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Posts Tagged ‘right-and-wrong’

Retribution or Justice?

June 8, 2006 – 2:10 pm

Adam over at Ochuk’s Blog points out some comments regarding the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. One in particular stands out to me:

What was delivered was retribution, not justice.

This could be quibbling semantics here, but I have to wonder about the choice of words.

retribution

Something justly deserved; recompense.

Something given or demanded in repayment, especially punishment.

Theology. Punishment or reward distributed in a future life based on performance in this one.

justice
The quality of being just; fairness.

The principle of moral rightness; equity.

Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness.

The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.

Law. The administration and procedure of law.

Conformity to truth, fact, or sound reason: The overcharged customer was angry, and with justice.
Abbr. J. Law.

A judge.

A justice of the peace.

I’m not sure I yet understand the outrage expressed by those who have given voice to their opposition to military strikes like these. Zarqawi, a man whose only ambition was the death of others, was killed during an air strike. It was his job to take out as many ‘infidels’ as possible by whatever means necessary. And now his own actions have come full circle and returned home to him.

Retribution? Justice? I think perhaps it was both, and what’s more, I believe his death was both fair and deserved. Don’t get me wrong – I do believe in the sanctity of human life. I believe that life is a precious gift, something that we are all entitled to as God’s creations. Yet, I also still hold to the notion that if you take the life of another human being, your own life itself becomes forfeit. True, the taking of the life of the murderer does not set right the wrong of taking another life. There is nothing that can rectify that wrong. But in snuffing out another’s life, you have stripped them of all their rights, and a cost must be paid for such actions. In case of a mass murderer like Zarqawi, I believe that taking the life of the murderer is the only way to ensure that such atrocities do not continue.¹

Remember, this is a war we are engaged in. It is a war of ideologies in which the antagonist would wipe out every single person who does not believe exactly as they do. Many have fallen victim to these attacks, and we have every right to defend ourselves. Personally, I think that both retribution and justice² have been meted out here.

This is also why I believe that there is both room and a place for capital punishment in our justice system.[back]
Justice does not necessarily mean that the moral scales have been balanced. In many cases such balance is impossible to achieve. In this case, a man who has taken many lives has, in turn, had his own life taken. This is fair and an enforcement of a higher moral standard.[back]

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Nothing More Than Feelings

April 20, 2006 – 10:08 am

“Follow your heart.”
“Do what feels right.”
“If it feels good, how can it be bad?”

Do any of these sound familiar? And this one may seem like it’s different from the three above, but it’s not:

“You have to do what’s right for you.”

These are some of the most common phrases heard in our culture today. Postmodernism has infiltrated just about every aspect of our lives. Truth is no longer conceived of in absolute terms, so people are free to determine truth for themselves.¹ Ultimately, what happens is that people use themselves for their reference point, since in a relative-truth world there can be no other reference point than one’s own experience. More specifically, people end up using their own feelings and emotions to guide them because feelings are powerful, salient, and readily available.

There are two major problems with this system. The first is that feelings are inherently self-serving. This is not necessarily a problem all the time, since our feelings are a prime motivator for protecting our hearts from emotional harm at the hands of another. Where the problem comes in is when following our feelings causes us to pursue our own wants and desires, everyone else be damned. I have seen many people hurt because someone else ‘followed their heart’, making decisions that were ultimately detrimental to other people around them.

The second problem leads logically from the first. Feelings are not always accurate reflections on reality. In essence, just because I happen to feel a certain way does not necessarily mean that the situation at hand fits well with that feeling. For instance, I can feel supremely confident about my ability to handle Situation B because I feel great about the way I handled Situation A (which is, in my mind, similar or related to Situation B). But I quickly find, upon taking on the tasks of Situation B, that I do not, in fact, have the ability to handle Situation B at all, thus I fail. The mistake here is in trusting my feelings to guide me because they were not giving me an accurate picture of the situation.

We live in such an individualistic society that pursuing our own needs, wants, and desires before those of others is simply a matter of course. It’s so natural and instinctive that we do it without even thinking about it. So, it’s logical that our philosophies have changed to more easily allow us to do this. Now, we justify our selfishness and self-involvement by urging each other to follow our hearts and to do what feels right, even when what feels right really isn’t. We are quickly losing any sense of what is true and good and right, except for what we determine for ourselves. Yet, somehow, we have failed to see that people are themselves flawed and prone to mistakes. So, how can people who make mistakes somehow determine what is true and right based upon their own flawed feelings? Yet we do so every day.

Feelings do compliment the decision-making process quite well. Yet, feelings are also unruly and fickle, changing almost at the drop of a hat. Feelings make terrific servants but horrible masters, and as such, they must be governed and controlled as best as possible. No decision should ever be made exclusively at the behest of the emotions. Such a thing is risky because the emotions can, and will, deceive. Logic and rationality must win out when making decisions. They can, however, consult the emotions, but the message of the emotions must be taken with a grain of salt. That niggling sense of fear could tell you that something is wrong about your decision, that maybe there are other factors that need to be considered; or that fear could simply be the fear of stepping into a new situation. Emotions can provide indicators of what might be, but they should not be relied upon to tell you what is.

Keep a short leash on those feelings. And whenever someone tells you to just do what feels right, remind them that there is a better way. Engage that brain and push the heart to the background. Letting your heart rule over your mind is surefire way to get yourself into deep trouble.²

Do you see the irony in that statement?[back]
By the way, following one’s heart can be good when pursuing one’s dreams. Just make sure that in doing so, you aren’t stepping on everyone around you, that you are considering more than just your own personal needs and desires.[back]

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First, Remove the Plank

February 20, 2006 – 4:40 pm

Ales Rarus – A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog Ã‚Â» Have Christian Bloggers Lost the Plot?

Funky Dung, over at Ales Rarus, considers an interesting point:

My grandfather used to say that the habits or faults of other people that annoy us the most may be ones we are also guilty of.

He follows it up with a very good question:

How can I reprove others for a sin IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m just as guilty of?

This is a question I’ve wrestled over many times before finally coming to terms with an answer that I believe is both balanced and biblical.

I think it is only natural that we most quickly identify and point out those habits or faults in other people that most annoy us, habits of which we may also be guilty. It’s a basic principle in social psychology. Those are the habits and faults that are most salient to us, most readily identifiable, most recently active in our own minds. They are the ones over which we struggle most strongly and about which we feel the greatest amount of shame. So, naturally, we see those habits and faults more quickly than others in everyone else.

The tough question is how can I possibly reprove someone else for something of which I myself am guilty? If it is something with which I am struggling and seeking at no point to actually correct, I don’t offer reproof. I hold my tongue, for to say something would make me a true hypocrite, something of which I have, justifiably, been accused in the past. If I am making no attempt to better myself and correct my own errant behavior, then I have no right to attemp to correct another in the same vice.

If, however, I am actively seeking to draw closer to God and deny the inappropriate behavior, then I do, I believe, have a biblical right and obligation to offer correction to another if I see it. I can, in Christian love, point out the error and offer fellowship to my fellow struggling brother. I can indicate that I, too, struggle with the same weakness but that I wish to overcome it and so give all the glory to God. We can share in the journey and the struggle, and while one or both of us may fall, the struggle is made easier in the sharing of the experience. Along the way we may find others who so struggle, and in joining with them, we strengthen our ranks, share the burden, and fight together with greater resolve. One or more of the strugglers may fall away, as is often the case, but the brotherhood of the struggle bonds us as a three-strand cord that is not easily, or quickly, broken.

Is it hard to confront another about a like problem? Indeed, it is, and it is often done with lowered eyes and burning face. It is a commendable initiative, though, and one of which far too few of us partake. I believe that if more Christians would be willing to face each other with our problems with correction as the end goal, we would see a stronger, more effective Church. I also believe that sometimes it is those who struggle most similarly who are most able to help one another because they share similar weaknesses and are better able, then, to understand the trials that must be undergone to triumph over such weakness.

So, share in the struggles, carry one another’s burdens, and uplift one another to greater fellowship with God and with each other.

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Musical Posture

February 8, 2006 – 9:47 am

I heard an evangelist speak once when I was a kid. His topic was music, particularly the evils of rock ‘n’ roll. I don’t remember much now of what he said but for one thing. It was something to the effect that rock music was evil because most rock songs put their beat on 1 and 3, rather than on the traditional 2 and 4 beats (or it could have been vice versa). Being just a young kid (I think I was six or seven years old at the time), I swallowed that line completely. It wasn’t until much later (read, college) that I began to question what that man said.

Over the past couple of days, I have been ripping some of my CDs from home to my work computer (.wma format) so that I have something to listen to while I crunch data all day long. I discovered my WOW Gold album and added that one to my stack. I’ve already removed a couple of the songs from my playlist, though; they just seem a little inappropriate to me. One is by Stryper, entitled “To Hell with the Devil.” Aside from the questionable usage of the term ‘hell’, I think it might actually be a wrong mindset. I’m sure we all long for the day when we can be rid of Satan’s influence in the world, but the closing chapters of Left Behind: Armageddon shed some light on what God’s perspective probably is – sadness that one of His creations even has to be condemned to hell. I think it’s something that we can learn from.

The other song that no longer graces my playlist is one by Larry Norman, “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?” It could be that I just find this song entirely annoying, but more it touches on a couple of personal peeves – there are a lot of great hymns out there, and there is a lot of great music in all genres (even at the time that song was written) that is not, pardon the pun, devilish. This touches on my philosophy of music, a philosophy that was challenged and reshaped when I began my college career.

Growing up I believed that music was split by some defining line into righteous and evil. I felt that you could take any song and clearly categorize it as white or black. This was in large part determined by the style of the music, though if the lyrics weren’t focused somehow on God that also played a huge part in deciding which was which. Imagine my confusion and dismay then, when I got to college and found that there were quite a few Christian bands whose style sounded very much like rock to me. Initially, I reacted as I always did by labeling them evil, as wayward Christians who had lost their focus on God. Forget the fact that some of those bands had exceptionally theologically rich lyrics. Their style was too rocky, their beat in the wrong place.

Over time I was pushed out of my comfort zone, and I was forced to reconcile this internal conflict. My roommate was a huge fan of Petra, the other guys in my suite played various Christian artists whose beat was a little too heavy for my tastes, and chapel frequently featured contemporary Christian music. I couldn’t escape it and so I had to deal with it. It was a gradual process, encompassing some of my Bible classes, various chapel services, and personal study.

I was actually a bit surprised to find that I had arrived at a conclusion quite a bit different from what I grew up with – I had determined that music, in and of itself, is amoral and that it is the way people use it that determines how righteous or evil it is. I could find nothing in Scripture that stated that any particular style of music was more evil or righteous than any other. In fact there are many places in Scripture where it describes music that can’t be anything other than lively (though what it exactly sounded like we can’t do more than speculate, but it very likely wasn’t ‘church’ music). Therefore, it must be certain principles that determine the level of music’s morality.

I enjoy a wide variety of music – classical, baroque, American, rock, Gospel, contemporary Christian, for starters. I try to maintain a diet of music that 1) keeps me in touch with the current trends, and 2) is wholesome for my spiritual, mental, and emotional development. I do enjoy some secular music, but more and more I am trying to limit how much of it I listen to, as the lyrics and content of so many of those songs are less than beneficial. I also avoid metal of any variety, as that, to me, is the music of rage, bitterness, and hatred, all vices with which I already struggle and so need no more such exposure, not to mention being very unartistic.

As I understand it, music is amoral; it’s what you do with it that matters. I have absolutely no problem with music that bumps. I like to get my groove on, too. And if the words are wholesome and uplifting, so much the better and is, in fact, my first music of choice. It took me quite a while to arrive at this conclusion (the first half of my college experience), but it is, I believe, a balanced and biblical stance.

I can’t wait to find out what the music of Heaven will be like…

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Swearing and Cursing

February 7, 2006 – 10:30 am

I have something against ‘Christians’ who drop profanities in casual conversation. It’s probably the idealist in me, but I tend to think that Christians ought to shy away from such practice. For one thing I’ve never heard a profane word that I felt contributed anything intelligent to a conversation. In fact I’ve always given less credibility to people whose regular dialogue includes curse words exactly because it makes them sound so much more ignorant. Apply this to people who call themselves Christians and such people lose a notch or three of my respect.

Tack on another item – a lot of people are offended by profanity, particularly when it is casual. Christians have an obligation, whether they acknowledge and accept that fact or not, to maintain a higher standard of living. This standard dictates avoiding such behaviors as are deemed offensive for the sake the maintaining a testimony for Christ that is without spot or blemish. To hear a Christian use profanity is disappointing because it tarnishes the image of Christ, whose reflection we are to put out to the world.

And before you cry hypocrite, let me just say that, yes, I place myself under and condemn myself by my own standards. I have something of a wicked temper – I always have. Unfortunately, I’m not perfect and find that my language turns a bit blue when I get angry. As often as I bite my tongue when I’m mad, I’m not perfect (how often I wish I was). Always, though, when I have slipped up, I recognize my wrong and feel appropriately guilty. Forgiveness is sought and restitution made as best as possible. Even so, I make a point of not slipping into potty-mouthed behaviors in casual conversation and writing.

I don’t know if it’s a symptom of our culture or of our churches or both, but I have seen a fair number of believers who seem to have no problem at all with certain terminology in their discourse. I know that some justify it by saying that this allows them access to certain circles they might not otherwise meet, but I don’t believe that a wrong makes right. I have actually found that by not engaging in similar behavior it is possible to engage the same groups because you gain their respect for not sinking to those levels. It’s strange – as much as people have little problem with a coarser way of speaking, they do seem to recognize that it is a lesser way of it. And so when they meet someone who can dialogue with them intelligently without engaging in profanity with them, they at least take notice, and I have found that they often listen to what I have to say with greater attentiveness.

So, clean up the language, kids. I think you might be surprised at the result.

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Justice of Capital Punishment

February 2, 2006 – 9:42 am

I participated in a discussion a while back with a handful of people on a discussion forum I frequent. The topic was capital punishment in general and rape crimes in particular. Specifically, the question was whether or not rapists should be put to death, imprisoned for life, or ‘reformed’ by a certain amount of time behind bars. Personally, I’ve always believed that rapists should have a certain part of their anatomy removed as painfully as possible and then be executed, and I stated this in the discussion. Now, whether or not that is ethical is beside the point – that’s just how my emotions play out when I hear of scum like this. Surgery or no, I do think that rapists deserve the death penalty because of what they have taken away from their victims. Someone challenged me on this point, and my response was a question – “Then why would every single woman I know rather put up a fight and be killed than to be raped?” My understanding is that being raped is a fate worse than death. Then the next challenge – “How does taking a life, whether it be for rape or taking another life, make the situation any better?”

And for the longest time I had no answer to that question. Sometimes, I just have to back away and leave a question alone for a while before I can think through it enough to arrive at a satisfactory answer. A fair amount of thought was devoted to this question. I knew that there is a place for capital punishment, despite the point of the challenge. It just felt wrong to me that someone should go unpunished for heinous crimes against society. And it has always bugged me to know that a portion of my tax money goes to support killers and rapists. The point, however, was to put aside my personal biases as best as possible to sort through the morality and the ethics of the topic.

It’s true that taking the life of the murderer or the rapist doesn’t make the situation any better for the victims or their families, except maybe to provide a sense of closure. Execution doesn’t undo what happened, doesn’t restore the innocence of the rape victim, doesn’t bring back the one who was killed. It doesn’t repair the pain and loss that all feel. But then again, it’s not about ‘fixing’ anything. It’s about consequences, and it’s about making society a little bit safer. And in that sense, it does make the situation better.

You see, I believe that actions carry with them inherent consequences. I also believe that the punishment should fit the crime. If you rape or kill someone, you have to expect that you will have to face the jury, quite literally, to answer for your crimes. And if the punishment should fit, then what is more fitting than your life be forfeit if you take a life (or subject your victim to a fate worse than death)? Somehow, it has always seemed unfair and unjust to put a murderer or rapist in a place where his every need is met, where he gets three squares a day, a TV, exercise equipment, public education, and medical benefits, all at the taxpayers expense. And the concept of a speedy trial is lost today in our justice system, with appeals dragging the process out even longer.

As a Christian I believe that everyone will face God one day and answer for their life. The unrepentant, unbelieving criminal will face an eternity of punishment, the degree of which is reflective of his life’s crimes and sins. So, ultimately, justice will be meted out. But by the same token, something has to be done with these criminals in the here and now in order to protect our citizens. Prisons are already very overcrowded, and so criminals who have no business being back out on the street are released early for ‘good behavior’, only to go right back to their old ways, repeating a vicious cycle. Statistics show that the vast majority of criminals do not, in fact, learn their lesson and do repeat their crimes over and over again. If the punishment were to fit the crime, we would have fewer problems, I believe, both with overcrowding and with repeat offenders.

Capital punishment cannot repair people’s lives; they still have to go about the daily business of coping with their pain and letting time (and hopefully God) heal their wounds. But capital punishment can remove dangerous criminals from our society so that there is no fear of their repeating their offenses. They answer for their crimes, and their victims are given the reassurance that these individuals will not be able to hurt them ever again.

Mistakes are made, of course, and it is up to our authorities to shore up weaknesses in the system to prevent such mistakes from being made. But it is, I believe, a God-ordained responsibility of government to protect its people from those who harm its citizens, and as such, I believe that capital punishment has an appropriate place within our legal and justice systems.

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Standards of Truth and Righteousness

December 29, 2005 – 10:04 am

I continue to be befuddled by those who would claim that absolute truth does not and cannot exist. I am also somewhat bemused by this because I find such individuals cannot remain true to their own arguments and philosophies. Their arguments claim that it is impossible to know truth because every determination of what is true is tainted and colored by the interpretation of that truth and by one’s own experiences, thus leading to many different understandings of what that truth actually says and means. Naturally, the more complicated the concept, the greater the deviation in understanding that truth (though I would posit that a complex truth is really actually made up of many smaller, individual truths, which easily understood separately, may combine to create a concept whose relationship between the smaller truths may be more difficult to observe and determine, yet not negating the truth of either the smaller truths or that of the composite truth).

Now, I have also talked with non-absolutists (as I will refer to them here) who have said that such-and-such act is or was wrong or evil. My response then becomes, Well, how do you do know? By what standard do you compare such an act to determine its level of good or evil, or its degree of rightness or wrongness? For anything to be considered in terms of morality (and the need to conceive of the world in such terms is obvious and necessary and inherent in all men, as evidenced by the natural inclination to establish rules and laws in order to keep the peace), there must be an absolute standard by which that morality can be measured. In the world of weights and measures, for instance, there are standards for all units—an object measured out to be the standard for the gram, or the liter, or the centimeter, etc. All all larger units are based upon these smaller, more basic standards so that measurement around the world may be consistent and uniform. It is the same with truth and morality. The rub seems to come in because these are more abstract concepts, not observable through any of the five senses. Yet the world functions in terms of morality, as it must in order to prevent its descent into anarachy and chaos.

So, there must be some standard for truth that is knowable and attainable and that can be standardized across the entire population. Men have tried using rationality as a basis for determining truth, and ultimately they are able only to return to the self as a standard, since that is the very origin of the rational mind, themselves a shifting morass of thoughts, ideas, emotions, and opinions. It should be obvious that this is not an ideal reference point due to that very continuous shift. Therefore, the standard of truth must lie elsewhere.

Science itself is not an adequate standard of truth. It is an ever-changing source of knowledge as its observations become more acute and the knowledge gleaned from its studied more comprehensive. And science addresses only those things that are directly observable; there is no ability for it to address the truth of good and evil, moral and immoral, those concepts that are often most necessary for the daily exercise of living. Therefore, the standard of truth must lie elsewhere.

Creation is not equipped to answer the truth of good and evil, to establish standards of moral and immoral, much for the same reasons as science cannot. Creation is observable and supplies only those truths that we can see, even though we may not be able to understand them fully. It has no voice to speak to the abstract, to the intellectual knowledge that governs the behavior of men. Therefore, the standard of truth must lie elsewhere.

So, the standard for truth would most likely belong to a sentient being, one gifted with a mind to fully know the secrets, both of the universe and of the ways of mankind, with a vision of the whole so complete that it could speak the knowledge into the hearts and minds of men, teaching them how they should live so that they may act with wisdom and live at peace with each other. Such an individual cannot be found among men, creatures who by their very definition are confined to and limited by the world they inhabit. Only an individual who is outside of the known universe, yet lives within it so as to interact with it, would be able to hold the entirety of it within their mind and be able to know it so completely as to speak the truth into it that would give men a standard by which they could govern their lives. This being would have to be a personal being, for no other would be able to establish the relationship with mankind to communicate the truth by which men may live.

There is One who claims to be all this and more, and who may be determined, through the testing of His precepts, to be the absolute standard of all truth. He is wise and all-knowing, greater than all existence, personal and knowable. His words are the truth and the way of life. His name is Jehovah.

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Is It Wrong to Be Right?

March 1, 2005 – 11:43 pm

“Everyone who is consumed with being right and a little too uptight about being exact and so on shoudl take heed of my little girl’s quote: ”’R’ is for ‘Bunny’” was her response when we were doing flashcards the other night. The letter R was on one side and a picture of a rabbit on
the other.”

In this postmodern society, it is less important for an individual to be right than it is to make sure that no one’s feelings get hurt, that the social relationship is preserved and without conflict. It is more important to avoid offending anyone, to avoid telling anyone that they are wrong, than it is to make sure that the information you have and believe is true and accurate. The unspoken rule now is that it might just be wrong to be right because it might hurt someone’s ego or damage their self-esteem.

The trouble is that this approach is dangerous. I think it may be a part of why so many of our generation are unable to articulate what they believe, why their worldviews and values and standards waffle and waver so much. No one is allowed to be right, at least not obviously so, because of the effect that being right might have on others. There are countless examples in our society where what is right and true and correct is passed over in favor of what looks and
feels best. In the end the final result is shallow and meaningless, leaving everyone without guidance and direction.

Biblically, I believe we are called to seek out that which is right and true, to know what you believe and to know it so well that you can defend it to any who would attack it. Certainty and confidence are powerful allies and can set your course straight and honest. All things have a right and a wrong, but often it requires experience and wisdom to discern the difference, and wisdom is so dearly lacking in our society. How can there be wisdom when one is not allowed
to be right? How can there be wisdom when one is not allowed to speak his mind and give voice to truth and discernment? So, we must try everything, sifting it carefully, using wisdom and the
guidance of the Holy Spirit to determine that which is right, setting it in a place of prominence so that it may gleam forth and draw others toward God.

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