(no subject)

[chess]

First, a practical thing: does anyone know much about chiropody in Cambridge? I appear to have ingrowing toenails which keep being ingrowing again after I attack them viciously with toenail-cutting implements, and I'd like to find someone competent to work out what's gone wrong, but I don't really know how to go about this without it costing lots of money.

Second, http://www.politicalsurvey2005.com/ is a very good website, and reminds me why I am distinctly puzzled how otherwise perfectly nice people can vote Tory, given their vast preference for the 'hanging/flogging' and 'free market' end of the scale. The free market is not very nice (it promotes inequality which makes people resentful, it means some people starve whilst others live in luxury, it is *not very nice*) and punishing criminals rather than trying to rehabilitate them is also not very nice. I probably have more cogent arguements why each is a bad idea, but fundamentally I object to them because they are Not Very Nice.

Thirdly, it's springtime and sunny, but everything still feels and tastes like dust and ashes to me. I just walked out of church this morning and went home because I felt I was harming the important things that were going on there (lots of prayer for the summer mission and some people going out to do primary healthcare stuff in rural India) just by being there. I'm not really sure what's wrong; I just have that big cloak of cobwebs back.

Comments

Re: The Problem of Pain, C.S.Lewis, Page 75

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

This assumes that society is just. I feel that society is expedient, but not necessarily just. It is certainly expedient to punish criminals, to discourage such behaviour.

By comparison, Jesus urges us (Matthew 5) not to take any revenge on wrong-doers. I, therefore, do not feel that justice need involve retribution.

Re: The Problem of Pain, C.S.Lewis, Page 75

[passage.livejournal.com]

If society had no concerns about justice, only concerns about expediency it would take someone at random, have a press campaign which left everyone convinced that they'd comitted crime X we don't approve of, and they brutually and publically torture them to a long, slow and above all excruciatingly painful death. Whether they were guilty or not is irrelavent, it is relavent only that the generally public believe them to be guilty. Finding an actual guilty person would be more effort, therefore not expedient. The death should be as painful as possible, thereby increasing the deterrent effect.

A shocking idea? You're objecting. You're saying "But that's not ... just". Exactly.

An expedient society is a terrible thing, society at its best is just, the idea comes out a lot in the Torah, I suggest reading Deuteronomy.

On the matter of Matthew 5, the Pharisees had taken to using Old Testament passages which said that a court, on finding someone guilty, must administer a proportional sentence, and having dragged them out of context, claimed they permitted personal revenge. (Notice he uses the formula "You have heard it said" which he reserves for sayings of the time, not "It is written" which is his formula for quoting the Old Testament.)

You've confused "It is not right for me to take revenge" with "it is not right that punishement be administered by due authority", the Bible upholds the first, but starkly contradicts the second. For example Paul in Romans says

"For he [rulers of the state] is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer." - Romans 13:3-4

An a frequent theme in David's story, particularly when Saul is hunting him, (and when Absalom is trying to overthrow him) is the idea that it's not right for David to kill Saul, but it is right that God kill Saul.

Paul expands on the idea rooted in Deuteronomy 'Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," [ Deut. 32:35] says the Lord.' - Romans 12:19