Divine assassination

What would you do if?

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Bugmaster
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Divine assassination

Post #1

Post by Bugmaster »

This is a question for all the theists in the forum, obviously, with a strong emphasis on Christians. I've posted a version of this dillemma on another thead, but I can't find it now...

Anyway, let's say that, one day, you wake up, turn on the news, and hear this news story. A man named John Chalmers, 32 years old, killed a stranger in cold blood at a local Denny's. John Chalmers was a devout Christian all his life; in addition, he donated to charity, volunteered at the local shelter, and generally led a virtuous life. He has no previous criminal history whatsoever. After killing his victim, he knelt down and prayed until the police arrived.

John claims that he heard a "voice" of God -- well, not an actual voice, but the same kind of feeling that he felt when he prayed, and received revelations from the divine. God has appointed him to kill this stranger, as a service to be performed for the Lord. John did not have the slightest doubt that the message came from God; he described his murder as "an act of divine love".

So... Is John a murderer ? Is he a saint ? Is he crazy ? Should Christians punish him, or praise him ? I'm interested to see how the local Christians would answer this question, and I'm especially interested to see their reasons for their answer.

Spoiler warning: yes, yes, this question is a trick.

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Post #21

Post by OnceConvinced »

LightInADarkWorld wrote:As a christian I would definitely not kill someone for god, with certain circumstances. Say, for example, G*d was testing my faith by asking me to kill my first born as he did with Abraham then I would follow the directions of my Lord and have confidence that the He would stop me as he did with Abraham. Now if a voice in my head told me to kill a random person I would immediatley see a psyciatrist.
Even as a Christian I looked at the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his own son with incredulity. In this day and age if God told us to sacrifice our own child, we'd automatically assume it was the devil telling us to do it, not God. This entire story brings up some serious issues.

1) If God is supposedly a loving and merciful God who would never condone human sacrifice in that manner, then how can anyone, including Abraham possibly even consider going along with that? He must surely have known God would not condone such an act. But instead he took the command very seriously. Abraham would have made a great suicide bomber.

2) Perhaps God is not such a nice guy after all and he does condone human sacrifice (after all he was ok with Jesus being sacrificed and the only real reason was so that mankind could avoid his wrath) and people like Abraham accepted and understood that God was that sort of a being.

Society and its morals evolve and will continue to evolve. The bible however remains the same and just requires more and more apologetics and claims of "metaphors" and "symbolism" to justify it.

Prayer is like rubbing an old bottle and hoping that a genie will pop out and grant you three wishes.

There is much about this world that is mind boggling and impressive, but I see no need whatsoever to put it down to magical super powered beings.


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Post #22

Post by McCulloch »

OnceConvinced wrote:
LightInADarkWorld wrote:As a christian I would definitely not kill someone for god, with certain circumstances. Say, for example, G*d was testing my faith by asking me to kill my first born as he did with Abraham then I would follow the directions of my Lord and have confidence that the He would stop me as he did with Abraham. Now if a voice in my head told me to kill a random person I would immediatley see a psyciatrist.
Even as a Christian I looked at the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his own son with incredulity. In this day and age if God told us to sacrifice our own child, we'd automatically assume it was the devil telling us to do it, not God. This entire story brings up some serious issues.

1) If God is supposedly a loving and merciful God who would never condone human sacrifice in that manner, then how can anyone, including Abraham possibly even consider going along with that? He must surely have known God would not condone such an act. But instead he took the command very seriously. Abraham would have made a great suicide bomber.

2) Perhaps God is not such a nice guy after all and he does condone human sacrifice (after all he was ok with Jesus being sacrificed and the only real reason was so that mankind could avoid his wrath) and people like Abraham accepted and understood that God was that sort of a being.
If God said to kill your children, then killing children would be a good thing. If God said don't wear plaid, then plaid would be ethically and morally wrong. See how easy theist ethics are? Euthyphro has solved the dilemma. Just listen to what God says, without questioning and without using your own moral judgment, because yours is corrupt. Trust and obey, for there is no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
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Post #23

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Let's not forget the many other horrors committed in God's name either. There are plenty stories to go around of folks being abused, mistreated, maimed, and any other gross injustice you can think of. Of course many religious folks have this capability to say, "So and so wasn't a true X". All the while refusing to accept that person thought they were. They will argue scripture page A, paragraph B, and disregard scripture A, paragraph C.
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Post #24

Post by Beto »

McCulloch wrote:If God said to kill your children, then killing children would be a good thing.
Not just a "good" thing, but the only thing to do. Assuming Heaven exists, that children are automatically admitted, and that they can "grow" there :confused2:, keeping them alive is a selfish deed. We may be happier with them around, but we're giving them time to learn about and then reject Jesus, condemning them to Hell (whatever that is). For Christians that agree to the premises there's simply no spinning this one around.

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Re: Divine assassination

Post #25

Post by Elias Jezebelsbane »

Bugmaster wrote:This is a question for all the theists in the forum, obviously, with a strong emphasis on Christians. I've posted a version of this dillemma on another thead, but I can't find it now...

Anyway, let's say that, one day, you wake up, turn on the news, and hear this news story. A man named John Chalmers, 32 years old, killed a stranger in cold blood at a local Denny's. John Chalmers was a devout Christian all his life; in addition, he donated to charity, volunteered at the local shelter, and generally led a virtuous life. He has no previous criminal history whatsoever. After killing his victim, he knelt down and prayed until the police arrived.

John claims that he heard a "voice" of God -- well, not an actual voice, but the same kind of feeling that he felt when he prayed, and received revelations from the divine. God has appointed him to kill this stranger, as a service to be performed for the Lord. John did not have the slightest doubt that the message came from God; he described his murder as "an act of divine love".

So... Is John a murderer ? Is he a saint ? Is he crazy ? Should Christians punish him, or praise him ? I'm interested to see how the local Christians would answer this question, and I'm especially interested to see their reasons for their answer.

Spoiler warning: yes, yes, this question is a trick.
I won't fall for your trick question BUT there is a situation in scripture where people are assassinated for divine reason.

The situation was the children of Israel falling into Baal-Peor worship and a plague falling on the people as a result. One of the princes of Israel takes one of the Midianite women into his tent and they are both killed in the act of sex in the sexual worship of Baal-Peor while Yah is punishing the people for it. The man that executes them is made the father of the line of the High Priesthood for his act. He was a Levite upholding the recently given law. As a result, the plague also ended if I remember correctly but all those that had participated in the Baal-Peor (lord of the opening) worship were put to death.

Now in this situation, there was NO DOUBT the individual was guilty because he was killed in the act of committing the crime that violated the 1st commandment of having no other gods before YHVH. Baal-Peor worship was conducted via sex with a priestess of Ashtoreth.

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Re: Divine assassination

Post #26

Post by Braveheart »

Bugmaster wrote:This is a question for all the theists in the forum, obviously, with a strong emphasis on Christians. I've posted a version of this dillemma on another thead, but I can't find it now...

Anyway, let's say that, one day, you wake up, turn on the news, and hear this news story. A man named John Chalmers, 32 years old, killed a stranger in cold blood at a local Denny's. John Chalmers was a devout Christian all his life; in addition, he donated to charity, volunteered at the local shelter, and generally led a virtuous life. He has no previous criminal history whatsoever. After killing his victim, he knelt down and prayed until the police arrived.

John claims that he heard a "voice" of God -- well, not an actual voice, but the same kind of feeling that he felt when he prayed, and received revelations from the divine. God has appointed him to kill this stranger, as a service to be performed for the Lord. John did not have the slightest doubt that the message came from God; he described his murder as "an act of divine love".

So... Is John a murderer ? Is he a saint ? Is he crazy ? Should Christians punish him, or praise him ? I'm interested to see how the local Christians would answer this question, and I'm especially interested to see their reasons for their answer.

Spoiler warning: yes, yes, this question is a trick.
Well if the guy was a Catholic he'd be checked out, and if he was possessed they'd do an exorcism. I'd also like to ask Woland, what kind of guy did he kill? Was he evil? was he just that guy in the bar, or was he good?
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Re: Divine assassination

Post #27

Post by Adstar »

Bugmaster wrote:This is a question for all the theists in the forum, obviously, with a strong emphasis on Christians. I've posted a version of this dillemma on another thead, but I can't find it now...

Anyway, let's say that, one day, you wake up, turn on the news, and hear this news story. A man named John Chalmers, 32 years old, killed a stranger in cold blood at a local Denny's. John Chalmers was a devout Christian all his life; in addition, he donated to charity, volunteered at the local shelter, and generally led a virtuous life. He has no previous criminal history whatsoever. After killing his victim, he knelt down and prayed until the police arrived.

John claims that he heard a "voice" of God -- well, not an actual voice, but the same kind of feeling that he felt when he prayed, and received revelations from the divine. God has appointed him to kill this stranger, as a service to be performed for the Lord. John did not have the slightest doubt that the message came from God; he described his murder as "an act of divine love".

So... Is John a murderer ?
Yes.

Christians are called upon to love even their enemies. The man should have realised this and realised that the voice/feelings he was receiving was not from God.


Is he a saint ?
No.

Saints believe Jesus. If he had believed Jesus then he would not have killed another human being irrespective of what ever voices or feelings he was being influenced by.


Is he crazy ?
Don't know. The voice he heard or the feeling he got might have come from a psychotic episode, or it could have been a demon.


Should Christians punish him, or praise him ?
Neither. We are not called to be punishers and we certainly should not give praise to murder.



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Post #28

Post by xSilverPhinx »

The way I always saw it, if there is a powerful god, then he/she/it doesn't need people to carry out divine will. They're perfectly capable of doing such things on their own.

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Re: Divine assassination

Post #29

Post by mlcole8907 »

Bugmaster wrote:This is a question for all the theists in the forum, obviously, with a strong emphasis on Christians. I've posted a version of this dillemma on another thead, but I can't find it now...

Anyway, let's say that, one day, you wake up, turn on the news, and hear this news story. A man named John Chalmers, 32 years old, killed a stranger in cold blood at a local Denny's. John Chalmers was a devout Christian all his life; in addition, he donated to charity, volunteered at the local shelter, and generally led a virtuous life. He has no previous criminal history whatsoever. After killing his victim, he knelt down and prayed until the police arrived.

John claims that he heard a "voice" of God -- well, not an actual voice, but the same kind of feeling that he felt when he prayed, and received revelations from the divine. God has appointed him to kill this stranger, as a service to be performed for the Lord. John did not have the slightest doubt that the message came from God; he described his murder as "an act of divine love".

So... Is John a murderer ? Is he a saint ? Is he crazy ? Should Christians punish him, or praise him ? I'm interested to see how the local Christians would answer this question, and I'm especially interested to see their reasons for their answer.

Spoiler warning: yes, yes, this question is a trick.
Morally, from a Christian standing "John" would only have to worry about this dilemma when he was standing in front of God being judged. If "God" told him to do it, then he surely wont be punished. If he was a true believer, then the message he would have received would most definitely be believed to be from the big man himself.

This reminds me of Adria Yates, the crazy who killed her children to "save them from this world."

God supposedly told her to do it to.

As far as other Christians 'praising' him for the act. No, I do not believe that ANY death should be celebrated. The act itself would only be between John and God.

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Post #30

Post by RobertUrbanek »

Meaningful coincidences (synchronicity) suggest that God arranged or “scripted� the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, and the assault on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. See:

http://www.tonyahardingshotjfk.com/tonyaharding.html
Untroubled, scornful, outrageous — That is how wisdom wants us to be. She is a woman and never loves anyone but a warrior — Friedrich Nietzsche

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