Is "Cruelty" Ever Justified?

[danieldemol]

The obvious way.

Since its not obvious to me this comes across as a non-answer.

In my opinion.

 

[Treasure Hunter]

Jesus is not programmed. Jesus is not a robot. Jesus has free will.
Therefore, Jesus could sin - disobey God, if he wanted to... like his brother. Jesus does not want to.
Jesus wants to please God.

Is this proving too difficult for you?
Are you wanting things to be a particular way?

"... If he was only capable of doing the father’s will"?
Where did you get that from? Did you insert it for a reason?

Brother, there is no free-will without being tempted by sin. Free-will means being tempted by multiple wills. If the father’s will was the only will tempting him, then he did not have free-will.

 

[Treasure Hunter]

Since its not obvious to me this comes across as a non-answer.

In my opinion.

Human body

 

[nPeace]

Well according to the story it doesn't, but it does at least give us the opportunity to choose to remain obedient without facing death, that option is not available to nearly all humans after Adam. They have to die regardless.

We still have the opportunity to remain obedience, without facing death.
Even if we do fall asleep momentarily, what's so bad about sleeping, when you are going to wake up, and not sleep so long again?

The contradiction is that you said in post #103 (paraphrasing) sin is disobedience to God. Then you said in post #140 "Sinless - without sin - does not mean obedient"

In my opinion

You don't understand.
Without sin, means you do not have a defect which prevents you reaching the mark of God's righteous standards.
Being sinful doesn't stop you from obeying God, but you can never do so perfectly. You miss the mark of God's righteous standards.
Being sinless does not mean being obedient.
One is a condition. The other is an action.
You are mixing the two.

For example, sin is a description of an action. Sinful, and sinless, describes - not the action - but the individual - their state.

 

[danieldemol]

We still have the opportunity to remain obedience, without facing death.

Not true, name 1 person over 200 years old apart from Jesus who is not dead.

Even if we do fall asleep momentarily, what's so bad about sleeping, when you are going to wake up, and not sleep so long again?

The fact that there is suffering involved in ageing and dying, not to mention that you are separated from those left behind for potentially up to 2000 years or however long till Jesus is supposed to have returned, which causes the grief of separation to those left behind.

In my opinion.

 

[YoursTrue]

Not true, name 1 person over 200 years old apart from Jesus who is not dead.

The fact that there is suffering involved in ageing and dying, not to mention that you are separated from those left behind for potentially up to 2000 years or however long till Jesus is supposed to have returned, which causes the grief of separation to those left behind.

In my opinion.

"but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence." (John 14:31) Jesus loved the Father. So when he did what the Father asked of him, he obeyed because he loved the Father.

 

[danieldemol]

"but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence." (John 14:31) Jesus loved the Father. So when he did what the Father asked of him, he obeyed because he loved the Father.

Relevance?

 

[blü 2]

Cruelty -
callous indifference to or pleasure in causing pain and suffering.

History has been marred with many cruel acts.
Scientists believe that there were battles fought by Neanderthals, which lasted 100,000 years, where heads were bashed in with clubs, and where javelins pierced body parts, and many arms were broken.

Spoiler: An Artist's Depiction of Neanderthal Battles

Young ones were also subjected to cruelty, some experts suggest.

Spoiler: Neanderthal Children's Death

Early human ate young Neanderthal
Sometime between 28,000 and 30,000 years ago, an anatomically modern human in what is now France may have eaten a Neanderthal child, according to a new study.
It is the first study to suggest Europe's first humans had a violent relationship with their muscular, big-headed hominid ancestors.

The secret Lives of Neanderthal Children
The Devil's Tower boy, found in 1926 in Gibraltar, died at only around five years old, possibly from skull fractures. But he had already suffered another serious incident earlier in life: as a toddler, his jaw was fractured. It's impossible to say how these injuries happened, but clearly, Neanderthal childhood could be dangerous.

Of course these hypotheses cannot be verified.

Some archaeologists also believe there is evidence of much cruel acts against children, as young as babies.

Spoiler: Cruel Child Sacrifices

Ancient Authorities Reported Child Sacrifice In Carthage
Writing in the 4th century B.C.E, the Greek historian Cleitarchus said of the Carthaginian practice, “There stands in their midst a bronze statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames of which engulf the child. When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier. Thus it is that the ‘grin’ is known as ‘sardonic laughter,’ since they die laughing.” (trans. Paul G. Mosca) “Kronos” was a regional name for Baal Hammon, the chief of Carthage’s gods.

Another Greek historian named Diodorus Siculus writing less than a hundred years after the fall Carthage affirms his countryman’s account. “There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.”

Most scholars agree that the ritual performed at the tophet was child sacrifice
Archaeologists have applied the term "tophet" to large cemeteries of children found at Carthaginian sites that have traditionally been believed to house the victims of child sacrifice, as described by Hellenistic and biblical sources.

However, children are not always the victims of cruelty.
The daughter of Herodias danced for the occasion and pleased Herod so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Then she, at her mother’s prompting, said: “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” Grieved though he was, the king, out of regard for his oaths and for those dining with him, commanded it to be given. So he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. Matthew 14:6-11
Salome, (flourished 1st century ce), according to the Jewish historian Josephus, the daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, tetrarch (ruler appointed by Rome) of Galilee, a region in Palestine. In Biblical literature she is remembered as the immediate agent in the execution of John the Baptist.

List of youngest killers
Ziapasa Daughter, 3-Year-Old Murderess – West Virginia, 1906
The youngest murderess in the history of this state is the 3-year-old daughter of Michael Ziapasa, of Benwood, who so badly wounded a 2-months-old baby of a neighbor, Edward Schepech, that it died.
In the absence of the baby’s mother, the Ziapasa child attacked it with a butcher knife, cutting off its nose, stabbing it in the breast in many places and almost severing its arm.

Of particular interest, are the youngest of the murderesses.

Spoiler: List of Murderesses Younger than 10 Years Old

Age 3 – 1906 – Ziapasa daughter
Age 4 – 1885 – Lizzie Lewis
Age 4 – 1897 – Retta McCabe
Age 6 – 1892 – Bottoms Girl
Age 6 – 1899 – Lizzie Cook
Age 7 – 1887 – Virginia (or, Georgiana) Hudson
Age 7 – 1925 – Alsa Thompson
Age 8 – 1867 – Martin Girl
Age 8 – 2001 – Jummai Hassan
Age 8 – 1900 – Valentine Dilly
Age 9 – 1885 – Mary Cooper
Age 9 – 1884 – Annie Bebles
Age 9 – 1902 – Anna Peters
Age 9 – 1896 – Hattie Record
Age 9 – 2005 – “East New York girl”
Age 10 – 1834 – Honorine Pellois
Age 10 – 1873 – Sarah Reeves
Age 10 – 1897 – Geneva Arnold
Age 10 – 1886 – Jane Walker
Age 10 – 2010 – “Sandy Springs girl”
Age 10 – 2012 – Kelli Murphy

Youthful Borgias: Girls Who Murder – The Forgotten “Lizzie Bordens”

I strangled the baby, because I felt they were working me too hard. Laughs I have to laugh, when the impulse comes over me.


Among the public overall, 64% say the death penalty is morally justified in cases of murder, while 33% say it is not justified. An overwhelming share of death penalty supporters (90%) say it is morally justified under such circumstances, compared with 25% of death penalty opponents.”​

For discussion...
Are acts against cruelty, in itself, an act of cruelty?

In Acts 4, you'll recall, God kills Ananias because he sells his own house and says he'll give the proceeds to Peter's community but ─ unspeakable rascal !! ─ he KEEPS SOME OF HIS OWN MONEY!!!!

Suck on that, Ananias, says Peter, and we can picture him chuckling at the corpse.

Dear old God ─ always so reasonable, tolerant like a good father ─ and this was AFTER Jesus had died for everyone's sins, right?

Goodness me, when it comes to bucks, be danged careful with the Christians, buddy!

 

[nPeace]

Brother, there is no free-will without being tempted by sin. Free-will means being tempted by multiple wills. If the father’s will was the only will tempting him, then he did not have free-will.

Free will could involve choosing to eat cherries, or choosing to eat grape. If can involve choosing to swim with a dolphin, or swim with a shark.
Free will is simply the power to make decisions of our own.

if you disagree, and you believe you are correct though, tell me this. Why do you keep inserting things like this... "If the father’s will was the only will tempting him..."?
No one said anything like that, nor this, "If he was only capable of doing the father’s will..."

Seems to me you are building something you think is easy to tear down, or making a target you think you can hit.
That's called a strawman, isn't it?

It was Jesus' will - Jesus' desire - Jesus' choice - his free will, to do the fathers will.
There were other options - anything other than what is in harmony with true righteousness.
These were not considered, since Jesus used his knowledge to choose wisely - obey his father, and remain in his love.

Thus Jesus 1) exercised free will, and 2) was not tempted to deviate.

 

[Alien826]

You seem to be saying that part of how death manifests in the world is cruel but death overall is not cruel. If I am cruel, but only some of the time, am I not cruel overall?

Whether or not death is necessary is separate from the question of its cruelty. The question isn’t if death is necessary.

If we define "cruel" as having a component of taking pleasure in inflicting suffering, as opposed to something that is simply painful or unpleasant, then death itself, the actual fact that death occurs is not cruel. So yes, overall death is not cruel, but the action of torturing someone to death is cruel.

If you are sometimes cruel and sometimes not, then are you cruel? This is just a judgment and a decision on how we describe you. The most accurate description would be that you are sometimes cruel and sometimes not. We do tend to use the word loosely though. If you are mostly cruel in your actions, then we would probably call you "cruel". I imagine that few of us are totally free of cruelty in every way, but it would not be fair label us "cruel" if are actions are mostly kind.

I think the necessity of death bears directly on whether we should call it, in the absence of any qualifiers, "cruel". It's like calling a hurricane cruel. It can cause a lot of misery, but it has no motivations and is simply what it is.

 

[nPeace]

Not true, name 1 person over 200 years old apart from Jesus who is not dead.

Abraham.

The fact that there is suffering involved in ageing and dying, not to mention that you are separated from those left behind for potentially up to 2000 years or however long till Jesus is supposed to have returned, which causes the grief of separation to those left behind.

In my opinion.

It is true that the suffering we experience today, would not have existed, if Adam had not sinned, because he would not have passed on his defect to the entire human race, but what about some of the created humans who sin... would they not pass on sin to their offspring, and would there not be suffering from the same sin... and the result... would it not affect those who did not sin?

 

[nPeace]

In Acts 4, you'll recall, God kills Ananias because he sells his own house and says he'll give the proceeds to Peter's community but ─ unspeakable rascal !! ─ he KEEPS SOME OF HIS OWN MONEY!!!!

No. God killed Ananias, because he sinned against the holy spirit, by lying in his heart, to the congregation, and to God.

Suck on that, Ananias, says Peter, and we can picture him chuckling at the corpse.

No. You picture him that way because you know nothing about the Bible, or God, and his people... or his arrangement.
If you did, you would be aware that they were family who loved one another, and as one body, when one member suffers - whether spiritually, or physically, the whole body is pained, or saddened.

Dear old God ─ always so reasonable, tolerant like a good father ─ and this was AFTER Jesus had died for everyone's sins, right?

Right.

Goodness me, when it comes to bucks, be danged careful with the Christians, buddy!

This was not about money.
Acts 5:
3 But Peter said: “Ananias, why has Satan emboldened you to lie+ to the holy spirit and secretly hold back some of the price of the field? 4 As long as it remained with you, did it not remain yours? And after it was sold, was it not in your control? Why have you thought up such a deed as this in your heart? You have lied, not to men, but to God.”

 

[nPeace]

If we define "cruel" as having a component of taking pleasure in inflicting suffering, as opposed to something that is simply painful or unpleasant, then death itself, the actual fact that death occurs is not cruel. So yes, overall death is not cruel, but the action of torturing someone to death is cruel.

If you are sometimes cruel and sometimes not, then are you cruel? This is just a judgment and a decision on how we describe you. The most accurate description would be that you are sometimes cruel and sometimes not. We do tend to use the word loosely though. If you are mostly cruel in your actions, then we would probably call you "cruel". I imagine that few of us are totally free of cruelty in every way, but it would not be fair label us "cruel" if are actions are mostly kind.

I think the necessity of death bears directly on whether we should call it, in the absence of any qualifiers, "cruel". It's like calling a hurricane cruel. It can cause a lot of misery, but it has no motivations and is simply what it is.

I agree with you on one thing... looking at death in a physical way, we cannot describe it as having feelings, or motives, but looking at it in a figurative way, we can.
For example, 'Dem Da De So Hurricane Cruel. Cha.'
Jamaican.

Death is cruel in a figurative sense - personified. The apostle Paul used such figurative language when describing Death as an enemy. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:26

 

[Alien826]

Jesus, therefore, was not born from defective seed, as from Adam, and his offspring, and so sin was not passed on to him. Hence, Jesus was perfect from birth - the only man born without sin... apart for Adam.

Just as a matter of interest, the Catholics (some of them) believe in something called the "immaculate conception". It applies to Mary not Jesus. What they say makes sense, because Jesus would have inherited original sin from Mary, not just Joseph if he had been the father. Therefore Mary herself had to be free from inherited sin, hence her conception had to be "immaculate". They have stories of how that came about.

Comments?

 

[Alien826]

I will answer that by saying what is the only correct answer. Only the Great Judge of all the earth, knows who is willfully ignorant, because he knows the heart. That is why he gets to judge you. Not me.
Hence 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9. It's fair, then.

I'm disappointed. The assertion was that everyone that claims to have an honest disbelief in God is in reality willfully ignorant. It only takes one contrary example to disprove that, and I offered myself as a test subject. If you don't want to pursue it, that's OK though.

Well, as they say, "You're on your own." I don't believe in luck, so I won't say, "Good luck with that."

Yes, that's true. It doesn't bother me.

 

[Alien826]

You think a child making a decision to listen to its parents is not making their ultimate decision?
What about the one who ran out into the street, and got hit by a bus? Or the teenager who sneaked out the door, and was found dead in the bushes a week later? Was that not their ultimate decision?
Or are you referring to something else?


Are you saying you prefer not having parents set rules for you, and you prefer to make those yourself, regardless of how perfect those parents are?


Perfect human parents... is how I put it.
You do not want to be like perfect parents... is what you are saying?


Well, me as a "kid", and my dad tells me don't play in the street, or don't follow the "kids" in the neighborhood... I don't expect that he will tell me every detail about why not, but enough for me to understand why I shouldn't.

For example, my dad does not have to go into the details of what a car might do to me if I got hit, but why not to play in the road is enough.
For me, listening to someone who is far older, hence more experienced, makes more sense, than trying to walk in their boots, when I have not had the experience.

Even when I get to their age, they will still have more experience, and I can always learn something from them.
That's not preventing me from learning and finding out as I go along, that they were right. I am still making my decisions based on what I experience.
I'm talking about perfect parents here.

Lots of questions, lots of examples.

The idea of a "perfect" human parent is difficult to use as an example, because it doesn't exist, and if it did how could we know it? Also, what do we mean by "perfect"? If my father was mathematics professor, I would be wise to defer to him on the subject of mathematics. But what about all the subjective things, like whether I should grow my hair long, or listen to rock music? To be polite I should get his opinion and give it consideration, but in the end the decision is mine.

Also, the situation varies as we grow up. A little child has to be told not not to run into the street, or even physically restrained, but as we get older a wise parent gives us more and more personal responsibility in choosing our actions, until as adults we gain the right to make all decisions for ourselves.

To move from the analogy to the subject of God, it sounds as if our relationship with God should be more like a father to an ignorant child than a father to an independent person. I'll stop here to let you comment.

 

[nPeace]

Just as a matter of interest, the Catholics (some of them) believe in something called the "immaculate conception". It applies to Mary not Jesus. What they say makes sense, because Jesus would have inherited original sin from Mary, not just Joseph if he had been the father. Therefore Mary herself had to be free from inherited sin, hence her conception had to be "immaculate". They have stories of how that came about.

Comments?

Why does it make sense to you?

• Mary was not miraculously born.
• Mary was the daughter of Heli, who was the son of... all the way back to Adam.
• No scripture says that Mary was born of Holy Spirit, or was miraculously given, as in the case of John.

Jesus did not inherit sin from Mary, because, as the angel said, Jesus was not born of human seed, but from God, and Holy Spirit overshadowed - that is protected Jesus from any tainted genes.
Yes, Jehovah has the power to do that. Scientists could do the same, if the knew how, and they had the time to.

Luke 1:
34 But Mary said to the angel: “How is this to be, since I am not having sexual relations with a man?” 35 In answer the angel said to her: “Holy spirit will come upon you, and power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason the one who is born will be called holy, God’s Son

Jesus said of persons who let go of the word of God, for their traditions...
Mark 7:6-8
6 ...“Isaiah aptly prophesied about YOU hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honor me with [their] lips, but their hearts are far removed from me. 7 It is in vain that they keep worshiping me, because they teach as doctrines commands of men.’ 8 Letting go the commandment of God, YOU hold fast the tradition of men.”

 

[Soandso]

No. Cruelty is more than just hurting someone or something - it's going out of one's way, above and beyond, to cause harm in spite of them

 

[nPeace]

I'm disappointed. The assertion was that everyone that claims to have an honest disbelief in God is in reality willfully ignorant.

Oh? Where did you get that?

It only takes one contrary example to disprove that, and I offered myself as a test subject.

It is not judgement day, so you do not know if you will have a different belief when God closes the door.
If you are in that position when God closes the door, then you need to consider, if you really do have an honest disbelief in God.
Factually, we do tend to think something when deep down we know differently. True?

If you don't want to pursue it, that's OK though.

I think you might be looking at it from one angle. There is another.
I'm open. I have not closed the door ... on the conversation.

Yes, that's true. It doesn't bother me.

It doesn't bother most... at the moment.

 

[nPeace]

Lots of questions, lots of examples.

The idea of a "perfect" human parent is difficult to use as an example, because it doesn't exist, and if it did how could we know it? Also, what do we mean by "perfect"? If my father was mathematics professor, I would be wise to defer to him on the subject of mathematics. But what about all the subjective things, like whether I should grow my hair long, or listen to rock music? To be polite I should get his opinion and give it consideration, but in the end the decision is mine.

Yes. The decision is yours.
If your father gave you advice, would you consider it?
Would you forego it, if you wanted to please your father, and you were aware that it displeased him because it reflected the spirit of someone with ways, opposite to your father?
Or would you insist you needed to go your way?

Also, the situation varies as we grow up. A little child has to be told not not to run into the street, or even physically restrained, but as we get older a wise parent gives us more and more personal responsibility in choosing our actions, until as adults we gain the right to make all decisions for ourselves.

That's what I said. We learn our own experiences, but I also mentioned that we come to see from experience that our dad is right.
Why would it be any other way, unless he is not perfect.

To move from the analogy to the subject of God, it sounds as if our relationship with God should be more like a father to an ignorant child than a father to an independent person. I'll stop here to let you comment.

No. Not if you understood what I have said before.
I hope you are taking all of what I said, and not just parts.