This is something I'll never agree to as long as I live. How can a Christian ever agree with Torture? Our Commander in Chief is a self proclaimed devout Christian as well as many cabinet members of his administration. Yet despite this, he supports torture of enemies, suspected enemies and any one they deem a potential enemy. And those Conservative Christians that I just wrote about, all defend this and in most cases support it as well. How is this possible? Before I answer that question, let me state a few things.
Jesus Christ was tortured. The same Jesus Christ gave us a message that stated we should love our enemies, just as we love all our neighbors. We don't agree with their actions nor should we be an accomplice. How can you sit here and say that you Love your enemies so much that you torture them? Spare me the crap that this technique is necessary to halt future attacks on our Country. That doesn't cut it. If you are a Christian, what do you have to fear? I want to know. Have you ever thought, that if you followed those two most important commandments unconditionally and without hesitation, that there might just not be any enemies at least none that would concern us?
Why do Christians support this? It all falls back to Institutionalized Religion. They don't preach what Jesus preached. They have gotten into your heads to make you fearful of others. They have made you think that by supporting this or doing this, that you are on a mission from God. That you are defending God, and sometimes, we must do things that might be considered evil in order to protect good. If this is the case, how are they or you any different than the Jihadist's we're "supposed" to fear?
Would Jesus Christ torture anyone? If the answer is no, please tell me how you can justify it? You can't justify it. Because the moment you start to, you'll realize that you're actually putting other things and circumstances ahead of God and ultimately ahead of what Christians are supposed to be taught.
We have to get out of this cycle. We have to really take a step back and look at what is being taught to us in our Churches. By their fruits you will know them.
Why are you fearful?
I'll leave you with this:
"For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." Hebrews (13:5-6)
The Lord gave you the most critical message of your learning process. His message was to help you which would give you clarity and purpose. He said to Love God and Love your Neighbors which include your enemies. If fear gets in the way of doing this, His message can never be heard correctly. Your actions will act off of this fear, and it will be opposite to what you should do.
We have to be better than this. We have to be willing to tell the people that are preaching this nonsense to us that they have it wrong. But you can't do it until you do what you were first told to do. If you did what you were first told to do, false teaching never would have sunk in, and you wouldn't have bought it. The Holy Spirit would never have let that happen. The great thing about the Teachings, is that it is never too late. You can always figure it out, and you can always redeem your faith.
Once upon a time, I was on another blog (Dinesh D'souza), and the subject was on torture. I played a devil's advocate of it to see what people said. Sadly the Atheists and Agnostics overwhelmingly were against torture while many various Christians supported it.
12 comments:
Torture is what happens to your friends, relatives and countrymen(who agree with you) i.e. 'us'
Enhanced interrogation technique is what happens to your enemies, strangers and foreigners(who disagree with you) i.e. 'them'
As God's 'chosen' "we" shouldn't be tortured and as Satan's 'minions' "they" certainly ought to be interrogated enhancedly.
All we really need to do is 'ask forgiveness' just to be on the safe side anyways, right?
I love my wife and daughter. A maniac has strapped them to a viciously violent, timed killing machine. He has been captured and will not tell where. Will you let them be brutally violated and taken from me? Sit with me in the funeral home and explain to me why.
"I love my wife and daughter. A maniac has strapped them to a viciously violent, timed killing machine. He has been captured and will not tell where. Will you let them be brutally violated and taken from me? Sit with me in the funeral home and explain to me why."
Difficult situations require difficult decisions.
I'd suspect, that if this crazy individual was insane enough to do this to an innocent family, Torture wouldn't help at all. I'd also suspect that he just might enjoy the return torture you'll give him. You'd be playing on his level.
It's a tough scenario, but is it justified in a Christian perspective? As a Christian, can someone justify Torture after understanding the Teachings?
I don't think so.
Garyb...people die. They die naturally, they die accidentally, they die in war, and, rarely, they die because some maniac just wanted to unleash the fury. The fact that the people in your scenario are important to you does not make it any more significant than any other scenario. No more significant than any botched surgery, car accident, or casualty of war who will also feel reluctant to accept condolences from the people at fault. The difference here is that the method of potentially saving your loved ones is inefficient. In addition to that, we throw out all claims of moral superiority, and forfeit any ability to request that others refrain from doing the same when we resort to torture.
We are supposed to be an example of justice and morality in the modern world. We better start to act like it.
Great post, Botts. Thought-provoking.
IMHO, we can NEVER torture. Even in dire scenarios. And really, justifying blanket torture policies based on the (incredibly rare in the real world) dire type of scenario described here, the machine etc, is totally ridiculous. It's not likely to happen. Any dire situation like that, I mean, ticking timebomb nuke hidden in say NYC and we caught the guy that knows where it is... That's a pipe dream. We're justifying torture right now based on that sort of thinking, and who are we torturing? People that are barely involved in the problem. Some of them are probably innocents, but hey, they're ay-rabs anyhow, so who cares, right? Kill 'em all and let Allah sort 'em out.
Love Thy Neighbor, and ya don't get to pick your neighbor. If you don't live by this, you're not a Real Christian.
Botts, I trust all is well with you. Looks like your blog is off to a good start.
How do you deal with what many, perhaps most, Christians believe; that the ultimate torturer is their God that condemns unbelievers to hell so they can burn for eternity?
"Botts, I trust all is well with you. Looks like your blog is off to a good start.
How do you deal with what many, perhaps most, Christians believe; that the ultimate torturer is their God that condemns unbelievers to hell so they can burn for eternity?"
Anonymous, thanks for your message, and I hope all is great with you.
It's a great question. I deal with it the same way with what I know.
Most Christian believers are way off path, which was foresaw by Jesus in his messages. That is why he preached the Narrow gate versus the Open gate and why warned of bad fruit.
He was warning believers of false teachings. Of people who want control and to instill fear.
They have never paid attention to the core message. And since they didn't pay attention to it, they cannot understand it and ultimately are walking towards the open gate.
Love God
Love your Neighbor.
Unfortunately, their version of Love isn't the version Jesus talks about. It has to be unconditional and practiced without fear or hesitation.
Until this is achieved, the words that is written cannot be understood. Therefore cannot be followed correctly.
I'm just trying to be consistent in trying to spread the message. Most Christians will be pissed at me and that is fine. If they can't handle Love God and Love Neighbor being taught to them, that is their fault. But if just a few understand what I'm saying, then this is all worth it.
Godless,
I still have hope for you yet.
Botts....I would submit to you, A true decent HUMAN would not condone torture.
Christian or not. What's wrong is wrong, tagging a religion to it is still wrong.
While I think garyb is wrong in his assessment of the torture justification, I must admit: if my family was harmed no punishment would be great enough for the perpetrators of the harm....call it torture, call it reparitions, call it punishment - harm would be netted out in large quantities.
Many people would feel the same way as you, mac. The same way as garyb. It is a common feeling. Your loved ones were unjustly taken away from you(within a hypothetical scenario), and as such your desire for justice to be served will be tinged with a little more rage and little more bloodlust due to it being personal. It is why we have a justice system that doesn't allow for the aggrieved to act as judge, jury, and executioner and claim rights to their impassioned and malicious view of what constitutes just desserts. We would be a society ravaged by an endless cycle of cruel revenge, which would be responded with another cruel revenge due to the perceived injustice from the camp of the punished party.
Our personal passions, our desperation to save loved ones and our frantic desires to see justice served just do not mesh well with one another.
"A maniac has strapped them to a viciously violent, timed killing machine."
Scenarios such as these are 'slippery slope' arguments.
How about this one.
You are a devout Christian. You become President of the United States. You have read how 'Armageddon' will bring Jesus back to Earth to rule over us.
You think that it is time for Jesus to come back.
Do you fulfil the prophecy and start a nuclear holocaust or do you give 'man' some leeway?
The scenario where one is asked what they would personally want to do to someone who harmed their family or threatened to do so is a common one in these debates. I've never understood why so many politicians get stumped on it. The answer for most of us is "of course we'd want to do them harm in return." It's only natural. But the question I would counter with is do we expect more from our government or society than merely to reflect our most base instincts as individuals? Or do we want government to reflect what is best in all of us?
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