I think it may be because a large portion of Christians in America are conservatives and conservatives tend to support the army no matter what ( except for getting rid of don’t ask don’t tell ) and the military definitely was recognized for a lot of stuff that broke Geneva Conventions and things that technically were within them, but was obviously not being done in the spirit of them. Like “ monstering up and bathroom breaks “.
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I would say that there is much blindness among the US Christians. The same is probably true in other cultures and countries, although the blind spots may differ. It is easier to note the blind spots when you are watching from outside.
I have nothing against patriotism, it is common in most countries, and I understand the urge to get information that would prevent terrorist attacks in the near future. The attitude that the end justifies the means is not ok. Torture is one of those ‘the end justifies the means’ things.
We sometimes forget that we Christians are primarily citizens of the heavenly kingdom, only secondarily citizens of the country where we were born or live. If there is a conflict of interest between the national culture and the will of our heavenly Father, we should listen what our Father wants and obey Him. The problem is that we are sometimes blind to those conflicting interests, ‘business-as-usual’ tends to turn the monitoring-and-analyzing brains off.
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Much of what I think has already been said, but I think there is a need for examples. Correlation is a necessary but insufficient proof of causation. In other words, you have to have correlation, but by itself it is not enough. All sorts of correlations can be found in the “data” and there may be many reasons why it does not show causation.
Let’s say we go to modern day Israel, the Jewish State. We might find a correlation between serious crime, like murder or rape, and being Jewish. Before anyone accuses me of being antisemitic, there is going to be a correlation between anything, like righteous living, and being Jewish. That is because most people in any sample of anything in Israel are going to be Jewish.
Let’s take another example closer to home. One might assert that there is a correlation between watching pornography and sexual crime. However, most people who watch pornography do not commit sexual crimes.
Negotiating one’s way through the tricky minefield of statistics is difficult, especially for those with no training in statistical analysis. One can even see examples of people cherry-picking results from the data to “prove” the opposite of what the data actually shows … and they get it published in a journal!
Some people are so committed to their theories that they believe their correlations actually prove it. They release it to the common media and we see it announced as fact.
The implications for law and crime can be quite serious. Let us imagine a situation where one person accuses another of sexual assault. The accusation can cover all genders. It appears to be a case of he/she says versus he/she says. Some statistical work might show that, in the majority of cases, where a woman accuses a man of rape, she tells the truth. So, we come to a particular case, and it is a matter of she says … he says. How can the jury decide? Should a statistical summary be used, or should the matter be decided by the merits of this particular case? If one chooses to go with the statistics, the matter is decided on the balance of probabilities. However, this is quite different from “beyond reasonable doubt”. The problem is even more accentuated when the matter is decided by statistical analysis, because if that happens, the case then adds itself to the calculation of statistics. The “balance of probabilities” becomes a self-fulfilling mantra.
Correlation can also be a marker for something else that is the actual cause. Let me say from the start that the following is a hypothetical case. Suppose a correlation is shown between young, single migrant men and sexually transmitted diseases. Which of the aspects of young, single migrant men is the causative factor? Is it their ethnicity, their race, their singleness, their morality or a combination of these factors? You can bet that politicians will exploit the unknown for their own political purposes.
Surveys from other parts of the world begin to suggest that the crucial factors are being young, single and alone, and being a migrant. Is this an indication of their morality? Well, young, single and alone, migrants may well be poor and so can only afford street-level prostitutes with questionable hygiene standards. Whereas young, single and alone, migrant men who are wealthy avail themselves of high-class prostitutes whose hygiene practices are State regulated.
I hope that some of the above illustrates the difficulties in teasing out causation from correlation.
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Clearly we need to torture any pedophiles.
Or anyone else we do not accept? Just for the sake of expressing our emotional dislike?
Is this a primitive reflection of our distant past, or something that exists beneath the polished skin of modern humans?
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Not soo distant. These kinds of punishments were very much in use only in the last century, in fact I believe there are still countries that still use physical punishment, even if semi-officially.
And Bible seems to be giving it a green light. Ok, maybe not torture, but just physical punishment. But then isn’t it the same? So maybe it’s a valid question if there’s correlation between support of this kind of justice and being a Christian.
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There is something that can be said for corporeal punishment though:
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Yes, corporeal punishments have been used in the near past and still are in some countries (sharia law, etc.). At some point, punishments went even to the worse side of the guidelines of very old laws, like that of Hammurabi (lex talionis). Some considered that the punishment should be worse (more suffering) than the original crime. This is not supported even by the OT. It can be argued that NT gives a model of milder punishments.
Things have changed towards more humane punishments. When I was a child, mild physical punishment of children was ok and widely used. Now any kind of physical punishment is forbidden by the national law.
Demand for harder punishment of crimes seem to happen where people feel unsafe. This is perhaps a common exception of the general trend towards more humane punishments.
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What happens when attempts at verbal convincing fail? Do you just let the child run into the street?
You can grab a child that is running towards the street but not punish physically. Even the mildest forms of physical punisment are forbidden. It demands a different attitude and approach from the parents. Some things still remain the same, you can give rewards, threaten, take away privileges like watching programs or using the phone.
When my children were small, they sometimes watched supernanny programs. Once they demanded that we should also have a staircase punishment, similar to what a supernanny used in the program. If you did not obey, you had to go to staircase and sit there without moving some time. The time to sit was calculated from the age, one minute per year.
As long as they felt that the punishment was fair, they were willing to sit their time without trying to run away.
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Parents might restrain the bodies intellectually undeveloped brains, but a good parent’s goal is to train the child so that (s)he grows up to make his own decisions by freewill, and not by force.
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I think that is idealistic and doesn’t recognize the situational aspect of reality and the innumerably many situations. If there are multiple children, let’s say in a refugee scenario or some other emergency situation…
Sure, the goal, but meanwhile… (and some children are more obstinate than others).
The question is, at what point must a parent “let go” of a grown child despite ongoing obstinance? However tragic and sad it is for the parent? E.g., if a grown child addicted to drugs refuses to go for substance abuse treatment, a parent is not allowed to use coercive force to keep him locked at home in the parent’s basement against the person’s will. That is then considered abuse/ kidnapping by the parent.
Yes, we need to distinguish between what age group(s) we are talking about and the degree of loving discipline/coercion appropriate.
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Sure, we can imagine all kinds of situations but physical punishment is seldom enough to help in rapid emergency situations. If kids learn to obey without physical punishment, they may be easier to guide in emergency situations. Army style parenting with physical punishment may also keep children obeying but it is not the only or the best way.
Some children are more obstinate than others but mere physical punishment is not enough to keep such kids in control. Smallest children can be grabbed and hold, with larger children there is a possibility to discuss and educate. That has to be done in advance, in an emergency situation it is too late to start discussions.
Mothers with many children (>10) have told that life with the first ones was more demanding than with the latter ones. The reason is simple: older children must take some responsibility for the younger ones because the parents cannot take care of everyone simultaneously. It is more demanding for the older kids but that’s life in a big family. That is the way how multiple children are grown and seems to work ok.
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My immediate thought was, what happens if that was the reason they were well behaved, and then suddenly they are too big/old for a spanking? Could they go off rails more easily, because why be good anymore? It’s a bit like Christians who only obey commandments because they’re terrified of hell, I think there’s some analogy here.
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Agreed. There are reasons not to use force or violence in training dogs even if that may sometimes constrain some behaviors. You can’t harness its best from a dog that only obeys you out of fear. The cost of certainty is burnt bridges.
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In Philemon, Paul writes that he could have ordered him (Philemon) to do the right thing, but that he instead “didn’t want to do anything without your consent, so that your goodness wouldn’t be by force but by free will.”
In Paul’s eyes it is better to be a brother than a slave.
I just thought that dovetailed nicely with your response, Marta.
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(I don’t think I was advocating that. ; - )
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