When I first read the headlines of the newspaper this morning about Sadddam being hanged, my first initial reaction was sadness. Then I thought about that and my intellectual mind stepped in and said, "Wait, this man killed thousands of people and many in barbaric ways". But, as the singer/songwriter Holly Near writes and sings, "Why do we kill people, who kill people to show that killing people is wrong"?
I really struggle with this. I wish I could be black and white in my thinking about this. You kill someone then you get killed yourself. That's your punishment and there isn't really anything to discuss. But, and there really is always a but, who gives us the right to take someone else's life? Who gives us the right to judge someone else for that they have done? Sure, we hire judges and pick juries of our peers (are they really our peers?),but is this really justice? Won't there be someone to carry on for him? There are so many followers that will continue his work and hanging Sadam is just going to make them angry and ramp up the violence over in Iraq. Which by the way is where our American troops are stationed.
Anyway, the point that I am trying to make is that who really has the right to judge who lives or dies? I don't mean for a minute that we let people who are a danger to society run free. They need to be locked up. And I don't wear rose colored glasses and think that all felons can be rehabilitated, some have just been so damaged from the start that there is no rehab in the world that will ever be able to help them to be productive members of society.
I just have a hard time with one human judging another and then killing them when it's decided that it's just and right. I know that there are a lot of people who will disagree with me and that's OK.
The whole thing makes me feel sad. Sad that the world that we live in is so corrupt and evil. There is so much anger in the world we live in. So much eye for and eye, tooth for a tooth kind of thinking. I wonder what would happen if for just one day the whole world set aside their differences and just got along? Got to know their neighbors for who they really were. Were able to agree to disagree for the sake of argument and got on with life as friends.
What a wonderful world that would be eh?
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3 comments:
Our country has been based on the Word of God- According to his Word- Exodus 21:12,14 Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death. 14 But if a manschemes and kills another man deliberatly, take him away from my altar and put him to death.
Heres the eye for eye - actual word of God Numbers 24:17 If anyone takes the life of an human being, he must be put to death. 18 If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must bedone to him: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured. Whoever kills an animal must pay restitution but whoever kills a man must e put to death. You are to have the same law for the alien and the native-born.
Numbers 35:30-31 Anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses. But no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. 31 Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death.
Our forefathers based our country constitution on the Word of God- I wish our justice system would remember the above scriptures for many sitting in jails for life wasting our money to pay for them to eat, live and breath.
Bless God Daily
Not sure who left this message, maybe my cousin Shari who uses Bless God Daily as her signature but at any rate, my question to this poster would be What Would Jesus Do? You quote from the Old Testament exclusively, and I seriously wonder what Jesus would have done had he dealt with Saddam?Would he have put him to death? I for one am glad that we no longer live in the Old Testament (at least most of us don't).
An eye for an eye, justice is mine sayeth the Lord. It wasn't meant for us to mete out such punishments. There is no good argument to kill someone in retaliation. I am sure of this one. I misread something you wrote here, because I think it's akin to how I think.
I thought you wrote "when you kill someone some of you is killed".
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