The Fifth Commandment...a query

[banned]

OK, first of all, I am NOT anti-death penalty; nor am I 'for' it in the sense that I think it's a good idea: it's a bad idea but sometimes the best idea in a particular instance. I don't want to argue about the death penalty OR about Tookie Williams.<br><br>Here's what I want to discuss.<br><br>In the Judeo Christian tradition the Old Testament has G-d giving Moses 10 Commandments which are presumably the most important duties imposed on his believers (forget the Gary Larson cartoon of Moses dropping the third tablet and saying "Durn it!")<br><br>Numero 5 says "Thou Shalt Not Kill."<br><br>Now, I don't see any 200 pages of qualifiers after that. It's pretty clear.<br><br>On the other hand, the Bible is chock full of killin', and much of it done at G-d's behest (including Jesus dying for our sins).<br><br>Now obviously people kill, and many claim the Lord told them to do it (paranoid schizos and our Preznit included.) Notable among the killers who do NOT end up like Tookie tonight choosing what he wants for his last meal are soldiers.<br><br>However, the commandment doesn't say it's OK to kill if your government kills someone, or tells YOU to kill someone else.<br><br>The right wing is fine with killing prisoners and killing in war, in fact they really like guns and killing in general, unless it's a woman terminating a pregnancy or someone ending the life of a brain dead person in which case it's murder.<br><br>I'm missing something.<br><br>Left to myself, without the entire history of Christianity down to our own American Taliban, I would have said that Commandment #5 means exactly what it says. You don't have the right to take another life. Only G-d has that right, since he gave life he can take it away. The rest of us--no. Not under ANY circumstance.<br><br>Oh, we can DO it, but that will buy us a one way ticket to Hellfire.<br><br>We can't say it was self defense, or the government told us Iraqis (or Japs or Mexicans or Indians or Muslims or Visigoths) are bad and it's OK to kill them.<br><br>Even if it means dying ourselves, we dare not raise a hand to end the life of a brother or sister unless we want to burn for all eternity.<br><br>So, call me an absolutist, but that's what it seems to me was on that tablet.<br><br>The idea that a government--selfish, motivated by greed for land, for riches, for silver, gold, oil, whatever governments in a particular era lust after--by putting me into a uniform can erase my deity's unconditional command that I NOT KILL has always seemed to me to be ludicrous. I would expect anyone who claims to follow the Jewish or Christian or Muslim tradition, then, to be a total pacifist.<br><br>Obviously, I'm in a very small minority on that interpretation. <br><br>But I don't know how without being intellectually dishonest and spiritually corrupt you can come to any other conclusion.<br><br>Discuss amongst yourselves <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :b --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/tongue.gif ALT=":b"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <p></p><i></i>

[lilorphant]

Not that I do not understand the attraction of exacting blood for blood, especially if you are a victim, or a family member of a victim. I struggle with the justification, "for this one, but not that one" depending on the circumstances, I certainly have the instinct that perhaps cop killers, or children killers, or special circumstances arise to allow us the justification to kill one of our own.<br><br>However-I feel the death penalty is not justice, it robs us of dignity, it's an easy way out for our society, it robs the victims family of the ability to truly forgive, it robs us of our own humanity, and disallows the chance to personal redemption. Killing the criminals allows us to forget who and what we are to have such people among us. <p></p><i></i>

[banned]

...I do NOT want to argue the death penalty in this thread--if someone wants to start one on that subject, fine.<br><br>What I want to discuss is why when the Fifth Commandment says "DO NOT KILL" Jews, Christians and Muslims kill, not just the occasional "Oops he screwed my wife so I busted a cap in him" but they form governments and support governments that kill as a policy. <p></p><i></i>

[Biggie]

It's always bugged me too. From what I understand the word "kill" in the original Hewbrew could have been translated as "murder". The Catholic Catechism interprets the 5th commandment as "do not slay the innocent and the righteous."<br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Sepka]

I'm told that the original meaning was closer to 'kill unjustly' rather than simply 'kill'. While I speak neither Hebrew nor Greek, that makes a lot of sense when we compare the things that God tells people to do in the rest of the Bible with what's being said in the Commandments.<br><br>If we take the meaning literally as 'kill', then we run into problems not only with executions and war, but also with eating meat or weeding the lawn.<br><br>-Sepka the Space Weasel <p></p><i></i>

[banned]

...of the Bible and the explosion of Biblical scholarship, does anyone know of a translation that phrases the 5th commandment differently?<br><br>Also, even if you change it to "Thou Shalt Not Kill the Innocent" (which I'm sure would please the anti-abortionists) where's your 'out clause' for killing babies and children in war? I'm sure there's NO translation that says "Thou shalt not kill the innocent, unless of course you call it 'collateral damage' in which case knock yourselves out."<br><br>Also, the problem with weasel-words like "innocents" or the argument that it's OK to kill if the killing is 'just' is--who decides who is innocent and what is just? If each person does, or each government/social system, then it's not a Divine Commandment at all, it punts to us lowly humans.<br><br>I'd argue that substituting "murder" for "kill" ends up similarly. What constitutes "murder"? Are those kids we killed a few paragraphs ago as "collateral damage" murder victims? Some say yes, some say no.<br><br>"Thou shalt not kill" is nice and crisp and requires no interpretation. You just don't do it.<br><br>Now, Buddhists don't seem to have any problem with this. Jains take it so far they wear masks to avoid inadvertently swallowing bugs.<br><br>Yet the Jews/Christians/Muslims have cut a swath through history that many call murderous--in fact, each one accuses the others of murder, yet says their own killings are just.<br><br>Let's take a parallel commandment--Thou shalt not steal. Now, it doesn't say "Thou shalt not steal unless it's something really nifty that you want" or "unless it's white collar crime and you do it with a pen instead of coming in the window with a sack." If you took it and it didn't belong to you, you done stole.<br><br>Seems to me G-d isn't big on leaving interpretations to us his creatures. This is recognized when the anti-gay religionists say when G-d said don't lie with men as with women that's by God (sorry about the pun) what he meant.<br><br>My issue is that once you start fiddling with the no-kill rule, suddenly you're boss, not G-d, and that wasn't the idea. (By 'you' I don't just mean individuals, I mean churches' and clergy's official pronouncements as well.)<br><br>"Don't kill anyone unless you can think up a plausible-sounding rationale for doing it and schmooze a bunch of other people into agreeing with you" just does not sound like it came from the same guy who wrote the other nine "thou shalt/shalt not"s. <p></p><i></i>

[Sepka]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Thou shalt not steal<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>"Steal" involves a moral judgement, though, exactly as does "murder". To steal is to take something to which you're not entitled. Taking can be just or unjust, just as killing can.<br><br>-Sepka the Space Weasel <p></p><i></i>

[banned]

...are you a Jesuit? <br><br><!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :rollin --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/roll.gif ALT=":rollin"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br>I catch somebody leaving my house with my teevee, we're not gonna have a chat about the meaning of 'steal' <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START >: --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/mad.gif ALT=">:"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <p></p><i></i>

[jenz]

with a gun to (your) child's head, going to have a chat about justified killing, or take him out? <p></p><i></i>

[sickofit]

i'm curious to know of the hebrew, latin and greek interpertations of theis text. because as it is now in english "thou shall not kill" we are then all going to hell because we have to kill something to eat. <br><br>but then that so called "good book" is so full of twisted violence and jealousy. in fact, is there not a verse in the bible to the effect of "i your g-d am a jealous god" <br><br>why would god be jealous? <p></p><i></i>

[slimmouse]

<br><br> Lets be honest. Heres a guy who's always maintained his innocence of those murders, and who has spent much of his life ever since trying to tell kids not to fall for the divide and rule mechanism of gang culture.<br><br> Not to mention, the Terminator holding sway.<br><br> I mean lets face it. Its not as if Tookie had too much going for him. He was hardly Henry Lucas now, was he ?<br><br> If Tookie was indeed innocent, then did his anything ever better symbolise the vicious arrogance and indifference, or the contempt for the average American citizen ( and of course he WAS an African American ) Shown by the Satanists at the helm ?<br><br> I think its the knowledge that any of us might be next that should spur us all into action. Kinda "Speak now or forever hold your peice". After all, what do we REALLY have to lose ? <p></p><i></i>

[Sepka]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>i'm curious to know of the hebrew, latin and greek interpertations of theis text. because as it is now in english "thou shall not kill" we are then all going to hell because we have to kill something to eat.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Okay... Hebrew is the language of record for the Old Testament, just as Greek is for the New. So in this case the Hebrew version is the original one, and the Latin, Greek and English are just translations. They're useful for learning about the history of religious thought, but don't shed light on the meaning of the original text.<br><br>With that out of the way, the commandment that Banned is referring to is generally numbered the sixth, not the fifth (there are no "official" numbers). The Ten Commandments (the Decalogue) occur at three seperate places in the bible, Exodus 20, Exodus 34, and Deuteronomy 5. Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 form what are usually referred to as the "Ethical Commandments", and are the ones that most people are familar with today. Exodus 34 contains a very different set known as the "Ritual Commandments".<br><br>The Ritual Commandments contain no prohibition against murder (or killing, if you prefer that translation). It's generally held that what are traditionally called the Five Books of Moses were in fact the work of two different authors, with a third one combining and editting them some centuries later. There's reason to believe that the Exodus 34 version (the Ritual Commandments) is the oldest of the three. <br><br>As I said before, I can't read Hebrew, and even if I could, I can't reproduce the characters here anyway. Jewish commentaries invariably render the phrase as "Thou shalt not murder". I'm told that the Hebrew word means 'to kill unjustly' or 'to kill without cause'. It's a word that can cover both murder or manslaughter. However, since manslaughter is an accidental act, the commandment obviously can't be a prohibition against manslaughter, since sin can't be committed absent of intent. The word used has no application at all to warfare or judicial executions. We're thus left with "Thou shalt not murder" as the meaning. If you doubt me on this, any Rabbi will confirm it for you. If you haven't got one handy, there's always <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.askarabbi.com/">www.askarabbi.com/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br>You can see the Hebrew version of Exodus 20 at <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0220.htm">www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0220.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Exodus 34: <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0234.htm">www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0234.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Deuteronomy 5: <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0505.htm">www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0505.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>You'll need to have Hebrew characters supported on your browser to see these pages properly.<br><br>-Sepka the Space Weasel<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[sickofit]

thanks sepka for the info and links <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <p></p><i></i>

[banned]

And slim, what part of....<br><br>THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY<br><br>....did you not understand?<br><br>Jesus Jumping Christ! If you want to talk about it go start a Tookie thread. Unlike ACE, this ain't the place. <p></p><i></i>