Four questions for Christians

[Ryantology]

The Bible verse you quoted has to do with spiritual death, as you probably know. Life without God (morals), the source of "life", is death.

It is a distinction with no meaning to me.

I can't think of someone being killed on the basis of their thoughts. If you are referring to the process of "giving consent", the legal system today still punishes people for allowing crimes to happen under their acknowledgement.

I am referring to this:

But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Thinking about committing a crime is not a crime, except to God.

You are no different from the person actually doing a crime if you think it is a good thing to do, because you enjoy the fact that it has been done.

I might say the same thing about people arguing the pros of child genocide, but that doesn't mean you're guilty of the crime of genocide.

I also don't recall an example of someone being punished for something they would have done in the future or God prescribing such.

Again, that's fr0d0's assertion, justifying the slaughter of Amalekite infants and children on the basis that God knew they would pick up sticks on the weekend or commit some other equally horrifying atrocity. It is a theological issue you guys might like to suss out.

[Consilius]

The "thoughtcrime" that people are so angry about is actual intent that one has to do something, not a suggestion that is grazed over. It takes much more concentrated contemplation than a simple idea to be guilty of "thoughtcrime". You will probably be able to tell yourself whether or not you simply glanced over the idea of murder or actually laid out plans for smothering your roommate with a pillow.
Why would anyone approve of a mass slaughter of infants unless it was something they would also like to do?

Give unto fr0d0 that which is fr0d0's. I'd tell him that he defending the event wrongly, though. It had nothing to do with what they could have done.

[Ryantology]

I see no meaning in the distinction. Being condemned for having thoughts is being convicted of thoughcrime. Whether or not intent is present doesn't matter unless you follow through, or at the very least take legitimate steps in the direction of folowing through to the point where one reasonably may expect you to do so. But, to simply desire another woman? That is what the text says. I'm a married man who is prone, occasionally, to desire other people. I don't make a conscious choice to feel lust. I do make the conscious choice not to pursue. This apparently doesn't matter.

[Consilius]

What about the conscious act of wanting another man's wife for oneself?
"Conscious" is a good word to describe thoughtcrime. It is more than straying onto an idea: it is a conscious desire to execute an action that you know is wrong.
Like I said, you know it when you see it.
The reason that Jesus even said this in the first place wasn't to chew out more people as sinners. He was dealing with the problem of adultery by eliminating it at its source. He solved a problem (adultery) by preaching against what caused it in the first place (lust), so that people on the road to adultery knew where they were headed before they got there, because outward actions don't always reflect who one is as a person.
He did the same with murder a few verses before:
"But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, 'Raca,' (good-for-nothing) is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell." Matthew 5:22

[Ryantology]

It is still being convicted of a crime without the crime actually being committed. God gave us the capacity to lust, a capacity which serves none of his purposes. Why not simply take lust away and make sex a trivial part of existence instead of one so evil and distracting?

[Consilius]

To say God should make us incapable of lust is to say that he should make us incapable of sin in other regards.
The reason why we have the ability to sin is so that we can love God through our own merit. So that people can be good because they choose not to be evil and actively work against it, not because they have no other option.

[Ryantology]

To say God should make us incapable of lust is to say that he should make us incapable of sin in other regards.

He hates sin so much, it would solve all his problems.

But, what you say doesn't follow. God didn't give us wings to fly, so he shouldn't have given us feet to walk?

The reason why we have the ability to sin is so that we can love God through our own merit.

And yet, it isn't really love because it's purchased with promises of eternal life, punishments of eternal death, and a situation where one party's will matters and the others' is not only of no importance, but should be ignored at all costs to satisfy the control freak. Under the Christian salvation, there is no incentive to avoid evil in and of itself. You do it because you want to be saved. You want to receive the promised rewards and avoid the promised punishments, over and above all else, and why wouldn't you? The very idea of salvation makes loving God selflessly an impossible task, yet that is precisely the demand made of you as a Christian. It makes me wonder where the morality is in all this. Seems like pure pragmatism to me. Or, perhaps, it is a poorly-conceived idea which betrays the unimaginative human agency responsible for inventing it. Why didn't Calvinism catch on? Because who is going to 'love' a God who is almost certainly going to condemn you no matter what? Would you?

[Silver]

To say God should make us incapable of lust is to say that he should make us incapable of sin in other regards.
The reason why we have the ability to sin is so that we can love God through our own merit. So that people can be good because they choose not to be evil and actively work against it, not because they have no other option.

You do realize that you have painted god as a veritable psychopath. He is one who could take away our pain, with a snap of his proverbial invisible fingers wipe away all sin, but instead he would rather watch us suffer for his own entertainment, to watch us strive for an impossible goal that he knows we cannot attain because we are simply human.

To believe that such a being is in any way good is the epitome of a delusion that will merely make the believer suffer rather than to be free of such horror.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

The murder of another human being is always wrong and will forever be. It doesn't matter if it will help us in a million years. We don't need it to be written down. Everyone around the world knows this. It appears this particular ethic is not only eternal, but invisible and universal.

Did I not bring up the ancient chinese's punishment where they kill all the relatives of the offender? Even children? Evidence shows that it isn't always wrong to people, people used to do these things thinking they're right. If you want to dispute this please bring up evidence.

Right now, you don't need it written down. Because that's what we are now, we are the product of the evolution of human morality. If we didn't need it written down, why is it such a big thing that your god included it in the ten commandments? Because back then people DO need it written down. So when the people who came up with your religion attempted to make laws to govern people, not killing was one of the big ones.

Even now there are minority of people who kill people and they don't think it's wrong. Clearly not everyone in the world knows this. For these people, it's because of the law that they refrain from acts like this. Sometimes they don't and they end up in the newspaper.

Is it more likely that we invented a world where homicide isn't a good thing, or that we discovered that living in peace was the best way to live?

Both. What's the difference? By doing the second we invented the first.

So you ascribe our morality to a prehistoric group of people?

What's wrong with prehistoric people? They came before us. Just like i'm ok with saying mathematics was invented by an ancient group of people, i'm ok with saying our morality came from our ancestors, who learned the hard way. Our morality and laws are still evolving even to this day. A very good example is the gay rights movement. Just few decades ago people think being homosexual is morally wrong. But now it's legal for gays to marry just like normal people. We are inventing a world where being gay is ok by changing the laws. And people's morality tend to lag behind a bit. Now there are still people walking around thinking gays are an abomination. But 100 years from now they will be the extreme minority. Because as a whole, our morality would have adapted.

To me it's so obviously absurd to say being gay is immoral. But it's not so obvious for a lot of people. It used to be that way for killing innocent people.

[fr0d0]

Give unto fr0d0 that which is fr0d0's. I'd tell him that he defending the event wrongly, though. It had nothing to do with what they could have done.

Indeed and I take your points.