im not sure i agree with that. We know that many soldiers who return from war are severely affected by being in the situation where they have had to kill complete strangers. There are even accounts of how some soldiers refuse to fire their weapons and have to be psychologically adjusted to do this.
Good point. I will rephrase by saying that people have less of a emotional problem harming strangers than harming relatives.
yes this is very true... .You just reminded me of the time my 4 yr old son stole something from a shop and i had to take him back return it
However, he actually knew he had done the wrong thing even before i told him because he was hiding what he stole....he didnt want me to see it and was quite fearful when I made him take it back. This shows that even at that age, the conscience is working and its that conscience which is built into us to know good from bad....that is where we get the knowledge of God from...but yes you are right, it has to be trained.
I warn you about confusing things that result from cultural norms and those that are "inherent." I bet that since your child was capable of learning you have been teaching him your moral code. You reinforce and incourage emotions and attitudes that are help people be ethical. If, however, you reinforced selfishness and agression you will find that your child may begin to not have a conscience at all. All I am trying to point out is that much of our "moral sense" is taught and not necessary inherent. I do understand that we do have certain emotions that have a "moral sense" however.
I dont agree that Adam and Eve didnt have these instincts though for the reason that after they had done the deed, they hid from God, they covered their nakedness, they blamed the other when questioned about it....all this is evidence that they knew they had done the wrong thing.
When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they gained the knowledge of good and evil. If the knowledge of good and evil is this "moral sense" that you speak of, then Adam and Eve only had this sense after eating the fruit.
The emotions that create our "conscience" and encourage empathy and morality are only some of the emotions we have. We also have emotions such as selfishness, agression, fear, and lust. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they may have sensed that they disobeyed their creator
after the fact, so out of fear they hid and tried to cover up what they did.
When they ate the fruit, they had no conscience, and no moral sense, so it is unfair to force them to make moral decisions. Having no moral sense makes Adam and Eve quite imperfect indeed.
Sin is the way we think and decide on our actions... God cannot simply make us think and act the way he wants us to. To do that is to make us into mindless animals. He made us to be able to think and have the ability to decide. While he does hold us to account for our decisions, the ability to decide will never be taken away from us and for that reason, he cant simply remove sin and give us everlasting life.
We all have the ability to choose for ourselves. However, do you think we just make choices for no empirical reason at all? Why do different people make different choices in the same situation? Is this just random? No. We make choices based on our mental and emotional disposition. The way our brains our set up is a major part of our dispositions. If I were to surgically, and safely remove a part of your frontal cortex of your brain, you would start to make more rash and unreasonable decisions. If I were to cut the connection between the emotional part of your brain and the rest of your brain, you would become passionless and have greater trouble in making decisions.
The way we think and feel is affected by the genes we are born with the the environment and experiences we have. The experiences we have changes our brains, but we have some control over the experiences we have and how to think. However, the choices we make about what experiences to have are affected by the genes we have which "code" our brains and our past experiences.
Since God is the one who make this world, and our brains and minds, he could easily have made us far better than what we are.
God had more then one reason to send Jesus. We benefit from it yes, but it wasnt only for our benefit. The issue raised in Eden with regard to mankind was an attack on Gods sovereignty. It was witnessed by all the angels in heaven and the issue needed resolving.
Can any of mankind really be faithful & obedient to God? Does God have the right to rule mankind and is his rulership necessary? Can mankind be successful without Gods interference?
These are the issues Satan raised and the only way to answer that was to have another perfect person live a faithful and obedient life. Jesus was the one chosen to provide that answer and the end results for us is that by his death we might all have life.
Since God is omniscient, he already knows the answer to that question. I do not see how this part of the post responds to the argument that innocent people should not be punished for the crimes of the guilty.
No it doesnt. Which is why, even though Adam was put to death, we still feel the effects of his sin. The effects of one persons sin can be far reaching which is precisely why God could not simply prevent Adams children from feeling the effects of Adams sin.
God is omnipotent and there is nothing he cannot do. The biggest effect of their sin is that Adam and Eve were genetically altered and had a moral sense. God could have easily have removed that consequence from their children. This is something he
can do.
We have been violated by Adams sin and God has paid compensation to us by providing a way out of the effects we are feeling.
As I have been arguing, Jesus's death
does not provide any way out at all.
I will warn you that next part of my post will be very long and you do not have to respond to all of it. I want to post it so you can understand my ideas on justice.
Having a person tortured and killed does not pay restitution to those we sinned against, it does not stop us from sinning, and does not protect those who could be violated by sinners. Punishment for any other reason is simply revenge.
A sin is when you do something that causes harm. I do not see why a sin MUST be punished no matter what. I think that there must be good reason to punish or respond to a sin.
This is actually the difference between justice and revenge. Revenge is just "getting" back for the sin, while justice is a logical response to the sin to take care of it.
Taking care of an offence is a two-step process. The first is compensation, the second is change. If someone has done something wrong, and he has not harmed others, then the best solution is to change that person so he will not do it again. This is the best solution for a meth user. There is no reason to punish him when he is already changed. Some sins require an extra step however. If I rob a bank, I must do a little more than just change my ways, I must also give back what I took. Sometimes compensation is quantitative but sometimes it is emotional. If you emotionally hurt your spouse, you should give compensation by giving a favor or apologising along with changing your ways.
Sometimes compensation is not required because the offense is not a source of pain. For example, I do not have to apologise to my brother for all the things I did to him when I was five, because we feel no pain against each other over it. I have changed my ways since then, and no longer have a propensity to throw water at people and steal their toys. It would make no sense to punish me for these actions because there is no need for compensation and I have changed my ways. I hope you see that not all wrong doing requires punishment.
Of course justice on earth is a little more complicated because you cannot simply "change" people and instead we keep wrong things from happening by making wrongdoers pay fines and sometimes isolate them from the general public. In summation there are two needs of justice: to make sure the offense never happens again, and to pay for the damage you did. To punish for any other reason is simply revenge and has no rational basis and instead probably has anger as its basis. Revenge is when you punish for no logical reason and so is just as bad as a crime.
Jesus's death does to make sure that people will not sin again, and does not pay for the damage of the crime. Because of this his death is not a proper response to sin. Having a murderer's brother die for him does not pay for his crime because it does not discourage the crime and it does not give back in compensation.
