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Ignatius
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Murder is the intentional killing of an innocent person.
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Spock
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The Oxford quote is precisely the same I quoted. It is clear and conscise. The suggested “unjust” killing is ambiguous. By what standard of “just” is a specific killing considered to be “unjust”?
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Spock
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According to many apologists there is no such thing as an “innocent” person. We are all guilty of sins, and we all deserve hell.
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Spock
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Well, since you insist, and I don’t want to “force” you to repeat your stuff, here comes a short response. The adjectives you piled up (wantonly, brutally, inhumanely) have nothing to do with the subject (and that is the real strawman). Also your “definitions” do not differentiate between legally permissible acts of killing (self-defense, state sanctioned executions and killings in war) and “murders”, which are not legally permitted. I hope this satisfied your need for my attention.
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fhansen
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The same could be said whether one believes in an afterlife or not. If there’s an afterlife, what does it hurt to send someone there sooner? If no afterlife, the persons existence will be over in a few short, miserable years anyway, so why not get it over for him now?
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Spock
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I would agree with the first one, but not with the second one.
If there is an afterlife, and it will be as pleasurable as stated, it makes perfect sense to get there as soon as possible. When someone comes out of a confession booth, freshly stripped of his “sins”, that is the time to end his or her life - as you said it.
On the other hand, if this existence is all there is, it makes sense to extend it as much as we can, and make it as pleasurable as possible. And those years here are not necessarily miserable. However, if the person expresses his wish to get it over with, then it is the decent and humane attitude to comply with his wish (which the Catholic Church would adamantky refuse).
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fhansen
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It might make sense but but there might also be no imperative-moral or otherwise-to define the intentional shortening of someones’s life as murder -and legislate against it.
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Spock
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I think there is, and it is the reverse golden rule. If you agree that it is sensible to extend this existence and make it as pleasurable as it can be, then it is also sensible to protect the people to make the “extension” possible and thus legislate against murder.
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ronnie_bonigli
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In the OP, you started off arguing that unborn babies can’t be considered as murdered because abortion is legal in some countries. Then in a couple of posts you argue that there are no “innocent” people, since all have sinned, so they can’t be considered “murdered”. Yet unborn babies obviously have never sinned. According to your own reasoning here on this thread unborn babies are the only people who we can reasonably consider as being “murdered”. Nice going Spock!
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Spock
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You don’t really pay attention, do you? What I said was different. To wit: abortion cannot be considered murder in those places where it is legal. I said nothing about those countries where the procedure is illegal. Obviously in those countries it would be a murder - provided that the fetus is legally considered a human being - which in not obvious.
You still did not pay attention. What I alluded to is that “innocence” is meaningless in this respect. Murder has nothing to do with “innocence”. Especially since it was unspecified: “innocence in what respect”?
Not in my opinion, no. But they are all guilty of the “original sin”. (Which is one of the most ludicrous claims of Christianity, by the way. And there are many of those. ) I did not bring up “innocence”, some other poster did.
I suggest you read more carefully next time. What you said in this post has nothing to do with what I actually said.
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ronnie_bonigli
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Spock, if you’re going to use Catholic doctrine in your “constantly moving the goal posts” arguments here, at least get it right. No one is “guilty” of Original Sin, and it doesn’t imply “everyone deserves the most horrific tortures in hell, no exceptions”. Original Sin had separated man from God until the act of expiation of Christ washed away the stain of that sin and reconciled man and God once again.
I see these threads from you where you try and wind people up bouncing between moving the goal posts in what you’re arguing against and then adding cartoon character straw men of the Catholic position, I really don’t know why I let myself get sucked into the nonsense, I guess I’m just bored sometimes.
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BlueSapphire
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Kill, execute, murder all mean to deprive of life. Kill is the general word, with no implication of the manner of killing.
Peace and God Bless!
Peace and God Bless!
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JDaniel
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Spock:
It does seem a tad ambiguous, doesn’t it? But justice can also be defined. In fact, the notion of justice is so primitive that it hardly needs defining. It is derived from equality. Moreover, it is derived from equality that is rooted in reciprocity. It is asserted in all societies, or, at least those that practice justice, that the world can recognize, that to live as befits a human being, starts with life but goes on to add food, clothing, shelter, property, liberty, education, companionship, recreation, and perhaps a few other exigencies that make life tolerable and possible. To interfere with people’s use of these in such a way as to make life a hardship and a burden, or cause it to cease, especially when we refuse to take the same to ourselves, is to destroy that fundamental equality with us, to invade his rights, and to be unjust. There are religious root implications of the aforementioned, but, I’ll show those when and if needed. For now, I think you would be more impressed by an explanation that was more of a secular bent.
Now, the primary aim of the state, and civil law, is to secure for its citizenry the greatest benefits that it can from communal living, and to distribute the aforementioned benefits justly. As regards individual men, though, it is reciprocity that defines the essential equality between them. I accord to you on the basis of how I wish to be accorded by you. This is how rights are derived, as I mentioned in another thread: from the extrapolation back to just two (or, a few) men on the planet. Eventually, civil authority comes along and provides the mediation between any disputes that might (and which often do) arise from this sort of super-hand-shake.
To take another’s life in a manner that we would find unexpected and unacceptable, under the circumstance, is to violate that person’s rights. This would invite mediation, and, perhaps, remediation, by the state. But, in any event, it is unjust. That seems pretty clear to me.
God bless,
jd
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JDaniel
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JDaniel
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Spock:
No; there is value to life. And, it is grounded in our mere participation in God’s creative activity, that God has bestowed freely. It is NOT our prerogative to interfere in that. Some of God’s gifts are given to us outright, and we can do what ever we want with them. However, life is not one of them. Life is a gift that has certain strings attached. Suicide is the direct killing of one’s self on one’s own authority. From that basic premise derive the corollaries. For the Catholic, only God has the supreme dominion over all things, including life. However, the state has edged itself in there, often over God and definitely over us. As an affront to God, murder, suicide and so-called mercy killing are mortal sins. So, the intended end will unexpectedly change for the victim. And for the perpetrator, in the case of murder, absolution is not so simple.
"Though God by the natural law, gives rights to man, there are some rights God cannot give, for by their very nature they are exclusively God’s. One of these is the direct dominion (sovereignty, ownership, proprietorship) over the human person, the compound of body and soul, that the suicide seeks to dissolve. What God gives to man is an indirect dominion over himself, the use and stewardship of his person, but no direct dominion, no right to consume and destroy his person at his own discretion.
“The reason why God must reserve to Himself direct dominion over human life is the peculiar nature of a rational being, such as man is, who must deserve his last end by his free acts. By the eternal law God decrees that all his creatures attain the end for which He created them. Man can attain his end by doing morally good acts. These acts take time, and the length of each man’s life is the opportunity alloted him for doing them.” - Right and Reason, Austin Fagothey, S.J., Chap. Life 1963 Imprimatur: Joseph T. McGucken, S.T.D., Archbishop of San Francisco.
God bless,
jd
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JDaniel
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I’m sorry, Spock, but that is one of the most ludicrously absurd claims a person with intelligence could possibly make. You have kids. Go look at them. And then, tell me, with a straight face, that they were something else when they were just blobs of protoplasm.
Really? You regard the Revelation that man was intended by his Creator to be perfect but who was tempted and freely chose to disobey a direct command of his Creator, which resulted in bringing “death” upon mankind, along with Original Sin, to be a ludicrous claim? Knowing that we believe man to be a body-soul composite, with extensions into eternity? No. Rather, it is perfectly consistent with that thought. On the other hand, if man just got here by chance, as you appear to believe, and then emerged by chance or randomnity, then you would be correct.
God bless,
jd
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warpspeedpetey
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Any taking of a human life that isn’t sanctioned by G-d is unlawful. See, whole problem solved in one sentence.
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Santi2
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The Catholic definition for murder is the same as that of the state i.e *the unlawful killing of a human being. * Where the Catholic position differs to that of the state lies in the definition of “unlawful” and “human being”. I need not go into finer details as I am sure you are already aware of the Catholic position regarding those two when referring to abortion and euthanasia.
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Spock
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Thanks.
I had a good laugh when I read this. Not because there is a disagreement with what you said.But a funny thing came to my mind. I imagined that we are having a conversation about a “red ball”. You insisted that we are talking about the same thing, except the Catholic understanding of “red” and the Catholic understanding of “ball” are completely and fundamentally different from the secular understanding. Of course, you just summarized the basic problem. Simple, everyday words, which have a different “meaning” in a Catholic environment. That is the reason that these dialogs tend to break down.
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Betterave
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That *would *be a helpful show of good faith from someone who is ostensibly trying to understand the vocabulary of those who disagrees with.
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