I don't understand.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I wanted to put this in GD, but didn’t know whether it was the appropriate place. So, if the moderators want to move it, please do.

Please help me to understand.

I spent the morning watching Iraqi citizens being killed by the ‘shock and awe’ campaign. The military, of course, doesn’t discuss people, just buildings and tries to make it clear that these buildings are ‘government’ and ‘military’. I guess it is possible that all of the buildings were empty, but I somehow doubt it.

I am not well grounded in the Christian religion (although George Bush is supposed to be), but I seem to remember something in the bible that states "Thou shall not kill’ (the 5th commandment, apparently, although another web site lists this as ‘Thou shall not murder’). Apparently there is an escape clause in the bible that I am not aware of. It must be somthing like: ‘unless the people are different from us’.

So, if people are different from us, wear different clothes and worship God in a different way it is apparently alright to kill them. Can someone point out this clause for me?

Thanks,

Bob

2

War is hell.

I don’t particularly agree with this war, but if it is to happen, people will die. It is the nature of war, and it doesn’t really have much to do with religion.

3

The only reason I mentioned it was because GWB is so (apparently) religious. I am just wondering how he, and other Christians, reconcile thier belief in the Bible (and the 10 commandments). Or, if they believe that there is something else in the Bible which allows killing (prossibly) innocent people.

Bob

4

Don’t forget about all the Iraqi citizens Saddam has killed for his fun and games the past few years.

5

Sorry. Should be:
reconcile their belief in the Bible (and the 10 commandments) with the events in Iraq.

Bob

6

Eye for an eye.

Smiting.

All that kind of shit.

7

I am in no way defending Hussien, but you can’t assume that all Iraqi citizens are guilty because they have a shitty leader. I’m sure most of the people in Iraq are very decent people who are in a bad situation. In which case, killing them to punish (kill) three people doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Bob

8

What’s to understand? Why did the Christians kill thousands in the crusades and the Spanish Inquisition? Why do Islamic extreamists violate the the teachings of their own faith by killing innocent people? Because reality often override religeous idealism.

Bush believes that removing Sadaam will make America and the world a safer place. That is debatable. Sadaam is a brutal dictator who is directly responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of his own people. That fact is not in dispute. Removing Sadaam quickly by using thousands of precision munitions on buildings in the middle of the night is preferable to another twenty years of Sadaam brutalizing his own people.

The fact is we are not trying to punish the Iraqi people. We are trying to punish Sadaam and his regime. Whether or not everything works out as planned remains to be seen.

9

The bible says Thou shalt not murder. Take a gander through Leviticus some time and you’ll see all sorts of reasons why killing is justified under judeo-christian tradition.

But Jack is right. Religion really doesn’t have anything to do with this. GWB’s administration believes the greater good will be served by occupying Iraq, and it will cost lives to do so. Only the future will be able to tell if they were correct.

10

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 makes it clear that a disobedient son is to be stoned to death by the elders of the city.

Only a few “Christians” today view this command as a rational and acceptable justification for killing someone. (There are some exceptions–Randall Terry is kind of a hardliner in support of Deuteronomy 21’s strict interpretation.) When it comes to referencing the Old Testament justifications for killing people, the general approach today is to pick and choose–accept the ones you find palatable, but throw out the other ones 'cause Jesus superseded those laws.

There was definitely a lot of smiting and worse going on back in those days–the Canaanites, Amalekites, and Jebusites seemed to catch a lot of the worst of it, though sometimes the Moabites and Ammonites needed to be put in their place too.

Also, if you laugh at a bald guy’s head, that might get you struck dead if the man is a prophet of God…but that would be up to God and not man to take retribution for such an outrageous insult.