User blog:Fraterchaos/ A Consideration of Sin and Justice

By Charles Kunkle Jr. aka fraterchaos

To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. Deuteronomy 32:35

In the past few decades, we have seen much among some of the more fanatical Christian religious groups about putting an end, through various legal means, to practices they feel to be "against God". It has, in fact, become a rallying cry among the far right conservative movement that we must put an end to certain practices, such as abortion and gay marriage, because these are sinful and cannot be tolerated in a "Christian Society". I will not belabor the point that we do not actually live under a "Christian" Government, that in fact, the founding fathers made certain not to endorse any single religion and furthermore wrote our constitution to give everyone as much religious freedom as possible, and that advocating legal means to enforce religious values is totally unpatriotic... that point should be evident to anyone with a modicum of intelligence.

No, what i would like to discuss here is the underlying reasoning behind this idea of trying to force our neighbors to stop sinning.

It seems as if (and I defy anyone to show me where I'm wrong) that the basic concept here is that, if Christians do not actively attempt to stop others from committing sins, that they can somehow be judged as sinners themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth, nor is there any evidence in the Bible that supports such an idea; in fact, its fairly obvious that the Bible itself totally contradicts this idea of being responsible for other people's sins.

It would be very easy to use Jesus as an example, as he frequently chastised his disciples for being judgmental of others, and often advised his followers to go out among the sinners... not to try to force any ideas upon them, but to be kind to them and lead "by example". The Parable of The Good Samaritan is a case in point, just as is Jesus treatment towards Mary Magdelen. Jesus said "Love thy enemy, do good to those who harm you" and he never once implied that it was permissible to try to correct anyone's behavior. But it would be easy for some people to argue that that is all New Testament stuff... what about the vengeful God of the Old Testament?

Well, that is in fact, even more telling. The verse quoted at the beginning of this essay should be more than enough to prove my point... this verse itself is often misquoted (or quoted from other translations) as "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord" and that is all we should need to know. But its also well known that he also said "Judge not, lest ye be judged." so could anything be clearer?

But we can also quote this:

And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. Genesis 4:14-16

Which is simply stating that it is for God, and God alone to punish Cain for killing Able, so much so that if anyone else should kill Cain in God's place, he will be punished seven times what Cain himself would be. Think about that! The first murderer, and God clearly says, nobody else can punish him, only God, and if anyone feels it is right to take the life of this murderer, then that person shall be punished seven times what the murderer would be... makes you wonder what is going to happen to the people who support capital punishment when they stand before God...

But we can go one step further by considering one of the best known, and least understood, stories of the Old Testament. That is the story of Abraham and Lot. It seems, Lot lived in either Sodom or Gomorrah, and those towns were filled with sin; so much so God decided to destroy them utterly. But Abraham didn't want to see his nephew killed in such a way, and pleaded with God to save him. And what happened?

First God said, "Find me 100 righteous men in Sodom and Gomorrah, and I will spare those cities." and when Abraham failed, God then said, "Find but 10 righteous men, and I will spare them" and still Abraham failed. So God finally allowed Abraham to warn Lot, in fact God sent two angels to warn him personally, so that Lot could flee before the destruction. So it is obvious from this that not only is Lot innocent of the sins of his neighbors, but that a mere 10 righteous individuals in the two cities would be enough to counteract the sin of the perverts and sinners... so, it seems then, that good is transferable, but evil is, in fact, not.

Now if we wish to assume that you are responsible for your neighbor's sins, then Lot could not have been a "righteous man". Beyond that, we can even see, if we really read the entire story and don't gloss over the uncomfortable parts, that Lot was far from what we would call "righteous" today. When God sent the two angels to warn Lot, Lot was not supposed to know they were angels, they were disguised as men. And when all the perverts of Sodom and Gomorrah came banging on Lot's door, demanding he send out the two strangers "that we may know them (know them in this context means, and even your priest will confirm this, "have homosexual relations with them") Lot, who was not supposed to know these were angels remember... said to the amassed perverts "Here I will give you my two virgin daughters that you stop banging on my door"!

Ok, now I would not want to get into an argument about whether or not women of that time had any rights, or even should have had any... nor whether Lot should have been able to make such an offer... that is neither here nor there in the purposes of this essay. The point here is, not only is Lot not being punished for allowing the sin in Sodom and Gomorrah to continue while he lived there, or leaving due to it... but he is actively encouraging more sin, and with his own flesh and blood! And this is a "righteous man" according to the Bible itself!

And dare we ask, if these perverted sinners in the two cities were so adamant about knowing the strangers, how then did Lot manage to live there for so many years without the perverts demanding to know himself and his sons and daughters? Doesn't seem to make much sense does it?

So its pretty clear then that God will not hold anyone responsible for another person's sins... in fact,just the opposite, he says very clearly that you are not to judge anyone else. In fact, if you do judge another person, you are putting yourself in God's place, and taking on God's own, exclusive right to judge. It is clear then that even thinking another person is a sinner is one of the worst types of sin... and a lot of people are probably going to be very shocked come Judgement Day, when God says to them "You judged others, and that is only for me to do. You must think you are God yourself, and for that you will burn in hell. Depart from Me, I never knew you."

So while it is very clear that the Christian God definitely will not judge us for allowing others to sin, there is one religion which does have such a belief... Islam. It is a fundamental belief in Islam that if one allows sin to go on around them and does not try to stop it, that one can be punished.

So the next time somebody tries to say that God wants them to stop others from sinning, you can rest assured, they are either misinformed Christians, or they are in fact Muslims. If you are, or profess to be, a Christian, then I urge you to consider this very closely, because if I am right (and the Bible backs me up in almost every passage) then each and every time you pass judgement on another, you are ensuring your own path to hell.