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From: tim@k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: How come God doesn't affect Dave?
Message-ID: <585@k.cs.cmu.edu.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 3-Oct-85 16:14:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: k.585
Posted: Thu Oct  3 16:14:30 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Oct-85 05:46:20 EDT
References: <12039@rochester.UUCP>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking
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> What in effect you are advocating here is that it is reasonable under the
> proper circumstances for a person to behave in a manner that was originally
> condemned as improper behavior.

You are precisely correct.  In case you hadn't noticed, we routinely snatch
and imprison kidnappers, deny thieves the right to have access to their
personal property for a certain period of time, and so on.  What moral
justification can there be for this, if not my principle of dealing with
people by the same moral standard they use in dealing with others?

> A judges B, A's behavior is abominable,
> but B in turn judging A is OK?  What is not evident here is whether or not
> A was justified and B was not.  Or whether B's behavior in any case is just
> as abominable as A's.  This is one of the arguments of the anti-capital
> punishment groups.  They feel that under no circumstances should a murderer
> be murdered in turn by a legal system.  They feel murder by any other name
> is still murder, no ifs, ands, or buts or buts about it.

I'm sorry, but this all seems a non-sequitur.  I am not opposed to judging.
Perhaps you have me mistaken for a Christian.  In fact, I have never known a
person who does not judge; this command in the New Testament, to judge not
lest ye be judged, is another of those which sound good on paper but have
never been implemented and never will be -- for instance, turn the other
cheek.  The issue of judging is separate from the issue of public personal
attack.

As for the foes of capital punishment you mention, I think they are just
reacting emotionally, not rationally.  If their stances came from some
underlying moral principle, they would be against putting anyone in jail,
because kidnapping is kidnapping.  They would not restrict their argument to
killing.  By the way, I oppose capital punishment in 99% of all cases
myself, but for different reasons.  (The other 1% is when mass murder and
mental competence are proved by the strictest standards of the law.)

> Bottom line here is that your argument is by no means a cut and dry issue.
> The ends do not always justify the means.

Now you're trying to make me a Marxist!  Please read what I say, not what
you think I would be saying.  Ends never justify means; means must be judged
by a moral standard.  I am really at a loss to understand where this one
came from.  Perhaps you have me mistaken for someone else?
-=-
Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking
ARPA:	Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K	uucp:	seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim
CompuServe:	74176,1360	audio:	shout "Hey, Tim!"


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