(May 10, 2020 at 12:53 am)Huggy Bear Wrote:(May 9, 2020 at 11:19 pm)masoni Wrote: christians typically translate this commandment as thou shalt not murder, and then define murder as unjustified killing.this is how they justify war, death penalty, and eating meat. but they usually don't realize it also causes the commandment to become meaningless because everyone agrees unjustified killing is unjustified. it's like saying bad things are bad, it's definitionally true.*emphasis mine*
It's not a translation, it's what the bible literally says.
Matthew 19
17 So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
18 He said to Him, “Which ones?”
Jesus said, “‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’
19 ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
- Matthew 19:18
So what exactly are you trying to say? That God is not a murderer but a killer?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
