Ray says....
"Chuck, angry police officers showed up with a warrant for your arrest. They have video of you going 80 MPH through an area set aside for a blind children’s convention. There were clear warning signs everywhere saying that 15 MPH was the maximum speed. You are in big trouble. Add to that, the fact that just ten minutes prior to that happening, they stopped you for drunk driving and confiscated your driver’s license. You were in serious trouble with the law. The judge was furious, and handed down a massive fine. He said that if you couldn’t pay it, you were going to be thrown in prison for a very long time. I knew you didn’t have any money, so I sold my house, my car, and I used all my savings to pay that fine. You are free to go."
First off what is a "blind children's convention"? Ray has used this analogy before and maybe I'm just ignorant but to me that just sounds like being blind is an occupation or something. Do such conventions exist? Anyway, more to the point I think this shows a major flaw in the legal system of many countries. Are fines really just? Is the billionaire who has to pay a $200 fine punished just as much as the guy making minimum wage who has to pay a $200 fine for the same crime? Likewise do either of these people learn their lesson if someone else pays their fine?
I want to address another thing Ray said:
"You could try and trivialize your crimes, but before you do, think of this. If I lied to my dog, it wouldn’t be a big deal. If I was caught in a lie to my wife, I may have to spend the night on the couch. If I lied to my boss, I may lose my job. If I lied to a Supreme Court Judge, I will spend a long time in prison. Even though it’s the same crime, the penalty increases according to the importance of the one to whom I am lying."
I don't believe this is a good analogy either. The penalty does not increase according to the importance of the one whom you are lying to but rather the lie itself changes. When I lie to a Supreme Court Judge I'm not going to lie to him/her about whether I took out the trash or not I'm going to tell a lie that could land an innocent person in jail or let a guilty person go free. This makes one lie a more serious crime than another.
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... so, if I lie to the Supreme Court, I can go to prison. You will never see the judge sacrificing his own job or money willingly to set a killer free.
ReplyDeleteGod apparently has to do this. He can choose us to be forgiven instead of killing himself. But he doesn't.
He doesn't because he is apparently BOUND to his moral character. He's eternally tied up with his moral law, except when he goes against it, then he is exempt from his moral law. Which makes perfect sense because God is omnipotent, able to do anything and anything he does it good because that is God's nature and he's incapable of doing anything not good.
Except when he gives the Devil permission to do nasty things, since the Devil is incapable of doing things which truly destroy God's crea...
My head a splode.
By the way, Reynold...
"When he was on the cross he was only dead for three days. He did not spend an eternity in hell like what one of us would."
Thank you. I wrote about this on my blog once (about how a true sacrifice would be God spending eternity in Hell as a man... where he would feel each and every torture himself, truly giving himself over to eternal torment so that we would be saved), and my friend commented with "there is so much wrong with that."
She was viewing it as a narrative. As a narrative, from a human perspective, it's great. From a Biblical, spiritual, religious perspective, it's worthless.
haha fundie logic makes my head hurt too.
ReplyDeleteWas Jesus even dead for three days? friday night to sunday morning hardly qualifies as three days. I'd die for a weekend if that meant I could be god.
Do blind children have conventions? Ray has used this example before, and it makes me think of kids with sunglasses and canes, sitting at a hotel bar in Vegas with a scotch rocks in hand, muttering, "Ah, a week away from the ball and chain...what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, ya know what I mean, Carl? Yuk yuk yuk."
ReplyDelete"You could try and trivialize your crimes, but before you do, think of this. If I lied to my dog, it wouldn’t be a big deal. If I was caught in a lie to my wife, I may have to spend the night on the couch. If I lied to my boss, I may lose my job. If I lied to a Supreme Court Judge, I will spend a long time in prison. Even though it’s the same crime, the penalty increases according to the importance of the one to whom I am lying."
ReplyDeleteHow can you deceive a being that is omniscient?
How can you offend a being that is omnipotent?
How can God create something so offensive He can't bear to be in its presence? What is he Superman and sin is Kryptonite?
And it's not who you lie to, it's what you lie about. If you lie to your wife and say she does not look fat in those pants- not an issue, lie to your boss and tell him you have a headache- not a problem. Lie under oath to the judge that the weight on your drivers license is correct- doubt that is going to be prosecuted as perjury. Any lie is an unforgivable offense against the Almighty.