The more you attend Church, the more likely you are so support Torture.

[Schwa]

What is religion if it isn't some kind of all encompassing divine excuse?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Knee-jerkers should consider this scenario:

Someone kidnaps your child. The kidnapper is caught, admits the crime, and says he has left the child tied up in the desert. The child will die if not found soon. The kidnapper will not say where the child is.

Suppose that torture would get the kidnapper to reveal where the child is. The child's life would be saved. The kidnapper would also get the lesser charge of kidnapper, rather than being charged with murder.

Would you support torture in this circumstance?

No. The ticking-clock scenario relies on the premise that the tortured person will always tell the truth. All he has to do is tell you the child is someplace that is believable, but difficult to get to, or search thoroughly.

[John V]

No. The ticking-clock scenario relies on the premise that the tortured person will always tell the truth. All he has to do is tell you the child is someplace that is believable, but difficult to get to, or search thoroughly.

I disagree. All it needs is that the tortured person will sometimes tell the truth. Some recovered children are better than none.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yes God does have limits, limits because of who He is, justice demanded a hell and God being a just God put into place the just punishment of hell.

GC

Hell is unjust, and this god you worship is a moral pygmy. This post of yours is one more demonstration of how blind faith debases and perverts human morality.

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Disobedience is sin and the sin I'm speaking of is when Lucifer disobeyed God and started a war in Heaven, God kicked him out and created hell for Lucifer and the fallen angels. When man fell the same way and Adam and Eve did, hell was then applied to sinful man.

Boy, this God fella isn't very good at making good beings. Seems like everything he creates has an evil nature at its root. A perfect Carpenter, by definition, builds a perfect cabinet. By definition, a crooked cabinet is the mark of an imperfect Carpenter.

Your own Christ agrees. "By the fruit shall you know the tree." Imperfect creations are the mark of an imperfect creator.

[John V]

Boy, this God fella isn't very good at making good beings. Seems like everything he creates has an evil nature at its root. A perfect Carpenter, by definition, builds a perfect cabinet. By definition, a crooked cabinet is the mark of an imperfect Carpenter.

Not necessarily. It depends on the intents of the carpenter. And in neither case does the cabinet make the judgment.

[Thumpalumpacus]

"Morality" is a joke of a standard that 'you people' pretend matters. I don't play those games.

Yes, we already know that you're immoral. Are you still arguing that slavery is morally correct?

[Tonus]

These arguments are examples of the slippery slope fallacy. You wouldn't accept a theist saying regarding gay marriage that once the gates are open, there's no telling what might slip through - marriage to children, animals, groups, etc. This is the same thing.

Yes, the concern that allowing one thing may lead to an extension of that thing is a slippery slope fallacy, though the concern over allowing the government expanded power without the necessary transparency is not.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I disagree. All it needs is that the tortured person will sometimes tell the truth. Some recovered children are better than none.

You're still counting on a murderous person telling the truth; you haven't negated that flawed premise. Torture has been shown to be ineffective; the tortured will say what they think their captor wants to hear in order to make the torture stop.

I hold that torture is both immoral and ineffective. The first is an opinion; the latter, fact.

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Not necessarily. It depends on the intents of the carpenter.

If a carpenter intends to make a crooked cabinet, when it comes out crooked, why should he get angry at the cabinet?

And in neither case does the cabinet make the judgment.

It's a good thing people aren't cabinets, then. Simply because you've abdicated your duty to make moral assessments doesn't mean that the assessments of others are invalid.

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I wonder if the three Christians here who are defending torture are otherwise small-government conservatives?

[John V]

Yes, the concern that allowing one thing may lead to an extension of that thing is a slippery slope fallacy, though the concern over allowing the government expanded power without the necessary transparency is not.

The concern that government would go beyond the allowed expansion certainly is, and that concern was raised in what I quoted.

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You're still counting on a murderous person telling the truth;y ou haven't negated that flawed premise.

You haven't shown it to be flawed.

Torture has been shown to be ineffective; the tortured will say what they think their captor wants to hear in order to make the torture stop.

In this case, I want to hear the actual location of the child, so it should be quite effective.

I hold that torture is both immoral and ineffective. The first is an opinion;

True.

the latter, fact.

Feel free to prove it. As noted, I support capital punishment on theory but oppose it in practice. I can do the same with torture.

If a carpenter intends to make a crooked cabinet, when it comes out crooked, why should he get angry at the cabinet?

Maybe he intended to show his anger to other cabinets.

Romans 9
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,

It's a good thing people aren't cabinets, then. Simply because you've abdicated your duty to make moral assessments doesn't mean that the assessments of others are invalid.

First, I make moral assessments. Second, I don't claim that others' moral assessments are invalid. You correctly note yourself that your moral assessment of torture is your opinion. I don't hold people's opinions to be valid or invalid. Everyone's entitled to them, as they say.

[Thumpalumpacus]

You haven't shown it to be flawed.

So you think they will always tell the truth under torture, then?

In this case, I want to hear the actual location of the child, so it should be quite effective.

... so long as the truth is being told.

Feel free to prove it. As noted, I support capital punishment on theory but oppose it in practice. I can do the same with torture.

The US Army writes in its field manual on interrogation:

Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/lib...apter1.htm

This University of California-Santa Barbara study emphatically states:

Torture’s inefficacy in the interrogation of someone as valuable as KSM was true of the entire torture program. According to Rose (2008), who interviewed numerous counterterrorist officials from the US and elsewhere, their conclusions were unanimous: “not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale…, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alerts….” Thus, the indirect costs of interrogational torture include misallocation of resources to follow false leads and, as falsehoods accrete, an increasing incapacity to detect the difference between accurate and inaccurate intelligence.

(p. 49)

When the interrogators themselves deprecate the capability of torture to educe information, it probably doesn't work. I'm inclined to accept their professional opinion.

**********************************

Maybe he intended to show his anger to other cabinets.

As opposed to, say, build the things straight in the first place?

First, I make moral assessments. Second, I don't claim that others' moral assessments are invalid. You correctly note yourself that your moral assessment of torture is your opinion. I don't hold people's opinions to be valid or invalid. Everyone's entitled to them, as they say.

You obviously abdicate your faculty of moral judgement in at least one case.