Can you elaborate on this? I am thinking Christianity, the herd morality, is what is abolishing it. We don't have the stomach to kill people anymore.

...retribution is required for justice... — Bob Ross

I don't agree. as this is somewhat a side issue, I'll refer you to the SEP article, which might give you som idea of the problems thereof. it's conclusion begins:

Retributive justice has a deep grip on the punitive intuitions of most people. Nevertheless, it has been subject to wide-ranging criticism. Arguably the most worrisome criticism is that theoretical accounts of why wrongdoers positively deserve hard treatment are inadequate. — SEP

Retribution is more a caricature of justice than an implementation.

One consequence of this is that a retributive god appears to be morally questionable.

...my belief in based solely on natural theology — Bob Ross

My understanding of "Natural Theology" is that it does not rely on scripture, revelation or mystery. Your post relies on god's having a son, and an ontology that includes sin and the dignity of god and damnation and so on. These are from scripture and revelation. So the arguments there are not examples of natural theology.

Further, they take these revealed notions as givens, and present arguments for them, rather than subjecting them to analysis. Now an ad hoc assumption is one that is adopted specifically to maintain a given position n the face of an objection. In that regard, the post is ad hoc. That's about the logical structure of the argument. If you choose to see it as belittling and dismissive, that's down to you.

We don’t have to start with the question of whether God exists to decipher God exists.… — Bob Ross

That's not the issue. I'm saying that theology takes revelation as given and seeks to show how it can be made consistent. It doesn't just assume that god exists, but attempts to make coherent the whole revealed shemozzle. It is not a branch of philosophy, although it has links with philosophy. Philosophy isn't only defined by content but also by method. Theology lacks the neutrality of philosophy.

Thomism may appeal to you because it helps justify some of your beliefs - I don't know. But Thomism is one small, somewhat anachronistic approach, with considerable problems of it's own making. So using it to frame natural theology is itself presumptuous.

Not much. The list of Western Nations that maintain capital punishment has one member. What is it about that nation that makes this so? Is it, at least in part, adherence to a retributive notion of justice? I think this might be an interesting topic for a sociologist to follow up on.

A quick google search will provide plenty of articles justifying capital punishment, from Christians.

A quick google search will provide plenty of articles justifying capital punishment, from Christians. — Banno

Yes, often the same ones who consider abortion to be anathema.

:grin:

Presumably there is a theology that explains all this...

Presumably there is a theology that explains all this... — Banno

Theology can explain anything...

If Catholicism is right, then if Catholicism does indeed demand "controlling populations", then controlling populations would thereby be right.

I'm not seeing much here apart from the tautology that if some doctrine is right, then it is right.

Then you would be right, bingo!

Presumably there is a theology that explains[EXCUSES] all this...
— Banno

Theology can explain[EXCUSE] anything... — Tom Storm

Theology is not philosophy.

Theology starts with a conclusion, and seeks to explain how it fits in with how things are. It seeks to make a given doctrine consistent.

Philosophy starts with how things are and looks for a consistent explanation.

Theology can't say "That's inconsistent", and so eventually has to rely instead on mystery. — Banno

Each biblical reference here supports the methodological point that theology presupposes its conclusion. — Banno

:100:

... the idea of God's sacrifice. — Bob Ross

This "idea" is just a myth ... since, after all, it doesn't make any sense to say an 'Absolute, Eternal Creator' can "sacrifice" (i.e. suffer a permanent loss of) anything.

[W]hat is at stake is not rational.

It's why the replies from believers consist mostly of repeating doctrine rather than responding to the inconsistency. [ ... ] When face[d] with the profound, inexpressible, existential mystery, the rational response is I don't know.

But silence is difficult. — Banno

:up: :up:

The Catholic Church [Christian myth à la St. Paul, St. Augustine] teaches that God Almighty came down from heaven to save us... from His own wrath... by allowing Himself to be tortured to death. And apparently this strategy worked in spite of the fact that he didn't actually die (people saw him walking around three days later), and most people didn't get saved. — frank

:pray: :smirk: Amen – sixteen centuries of canonical nonsense.

I was talking about legitimate debt. Are you suggesting that the idea of sin is illegitimate? — Bob Ross

Imagine that you knew someone [mortals] was in debt to you [God] so much money that they [mortals] never could pay it back. — Bob Ross

It's a "debt" so great that God could not forgive it without "human sacrifice"? :roll:

According to Christianity, when you sin you offend God and you cannot repay that sin; so God, out of love, offered Himself to repay that debt so that you can repent.

A "God" whose "love" is so shallow that it's easily "offended" and requires mortals to "repent" ... Mortals are set up only to "Fall", we're "created" sick and yet "commanded" to be well (C. Hitchens); IMHO, this "divine" extortion-"Plan" is not all-benevolent and therefore not worthy of worship (re: faith).

↪Bob Ross
The act of torturing yourself or others is evil[or stupid]. — MoK

:up:

:fire:

Consider how influential it is in our concept of 'heroism', i.e. self-sacrifice to save others and Christianity says that God incarnate did that. — boundless

Not quite. A soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his comrades is heroic. A soldier with a ring of immortality jumping on grenades and in front of enemy bullets isn't doing anything heroic.

Not quite. A soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his comrades is heroic. A soldier with a ring of immortality jumping on grenades and in front of enemy bullets isn't doing anything heroic. — RogueAI

Yes - what was Jesus' sacrifice exactly - a weekend ruined, perhaps? Then back to the all-powerful, omniscient, immortal ruler of all things.

Yes - what was Jesus' sacrifice exactly - a weekend ruined, perhaps? Then back to the all-powerful, omniscient, immortal ruler of all things. — Tom Storm

:100:

Being scourged and crucified isn't fun, but maybe it's like the movie Palm Springs. If you know you can't die, maybe painful "deaths" are tolerable.

Not quite. A soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save his comrades is heroic. A soldier with a ring of immortality jumping on grenades and in front of enemy bullets isn't doing anything heroic. — RogueAI

Well, one can point out that Jesus felt the experience of abandonment ( "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", Mk 15:34) at the cross and at he experienced agony at the Getshemani as also the Catechism says:

612 The cup of the New Covenant, which Jesus anticipated when he offered himself at the Last Supper, is afterwards accepted by him from his Father's hands in his agony in the garden at Gethsemani,434 making himself "obedient unto death". Jesus prays: "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. . ."435 Thus he expresses the horror that death represented for his human nature. Like ours, his human nature is destined for eternal life; but unlike ours, it is perfectly exempt from sin, the cause of death.436 Above all, his human nature has been assumed by the divine person of the "Author of life", the "Living One".437 By accepting in his human will that the Father's will be done, he accepts his death as redemptive, for "he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree."438

I believe that you are approaching the issue in a somewhat rigid manner.

'Retributive' punishment when "one gets the deserved punishment" and/or a 'punishment' that consists of "experiencing the natural consequences of one's choices" aren't mutually exclusive with the possibility that said punishment can also have other functions. In fact, sometimes it is the experience of experiencing the 'bad consequences' of one's actions that can be an occasion for 'repentance', education, positive transformation etc. Also note that the 'retributive' punishment and the 'punishment as a natural consequence of one's attitude' in some cases can be the same thing. For instance, if a man steals from another an amount of money, we might say that the thief deserves, as a punishment, to give back to the first man what he has stolen. Of course, for the thief it is not a 'pleasant experience' and, in fact, it is obvious to me that it is the natural consequence of his action. A loving parent, if some other attemps have failed, can let his child to experience bad consequences of his or her choice. Now, if these 'bad consequences' are 'natural', one might say it they are 'deserved'. And, again, such experiences can be educative.

Of course, in the case of hell, most Christians believe that that the state of damnation is irreversible and entails a punishment (of some kind) that is without end. IIRC, there are different explanations for such a state that, also, do not involve hatred, revenge etc on God's part. For instance, some say that humans can commit sins of infinite magnitude that deserve an infinite punishment because no finite punishment is adequate for intinitely grave sins. Others say that the problem is that the problem is that the damned are incorregible: their state of damnation is not irreversible becuase God doesn't want them to escape but because they reached the point that it is simply impossible for them to convert*. The second one seems consistent with what the Catechism teaches about hell and, in fact, I believe that it is also consistent with what Pope Benedict said in his book 'Eschatology' (see the section about hell here). As I said before, one can even reconcile the two views: by committing sins one damages oneself and, perhaps, it is possible that infinitely grave sins might damage oneself in an irreversible way, at least if one dies without repenting from them (see the section of the Cathechism on venial and mortal sin).
*One might ask why 'repentance' is necessary if God loves us. But IMO this can be understood even in human terms. A true communion of love between two persons has to be bidirectional. For instance, if a husband ceases to love his wife but the bond of love between them is broken even if the wife never ceased to love him. The bond can be restored if the husband sincerely repents and begins to love again his wife. In a similar way, if the damned can't repent, they can't be in a communion of love with God.

Personally, however, I don't find the argument that damnation must be irreversible compelling. But I do find that some truths.

Well, one can point out that Jesus felt the experience of abandonment at the cross. — boundless

Or he acted like he did. Or it never happened at all and the gospel writers wrote it like it did. But let's say it's true that for a day or two he felt abandoned. That's still not much of a sacrifice, is it? I've felt abandoned many times in my life.

I slighty edited my comment. Anyway, one might say that he experienced the suffering of sacrifice as a human can. Did Jesus have certainty that he was to be raised from the dead? Honestly, I don't know.

In any case, Jesus died and then resurrected. This would probably mean that he fully experienced death as humans do. Also, perhaps when he experienced abandonment he didn't have the expecation that such a state would end someday. Does this change anything for you?

In any case, I would like to hear what Christians have to say on this.

To answer that, we would have to pin down exactly what kind of being Jesus is. Is he God? Part of some trinity? The son of God? The son of man? What, exactly, is he?

↪boundless To answer that, we would have to pin down exactly what kind of being Jesus is. Is he God? Part of some trinity? The son of God? The son of mad? What, exactly, is he? — RogueAI

Yes, right, perhaps in order to answer that one might have an understanding of what a given model of the incarnation entails. I prefer that Christians give their responses to your question here. I am not, in fact, sure that my previous post was an adequate response.

Note that historically there have been controversies about how to understand the incarnation among Christians. And, honestly, I have not study that controversies in the same way I studied about other matters. So, I prefer that someone else answers to your question - hopefully some that does have a sufficient konwledge of these matters.

Fair enough.

If you know you can't die, maybe painful "deaths" are tolerable.

Have you ever stood on a nail?

God creating universes might be like breathing, in and out. Or it might be for lesser beings, heavenly hosts to do it. We just don’t know.

I don't understand how this response could be a proper answer to my question.

I was suggesting some ways in which God can be the creator of universes, or worlds while not being fully aware (ignorant) of what he was doing.

Yes, and they were wrong. We don’t need to reject God’s existence to accept that that was wrong. We don’t even need to reject Jesus to accept that.

The catholic church has done a lot of immoral things: that’s true. — Bob Ross

I wasn't using it as an argument for the non-existence of God. I was saying please, please, please, don't use a dignity-scale as a justification for killing. It's ok to kill rabbits and eat them because you're an omnivore. Your brain is a obligate glucose consumer (which means there's no way to turn off its demand for glucose). You're evolved to eat meat because your survival could depend on it. And plants don't have less dignity either. They're living things like everything else. We eat them because that's who we are: plant eaters.

:smile:

I was suggesting some ways in which God can be the creator of universes, or worlds while not being fully aware (ignorant) of what he was doing. — Punshhh

Wasn't the creation medium necessary? How could an ignorant God create the medium first if He didn't know that the medium was necessary for the creation of the rest?

A quick google search also shows a lot of arguments against capital punishment by Christians.

Retribution is more a caricature of justice than an implementation.

One consequence of this is that a retributive god appears to be morally questionable.

Is your critique of retribution that it is too harsh? In an ideal world, would you say the justice system would never punish people for retribution? Would they just punish people for rehabiliation or future prevention?

My understanding of "Natural Theology" is that it does not rely on scripture, revelation or mystery. Your post relies on god's having a son, and an ontology that includes sin and the dignity of god and damnation and so on. These are from scripture and revelation. So the arguments there are not examples of natural theology.

My arguments didn’t rely on scripture. I keep telling you this, to no avail.

 Now an ad hoc assumption is one that is adopted specifically to maintain a given position n the face of an objection

Yeah, so I think this would be a valid criticism of Aquinas; but I am not a Christian and even if I ever were to be I wouldn’t begin with Christianity and come up with ways to justify it through natural theology.

 In that regard, the post is ad hoc. 

Sure, insofar as I was offering a solution that a Christian might take that assumes a starting point of the Bible (and that's assuming it is an attempted patch-work); but, again, someone could be a Christian and it not be ad hoc: they may have come to believe various aspects of Christian theology through means that are not merely the Bible.

Whether it is ad hoc depends on whether the person starts with a position they are trying to rationalize or if they come to rationalize their way into the position.

I would suggest you read my explanation of the requirement for sacrifice I gave to @frank: you are also misunderstanding the point. It's about synthesizing justice and mercy. You can't pardon the person that victimized you and be just: that would be mercy at the expense of justice.

I was saying please, please, please, don't use a dignity-scale as a justification for killing

Dignity is relative to the nature of a thing; and I would argue you are implicitly using it to determine how wrong an act is (and the justice system does too).

 It's ok to kill rabbits and eat them because you're an omnivore.

That’s horrible. You are saying that if you naturally need to do something then it is automatically permissible to do. If there were a species that needed to eat people to survive, would that be permissible to you? What if there was an alien species that needed to torture people from other animals or else they would necessarily fall into deep, deep depression to the point where they necessarily would kill themselves?

The reason we can eat rabbits is because it is not immoral to eat a thing which is not a person if one needs to. That is different than saying that we can eat a rabbit because we need to. It is possible for the dignity of a being to include innate rights.

The dignity of a rabbit does not include innate rights; but we do have to respect its dignity (such as by not torturing it).

You can't pardon the person that victimized you and be just: that would be mercy at the expense of justice. — Bob Ross

Suppose someone mugged me and stole $20 bucks and then a day later ran into me again, broke down crying, apologized and gave me the $20 back. Should I call the police on them? What would be the point of punishing them? I would forgive them and move on. What's wrong with that?

That’s horrible. You are saying that if you naturally need to do something then it is automatically permissible to do. If there were a species that needed to eat people to survive, would that be permissible to you? What if there was an alien species that needed to torture people from other animals or else they would necessarily fall into deep, deep depression to the point where they necessarily would kill themselves? — Bob Ross

If you have to do it to survive, it's amoral. It's neither good nor bad.

Why create a natural world at all? Why not create a paradise without suffering or scarcity?

Firstly, that would be a world. Secondly, what do you mean by paradise? That just begs the question: you’re appealing to a vague “Utopia”.

Suppose someone mugged me and stole $20 bucks and then a day later ran into me again, broke down crying, apologized and gave me the $20 back. Should I call the police on them? What would be the point of punishing them? I would forgive them and move on. What's wrong with that?

There’s nothing wrong with that: in fact, you should do that. Why? Because the retribution was paid and they have rehabilitated themselves: they gave you the $20 back and are sincerely sorry. Now, if they hadn’t paid the $20 back but you knew they stole it, then just forgiving them would be mercy at the expense of justice; and if they pay you the $20 back but aren’t sorry about it then they need rehabilitation which would normally be in the form of a punishment for something like that.

Ok, so you accept the principle that "if one must do something to survive, then it is amoral". So if I need to rape a woman to survive, it is neither good or bad for me to do it; if I need to murder 1,000 people to survive, then it is neither good nor bad; if I need to commit mass genocide to survive (or the nation needs to do it to survive) then it is neither good nor bad; etc.

Not only is the idea of amorality false; but your principle is atrociously immoral.

You're free to sacrifice your life at anytime. There's nothing moral about that.

Firstly, that would be a world. Secondly, what do you mean by paradise? That just begs the question: you’re appealing to a vague “Utopia”. — Bob Ross

A vague utopia? If you were god, THIS would be the world you come up with? How about a world where we don't have to kill other creatures to survive? A world without physical pain? A world without sickness? Etc.

"There’s nothing wrong with that: in fact, you should do that. Why? Because the retribution was paid and they have rehabilitated themselves: they gave you the $20 back and are sincerely sorry."

But they still robbed me and stole from me! Even if they pay the money back, I was violated! Should they not pay for that?

"Now, if they hadn’t paid the $20 back but you knew they stole it, then just forgiving them would be mercy at the expense of justice; and if they pay you the $20 back but aren’t sorry about it then they need rehabilitation which would normally be in the form of a punishment for something like that."

But suppose they were sorry for it and told me they spent the $20 on booze and they can't afford to pay me back because they need to feed their kids. Should they be punished for not paying me back, even if they're sorry? What is twenty bucks to me? I would still forgive them. Is that wrong?