Subject: Re: Death Penalty: vision 2020: Eric E./Ted Moffet

[Eric Engerbretson <votive@earthlink.net>]

Title: Subject: Re: Death Penalty: vision 2020: Eric E./Ted Moffet

Ted wrote:

> Eric E, and others:
> 
> Eric, I guess we must start over.
> 
> I did not confuse your doubt about the guilt or innocence of a particular 
> man condemned to death with your overall conviction that the death penalty 
> is commanded by God.  My reason, as clearly stated in my previous 
> communications, which used the wording "...Christian thinkers who are at 
> polar opposites on the death penalty, both for and completely against," was 
> to highlight the disagreement about the validity of whether the death 
> penalty OVERALL is moral under Christian ethics.  You responded to this 
> question "I would love to read them, but I would always have in mind that 
> one side of the issue must be right, EVEN IF I AM NEVER ABLE TO FULLY 
> DETERMINE WHICH."  (caps added)
> 
> Where is my confusion?  Please read over what you wrote in direct response 
> to my statements about Christian scholars who are at polar opposites on the 
> death penalty.

Ted, as to my statement of "even if I am never fully able to fully determine which"-- I meant it as a hypothetical situation. I should have said "even if I never WAS able to determine which".  My point was not that I am undecided, but that one side must be right and one must be wrong.  On the death penalty issue, I believe I have come to a firm position.

> 
> As far as you doubting the integrity or genuineness of the Christian 
> scholars who disagree with the moral validity of the death penalty, is not 
> the Pope one of the most powerful and respected representatives of 
> Christianity in the world?  And is not his knowledge of Scripture excellent? 

So is Billy Graham. So is Jimmy Swaggart.  But I disagree with them on some things. The Pope's knowledge of Scripture is excellent, but I don't believe his interpretation is.  The Pope believes that when he speaks ex cathedra he is infallible. He believes we should pray to dead people. He believes that Mary is 50% of our redemption.  I don't agree with him.  I believe God gets angry with people who make up their own rules and call them His.  Jesus sure rebuked the Pharisees for doing that.  So, the Pope may be the most powerful and respected Christian in the world, but he may still be wrong about things.  I don't "doubt the integrity or genuineness" of these people at all... but I do doubt their correctness on some points of doctrine.

> He has clearly stated his opposition to the death penalty, and this was 
> long before his current health decline.  You must know that almost all of 
> mostly Christian Europe has outlawed the death penalty, by the way?  

I spent many years going into public high schools, state churches, and free churches, all over Europe, six days a week, performing concerts and leading classroom discussion forums on religion and culture. So, yes, I have a very good idea about "Christian" Europe. I have met a number of Danish and Swedish state church priests, who would fall under the category of "Christian" Europe, and who happen to be avowed atheists-- evangelical atheists. I don't think you could water down the term "Christian" much further than when you use it in the phrase "Christian" Europe.  The Bible makes 
clear that there will be many who will come to the gates of heaven claiming to be Christians, and Christ will say "I'm sorry, I never knew you."  There are very many who think they are Christians and aren't.  Many people who sit in a pew every Sunday are in for a big surprise when it comes time to meet their maker.

>So you 
> must be saying most of Christian Europe is violating God's divine will? 

It depends on your definition of the word Christian.  If you mean the Bible's definition, being people that truly know and follow Christ on a moment by moment daily basis, then obviously no.  But if you mean the usual definition, being those who claim the basic name "Christian", as almost a national tradition ( their ancestors were Christian so they are, too), but they live as agnostic humanists, then the answer to your question would be absolutely, yes.  Most of "Christian" Europe is not following God. Just like in the U.S.  There are very many solid, true Christians in each European country, just like in every country in the world. But "most" of those who casually categorize themselves as Christians are not so in God's reality.

> Along with the Pope, who millions of Catholics believe in certain decrees 
> (ex cathedra), speaks with divine revelation?  I have some of the actual 
> documents from the Vatican that argue against the death penalty, and I will 
> post these in the future.
> It appears some rather "heavy hitters" in Christianity disagree with you.

Absolutely.  But one of us is right and one of us is wrong-- heavy hitter or bat-boy.  I will always treat a person I believe to be wrong with ultimate love and respect (whether he is the Pope or a wino). And while I have to be humble, and always examine evidence as objectively as possible, knowing that I could be (must be) wrong about some fine points of things, I have no choice but to place my bets and walk forward, based on my interpretation of things.

I think what you resent is people who act pompously and rudely about the fact that they think they are right. They are in the wrong in respect to their demeanor.  But the rudeness doesn't automatically mean their doctrines are wrong-- it just means they are sinners, like all of us.  The most tolerable, open-minded, non-dogmatic person in the world thinks he is right in his open-mindedness.  And even if he has learned to be outwardly genteel, he is arrogant about it on the inside.

It seems you are saying that because so many "heavy-hitters" disagree with me that I must be wrong. The fact is that just as between religions there are some who must be right and some who must be wrong, within Christianity there are those with correct interpretations and those who are incorrect. God doesn't care about the world's standards of heavy-hitting.  When he chose his twelve disciples he could have chosen from all sorts of Jewish heavy-hitters, but he chose the opposite of heavy-hitters and revealed Himself to them. Just as He does today.

> 
> You call the Bible "miraculous" and give other evidence that it must have 
> been divined inspired.  But you really are not exploring all the 
> contradictions and inaccuracies in the Bible, which are well documented, 
> even advocated ethical conduct that contradicts each other.

I have studied a number of books on contradictions in the Bible, and considered them a great deal, and no, I'm not going to go into them here on a list about "visions for a better Moscow". But I do believe that the contradictions in the Bible are, almost entirely, only apparent contrdictions that upon study can be reasonably reconciled. A good example would be what I explained in an earlier post about the commandment that most people believe is "Thou shalt not kill". It appears to be a contradiction with the parts of the Bible that talk about things like capital punishment, war, self-defense, etc.., but when one learns that the real word translated "kill" is "murder" the contradiction evaporates.  

> 
> And my basic claim is still correct that other competing religious documents 
> make the same claims you are making regarding the Bible about their 
> religious documents (the Koran etc, even Nostradamus). 

No, they don't at all make the same claims of verifiable proofs.  

1) The Koran and Nostradamus' writings were not written over 1500 years by 40 authors, and they don't claim so. They were written over relatively short periods by a few men (which makes them far more likely to be the work of men instead the work of God).  

2) Mohammed and Nostradamus did not claim to be God-- they claimed to be prophets.  Anyone can stand up and say "I am a prophet and God has told me to tell you some things". Pretty easy to start a religion that way. 

Christ stood up and said "I am God. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."  He said "I and the Father are one." and "If you have seen the Me you have seen the Father". He is the only person who ever said that who wasn't immediately judged a lunatic.  Saying stuff like that'll get you killed. Saying stuff like that is a tough way to start a religion-- because everyone keeps perniciously saying "Prove it!".  And it's tough to start a religion if you right away get killed for blasphemy (and for doing miracles that people think could only be done by Satan's power).  But,  if you did prove it-- to an amazing, mind-boggling degree to hundreds of people, you could start a religion that would change the face of history more than any other. Imagine that. 

No-- no other religious leader made the claims that Christ did. And no, competing religious documents don't have the same support for their claims as does the Bible.

I could go on for an hour, but I won't.

>And the flawed and 
> imperfect human mind must make judgments about which book is "more 
> miraculous" than the other.  I have heard devout Muslims argue vehemently 
> about the perfection of the Koran, everything stated in it being accurate, 
> proving it's divine miraculous inspiration.

You're exactly right, Ted-- every single "flawed and imperfect human mind must make judgments about which book is 'more miraculous' than the other."  And some will make a correct judgement and some will make incorrect ones.
And some will feign nuetrality, only to one day despairingly learn that nuetrality was a myth.

I have read every word of the Koran, and it is appallingly clear which parts Muhammed's followers copied directly from the Jewish Pentateuch (the Old Testament) and which parts were simply human ramblings. Islam has a large bit of the real truth in it, that it got from the real Scriptures-- and also, some critical error that it got from Muhammed's followers. I hate to say things that are horribly un-politically correct, but I'm trying to be honest with you. And I want you to know that I have had Muslim friends, and I love them like brothers, and I am ultra-polite to them-- but I don't love them so little that I would
not tell them what I believe to be the truth when they ask me. 

Let's imagine that someone shared with me the first real cure for cancer.  I cured myself, and then just kept the test tube to myself and told no one. Would that be ethically wrong? Most would say so. So I went out to tell others. What if others in other cultures had their herbal cancer cures that had been in their families for centuries and they resented my saying that I had the "real" cure. They said "keep it to yourself, all cures are valid for those who believe in them sincerely enough". "Who's to say one cure is better than another? You're just arrogant."  Of course the analogy breaks down eventually, but, Christ said "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. NO man comes to the Father except through me." I believe it.  I think many people will die and go to wherever we go to meet God, and some will find that their cure was an illusion. I hate that doctrine, it hurts my heart like nothing else, but I believe it.  That is why I tell people the truth as I see it.

> 
> There are many guides to ethical human behavior, Eric.  It is not your 
> religion or nothing!  In Japan their are very strict ethical rules that lead 
> them to a society that in some ways is more moral than the USA, yet they are 
> overwhelmingly NON-CHRISTIAN.  If your ethical guidelines were so critical, 
> and worship and belief in your God so necessary for "salvation,"  how do you 
> explain highly moral behavior (even by your standards!) by non-believers in 
> Christianity?  Are not there millions of kind and honest and gentle and 
> loving Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims in the world?  I am not really 
> expecting you to explain this, only hoping it will give you pause for 
> thought about being less dogmatically convinced your religion is the only 
> valid one.

Ted, you are exhibiting the same misunderstanding that most people have about Christianity-- that it is about morality. 
Most world religions say that you earn your salvation by being moral enough. Some religions are sharp enough to realize that it must take many lifetimes to be moral enough to earn your way to heaven.  But Christianity is the one religion that says that you can never be good enough to earn your way to heaven. Because the Bible says God's standard for heaven is absolute purity and perfection and that every  human is a sinner and has turned away from God, whether in "big" or "small" ways, but no one is good enough.  Mother Theresa didn't do enough good deeds to earn her salvation. She knew her salvation was completely dependent on Christ's work on the cross. His death paid the debt that was owed for her sin-- so that God chose to see her as forgiven and pure.  She was then moral out of response to Christ, not to earn her way. She knew better than anyone that she was a sinner and could never be otherwise in her own strength. 

All sorts of people can be moral part of the time. Some countries are far more moral than others and it may or may not have anything to with God. You can whip up moral motivation based on just about anything. In a football game, some "morals" are made up and laid out in the regs book, and you follow them because you want to play the game.  I would say even the worst people on earth are moral most of the time.  Jeffrey Dahmer was probably a very moral guy most of the time on the street-- it was when you went home with him that you learned about his little mistakes. So perhaps morality is about more than actions, perhaps it is about one's nature. God's nature is perfect and no human's can ever be.  No matter how many times he is reincarnated.

Ted, you resent that I would say that my religion is the only valid one.  I resent that God made a world that is harsh enough that I have to say it (and that resentment is sin on my part, because I am questioning his goodness).  But nonetheless, the way the world I see works, if some things are right other things are wrong. There is no other way. If Christianity says Jesus was God, and Islam says he was absolutely not God-- somebody simply must be wrong, no matter how much it hurts my feelings and no matter how many cute children are born into the family of a mistaken theologian.  I either have to choose one religion, or say that I am just going to stand back and watch and not make a choice.  But not-making-a-choice is making a choice. It is a stance based on faith. A faith-based initiative. Religion is simply a world-view, and everybody has one, whether they realize it or like it or not.  I think it is a pretty blind faith that presumes that the Maker of this whole thing called life will just set aside His standards and requirements for those who thought they could stand on the sidelines and not play. No, we're all in the game. 

> 
> Well, I could address a few more points, but the above few are enough for 
> now, especially when one of my main points appears to have been 
> misunderstood when I referred to the disagreement in Christianity over the 
> death penalty overall, which I thought you were answering, only to find you 
> say you were not answering that question.  The question still remains, 
> though I think at this point I will have to start quoting the Biblical 
> scholars who disagree with you to make my point more pointed!
> 
> And I think my point about flawed human minds trying to determine which 
> religious document is "more miraculous" than others still is on the table!
> 
> Thanks for your reply!
> 
> Ted

Well, hopefully I addressed these last two things slightly in the above statements.  But, Ted, I think at this point we should let it ride, or take it out back.  I think we've taken this a bit out of the bounds of "visions for a better Moscow", and I don't want to be a burden on the visionaries whose vision is being blurred by my long posts.   Perhaps we should start a new list called "visions of amateur philosophy in Moscow". :¬)

Also, I would love to talk more with you about these things, because I learn a great deal from it, but I feel that writing is too slow, and leaves a bit too much room for mistaken intents, etc.  So, if you would like to get together for lunch and chat about these things in person, I think it would be a lot more fruitful, fun, and less of an imposition on others.  So, if you do want to continue, come in and see me at the Redhawk, across from TacoTime, I'll buy you some espresso, or give me a call at home, and we'll continue the discussion!  

My best regards,

Eric E.