Thou Shalt Not Kill

I was listening to a preacher man on the car radio explain that the commandment is "thou shalt not murder" since God gave Moses so many instances where he expected the Jews to kill offenders, such as when a son strikes a father.  The preacher man went on to say when the state fails to execute a criminal, it is an injustice.  When the state executes a criminal, it is justice in action.  Quite a leap, from the laws of a nation communing directly with God Almighty, the Creator, to a nation run by hacks who know how to throw an election.  The preacher man forgets 1 Samuel 8, when God specifically rejects the state as a form of government, but relents in the face of Jewish obstinacy.

The preacher man noted God commanded the Jews to occupy Canaan and wipe out the Canaanites, along with their fellow travellers, and women and children.  Modern atheists offer this as an example of ethnic cleansing and and a false god.  The preacher man suggested this showed God wanted nations to destroy other nations. A couple of problems with either of these interpretations:

1. The people to be wiped out had been progressively more abominable over a 400 year period.  This suggests a patience mankind cannot match. The Canaanites were heavy into child sacrifice, a particularly wicked practice, in which one is assured a better future by killing a child today.  They had been marked for extinction by the God that created them.  In the eternal conflict between grace and free will, the Canaanites picked evil.  We have yet to attack a country over "child-sacrifice."

2. It was a one time event, ordered by God.  This is different from Obama ordering USA to attack Libya or Bush Ordering USA to attack Iraq, and the USA serial assault on any country with oil and ideas of independence.  Given that USA is the #1 country in the world for child sacrifice, it really is provoking to claim USA needs to attack countries where child sacrifice is outlawed.

3.  Explicit in the order is the rationale if these abominable people are not wiped out, they will reanimate and destroy Israel.  The Jews did a poor job of following God's command.  The bible notes vast swathes of condemned survived.  The subsequent several hundred years' history of Israel is a continuous battle with remnants of these people who escaped destruction.  I experience some extremist Jews and Christians expressing that all Moslems should be wiped out, not doubt a residue from these Bible passages.  A couple of problems here, the Arabs are not Canaanites, and Israel today is a secular socialist modern state, not the nation following God, or even the Kingdom God permitted (let alone the Kingdom Jesus sought to establish.)

Of course, Jesus, as King, proclaimed the law fulfilled in Himself, and affirmed God is Love and demonstrated that shalt not kill.  Jesus used physical force to disrupt evil, as when he drove the money changers out of the temple, but he did not execute these people, nor did he kill those who came to arrest him falsely.

All nations claim to have God, or a god, on their side in war.  Clearly God has not been on anyone's side since he ordered the Jews to wipe out the Canaanites.  Given what a hash the Jews made of that work, do you blame Him?

Whereas God is capable of justice, we are not.  At best we arrive at a truce, until next time.  What we are capable of is mercy, which is a great substitute when justice cannot be achieved.

In practice, of the three great religions, only Islam permits the victim to show the criminal mercy.  Note the Pope could forgive the man who attempted his murder, but the Pope could not get him released from prison.  The lowliest Moslem can forgive his trespasser and have him freed from capital punishment and prison.

We pretend USA legal system reflects our Christian sensibilities, when that is really an absurd notion.  We claim we are safe and have justice because of our system.  We ignore the fact that the bigger the criminal, the more they are backed by the state.  Whitey Bulger was finally arrested, he who owes his career to FBI assistance.

Our system has failed, and it is time to devise a system that works.  A radical idea would be to examine the legal system suggested by God.  It's never been tried before.

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