(June 30, 2015 at 11:00 pm)Nope Wrote:(June 30, 2015 at 9:18 am)Randy Carson Wrote: I apologize.
I thought the three of you were saying that I AGREE with killing heretics, but you did correctly say that I understand it.
Now, my question: Don't you understand the logic of it - even if you don't agree with it?
Analogy: A man with an AK-47 takes several dozen people hostage in a crowded shopping mall. He's not going to surrender peacefully. People WILL die. But a sniper has a clean shot that will take him out with no innocent people killed.
Does he take the shot?
If a heretic leads people into eternal damnation, has he not done those souls more harm than the gunmen at the mall?
BTW - why is PiousPaladin's name written in a strikeout font?
I noticed that you put the hero, the sniper, in the place of those who burned heretics. The problem is that sniper isn't shooting an innocent person but those who burned heretics were killing innocent people. A better analogy would be if the man with the AK-47 walked into a Catholic Church and started killing the congregation members because he thought that they were an alien army secretly plotting to take over the earth. From his point of view, the killings make sense, don't they?
The people who killed heretics were also wrong in their justification for killing innocent people. It is insane to kill innocent people because someone wrongly believes that they are aliens. It is equally insane to kill people because they worship the bible god in a way in which the Catholic Church doesn't approve.
The reason that I used a Catholic Church is not to offend you but to try to help you understand how your statement might sound to some people, me included.
I'm not offended. No worries on that account.
The man with the gun kills the body. The man with the bad theology kills the soul.
From the vantage point of eternity, which is worse?
