Originally posted by Xingyi Warrior:
I do believe that the Bible tells The wages of sin is death Scott. What is so unbelievable about that?
Let me clarify. We are all sinners and so we all will experience death.
If I go out and have unprotected sex with a new woman every other night eventually, I will contract a veneral disease (herpes, AIDS, etc...) due to the fact that the diseases are becoming so prevalent.
And that would be a specific cause and effect. You sleep with someone with a disease, you can get a disease.
So would it be the fault of the person carrying the disease or my fault for being so reckless in my pursuits?
There is a specific action that leads to a specific reaction.
Like it or not our choices in this life have consequences. And some of those consequences can be pretty harsh.
That's like saying that if I take a walk in the park at 3:00 p.m. and I get shot by a crazy guy who happens to be there at the same time, then it must have been my fault. I shouldn't have been in the park.
For instance if you like to base jump, you must accept the possibility that your parachite could malfunction and if that happens you will fall to your death.
Specific action leads to specific reaction. In this case, the person who packed the parachute or the parachute maker may the one who is the cause of the death. That is a risk that is small, but one that the jumper is aware of.
The malfunctioning of the parachute was instrumental in your demise but ultimately you were the one that made the decision to jump off the cliff or building.
A risk that the jumper is aware of.
It is also true that many people get in a car every day and speed off to their deaths in an accidental crash.
A risk that drivers are aware of.
But the difference here is that automobiles have a utilitarian function of getting us to our destinations (work, school, store) while no one uses base jumping for those same purposes.
How is this a difference?
Mathew's life style was reckless. Lets just use common reasoning here. Aside from the arguements about homosexuality and fornication etc... what are my chances of meeting a similar demise if I were to try to develop a relationship with one person that I took the time to be friends with and get to know over a period of time as opposed to seeking out any person who was willing and a new person every night at that? The odds are exponetially higher that I could meet an unstable person who could cause me harm if I sleep around like Mathew did.
And this is where your argument falls. Hitting on someone hardly ever leads to the reaction that has happened. In fact, I'm not aware of any other story in which a person hits on another person, who kills him.
Also indisriminately seeking sex in the homosexual population is suicide as the frequency of HIV positive homosexual males is still higher than any other group.
That is irrelevant and you know it.
Scott, I'm having a hard time justifying your defense of Mathew's actions.
I am not defending Matthew' actions. I am saying that anyone here who believes that he had it coming or that he was in part responsible for the actions of those who murdered are plain wrong. Do not try to take the culpability away from those who are guilty of murder.
I am not saying that Mathew deserved to die, as all of us under the penalty of living in a sinful world are worthy of. I am simply saying that Mathew's sinful lifestyle and the resulting poor choices that he made are mostly responsible for his death.
Mostly responsible? That is completely bizarre. He didn't get murdered because he was gay. He didn't get murdered even because he hit on someone. He got murdered because two men who didn't like that implication tortured Matthew to death. Do not forget that.
Lots of people who have committed no sin connected to the act are murdered every year but God tells us that it rains on the just and the unjust.
And you've illustrated my point here. Who do we blame when a "just" person is murdered? We blame the person who murdered them. Why should this be different when a "sinner" is murdered? Is it because we just don't like them, and deep down, we're kinda glad that there's one fewer sinner around?
Bringing back my previous example, a person who gets into a car and drives to the sore and dies in an accident is a victim of a random incident of which they had little control. A person who dives off a cliff and falls to their death due to the faulty parachute had an active role in the consequences of their actions. How moreso if the resulting actions are based on sinful choices?
If a person jumps off of a cliff and the parachute fails, we blame the parachute. It was the parachute that failed, not the person. We don't say, "Oh, what a tragedy it was. The guy killed himself!", do we? We say, "It's a tragedy that the parachute didn't open" and we investigate why it didn't open. Blaming the victim is, in my opinion, a cowardly act, because it takes the blame squarely off the shoulders of the ones who committed the cowardly act.
I had a guy hit on me one time. Made me extremely uncomfortable. I told him I wasn't like that - that I was straight. Did I kill him? Nope. Several of my friends have been hit on - none of them killed the homosexuals who hit on them. Why is that? Because a normal reaction of a straight man being hit upon by a homosexual isn't to torture and kill them. It's just not.
), all I could get for free was the first paragraph (from March 31, 2001), which states... "Joshua Macabe Brown, 23, was found guilty last week in the 1999 death of Jesse Dirkhising at the apartment Brown shared with his lover, Davis Don Carpenter, 39." (emphasis added by me)