Does God forgive soldiers?

[Mellonhead]

im not sure if that was the point he was making but I think we can be pretty sure that violence generally begets violence

Common sense yes.

And maybe, but after dealing with a few particular bible thumpers I tend to scrutinize detail.

 

[BruceDLimber]

But isn't killing - killing?

No:

There are various classes of it, including (so say the courts) felonious, justifiable, accidental, and natural.

Peace,

Bruce

 

[Mellonhead]

No:

There are various classes of it, including (so say the courts) felonious, justifiable, accidental, and natural.

Peace,

Bruce

That doesn't change or alter the fact that killing is killing.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

No:

There are various classes of it, including (so say the courts) felonious, justifiable, accidental, and natural.

Peace,

Bruce

I don't think God does "Legal"

 

[Mellonhead]

I don't think God does "Legal"

Funny, I don't think God does "anything."

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Genesis 9:5 And, besides that, YOUR blood of YOUR souls shall I ask back. From the hand of every living creature shall I ask it back; and from the hand of man, from the hand of each one who is his brother, shall I ask back the soul of man. 6 Anyone shedding man’s blood, by man will his own blood be shed, for in God’s image he made man.

there is certainly good reason to beat our swords into plowshares.

That passage needs lots of interpretation to make sense out of it.
It would be interesting to hear a Jewish interpretation , in the context of soldiers killing.

The part that needs most interpretation, is why the last 7 words are there.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

lets get this straight everybody knows what's legal and what's not when it comes to the treatment prisoners its spelt out to you, there's no room for misconceptions. any one deviating from legal to illegal knows full well what they are doing.

Rationally? Sure. But there are tremendous psychological pressures (that, IMO, military training tends to amplify) to follow authority.

if every soldier disobeyed such orders the world would be a much better place.

without soldiers there would be no war, so every person who takes up a position as a soldier must bare the responsibility for the propagation of war

That sounds a lot like Sam Harris' argument against moderate religion: the moderates create the environment that the extremists can use; therefore the moderates share the blame for the actions of the extremists.

well he did remind us of one little truth regarding soldiers

Matthew 26:52 Then Jesus said to him: “Return your sword to its place, for all those who take the sword will perish by the sword.

As I mentioned before...

Luke 22:36-38:


36And He said to them, "But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one.

37"For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me, '(AL)AND HE WAS NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS'; for (AM)that which refers to Me has its fulfillment."

38They said, "Lord, look, here are two (AN)swords." And He said to them, "It is enough."

Like I said: the Big Book of Multiple Choice.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Does God forgive soldiers? They are simply doing their job in order to protect us.

You haven't read the bible have you?

 

[kai]

Rationally? Sure. But there are tremendous psychological pressures (that, IMO, military training tends to amplify) to follow authority.

sure but that doesn't negate what i said. If you dont know your doing wrong by purposefully killing unarmed civilians or torturing children then your problem is not with the military its within your own mind.

I have witnessed people overstep the mark but they are the kind of people that would overstep the mark in civi street, its in their make up.

If you do know your doing wrong ,and still do it for what ever reason ,then your culpable, you may think you have have mitigating circumstances but that would be for a court to decide.

 

[Marble]

But the soldier is the immediate, efficient cause. He's the more culpable of the two, I'd say.
If i told you to go shoot someone walking down the street, and you did so, whom would God be more likely to forgive?

When a blue billard ball hits a red billard ball and that one pushes a glass from the table - which of the two is responsible for the broken glass?

We have a duty to evaluate our actions and refuse any we judge wrong.

And in a democratic society you can do that, but what if you live in a political system where refusal to follow an order can bring about the death of not just oneself but ones's family too?

 

[kai]

When a blue billard ball hits a red billard ball and that one pushes a glass from the table - which of the two is responsible for the broken glass?

And in a democratic society you can do that, but what if you live in a political system where refusal to follow an order can bring about the death of not just oneself but ones's family too?

good point! if your ordered to do something under pain of death or such a threat then your forced to do it arnt you.

 

[averageJOE]

I'm trying to figure out where and when soldiers became both interrorgaters and tourtures. Because I've never been trained in either of the two. Also, with the current rules of force, if an enemy fires at an (american) soldier from within a crowd of civilians that soldier is NOT allowed to fire back.

 

[Levite]

That passage needs lots of interpretation to make sense out of it.
It would be interesting to hear a Jewish interpretation , in the context of soldiers killing.

The part that needs most interpretation, is why the last 7 words are there.

The verse in question has nothing to do with war and soldiers. It is a very early version of the lex talionis, and refers to the legal custom in ancient times of murder or manslaughter necessitating the clan of the victim to appoint a designated blood avenger who would find the victim's slayer and kill them, which was in earliest times considered justice. The idea was that blood paid for blood. The justification for this verse (that people are created in God's image) is twofold: first, and more importantly, people ought not to murder one another at all, because we should all respect the fact that we are equally images of our Creator; second, that when murders do occur, we have every right to bring the guilty to justice, even if that means killing them, because as images of God, we have been given a share of His authority and justice, and have the vested power to make an orderly and just society, even if that means executing the guilty.

(By the way, it is probably worth repeating the often-overlooked fact that there is no prohibition in the Bible, or in Jewish Law, against killing. What is prohibited is unjustified and illicit homicide. Even the Sixth Commandment, which is usually mistranslated as "Thou shalt not kill," does not say that. It says lo tirtzach, which means "Do no murder." Jewish text is quite clear in establishing nuances of legality, that there are murders which are prohibited, and there is killing, which is potentially justifiable.)

There is, in fact, very little support to be found in the Tanakh for the notion that God might prohibit or proscribe wars or soldiery. Israelite Judaism existed in a world where people fought often, and wars were a matter of course. What there is support for is the idea that there ought to be limits, even in war. For example, the only genocide the Israelites were actually commanded to do was against Amalek; and this was justified by Amalek having attacked the People Israel during the wanderings in the wilderness after the Exodus-- but more specifically, that Amalek attacked from the rear, hitting the aged, infirm, women, and children first. Amalek's unforgivable sin is attacking noncombatants as a demoralizing and diversionary tactic.

There are also commandments in Deuteronomy proscribing using environmental disaster as a weapon of war (e.g., one may not cut down fruit trees in order to build seige weaponry, nor may one salt the earth of one's enemy), and preventing battlefield rape (Israelite men were permitted to take a woman captive, but could not simply rape her and discard her: they had to take her home, permit her a month of mourning and weeping for her family, and then formally marry her, with full rights of divorce; which would have greatly discouraged capturing women at all, since it almost certainly would have been seen as too much trouble). Interestingly, there is also a commandment in Deuteronomy that indicates that armies should consist of volunteers of established adult citizens: minors, the newly married, those with newly-finished houses, conscripts who are afraid to fight-- all are supposed to be sent home.

From a Jewish point of view, the OP question of this thread is far too vague to answer without qualification. "Does God forgive soldiers..." for what? Merely for killing the enemy in war? That isn't forbidden. For killing to defend themselves? In Jewish Law, one must kill to defend oneself. But if the question is, "Does God forgive soldiers" for deliberately killing civilian noncombatants? Maybe not. "Does God forgive soldiers" for battlefield rape? Maybe not. The Bible may regard war as an unfortunate inevitability, but it absolutely does advocate there being rules of war, and moral limits even in emergencies and unusual circumstances.

 

[RitalinO.D.]

You can debate whether killing is right or wrong all day long, but the fact remains that there has always been war, and will probably always be war. Nations will always need soldiers to defend their territory. Just the way it is.

There are things in the US military called Lawful and unlawful orders. If a Commander orders a soldier to open fire on a group of civilians, that is an unlawful order and it's that soldiers responsibility to not follow that order. In the case of Abu Graib, every one of those soldiers that were torturing prisoners were punished rightfully. It was their obligation to not follow those orders, and bring the situation up to their commanders commander. If the soldier is too scared to defy those unlawful orders, then he becomes just as responsible as the person that gave it.

In war, at least in the US, a soldier is not allowed to fire his weapon until he is being fired upon, and has knowledge of where it came from. If it came from a building labeled as say, a hospital, then that soldier is not to return fire. The US has very strict rules of engagement. The stories you hear of soldiers killing civilians are acting of their own accord and are punished accordingly. If it is found their commander gave the order, then that commander is punished as well.

If you do not believe in War, or killing to defend your country, then don't become a soldier, Plain and simple. I am proud to defend my country, and will follow every lawful order given to me, even if it includes killing someone. However, if I am ordered to do something I know to be illegal, you better believe I will disobey that order, and report that commander to the proper authorities, even if that order comes from the very top.

 

[Valjean]

When a blue billard ball hits a red billard ball and that one pushes a glass from the table - which of the two is responsible for the broken glass?

A false analogy, I think, as the billiard balls are not moral agents and have no free will.

And in a democratic society you can do that, but what if you live in a political system where refusal to follow an order can bring about the death of not just oneself but ones's family too?

Then you have a real dilemma, but your Hobson's choice doesn't obviate the basic principle of personal responsibility.

 

[McBell]

That doesn't change or alter the fact that killing is killing.

What exactly does that mean "killing is killing"?

 

[McBell]

When a blue billard ball hits a red billard ball and that one pushes a glass from the table - which of the two is responsible for the broken glass?

The person who hit the blue billiard ball.
Why?
Because billiard balls are not capable of making decisions.

And in a democratic society you can do that, but what if you live in a political system where refusal to follow an order can bring about the death of not just oneself but ones's family too?

Then you are either using the system to justify your blood lust or your morals against killing are not as higher ground as you would like other to think they are.

 

[copperblade]

But the soldier is the immediate, efficient cause. He's the more culpable of the two, I'd say.
If i told you to go shoot someone walking down the street, and you did so, whom would God be more likely to forgive?

What if instead of telling me, you pointed a gun to my head and told me to shoot someone else? Is that morally equivalent?

 

[Valjean]

Again, a Hobson's choice. You can set up this sort of dilemma for just about any situation.
In the vast majority of cases one has less onerous options.

 

[McBell]

What if instead of telling me, you pointed a gun to my head and told me to shoot someone else? Is that morally equivalent?

YOU still have the CHOICE of whether or not to shoot someone else.
A gun being pointed to your head does not remove the choice.

Seems to me that you are merely working really hard to maintain a position of absolute pacifist and yet still be able to shoot someone.