creatures, and then calls God cruel for stopping it? God isn't cruel for imposing rules, God is cruel for allowing evil to persist and for punishing humans with eternal torment for a state of sin they cannot absolve themselves of. The God of the Bible is very obviously not good, or just, or even self-consistent. More than once He just lets humans into heaven because He likes them. But yes humans are cruel, too.
bloomingeek 2y ago
Lets remember these sickos were usually after power, at any cost. The very humans they were supposed to be shepherding were considered an asset to be used. (kind of like our personal data today, no?) Serf/slave labor was to be used, their souls were just a by product to help control them. (also like today with evangelicals, except for votes.)
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  This is a historically inaccurate take. The Middle Ages spanned hundreds of years across countries that had very different views from each other. If you can think of something strange, it probably happened. Just one example: Women might not be able to own property in one town, but can literally vote alongside princes in another (abbesses in Medieval Germany). Stereotypes are rarely directly applicable to the whole period, any more than me digging up a stereotype of an 1850s Californian would be applicable today. Secondly though, it downplays the likelihood that the majority of priests, bishops, and cardinals, did labor in good faith and, at least on paper, viewed the rules imposed as equally applicable to themselves. Whether they followed them or not, even the serf believed God would avenge. I would say a more accurate comparison for the nuanced authority and love-hate relationship might be our modern police.
  - bloomingeek 2y ago
    <priests, bishops, and cardinals, did labor in good faith> Indulgences, crusades, excommunication, infallibility of the popes and only God knows what else. These are not stereotypes, they are facts. The belief that God would avenge is a Biblical fact, all the others was pure fantasy, used as controlling tools. That is history.
    - gjsman-1000 2y ago
      Yeah, yeah, thanks for announcing your Protestantism as the definitely historically accurate opinion.
      - 2y ago
amalcon 2y ago
> "Thou shalt not kill" The word "kill" here is famously a translation issue. The original Hebrew word means something closer to (but not precisely) "commit murder". Don't assume that the King James translation would capture the kind of nuance you are asserting is absent.
dragonwriter 2y ago
> It seems to me "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty clear and unambiguous. In isolation, and if that was what it said in the source language, sure. When the same source (either of the books of the Bible containing -- slightly different -- versions of the decalogue) also includes lots of specific commands to kill from the same origin as the "Thou shalt not kill", it gets murkier, and when also the "Thou shalt not kill" is arguably closer in the source language to "do not murder", well... (Which is not to defend the practice at issue, just to point out that the decalogue is not, alone, necessarily a great way to make the point that it should have been clearly wrong within the religious framework it nominally sought to server; I think there are good arguments, both within and without that framework, just not that one on its own.)

It seems to me "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty clear and unambiguous. All I can say is history is inevitably determined by the sick fucks that rise to the top.

by bregma 2y ago

It seems to me "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty clear and unambiguous. All I can say is history is inevitably determined by the sick fucks that rise to the top.

gjsman-1000 2y ago

Even an amateur Christian theologian can tell you that this only refers to unjust death / murder; as the original Hebrew text also espouses more clearly than the English translation (לא תרצח - lo tirtsah, form of ratzach, murder). The Ten Commandments also come from the book of Leviticus Chapter 19 and not just Exodus, and Leviticus 20 onward is well known for the death penalty for several offenses described in the broader Mosaic Law; forming the religious objection that otherwise, God's chosen leader (Moses) himself ordered violations of the 10 Commandments in the very same book.

mr_toad 2y ago
> Even an amateur Christian theologian can tell you that this only refers to unjust death / murder It’s only an assumption that the mis-translation was unintentional. It could have been quite deliberate. Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  If it was deliberate, how do you know it was innocent? Also, while I know the quote, that’s not the same as never dealing death and judgement. Tolkien was not a pacifist, but a soldier.
havblue 2y ago
Funny story. On YouTube someone posted the following verse in response to current events. "When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them." Leviticus 19:33... So I of course responded that there are a lot of verses that they don't agree with in chapters 18-20 related to the death penalty. YouTube subsequently shadow banned me.

krapp 2y ago

It isn't, because there are numerous instances in the Bible of God directly commanding people to kill, and even punishing people for showing mercy. "Thou shalt not kill" isn't a sin because human life is inherently valuable to God (reading the OT, it clearly isn't) but because humans are God's property, and so only God, who created humans, has the right to decide when and how they die. Under the particularly cruel and brutal Bronze Age ethics from which the Abrahamic God as a concept was derived, killing is perfectly justifiable when God wills it, and is only a sin otherwise because it defies God's will. ...which shouldn't even be possible if God is omnipotent but that's a whole other can of worms.

gjsman-1000 2y ago
I don’t think you grasp what “omnipotent” means. That literally means unlimited power, which would actually be an argument for why God has this authority. On that note, who is being cruel here: A God who imposed rules on how he wants his creatures to behave to his other creatures; or a creature who hurts his other creatures, and then calls God cruel for stopping it? Edit, to your reply: > I know what omnipotent means. The contradiction is that it shouldn't be possible to violate the will of an omnipotent God. You will have to provide some citations for such an axiom that aren’t based on an atheist stereotype of “omnipotent” and “will.” TLDR of a Christian perspective: God is love. Love does not exist outside of God. Love is defined as willing the good of another person. As such, love is fundamentally a choice. As such, humans must have a choice to love. To do otherwise, would make a human a robot. God knows what choice we will make, but does not force it. (A parent who knows the teen will not resist the cake on the counter, does not force the teen to eat cake.) It does not follow, that if humans refuse to love, God should nullify all consequences. On that note, Hell was not made for humans but for Satan, and we as humans have only the ability to choose love (God) or absence of love (Hell). A person who has chosen to not love, logically cannot live with love itself. Viewing it as humans choosing to damn themselves by refusing to love, would be a more accurate perspective.
- krapp 2y ago
  I know what omnipotent means. The contradiction is that it shouldn't be possible to violate the will of an omnipotent God. You can invoke "free will", but that's just another layer of abstraction for the same problem. If free will truly exists, then God isn't omnipotent. If He does, free will cannot exist. >On that note, who is being cruel here: A God who imposed rules on how he wants his creatures to behave to his other creatures; or a creature who hurts his other creatures, and then calls God cruel for stopping it? God isn't cruel for imposing rules, God is cruel for allowing evil to persist and for punishing humans with eternal torment for a state of sin they cannot absolve themselves of. The God of the Bible is very obviously not good, or just, or even self-consistent. More than once He just lets humans into heaven because He likes them. But yes humans are cruel, too.

bloomingeek 2y ago

Lets remember these sickos were usually after power, at any cost. The very humans they were supposed to be shepherding were considered an asset to be used. (kind of like our personal data today, no?) Serf/slave labor was to be used, their souls were just a by product to help control them. (also like today with evangelicals, except for votes.)

gjsman-1000 2y ago
This is a historically inaccurate take. The Middle Ages spanned hundreds of years across countries that had very different views from each other. If you can think of something strange, it probably happened. Just one example: Women might not be able to own property in one town, but can literally vote alongside princes in another (abbesses in Medieval Germany). Stereotypes are rarely directly applicable to the whole period, any more than me digging up a stereotype of an 1850s Californian would be applicable today. Secondly though, it downplays the likelihood that the majority of priests, bishops, and cardinals, did labor in good faith and, at least on paper, viewed the rules imposed as equally applicable to themselves. Whether they followed them or not, even the serf believed God would avenge. I would say a more accurate comparison for the nuanced authority and love-hate relationship might be our modern police.
- bloomingeek 2y ago
  <priests, bishops, and cardinals, did labor in good faith> Indulgences, crusades, excommunication, infallibility of the popes and only God knows what else. These are not stereotypes, they are facts. The belief that God would avenge is a Biblical fact, all the others was pure fantasy, used as controlling tools. That is history.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    Yeah, yeah, thanks for announcing your Protestantism as the definitely historically accurate opinion.
    - 2y ago

amalcon 2y ago

> "Thou shalt not kill" The word "kill" here is famously a translation issue. The original Hebrew word means something closer to (but not precisely) "commit murder". Don't assume that the King James translation would capture the kind of nuance you are asserting is absent.

dragonwriter 2y ago

> It seems to me "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty clear and unambiguous. In isolation, and if that was what it said in the source language, sure. When the same source (either of the books of the Bible containing -- slightly different -- versions of the decalogue) also includes lots of specific commands to kill from the same origin as the "Thou shalt not kill", it gets murkier, and when also the "Thou shalt not kill" is arguably closer in the source language to "do not murder", well... (Which is not to defend the practice at issue, just to point out that the decalogue is not, alone, necessarily a great way to make the point that it should have been clearly wrong within the religious framework it nominally sought to server; I think there are good arguments, both within and without that framework, just not that one on its own.)