Is it Ever Okay to Kill

[ebia]

I'm sure an answer can be had either way, considering scripture relating to Jesus teachings always relate his dialog was in parable form. Subject then to interpretation in all kinds of ways.
Remembering Jesus anger with the money changers in the temple, pacifism isn't a characteristic that comes to mind.

Pacifist does not mean never getting angry.
Pacifist certainly does not mean never taking action.

 

[madaz]

I fear that you take far too much for granted. We only know that carbon dating works on the items we already know the age of. If we do not know the age of the item, we cannot know whether the test is giving us accurate results. You can extrapolate, but you cannot be sure the extrapolation is yielding accurate results. In other words, it is a guess.

You are arguing from ignorance (no offence intended)

If one is ignorant of global positioning technology they would say that one can only guess ones location in the middle of the ocean or desert.

Or, if one is ignorant of lidar technology they would say the police are only guessing the speed of ones vehicle.

Or, If one is ignorant of radar technology they would say that a pilot can only guess the distances of other aircraft or the military just guess that blip is an incoming missile.

Without going on and on I hope this helps you understand that ignorance fails to render the inaccuracy of trusted technology.


Certainty is elusive and does not apply to most things in life, we therefore must work on possibilities instead.

 

[Max S Cherry]

Which is faster? Cops or the assailant that's right in front of you?

I am not sure of your point. Either could be faster in a given situation, and it depends on too many factors to suppose an answer.

If a person is committed to non-violence they should not contribute as a consumer to the violence inflicted on meat animals during the slaughter process. It takes a life. If they're opposed to violence and taking of a life under any circumstances, the qualifier of "life" and "any" implies that should apply universally. Not just to humans who are but one sentient being that feels.

I do not mind the killing of food even if it can feel. I am not opposed to eating, but I am opposed to killing people, for any reason.

Interesting. So, worst case scenario (and God forbid), an armed assailant enters your home with the sole purpose of destroying your peace of mind, taking what you have and then leaving no witnesses. Let's say they're an assailant that has two strikes against them and you happen to live in a State with a three strike law (third strike lands them in prison for life).

You're saying you'd rather die to that assailants hand so you don't have to witness what the rest of your family will endure after, rather than fight to save your family from the assailant?

I am not saying that at all. I would much prefer to fight to save my family and would.

All is as God created it to be. Nothing happens without God's will behind it.

I disagree, at least in part, to your first statement. I believe God created the world to be at peace, but man made a different choice. I believe your second statement is true providing that you mean God wills to allow certain things to happen. Allowing and doing are different things.

And yet a sword is an implement that is best used wielding as a warning one is armed for self defense. And if necessary to kill. A pacifist has no need of a sword, for it is not good for plowing fields.

I do not believe it is ever necessary to kill, and you cannot plow a field with a big ole' bear standing in it. I believe some criminals can be dissuaded from attacking an armed person, and they will move on to the unarmed as they represent an easier target. It is not a guarantee, but it might help.

 

[Max S Cherry]

Sure, in the sense that it's not an exact date but rather a range of dates, but the important thing is this: it CAN give an exact answer to some yes/no questions. For example, "is the Earth older than 1 billion years?"

The exact answer provided by science is yes.

This is not a point that I am willing to argue over, and we can just not agree. I cannot imagine how one could trust that the Earth is older than 1 billion years when there is no possible way to verify it. I am presenting no argument as to the age of the Earth, and it may very well be older than that. I do not see any way to prove it.

 

[Max S Cherry]

Do NOT count on this. Seriously. Law enforcement ceased thinking of this as their role some time ago (I forget which specific court case)

No, I would never depend on the cops, but their presence, at least here where I live, still demands a certain level of respect from people.

This is actually very related to our Nation's rising concern over guns, partially manifested by the more than enough threads here to have our own gun sub-forum. Some defending themselves from attack have killed their attacker, and not been prosecuted. Some have saved their attacker's life at great personal risk of injury to themselves, been prosecuted, served much time in prison, and had their lives for the most part ruined. I think our legal system is pretty terrible in this area.

Do not even get me started on our legal system. It is laughable.

 

[madaz]

Nothing happens without God's will behind it.

Therefore god is responsible for all the pain, suffering, murder and destruction?

 

[Max S Cherry]

How do you know that the DNA that is tested hasn't changed? How do you know something weird hasn't happened? Something that expert scientists haven't considered, even though that is what they spend their lives doing? Or something scientists have heard of and say is false.

These are all very good questions, and I believe each of them represents another reason to be skeptical about DNA testing.

How do you know? Are we guessing?

I am currently in a dispute over the meaning of fact and belief, so I do not want to start it up here too. In the absence of proof, I say we can only deal with beliefs, and a belief is a guess.

The carbon dating is the proof. It doesn't change. We know the laws of physics.

I cannot see proof in something that cannot be verified.

I mean no offence by this, I really don't, but if you don't know what radiometric dating is then you probably don't know much about carbon dating. If you have read up on carbon dating you would have some across radiometric dating. The word is important and I've seen it come up alot. I'm saying this to help, not to poo poo your knowledge.

None taken, and you need not worry with poo pooing my knowledge on the topic. The fact is that I know very little about carbon dating. In college, I studied it, but once I realized that it could only be verified on objects that we already knew the age of, my interest disappeared. I am not discounting radiometric dating, because as I said, I do not know what it is. I am only saying that, if it is used to gauge the age of items that are of an unknown age, I cannot see how it is likely to be any more reliable than carbon dating. It seems to me that it must suffer from the same defect.

There is no reason to doubt it is works. The people who say otherwise aren't trustworthy sources.

I am not so fast to label a source as untrustworthy even when they say things I do not like. One of the drawbacks of my position is that I cannot claim to know these things with any more certainty than the next guy. I do not discount the possibility that carbon dating (or any other testing method) is accurate, but I do not subscribe to the notion that it is. I find that it tests something that I see no way to verify.

 

[Max S Cherry]

You are arguing from ignorance (no offence intended)

None taken, and you are correct.

If one is ignorant of global positioning technology they would say that one can only guess ones location in the middle of the ocean or desert.

I do not see this as the same thing. It is easy enough to verify one's position.

Or, if one is ignorant of lidar technology they would say the police are only guessing the speed of ones vehicle.

Or, If one is ignorant of radar technology they would say that a pilot can only guess the distances of other aircraft or the military just guess that blip is an incoming missile.

Each of these can be verified. Their accuracy can be tested.

Without going on and on I hope this helps you understand that ignorance fails to render the inaccuracy of trusted technology.

I do not submit that the technology is inaccurate. All I am suggesting is that, in the absence of verification, their accuracy is not guaranteed.

Certainty is elusive and does not apply to most things in life, we therefore must work on possibilities instead.

I agree completely.

 

[Hawisher]

Therefore god is responsible for all the pain, suffering, murder and destruction?

Only in the sense that by giving birth to a child, you are responsible for what he later does. It may be your will that he lives and makes his own decisions, but that does not mean that it is your will that he make bad decisions.

 

[madaz]

Only in the sense that by giving birth to a child, you are responsible for what he later does. It may be your will that he lives and makes his own decisions, but that does not mean that it is your will that he make bad decisions.

That "sense" is not this "sense" This assertion below is what we are addressing.

Nothing happens without God's will behind it.

 

[madaz]

Only in the sense that by giving birth to a child, you are responsible for what he later does. It may be your will that he lives and makes his own decisions, but that does not mean that it is your will that he make bad decisions.

That "sense" is not this "sense" This below is what we are addressing.

Nothing happens without God's will behind it.

Therefore god is responsible for all the pain, suffering, murder and destruction?

 

[Jonathan95]

No, it goes agains the bible, and the law of love. NT promotes pacifism.


Justin Martyr wrote in 160 AD:
“We ourselves were well conversant with war, murder, and everything evil, but all of us throughout the whole wide earth have traded in our weapons of war. We have exchanged our swords for ploughshares, our spears for farm tools. Now we cultivate the fear of God, justice, kindness to men, faith, and the expectation of the future given to us by the Father himself through the Crucified One.” (Dialogue with Trypho 110.3.4)

Tatian, (dead c. 185), Justin’s disciple, wrote:
“I do not wish to be king, I don’t want to be rich, I reject military service. I hate adultery”(The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Vol. II, reprint 1979, p. 69)

 

[madaz]

Only in the sense that by giving birth to a child, you are responsible for what he later does.

What do you mean by later?

I am not responsible for what my child does when he leaves home to live his own life.

 

[madaz]

No, it goes agains the bible, and the law of love. NT promotes pacifism.

So is Lilly owl mistaken?

 

[Hawisher]

What do you mean by later?

I am not responsible for what my child does when he leaves home to live his own life.

That's not strictly true. You do not share the blame for what he later does in any way (unless you raised him to be a monster), but you are responsible for what he does in the sense that unless you had acted the way you did, he would not have been able to act in the way he did.

That "sense" is not this "sense" This below is what we are addressing.
Therefore god is responsible for all the pain, suffering, murder and destruction?

In one sense, yes. Had He not created us and given us free will, we would not be free to commit atrocities. However, responsibility is not blame. I would not say He shares the blame for our actions.

 

[Jonathan95]

So is Lilly owl mistaken?

What do you mean?

 

[madaz]

I interpret this

Nothing happens without God's will behind it.

To also logically mean everything happens with gods will behind behind it.

Is my interpretation correct?

 

[Lilly Owl]

Therefore god is responsible for all the pain, suffering, murder and destruction?

Isaiah 45:7

 

[Jonathan95]

I interpret this

To also logically mean everything happens with gods will behind behind it.

Is my interpretation correct?

Do you mean, because we aren't to kill, so neither is God?

Well God is just and holy.

 

[Paradoxum]

These are all very good questions, and I believe each of them represents another reason to be skeptical about DNA testing.

You rejecting anything you don't personally understand seems unsafe. The point of my questions was that they weren't very good questions. You shouldn't be accepting them as good questions without argument from the other side.

I am currently in a dispute over the meaning of fact and belief, so I do not want to start it up here too. In the absence of proof, I say we can only deal with beliefs, and a belief is a guess.

There isn't a clear line. You give a percentage chance of certain things being true or false. So something that isn't proven with 100% certainty (nothing is that certain) isn't just a guess.

I cannot see proof in something that cannot be verified.

What is it you think happens? Carbon dating works on things we know the age of. Why do you think spooky magic happens after that?

Say we are put in a room without a clock. I then start a stopwatch and place it on the table. Then, later on, we are allowed out of the room to see an atomic clock. If we take away the time on the stopwatch from the time on the clock, we can figure out what time we were put in the room.

What do you see wrong with this? (Assuming the clock is correct).

None taken, and you need not worry with poo pooing my knowledge on the topic. The fact is that I know very little about carbon dating. In college, I studied it, but once I realized that it could only be verified on objects that we already knew the age of, my interest disappeared. I am not discounting radiometric dating, because as I said, I do not know what it is. I am only saying that, if it is used to gauge the age of items that are of an unknown age, I cannot see how it is likely to be any more reliable than carbon dating. It seems to me that it must suffer from the same defect.

Ok.

I am not so fast to label a source as untrustworthy even when they say things I do not like. One of the drawbacks of my position is that I cannot claim to know these things with any more certainty than the next guy. I do not discount the possibility that carbon dating (or any other testing method) is accurate, but I do not subscribe to the notion that it is. I find that it tests something that I see no way to verify.

What has it got to do with not liking something. This is a safe scientific way of finding the age of things. What doesn't make sense is you to reject it when you don't understand it, when the people who do understand it accept it.