Government-enforced morality

Once again we see how futile these polls (and most posts in these forums) are. We rip apart the question, the post, rather than simply responding to it. Please, someone! Come up with a perfect poll, a perfect post, 10 times in a row, so that we may all agree 100% of the time! It's really getting frustrating in here!

 

genesis12,

Welcome to Baptist life!

 

Agree 100% of the time??

That's not the point of a debate forum! :laugh:

There's always the fellowship forums if you want agreement. :smilewinkgrin:

 

It is human to desire revenge. But much that is human is evil. It's not justification.

 

Why would you want a poll in the Debate section to be 100% agreed upon? If there is no contraversy, there is no debate, no discussion.

 

IMHO

Revenge is hunting you down like a dog and breaking bones, because you hurt my feelings.

Justice is appropriate punishment for the crime. If you don't want to do the time, don't do the crime.

 

It is not "eye for an eye" revenge; it's money for your eye.

That's not necessarily so - some victims and survivors are vengeful, some are not.

 

PS - I also think that ex-criminals and their team members (lawyers, sympathizers, family, etc.) should all live together as one big happy family. Then you would have all the forgiveness and support to make a clean start that anyone could stand.

 

Compensation is not revenge.

When the poor & obscure get the same treatment that the rich and powerful get, then we can be said to have a greater sense of justice.

Some would prefer revenge; some would like both.

 

But they don't get to decide what the penalty is, especially in criminal cases. So no matter what the victims want, it has to go through the courts. And for civil cases, that can take years and years.

I agree many victims want revenge, but I do not agree that is what the courts are for. The courts reflect in a very remote and fallen way the justice of God. We would not even have a sense of justice if we were not made in the image of a just God.

 

Even so, there's a difference - revenge is about hurting or punishing the other while compensation is about being made whole (as possible). One is about the perpetrator, the other is about the victim.

 

Have you ever read a trial transcript or watched a court proceeding? It's not about revenge at all. It's about consequences and punishments as defined by the law. These are decided by the law and through the law. If you are robbed, the just consequence would be for the person to be caught and tried or for him to plead guilty and get a sentence (or maybe not, maybe probation). If you went after the robber and beat him up or shot him, that would be revenge.

Where do you think we get our concept of justice from? We get it from God, who is perfectly just. We are not, of course, but wanting justice is not wanting revenge.

 

If someone wrecks my car, I want it to be fixed or replaced - compensation. I don't mind if the insurance pays for it. I do not want, necessarily, for that person's car to be wrecked - eye for an eye revenge.

 

But God himself gives the consequences (including many compensations) in the OT for Israel to follow. Many of our laws today are based on these (including murder and manslaugther laws, though they vary from state to state).