Your thoughts on punishment or rehabilitation and whether there are any truly bad people

Faith & Science Conversation
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I had a few thoughts on legal punishment that I was wondering if I could have your guys opinion on. I noticed that in the Bible, Jesus didn’t seem like the kind of guy who wanted people to face a justice system for their sins. I think of when that woman was accused of a crime and Jesus dared the Pharisees to stone her, which they did not. Not to mention that Jesus died in the cross for all of our sins (which isn’t to say that we cannot commit crimes but that we weren’t delivered rightful justice because of his sacrifice). With this thinking, I wonder if we it is really good to have a justice system that prioritizes punishment (I.e. you will be in prison for this amount of years) versus one that prioritizes rehabilitation (more emphasis on programs that take people from their criminal mindsets and prepares them for re-integration with society). However, I then think of circumstances like “so should murderers be given lessened sentences and be treated nice even though they killed people?” My father was a New York State Trooper and remains adamant that some people are just beyond saving. Perhaps I’m too naive or optimistic to realize this, but what are your thoughts.

I also wonder if there are any truly “bad” people. When I mean by bad people, I imagine sort of person like an evil villain of some superhero movie that everyone just agrees is “justified” to face a horrible death in the movie for their crimes. I remember hearing about a school shooting that occurred recently where a few children were hurt but some lone stepped in and killed the gunman before they could do any more harm. When a few of my friends were discussing it, they were cheering and laughing about the gunmans death. However, I couldn’t help but also feel that that shooter was also a human and because of whatever circumstances was lead to do this act of evil. Are there some people that we can just ignore their “human-ness” and celebrate their death, or should we also mourn the dead of those who commit egregious crimes? I often feel there is this great disparity inside me when I weigh these two opposites: feel bad for a criminal or be joyous at the death of another intelligent being?

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There are truly terrible creatures out there (some of these beings don’t deserve being called humans; and I’m pretty sure than even demons are disgusted by them). For example, there was a darkweb site called Hurt2thecore, which was shut down around ten years ago, where some of the most twisted and cruel pedophiles around the world gathered to share stories, videos, and images of themselves abusing, torturing, and sometimes even killing little children and adolescents (Anonymous posted screenshots from that site showing some of those creatures boasting that they had subjected children to such horrific abuse and agony that the children died on their properties).

Screenshots at 2:51, 4:15, 5:20 and 6:45 (no graphic images)

To be honest, if I were not a Christian, I cannot imagine any horror I wouldn’t gladly inflict on creatures like that. And even as a Christian I would kill these creatures without a second thought.

So, to make a long story short: yes, truly evil people do exist, and sometimes they don’t even have the “excuse” (and I put that in quotation marks because many, many victims of abuse still grow up to be decent people, so it’s not an excuse at all) of having been abused themselves.

The actual existence of such creatures is also why I have absolutely no problem with the doctrine of everlasting torment in Hell.

Oh yes, there are.

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Romans 13:4

For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

We personally are to love every person, difficult as that can be. The state is entrusted with the enforcement of justice. One could argue the form and degree that takes, but society is not obliged to let evil run rampant or without consequence.

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Okay. Thank you for the reference!

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I guess what I’m asking is: for a given circumstance (assuming outside the justice system), should we try to administer punishment first or try to bring a change of heart, assuming ideal circumstances and no regulatory action complicates things. Or rather, should we prefer punishment for the crime or should we rather the perpetrator have a change of heart, whatever may inspire that?

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I love that question.

Russell Moore in Christianity Today talks about that attitude with Malcolm Gladwell here.

extension://hdppkjifljbdpckfajcmlblbchhledln/bcr.html?bcr=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3NWFbLdiRk

In “The Chief Mourner of Marne,” Father Brown, GK Chesterton’s fictional priest, explores what it means to look at someone who has done some socially unforgivable things from Jesus’ point of view.

I have no idea how many have grown up; those who abuse, often were abused; or are damaged.

Thanks.

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Often, though, not always, as you yourself wrote. Many people who have been abused don’t become abusers themselves. And many who abuse haven’t been abused.

But there are differences even among abusers. Some of these creatures are not merely “weak people” who are incapable of controlling themselves; some are monsters who delight in the suffering, pain, and anguish of the innocent, like the ones I referred to in the post above (namely the sewer rats from Hurt2thecore). Psychopaths who have no empathy and no regard for anyone else.

Peter Scully is another example (and no, he is not mentally ill: he’s simply a psychopath with absolutely no empathy and no moral compass, Scully actually wasn’t even a proper pedophile to begin with, he did it only for the money as he charged 10.000 dollars for every view of the Daisy’s destruction video)

Granted, from God’s point of view, the only truly unforgivable sin is the sin against the Holy Spirit, since that is the sin that leads to final unrepentance. But do you really think that someone who boasts about the suffering of the children he “ordered”, as though they were objects, someone who called them “mis tres pedazos de carne” (‘my three pieces of meat’) as shown in the screenshots above, and bragged about the fact that they ended up dying because of the abuse, would ever repent?

In any case, that would be a matter between them and God, for I were ever to come across that kind of creature, I would send them to their particular judgment without a second thought (and I would do it quickly only because I’m a Christian, otherwise I would take my sweeeeeeet time doing that, and when I say that I would take my sweet time it’s an understatement, they would absolutely curse the day they were conceived).

God can forgive anything if there is repentance, (but, as I said, I truly don’t believe that creatures as rotten and evil as the ones we are talking about are capable of repentance or even have the desire of it; in some ways, they may be even more depraved than demons); my own capacity for forgiveness, however, is far more limited than His.

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I can’t open the link. Could you spit the URL instead?

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Yes. Punishments for crimes are needed but the primary goal of the punishments should be rehabilitation of the criminal to a law-abiding citizen. That is the philosophy in some countries, for example in Europe. In US and many other countries, revenge and getting rid of the potentially dangerous or harmful persons seem to be the dominant philosophy.

Death penalties for the worst crimes may feel justified and the most simple option but all murderers are not hopeless cases. For example, one fellow was the leader of a criminal organization where all members had murdered at least one person. He became a believer and is now an evangelist and an influential helper of those criminals and ex-criminals that want to leave their criminal life.
Life-time sentence is a better option than death sentence because some of the criminals do turn and they may be given pardon after a sufficiently long sentence while the dangerous ones can be kept in prison until they turn or die. Those who become believers are saved souls that would have been lost if they would have been executed.

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And that despite the names – “penitentiary” and “correctional institution” suggest the point is rehabilitation.

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I’ve long maintained that the only people with the right to impose the death penalty are the intended victim and someone defending that person

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That’s very true. Not all murderers and abusers are hopeless cases. How would you define a being that actively delights in the suffering of the innocent, though? Does a creature like that deserve more “rehabilitation” (assuming that rehabilitation of a thing like that is even possible) or retribution?

I do believe that rehabilitation should be the primary focus in most cases, but I also believe that some crimes deserve very harsh punishment, at the very least life sentence without parole in ABSOLUTE solitary confinement. When I heard that Peter Scully in its cell demands fresh pork, beans and stuff like that and that it even had the nerve of complaining that its cell was too hot, frankly it got my blood boiling.

“Scully is accused of making the films depicting the rape, torture and murder of poor Filipino children he and Margallo allegedly lured with the promise of food or money.And claims have been made that Scully continues to demand “special treatment” in the prison, which is 15km outside the Cagayan de Oro, in the southern Philippines island of Mindanao. Scully’s former lawyer Alejandra Jose Pallugna has revealed Scully’s list of demands in jail which include a mobile phone and fresh beef, pork and chicken.“In a sense, he’s a demanding person,” Pallugna told Cebu Daily News. Jail officials denied the requests, but one of Scully’s family members had allegedly contacted a local ombudsman to complain about his treatment in custody. “Scully appears to be an intelligent man. I could say he was well educated. He speaks and conveys his message very well and talks with sense,” Paullgna said.“He looks normal. It’s hard to believe that he’s a paedophile.”“

Now, let’s remember that this creature has been arrested because it raped tens of children and even filmed itself while doing that, and one of its videos, Daisy’s destruction, was about him filming himself raping and torturing an 18 months old baby.

Do you believe that for this creature

Rehabilitation is even possible? And if it isn’t, what should be done with it?

That’s a genuine question. Because yes, some murderers and abusers can repent, there’s no denying that, but what should be done with things as rotten as this one (or the ones from Hurt2thecore)? I’m referring to them as “things” and I’m using “it” because frankly I have a really hard time seeing them as humans. I know that they still are humans, ontologically, but to be honest I have a really hard time thinking of them as such.

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This is a valid point. There should be greater empathy for the actual victims than for the perpetrators of heinous crimes. I believe there should be a middle ground: assuming that all murderers and abusers deserve the death penalty or are beyond redemption is clearly wrong, but so is denying that some people are genuinely cruel and corrupt, and not because they are mentally ill or were themselves abused, but simply because they take pleasure in the suffering of others (and/or because they view other people as objects to be exploited for monetary gain).

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sorry! I think it’s there now extension://hdppkjifljbdpckfajcmlblbchhledln/bcr.html?bcr=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3NWFbLdiRk

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I’m not sure there can be any such thing as “pure evil” without that being at least just a little bit an oxymoron. I’ll take the word of most of you here (and other friends of mine who’ve claimed similar things) - that there are people out there so evil that it seems impossible that there could be any occasion for grace for them. I don’t have an answer for that other than to suggest this … I don’t think such psychopathic behavior just “comes out of nowhere”. Sure - there may be chemical or physical things going on, but I’d wager that if you trace back through the family history of your run-of-the-mill psychopath, you won’t be finding a normal childhood with loving parents and relatively free of trauma. And even if true, it wouldn’t excuse what they do or the way they are … I’m just postulating that there will probably be some cause that bears out the saying that “hurt (or neglected) people hurt people”.

And while it seems that grace is beyond the pale for some such, that is from our human-bound perspective. Eternity is a long time and suffering can work wonders on a soul even just within a short human life time. I’ve known of a man described as deeply evil in his very essence who was later in life described by the same woman (whose brother he had murdered) as a “very broken” man. Note - I didn’t use the word penitent, as I don’t recall she used that word of him. But as he was dying of cancer in prison, she described him as appearing to be a very broken soul (which was a miracle in itself to hear her perspective of him shift in that way over the years).

I guess I’m just saying that we in our finite human condition are in no place to think we can recognize, much less declare the eternal state of any person. I also agree with you that apart from penitence (and suffering for what they themselves have inflicted on others) - there is no finally effective forgiveness. For one cannot receive forgiveness when they’re still back in the denial that they’ve even done anything wrong.

One last thought on this thread - I’ll bring it up once again as is my perennial habit, George MacDonald’s unspoken sermon “Justice” is worth patiently and slowly wading through. It changed how I view justice and retribution.

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Well, to make an example, this one PressReader.com - Digital Newspaper & Magazine Subscriptions and https://news.sky.com/story/paedophile-geophysicist-matthew-falder-admits-more-than-130-charges-11083802 , was one of the monsters I was talking about and he suffered no abuse in his childhood, actually he had a privileged upbringing. Just to make an example.

Sure I’m not denying that, but murdering a man, while obviously an evil act, is not In the same ballpark as raping and torturing children, delighting in their anguish and suffering. Yes there absolutely are murderers and criminals who totally repent. But there are levels to it, and someone who is willing to hurt and make children suffer like that (for some of these creatures don’t just rape children, which is already the most depraved act, they actively make them suffer as much as they can, to the point of killing them) is hardly someone that can be redeemed. Only God has the final say in it, though.

Of course, that’s up to God.

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I don’t plan on using my mental resources to immerse myself in depravity just for the purposes of this discussion. So, … sorry that I am just taking your word for it. In fact, it is our hyper exposure to such things in our social media and entertainment (not to mention the gaming industry) that can probably contribute much towards these sorts of things these days. Sure - somebody may appear to have had a “privileged” childhood - but that doesn’t mean they and their environmental exposures were always “okay”.

I remember reading somewhere that boot camps were needed in order to train newly enlisted men to get them to a point where they were willing to pull the trigger on somebody. Apparently young men did not naturally just “do such things” at that time. Those days are gone. In our gun culture today, even otherwise “upstanding” citizen civilians have no qualms about ‘pulling the trigger’. Blame it on whatever you will, but whatever the cause, it’s no wonder that psychopaths are being multiplied as we are being mentally conditioned to always feel that we are “at war” at every possible level. Never has a society been so easily conditioned into Satanic thoughts and habits as war-bent societies such as ours today. I should be surprised if we didn’t have more psychopaths per capita here in the U.S. now than any other time in the last few decades.

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I get what you mean, but there are some new evidences that point to psychopaths being born like that, not made https://www.sciencefocus.com/wellbeing/are-psychopaths-born-or-made

Psychopathy is one of the most glaring and practical examples of how damaged human nature is, after the fall.

I served in the Army, and I own guns myself. That said, I am neither violent nor trigger-happy. Still, I do not deny that a strong gun culture can make certain personality types worse.

By the way, the people from Hurt2thecore whom I exposed in my first post on this topic were Mexican. Hurt2thecore attracted pedophiles from all over the world, but Anonymous shared screenshots from a thread about where to find children in Mexico. Peter Scully is Australian, and Matthew Falder is British.

Mexico, Australia, and England are all countries where it is very difficult for law-abiding citizens to own guns. If I remember correctly, Mexico has only one legal gun shop in the entire country (if I remember correctly), while the cartels (especially in border cities) drive around in armored pickups and are armed like Delta Force units. Just saying.

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Yeah - I do have limited exposure internationally speaking. Which is why I keep limiting my remarks to the U.S. We are certainly not the first inventors of violence - nor necessarily the most heinous practitioners of it across international boundaries and across history. All I know is there are some in this country in our recent history attempting to promote more violence as some sort of retributive scheme because we are increasingly pushed towards thinking of it as “the only viable solution” to problems (whether real or fabricated or even just anticipated).

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Yeah I get what you are talking about. But as as whether some people are naturally bad/evil or not in my opinion the evidences about psychopaths and the different structure of their brains is quite telling.