Eric Rudolph is not a terrorist, but an anti-terrorist fighter. Those who have killed babykilling abortionists have done so to protect the innocent. People use force everyday to protect the innocent and no one has a problem with it, except when it comes to protecting unborn human beings, then they go ballistic. It's very simple, the unborn deserve the same protection as the born. Born people are protected with force quite often. Force that you would be glad if it was to protect your children against a murderer. Force that you yourself might use to protect your own children from being murdered. The unborn deserve the same protection.
SAY THIS PRAYER: Dear Jesus, I am a sinner and am headed to eternal hell because of my sins. I believe you died on the cross to take away my sins and to take me to heaven. Jesus, I ask you now to come into my heart and take away my sins and give me eternal life.
Yes, Preacher Spitz was referring to the same Eric Rudolph that bombed two abortion clinics and the 1996 Olympic Games, and then apologized for the Olympic bombing but not the clinic bombings. All in all, Rudolph is responsible for 3 deaths and over 150 injuries due to his Jesus inspired bombings. Swell guy, to be sure.
At any rate, Preacher Spitz's comment got me all curious, especially due to the fact that he advocates saving an unborn, innocent fetus, but seems to be glad that an innocent Jesus was allegedly sacrificed. Would Preacher Spitz truly advocate the saving of one innocent being, but not another? Where does his standard come from? So I decided to write Preacher Spitz an email:
From: Aaron J Kinney
To: glory2jesus@armyofgod.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 11:48 AM
Subject: Jesus
If you could go back in time and rescure Jesus from being crucified, would you do it?
Aaron Kinney
And wouldn't you know it? This morning his reply was waiting in my inbox! Hallelujah!
From: glory2jesus@armyofgod.com
To: Aaron J Kinney
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 10:45 PM
Subject: Re: Jesus
Aaron,
If I could go back in time and rescue Jesus from being crucified I would not do it. Jesus came to the planet earth to be die for our sins on the cross of Calvary. That was his purpose in coming, so our sins could be taken away and we could have everlasting life if we turn from our sins and accept Him as our Lord and Savior.
Peter tried to get Jesus not to go to the cross and die, here is what Jesus said to him.
Matthew 16 [21] From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.
[22] Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.
[23] But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
SAY THIS PRAYER: Dear Jesus, I am a sinner and am headed to eternal hell because of my sins. I believe you died on the cross to take away my sins and to take me to heaven. Jesus, I ask you now to come into my heart and take away my sins and give me eternal life.
Wow. Just, wow.
I think that in lieu of further commentary, I will simply end this post by reproducing my email response to Rev. Spitz:
From: Aaron J Kinney
To: glory2jesus@armyofgod.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 09:12 AM
Subject: Re: Jesus
Thank you for your response, Rev. Spitz. It was very eye-opening.
However, I must take issue with your logic. Two wrongs don't make a right. It simply doesn't make sense to fight for the lives of unborn babies, but fail to do the same for Jesus. Sure, unborn babies are fairly innocent, but even they have the stain of original sin on their souls. There was only ever one truly and perfectly innocent man, and that man was Jesus!
The entire world would celebrate me as the guy who saved Jesus from the cross. In a way, I would be Christ's savior! Could there ever be a greater defender of the innocent than that?
Aaron Kinney
29 comments:
This is a very interesting take on this topic Aaron. I suppose I had never though about it this way. If Jesus was the ultimate perfect being then he was much more worthy of being protected than any unborn baby. If God is all powerful then he could have found a way for our sins to be resolved without murdering his only son. Abortion is definitly a tough subject. Maybe we should protect the unborn but do we want to do it at the expense of taking away a womans rights? Somewhere along the line one persons freedoms and protections will infringe on anothers. I suppose it's just one of those things that we have to deal with as the situations arise. The main problem that I have with this is that Spitz (or anyone) is saying that Rudolph is not a terrorist. Why would he chastise the killing of the unborn but then have no problems with the killing of the born? It's another one of those situations where Christians just pick and choose which rules they want to follow.
Hey Aaron -
I think the point of what Rev Spitz is saying is something he didn't make entirely clear. Or...in case he meant something else, this is *my* point about the crucifixion of Christ.
Christ was an innocent man, more innocent than any other person to ever exist. But the difference is that He sacrificed Himself WILLINGLY. I don't agree with bombing an abortion clinic, but the point I believe he was trying to make about the difference in the motives was that the unborn children had not made any decision in their deaths (abortions). Jesus, however, knew exactly what He was doing, struggled with the fact that He was allowing men to take Him to a gruesome death, but still went through with it willingly.
So, the main point is that Christ was an innocent that made a very informed decision to be put to death - He accepted the ultimate punishment when He did not DESERVE it, but he still CHOSE to take it on to alleviate the punishment of the rest of us.
A side note is that I don't agree with bombing abortion clinics. As right or wrong as abortion is (I still haven't made my full decision), categorizing the people who work there as "terrorists" and "babykilling abortionists" is superficial - and even if you have a problem with the practice, find a better way to deal with it than blowing them up.
I continue to be disgusted with the way some Christians (or so-called Christians, I never can tell) represent Christ and Christianity.
~Wade
Hi Wade!
Thank you for clearing up the part about Jesus' crucifixion being done willingly by Himself as a sacrifice :)
So to help me clear up the principle of sacrifice that you are explaining to me, I would like to ask you a question:
Let's imagine that you were a judge who was about to sentence a convicted murderer to death. Then lets imagine that I, Aaron Kinney, suddenly burst into your courtroom and in a fit of altruistic benevolence and mercy I asked you, the judge, to sentence me to death in the murderer's stead so that I may pay his penalty of being executed and he may go free. Would you grant me my request?
Angelsdepart,
Thank you! I love looking at situations and scenarios from multiple angles. Christians want to protect innocent unborn babies, but they love the fact that Jesus (who is presumably more innocent than even the most precious of unborn little babies) got "aborted" on the cross so to speak.
I guess it has to do with consent, as Wade mentioned in the comment after yours. Well in that case, I would LOVE to have Wade and a few other Christians answer the question I just posed in my previous comment.
Would a Christian consider it justice or morally right if an innocent man demanded to be executed in place of a convicted murderer in order to forgive the morderer of his crime and let him go free?
Hmmmmmmmm.... interesting scenario!
I can see the veins on the Rev's head pop.
Aaron,
Amazing! The email exchange was a joy to read. Impeccable logic... yet, I'll bet you Rev. Spitz won't bat an eye. Good try, though.
LOL thank you beep beep and drunkentune! Im thought the email exchange was funny too. I am worried that the Rev may not respond to my second email though :(
More on Jesus came to the planet
Aaron, you've got quite the quick and analytical mind - I respect that. This *is* a very interesting scenario/thought experiment.
In response to your scenario, no, I would not sentence you (the innocent person who burst into my courtroom) in the stead of someone who was sentenced to die. I would consider it noble, but stupid of you. There is no tradeoff - I would be trading one innocent life for one guilty life.
I'd like you to consider two closely related circumstances, though. In the first, the entire human race is essentially doomed. However, one man has the ability to trade his one life for the lives of every other human being in existence. As before, the one giving his life is completely innocent, and the multitudes of people that he could save have all done plenty of things wrong. Does this seem like a bit more of a tradeoff?
Another situation is even more closely related - I won't even try to disguise it as a hypothetical story, this is the story of Jesus and Barrabbas. Pontius Pilate puts two men side by side: the man that everyone hates, the murderer and notorious criminal; and the man that people say has claimed to be the Son of God, yet the judge cannot find any crimes that the man is guilty of.
Jesus or Barabbas. Teacher or violent insurrectionist. Both were put up for crucifixion, but tradition said the people could choose one to die and one to go free.
I'm sure you know that they chose Jesus to die. It would seem as though for Pilate (the judge), allowing the innocent man to live would be a no brainer. But at the extreme urging of the townspeople, he sentenced the (from his point of view) blameless man. Interesting, no?
It's late and I'm really tired, otherwise I might have had more of a point - but in any case I have given you my answer and posed some interesting food for thought in the same vein. I hope you'll consider both - I really do like your thought experiments.
~Wade
oh - and am I the only one that has to post twice every single time I want to say something? the first time never goes through...
Aaron,
I bet that if that convicted murder had made it public and widely-known that they had "repented" and "asked God for forgiveness," there might be a cuckoo-brain out there who would give up his life to get the murderer off of the hook.
"Scapegoat theology" is immoral, yet highly pervasive and isn't limited to religion, either. I sometimes think it's amazing that that meme is identified as being such, seeing as it has such a powerful hold on the minds it infects.
I mean, having one or a few suffer for the benefit of the whole? What could possibly be better (as long as you aren't the one chosen)? An expansion on the idea seems to be that "we" should all suffer "a little bit" for the "common good."
Makes me want to puke, and I haven't even eaten breakfast yet.
"Let's imagine that you were a judge who was about to sentence a convicted murderer to death. Then lets imagine that I, Aaron Kinney, suddenly burst into your courtroom and in a fit of altruistic benevolence and mercy I asked you, the judge, to sentence me to death in the murderer's stead so that I may pay his penalty of being executed and he may go free. Would you grant me my request?"
This is the crux of the question Aaron, and I think a very well put analogy. What Christian's are never willing to admit is this: whether Jesus willingly went to the cross or not, the fact of the matter is that an innocent life was sacrificed for the non-innocent.
I'd also like to twist it around one more time, to yet another disturbing facet of the crucifixion myth: rather than asking would you save Jesus, I'd ask Christian's would you KILL Jesus?
If Jesus did go willingly to death, in order to save the rest of us sinners, would you be the one to kill him? In modern day terms, would you walk up to the electric chair and pull the lever?
I think that too often, Christian's can get away with "woe is me, woe is me, my poor martyr died for our sins". But you have to ask yourself, would you kill an innocent person at their own request?
Could you murder Jesus if he asked you too?
-olly
To me the bigger point for a Xian would seem to be looking at what Jesus said. Jesus specifically said don't kill people, for example, in Matthew 5. Or, I don't know, maybe the Xian would think about following the 6th commandment? God supposedly said it and Jesus specifically said to follow the commandments. According to Xian doctrine, justice is up to god, is it not? I don't quite understand the theology of taking one life to save another (potential) life, especially when it seems to be directly countermanded by Jesus' words.
And of course there's the interesting biological fact that a good percentage of those women who went in for abortions would have naturally miscarried without the abortion. God: the biggest abortioner. But again, not up to Rev. Spits to determine.
Aaron - Setting aside your point (entirely valid) regarding the utter moral incoherency of substitutionary atonement, I think Wade's distinction is a reasonable one, but also one that I believe can be answered as the question of sacrifice would seem to be irrelevant to the question of whether or not the innocent should be protected from harm.
Consider the case of a potential suicide. Surely the rev's argument would necessitate that he feel obligated to protect the life of such an innocent regardless of his/her choice to end his/her life, and if so it would seem to me that any objection appealing to Jesus' free choice is vitiated.
Wade,
Aaron, you've got quite the quick and analytical mind - I respect that. This *is* a very interesting scenario/thought experiment.
Thank you! I respect you too and enjoy the dialogue :)
In response to your scenario, no, I would not sentence you (the innocent person who burst into my courtroom) in the stead of someone who was sentenced to die. I would consider it noble, but stupid of you. There is no tradeoff - I would be trading one innocent life for one guilty life.
I'd like you to consider two closely related circumstances, though. In the first, the entire human race is essentially doomed. However, one man has the ability to trade his one life for the lives of every other human being in existence. As before, the one giving his life is completely innocent, and the multitudes of people that he could save have all done plenty of things wrong. Does this seem like a bit more of a tradeoff?
I appreciate your honest answer to my scenario. And I would concede to you that trading one innocent life for one guilty life isnt as much of a tradeoff as trading one innocent life to save the entire human race. In Jesus' sacrifice, he was saving everyone, not just one guilty person.
Another situation is even more closely related - I won't even try to disguise it as a hypothetical story, this is the story of Jesus and Barrabbas. Pontius Pilate puts two men side by side: the man that everyone hates, the murderer and notorious criminal; and the man that people say has claimed to be the Son of God, yet the judge cannot find any crimes that the man is guilty of.
Jesus or Barabbas. Teacher or violent insurrectionist. Both were put up for crucifixion, but tradition said the people could choose one to die and one to go free.
I'm sure you know that they chose Jesus to die. It would seem as though for Pilate (the judge), allowing the innocent man to live would be a no brainer. But at the extreme urging of the townspeople, he sentenced the (from his point of view) blameless man. Interesting, no?
Yes, that story is interesting, and I am familiar with the Barabbas/Jesus choice that the Jews made to Pilate.
But couldnt it be agreed by both of us that when the people chose to free Barabbas and condemn Jesus, that they made a BAD choice? Shouldnt they have freed Jesus (the innocent one) and condemned Barabbas (the guilty one) instead?
I sincerely do not believe that sacrificing the innocent in the place of the guilty, under any circumstances, is a way to serve justice. Even if the innocent person sacrifices himself willingly, it does not absolve the guilt of the condemned one(s) in my opinion. That is why the title of this post itself asks whether or not two wrongs make a right.
While it is agreed that the sacrifice of Jesus to save all of humanity was more of a tradeoff than the sacrifice I proposed in my scenario, I believe that the principles involved are the same. And that principle is that the sacrifice of an innocent person is wrong, and it does not absolve the guilty one. It is also wrong to let a guilty person go free. The moral debt owed by a criminal cannot be paid by an innocent person. And it matters not whether the innocent one is trying to pay the debt of one criminal or a billion criminals.
Two wrongs dont make a right.
P.S. sorry about the double post issue. I think its because i turned on comment moderation. Hopefully I will be able to turn it off soon...
I'd also like to twist it around one more time, to yet another disturbing facet of the crucifixion myth: rather than asking would you save Jesus, I'd ask Christian's would you KILL Jesus?
Olly for the win!
Bill Snedden said...
Aaron - Setting aside your point (entirely valid) regarding the utter moral incoherency of substitutionary atonement, I think Wade's distinction is a reasonable one, but also one that I believe can be answered as the question of sacrifice would seem to be irrelevant to the question of whether or not the innocent should be protected from harm.
Agreed. Wade brings up good points to be sure.
Consider the case of a potential suicide. Surely the rev's argument would necessitate that he feel obligated to protect the life of such an innocent regardless of his/her choice to end his/her life, and if so it would seem to me that any objection appealing to Jesus' free choice is vitiated.
LOL you taught me a new word! I had to look up "vitiated" in the dictionary.
Well, I never thought about specifically about the irrelevancy of consent in a sacrifice/suicide scenario, so maybe the "vitiation" charge is valid. But my objection deals more with the moral debt of the guilty, and how it cannot be paid by an innocent person. Sacrificing an innocent person is not a redemptive action, not for the innocent person himself nor for the guilty one who the sacrifice was performed for.
But seriously, a few hours of torture/pain, then eternity in heaven. How much of a "sacrifice" is that. . . really.
Aaron, I'm going to have to set a personal posting limit or other obligations will start to slide :-) Brevity is an art I'm still learning. BTW, I'm into my 2nd or 3rd hour re-writing this post as I research the relevant background to the subjects. I'll be up front and admit I haven't studied this deeply enough yet. It touches on too many topics: self-defense, civil disobedience, revolution, vigilantism, pacifism and that's probably just for starters.
Here is what I'm sure of so far.
Judgement and punishment of murderers is the domain of God and His established earthly authorities as per Romans 13:1-6. Clinic bombers are clearly not acting within the structure of God's established system of authority.
BTW, some discussion of this topic can be found at leaderu at leaderu
A worthwhile read re self-defense is at tektonics.org
Warning: While the site author, JPH, is not the highest standard of Christian politeness (he's downright rude), I find he is usually right in what he says.
I'll be sure to visit this topic in the future. Disclaimer: if this post is a little disjointed or off topic, it is b/c it is 12am and I have to be up in 6 hours.
ecualegacy,
Aaron, I'm going to have to set a personal posting limit or other obligations will start to slide :-)
I know what you mean! I...must...finsh...work,...must...resist...temptation...to...talk...to...ecualegacy!
Anyway, just a quick question, but I cant respond to deeply; I gotta keep this quick:
Judgement and punishment of murderers is the domain of God and His established earthly authorities as per Romans 13:1-6. Clinic bombers are clearly not acting within the structure of God's established system of authority.
But where does God get the authority from in order to judge everything. The obvious answer is that God gets his authority from the fact that He is the creator of everything. But its more problematic than that. Allow me to ask you this question:
Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?
Thank goodness! A question that I can give a quick answer to!
Regarding Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?
The answer to your question is (drum role)
yes.
(dead, confused silence)
I can hear you shouting, "What the heck does that mean!?"
Here is how it works. What God commands is moral because it is moral. Also, what God commands is moral because God only commands what is moral.
I see you are still scratching your head (or else laughing like a hyeigna)
We're limited by human language here. But you can think of it this way. God is self-referent in the moral department, otherwise he wouldn't be the ultimate moral standard. Goodness is bound up in his nature.
How do I come to this admittedly unobvious conclusion? POE (process of elimination). If God isn't the end point, where do you go for coherence in morality? If there isn't, by definition, anything greater than God, then the standard of morality must rest in Him. Otherwise, he would just be another tyrant.
Speaking to tyrants, do we consider Truth tyrannical just because it is always right, by definition?
Um, how do I make links in my posts? My last attempt didn't work so well.
Just a thought. This is all fun and games until someone gets shot (don't say "then it's hillarious" any of you sick twisted nihilists lurking out there).
Speaking of nihilists, I was noticing the headline of the blog:
"Belief in an afterlife devalues the one life that actually exists: this one."
Actually, thermodynamics does that just fine. Even if we escape the death of earth, the universe churns to a thermodynamic death. There is no logical point or purpose if there is no external viewer / judge to humanity. It's just motes of matter blowing around in the stellar winds. Value only exists in terms of Something valuing Something else. Sure humans can value themselves, but when we die out, what is left to value us if there is no God? Nothing. Everything we will have done had no meaning, reason, or purpose, because there would be nothing to view it, remember it, judge it, or value it.
So long as atheists can conceed that I can respect their world view, otherwise its usually delusions of reality/morality just as deep (and often Dogmatic/Religious) as the delusions they ascribe to Christians.
Anonymous,
Speaking of nihilists, I was noticing the headline of the blog:
"Belief in an afterlife devalues the one life that actually exists: this one."
Yup, thats my blog premise :)
Actually, thermodynamics does that just fine. Even if we escape the death of earth, the universe churns to a thermodynamic death.
Actually, that is only one theory regarding the end of the universe as we know it. There are other theories, equally supported, that describe a universe which recycles itself anew.
There is no logical point or purpose if there is no external viewer / judge to humanity.
One's life and/or self-awareness does not need a conscious external judge in order to have a purpose.
It's just motes of matter blowing around in the stellar winds.
Which is far more meaningful than mere constructs of some conscious entitie's mind.
Value only exists in terms of Something valuing Something else.
So God is worthless then?
Sure humans can value themselves, but when we die out, what is left to value us if there is no God? Nothing. Everything we will have done had no meaning, reason, or purpose, because there would be nothing to view it, remember it, judge it, or value it.
Of what worth is a thing when it is not at risk of being lost? How precious is something when you are sure to possess it eternally forever? I imagine that it would be taken for granted rather than cherished.
So long as atheists can conceed that I can respect their world view...
I dont think anything you wrote so far is indicative of having respect for the atheistic worldview. Although you are writing to me respectully on this blog, and I appreciate that.
I respect many Christians; they are humans first and foremost, just like me. But I dont respect any faith-based theistic worldview itself.
By the way, if you want to invoke thermodynamics, I can point out to you that the first and second laws of thermodynamics pretty much disprove the possibility of a creator-god. And while I dont agree that atheism necessitates a meanginglessness to life, I can point out that even IF we assume for the sake of argument that you are right about thermodynamics making life meaningless, the acceptance of your argument would invalidate a creator god just the same.
Annoymous made some good points.
BTW, Ekpyrosis is the latest cosmic recycling theory I read about a few years back. Very interesting, but like much in cosmology, essentially unprovable (and all but irrelevant to humanity).
Anonymous - Value only exists in terms of Something valuing Something else.
Aaron - So God is worthless then?
Actually, the Trinity makes Aaron's objection moot: Father, Son, & Holy Spirit are eternally loving each other. It also makes a great question to ask Muslims, "If God is love, who was God loving before he created the world?" Answer: The Trinity.
But, I think that what Anonymous was getting at is that the ability to value vanishes if/when every intelligent being passes into oblivion. Yes, you can value yourself, but oblivion makes it as if it never happened (assuming that is our destiny). God, of course, will never have this problem.
AaronI dont think anything you wrote so far is indicative of having respect for the atheistic worldview. Although you are writing to me respectully on this blog, and I appreciate that.
A fair judgement. I personally make no pretenses of respecting Atheism: as a world-view I think it is patently worthless and literally pointless. Atheists generally think the same of Christianity, so at least fair is fair, eh? But I still have empathy for those who believe in Atheism and hope that they can find their way to Christ and something I firmly believe to be much better. At the same time, I appreciate that most Atheists want essentially "the best" for me. We just happen to disagree on what "the best" is.
BTW Aaron, please let me know if you ever feel I am in any way being disprespectful to you or anyone else in your blog.
Thermodynamics as proof of God's non-existence. That's a new wrinkle. I don't see why that would be an issue.
Actually, the Trinity makes Aaron's objection moot: Father, Son, & Holy Spirit are eternally loving each other. It also makes a great question to ask Muslims, "If God is love, who was God loving before he created the world?" Answer: The Trinity.
LOL its circular value. Either that or if you could say that God just values himself, which would only logically support the "self worth" argument that I propose.
But, I think that what Anonymous was getting at is that the ability to value vanishes if/when every intelligent being passes into oblivion. Yes, you can value yourself, but oblivion makes it as if it never happened (assuming that is our destiny). God, of course, will never have this problem.
Youre begging the question: What does it matter whether God values us eternally or not?
A fair judgement. I personally make no pretenses of respecting Atheism: as a world-view I think it is patently worthless and literally pointless.
I respect your honesty :)
Atheists generally think the same of Christianity, so at least fair is fair, eh?
Most definitely. But, I do respect you :)
But I still have empathy for those who believe in Atheism and hope that they can find their way to Christ and something I firmly believe to be much better. At the same time, I appreciate that most Atheists want essentially "the best" for me. We just happen to disagree on what "the best" is.
Agreed on all counts. Im glad when both sides can agree that they both want the best for each-other, even if they disagree on such fundamental issues. It reduces ad hominem and reactive defensiveness and helps move the discussion along. Plus, of course, it makes for more friendly and enjoyable interaction.
I'm not offering an argument that is any different from what the Atheist does re: self-value. The difference b/w God's self-value and Man's is that God's, by virtue of his immortality, won't become vain by the oblivion of atheist world-view death (I'm really not very coherent at 2330 at night!).
Youre begging the question: What does it matter whether God values us eternally or not?
That's like asking an adopted orphan if it mattered that his parents valued him or not.
Agreed on all counts. Im glad when both sides can agree that they both want the best for each-other, even if they disagree on such fundamental issues. It reduces ad hominem and reactive defensiveness and helps move the discussion along. Plus, of course, it makes for more friendly and enjoyable interaction.
The world would be a much nicer place if everyone could understand and apply that. Then I wouldn't have to worry about friends overseas right now.
I think that he was trying to make about the difference in the motives was that the unborn children had not made any decision in their deaths, like abortions are.
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