| Author | Message | ||
     Reepicheep |
Fair question, but there are some important aspects to the answer. First, the answer needs to be personal, not a matter of law. Remember the separation of church and state, right? You can't force a personal religion moral mandate on to law. So I think your question is valid, but it is a personal choice question, not a matter of law question. As a matter of law, if the individual is performing an illegal act (like attempted assault) and represents a threat to your life you are legally allowed to employ deadly force to protect yourself. End of story. The second important aspect to the question is if you are protecting yourself, or if you are protecting somebody else. Again, under the law in the United States, you may legally employ deadly force to protect another person if that person you are defending could have legally employed deadly force. Harder, as you might not know the whole story and the person you attack may actually have been the victim, but the law is the same. So now that we have agreed its a matter of individual faith and morality, we can explore the question. Personally? It would be very hard to take a human life if I was the only one at risk. Even if someone was directly attacking me. I expect I would hesitate to the degree that I would risk my own well being. I just don't know. But to employ deadly force to protect another innocent person? I would have to be (a) incredibly sure that I understood the situation completely and (b) very confident that there were not reasonable non lethal options to resolve the situation. But I expect I would be MUCH more likely to employ deadly force to stop a rape or a murder of another person than I would to stop an assault on myself. I hope I never have to find out though. Would I ever employ deadly force to protect myself from a potentially lethal attack? Probably. Not with any malice, and I'm sure with great regret afterwards. The criminal attacker forced me to make a choice. It is an unjust tragedy for me to kill them. But from a moral and logical standpoint, allowing a criminal and criminal act to kill and innocent person is an even greater tragedy and injustice. So if I'm put in a position where I am innocent and have to kill a criminal to protect myself, I think it would be a moral (and logical) choice to do so. From a biblical standpoint, I am called to love my enemies and turn the other cheek. Which I strive to do (not as often as I could or should, but I do it more often than I want too  ). I actually have no problem loving them, I just sometimes struggle to turn the other cheek. Biblically though, I think that mandate is very clear relative to interpersonal relationships and interactions. But there are other perfectly clear biblical calls to justice and defending the innocent (including yourself among innocent). And God is a God of Justice as well as a God of Mercy. Even the Crucifixion, which is core to the Christian belief system, wasn't important because Jesus didn't fight back. It was important because he CHOOSE NOT to fight back. That's the whole point. Morally, and from a physics standpoint, he could have commanded a legion of Angels to crush any who threatened him. It was the fact that he didn't that made his sacrifice so powerful and so important. If he was a thug that wasn't morally allowed to defend himself, which in the situation, would certainly have required deadly force, the Crucifixion means much less. It wasn't a sacrifice, Jesus would simply have been a victim of circumstance. So morally, there are valid questions here we should each weigh and explore with our God. But the simple answer of "Thou shall not kill" is too simple, as once someone is trying to criminally kill you, they have created a situation far outside of God's plan and forced you into it. Seems like a good thing to pray about. Feel free to share here Gaeseti if you have any thoughts on the matter. (Message edited by reepicheep on August 26, 2014) | ||
| Sifo |
Jesus was OK with self defense. Luke 22:36 - Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. The quick take from Barnes' Notes...
For those who want to read more in depth... http://biblehub.com/commentaries/barnes/luke/22.ht m | ||
| Reepicheep |
Jesus was also clearly OK with violence of action to achieve justice (i.e. the money collectors in the temple). | ||
| Daddio |
"But the simple answer of 'Thou shall not kill' is too simple..." Reepi, not starting an argument here, because I agree with you, but 'Thou shall not kill' is itself a simplification of the commandment. It is 'Thou shall not murder.' | ||
| Reepicheep |
Excellent point Daddio, and absolutely on point. Anyone got a grasp of the original language to see if it is as clear (and important) a distinction there as it is in English? | ||
| Britchri10 |
This link gives an interesting explanation of the differences in language and meaning for the sixth commandment. (It's a bit long but pertinent) www.gotquestions.org/you-shall-not-murder.html Chris C | ||
| Sifo |
I just read that the reason they are not arresting any looters in Ferguson is because Eric Holder's justice department has reclassified them. They are not LOOTERS anymore they are UNDOCUMENTED SHOPPERS!  | ||
| Oldog |
I just read that the reason they are not arresting any looters in Ferguson is because Eric Holder's justice department has reclassified them. They are not LOOTERS anymore they are UNDOCUMENTED SHOPPERS! Tom Please share ... } | ||
| Ratbuell |
I believe he's referring to the shift in language from "illegal alien" to "undocumented alien" and/or "undocumented immigrant"... | ||
| Sifo |
JOKE! | ||
| Fb1 |
I believe he's referring to the shift in language from "illegal alien" to "undocumented alien" and/or "undocumented immigrant" to registered Democrat. | ||
| Court |
That's some funny shit . . . . Holder is going to be remembered as the Attorney's General who provided more people with refrigerators and plasma tv's than any AG in history . . . . Ever since he declared panthers with ball bats as "protected free speech" . . . it's been a make-your-own-rules and cover-your-own-ass judicial free for all. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Perfect, thanks Chris, exactly what I was wondering about! | ||
| Oldog |
>> JOKE! << Sorry I guess that I am a little thick. The sad case as I see it is there is enough evidence to clear the officer in Ferguson. The deceased was a thug and would have been arrested for robbery, the "protesters" are also criminals as many as can be identified should be arrested and tried sharpton, jackson, holder et-al are destroying the good work of those who have tried to better race relations, I believe that Dr King would not approve those who are causing trouble fail his content of character test. the black residents of Ferguson will suffer in the long run most likely just my 0.02$ | ||
| Sifo |
Sorry Oldog. I thought that was beyond the believability threshold. It seems that I have to reset that threshold pretty much weekly under this administration. | ||
| Gaesati |
I respect the opinions offered here. After a lot of reflection it appears to me that we live in a very imperfect world. Whilst Christianity presents to us a way that we strive to behave compassionately to others the reality seems that humanity is only a little closer to living as Christians than we were 100s of years ago. | ||
| Pwnzor |
We were doomed until God gave his only son to wash us with his blood. Imperfect, indeed we are. | ||
| Blake |
When it comes to the challenges of life, there truly is nothing new under the sun. All the more reason to "never give up." | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
Very quiet in this topic considering there's evidence come to light and shown by CNN four days ago that this kid was shot in the back whilst running away from the cop, and at sometime before and or whilst being shot he had his arms up. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/11/us/ferguson-mich ael-brown-shooting-witnesses/ Oh dear. This is not looking good. Rocket in England | ||
| Aesquire |
CNN would cheerfully defend the men who burned you alive while screaming "Die Freedom" if it fit their agenda. CNN's agenda is to make money off a crisis. If there isn't one, they will make one. CNN would also accuse you of provoking your own death if it fit their agenda. | ||
| Sifo |
Any witness claiming he was shot in the back is discredited by the physical evidence. Did he put his hands up? Quite possibly. I don't recall if the cop's statement included this or not. According to the cop, he did stop and claim he was giving up, then rushed him. Was this when he had his hands up, right before rushing the cop? Details like how close the body fell to where the cop was shooting from (verified by location of shell casings on the ground) are likely to be very telling. I haven't seen those sorts of details yet. I've seen nothing that discredits the cops story yet, including the physical evidence released to this point. In a trial, reasonable doubt would be on the cops side given what I've seen to date. Granted that there will be piles of evidence provided on both sides that we haven't seen yet. Certainly no smoking gun that it was a bad shooting though. | ||
| Aesquire |
And if it was a bad shooting, the Cop belongs in jail. As determined by actual evidence, not hearsay. Since the "news" people have shown massive bias and been flat wrong multiple times, I's going to wait for LOCAL and State Law enforcement and the Jury system to determine the truth, not the Social Justice system. | ||
| Fb1 |
CTH has done their usual outstanding job trying to put all the pieces together on the shooting. There's plenty of study material here... http://theconservativetreehouse.com/category/mike- brown-shooting/ ...for someone attempting to discover the truth. Trusting CNN as a news source is laughable, at best. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
Trusting any news source is laughable at sometime or another, but not all of the time. Regardless, there are now two witnesses who claim to have seen Brown shot in the back by the officer, no matter the news source. Their account of events also appear to support Brown giving up, as witnessed (or at least told) by others. Hard to say the witness is lying when he says he saw Brown's brains come out. Not the sort of thing a witness makes up me thinks. Maybe CNN paid the witness eh? Hey what do I know, except, for my sins I knew what the response of some here would be. Is this the American way - excuse the (seemingly) good guys until it's impossible to deny the truth. Still deny it when it's shown the good guys appear not to be so good after all. I mean it's not like it's a repetitive pattern of police brutality and American cops playing judge jury and executioner  Noooo, this could not be in the land of the free and the brave. Surely not..... Rocket in England | ||
| Reepicheep |
Did you look at the link Ferris posted above? They do a nice job of showing the positions of the contractors relative to the event. The claims should be investigated. Know that these two didn't have a great view of the situation. I don't know how good a view the guy on audio claiming "he charged the cop" had. I had a *really* good view of the pictures that show the guy assaulting a tiny store clerk about 10 minutes before the shooting. That's the most objective data I have. (Message edited by reepicheep on September 16, 2014) | ||
| D_adams |
Autopsy report shows all entry wounds are in the front. There were NUMEROUS 3 or 4 day later reports of the shooting, not all of them match the facts. You simply cannot be facing away from a shooter (cop or otherwise) and get hit only in the front. It just doesn't happen, unless you were facing forward. I'll just post a link if you want to actually look. This was the original autopsy report, not the 2nd, 3rd or 6th one that the upper echelon decided didn't fit their "facts" as they wanted it to. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-OS3pUcjRCHQ/U_H w15Rh3II/AAAAAAAACs4/5M_3nbDvoJo/w561-h777-no/SUB- JP-BROWN-2-superJumbo.jpg | ||
| Fb1 |
Rocket: Follow the link I posted, if you want; there's much there to study. CNN is not a news outlet; it's a mix of entertainment and Pravda. ...a repetitive pattern of police brutality and American cops playing judge jury and executioner Source, please. Thanks. | ||
| Court |
>>>>...a repetitive pattern of police brutality and American cops playing judge jury and executioner While that makes for fun internet chest pound fodder . . . the facts certainly don't even begin to support that. It's fun to spout on the internet . . . but with 34,500 cops here in NYC . . . and if you look at the number of patrol hours worked, arrests and # of cases of police brutality . . . well, statistically it's far more like that EBR will capture the top 3 podium spots at the next WSBK round. Facts always f88k up our fun here on the inter webs . . . | ||
| Reepicheep |
There was a real and serious problem with a failure to enforce the rule of law and police facilitation of violence on minorities in the United States up through the 1970's, particularly in the south. If they persist today, they would need to be both incredibly isolated and extremely well executed. Rioting over a thug being shot for being a thug undermines the real sacrifices and real injustices that Afro Americans in the United states faced down and bravely overcame. It also undermines resolving the remaining real problems that Blacks face in America today. That is another real tragedy here. | ||
| Blake |
Dean, A number of the shots struck his right arm. At least some of those wounds could have resulted from being shot from behind as his back was turned to the officer with his arms raised, and there is testimony to precisely that scenario. It's not difficult to image the just badly beaten officer losing his composure and shooting a fleeing thug. Is it? We don't know exactly how the tragedy unfolded. |
