This is scary

[LadyFlynt]

Two things I noticed here:

He says that witches were persecuted because they "worshiped the devil"...wrong, that was NOT the stated accusations and I agree that witches do not believe that they are worshipping the devil. They were persecuted for "witchcraft, which is OF the devil".

Also, he stated that anything a witch does harmful to another person WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION comes back threefold. Most kids getting involved in witchcraft believe it is ANY harm done to another person comes back three fold. The reason these wordings are important is that if you are serious witch and follow the first (and more accurate) ruling, then the question becomes "what is justifiable?" which is a question that cannot be precisely answered due to witchcraft and paganism being subjective.

Just thought that I would throw those items in for those of you who may end up in conversation with a self professed witch. (Also note that "Jason" even isn't willing to mess with the devil's ways beyond a certain point--ie, "I steer clear of ouija boards" and "the dead should be left alone").

I actually studied some things dealing with the "paranormal" and have known a couple of witches.

[Edited on 6-28-2005 by LadyFlynt]

 

[RamistThomist]

Originally posted by LadyFlynt
Two things I noticed here:

He says that witches were persecuted because they "worshiped the devil"...wrong, that was NOT the stated accusations and I agree that witches do not believe that they are worshipping the devil. They were persecuted for "witchcraft, which is OF the devil".

Also, he stated that anything a witch does harmful to another person WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION comes back threefold. Most kids getting involved in witchcraft believe it is ANY harm done to another person comes back three fold. The reason these wordings are important is that if you are serious witch and follow the first (and more accurate) ruling, then the question becomes "what is justifiable?" which is a question that cannot be precisely answered due to witchcraft and paganism being subjective.

Just thought that I would throw those items in for those of you who may end up in conversation with a self professed witch. (Also note that "Jason" even isn't willing to mess with the devil's ways beyond a certain point--ie, "I steer clear of ouija boards" and "the dead should be left alone").

I actually studied some things dealing with the "paranormal" and have known a couple of witches.

[Edited on 6-28-2005 by LadyFlynt]

Basically his whole worldview is arbitrary and subjective.

 

[Michael Butterfield]

Originally posted by Draught Horse

Originally posted by Michael Butterfield

Originally posted by Draught Horse
Very well. What is the criteria for a state to consider the punishment sufficient?

Technically speaking, does the state need a criteria? After all, it was Paul who said that we are to submit to the higher powers in the day of Nero?

I am floored by your answer. Even secularists like Jefferson would not have made such a statement.

If the State decides to murder innocent individuals wihtout due process of law, then according to your statement there is no problem with that.

If the State decides on mandatory confiscation of women and selling them as sex slaves, then according to your statement there is no problem with that.

If the State decides to break its own laws to further its own agendas, then according to your statement that is just fine and dandy.

Romans 13: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities

Does Caesar fall into the category of "person?" If so, what law does he submit to? I have demonstrated on other threads that the State does not have a blank check for tyranny.

But back to the original question: When is punishment criminal?

No, it would not be just fine and Dandy and you can only assume so based on your misunderstanding of the thread here. I think the original post asked, "œWhat would Moses do?" Well, we know what Moses would do, but then it turned to "œWhat would we do?" Excuse my inference, but I inferred from the question that the 'we' are Christians. In fact, it not only me who made that inference but so did Mr. Kok and Mr. Rhoades. However, in case you have forgotten the state has decided to murder innocent individuals already. It is called abortion. Additionally, in case you have not heard, the US Supreme Court just decided that it was all right for the state to take personal property. Your question was one of criteria not one of cogitation on my part. Certainly, the criteria you and I can mostly agree on, I am sure, but I would submit that was not the question.

 

[Robin]

Originally posted by Draught Horse

Originally posted by Michael Butterfield

Originally posted by Draught Horse
Very well. What is the criteria for a state to consider the punishment sufficient?

Technically speaking, does the state need a criteria? After all, it was Paul who said that we are to submit to the higher powers in the day of Nero?

I am floored by your answer. Even secularists like Jefferson would not have made such a statement.

If the State decides to murder innocent individuals wihtout due process of law, then according to your statement there is no problem with that.

If the State decides on mandatory confiscation of women and selling them as sex slaves, then according to your statement there is no problem with that.

If the State decides to break its own laws to further its own agendas, then according to your statement that is just fine and dandy.

Romans 13: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities

Does Caesar fall into the category of "person?" If so, what law does he submit to? I have demonstrated on other threads that the State does not have a blank check for tyranny.

But back to the original question: When is punishment criminal?

Jake,

I think (could be wrong) something is being missed here....

Rev. Kok (and I) are attempting to point-out, like it or not, the State will impose their own criteria for laws. Obviously, we don't want the legislation to be dissonant with God's Law. But - hey -- reality says we are living in the "present EVIL age." That is the way it is. Again....obviously, we are not pacifists; I don't think it's OK for the State to impose unjust laws by ommision or commission.

For now, in our government we can vote; write laws and lobby them; speak-out; and most importantly, pray for our leaders in government. If and when the time comes, if the laws of the State become too unjust or dangerous, we may have to go "underground"....who knows?

Romans 13 directs Christians to obey the civil authorities because they are (somehow, behind the scenes) instituted by God. Even Ceasar. (!) Even the IRS. (!) Even the terrible governments that kill babies and do all sorts of icky stuff. All these governments are put in place by God Himself.

As Captain Jack Aubrey said "In war, sometimes you have to pick the lesser of two weevils."

Until Christ returns, His church is at war with the world, in this present evil age.

At least that's the way I see things, for now....(hope I got it right, Rev. Kok.)



Robin

 

[RamistThomist]

He grew up in a Methodist family but when he attended church he said he felt nothing. It was only when he tapped into the supernatural that he felt "connected".

So what? I (theoretically) butchered my neighbor's beloved cat and got my jollies from that. I felt really good. Therefore, it is right. Moron.

"To me there is less judgment in witchcraft and more acceptance and freedom than in Christianity. I see it as a tyrant religion. I feel more of a connection to witchcraft than Christianity. I would sit in church and just be there because I was sent there," he said.

Who cares? In your worldview you can't even say that being judgmental is wrong.

While he believes in God and Jesus, it is not in the same way Christians believe.

Then he doesn't believe in God and Jesus.

"I believe there is a spirit for everything in this world. I also believe that smaller spirits or angels are responsible for different things.

Justification for such belief?

"I don't believe in the devil as in giving him that much power, or acknowledging him. A great misconception is that witches worship the devil; in fact, that was why many of them were killed in the past," said Jason, adding:

Why was killing them bad? Remember, you have no foundation for morality.

"When I was 11, I was just getting into it. I gathered my cousins and instructed them to stand in a circle. I didn't know anything really but I had seen it in a movie called The Craft and I repeated something I heard from it.

"There was this boy our age who lived next door and I didn't like him much, so I got a needle and made them prick their fingers, smeared the blood on a piece of paper and, in my mind, I visualised him being punished in some way.

"In the evening, he was out on his bike, he fell off, landed on some 'galvanise' and cut himself up badly. I stopped because I didn't really want to harm or kill anyone," he recounted.

I actually believe him on that one. A good friend of mine was rescued from Satanism and has now become a devout Reformer and told me her testimony regarding Satanism and stopped short at that point. Under no condition, so she said, would she say any more.

However, he only does this if he's really angry with someone to the point where he wants to physically beat that person. Instead of carrying out the action, he uses the same energy to put a curse on the individual.

<cough>arbitrary ethics</cough>

But besides bringing harm, he said he could also use his craft to heal people of sickness and disease. He can use dolls like those used in voodoo to heal different parts of the body.

Watch out, Benny. Competition!

 

[LadyFlynt]

Originally posted by Draught Horse

Basically his whole worldview is arbitrary and subjective.

Correct.

I just threw the info at you for ammo in logical reasoning and debate with them.

Funny thing...my husband was had a spell cast against him in highschool by a witch. When threatened with it (after a conversation about Christianity and witchcraft), he told her to "go ahead" (he was a Christian). She came to school the next day, and when she saw him there she started seriously freaking out. She couldn't stop staring in a scared sort of way and she avoided him like the plague for the rest of highschool.

 

[Robin]

Father Paul said the Church had failed if young people saw Christianity as a tyrannical religion and were turning to witchcraft for answers. "I think Christianity needs to get out there and listen to people. We need to get into the schools, colleges and any other place where it (witchcraft) exists, hear the problems of young people and find out what leads them into witchcraft."

I whole-heartedly agree with Father Paul, here...only to add that these young people need to be lovingly heard and compassionately have the Gospel explained to them in an non-condemning manner.

Robin

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Rutherford on Rutherford?

Originally posted by Draught Horse
Well, when is punishment criminal? Why not stand with Samuel Rutherford in Lex Rex and state:

1)Only God can determine what is right and what is wrong.
2)Only God can determine the punishments for criminal behavior.

Anybody want to refute Rutherford?

What is the New Testament perspective on penalogy?
"Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, " (Hebrews 2)

[Edited on 6--28-05 by Draught Horse]

On these questions here is some more Rutherford to consider.

But surely Erastus errs, who will have all such to be killed by the magistrate under the New Testament, because they were killed in the Old. Then are we to stone the men that gather sticks on the Lord's day; the child that is stubborn to his parents, the virgins, daughters of ministers that commit fornication are to be put to death. Why, but then the whole judicial law of God shall oblige us Christians as Carlstadt and others teach? I humbly conceive that the putting of some to death in the Old Testament, as it was a punishment to them, so was it a mysterious teaching of us, how God hated such and such sins, and mysteries of that kind are gone with other shadows. "œBut we read not" (says Erastus) "œwhere Christ has changed those laws in the New Testament." It is true, Christ has not said in particular, I abolish the debarring of the leper seven days, and he that is thus and thus unclean shall be separated till the evening; nor has he said particularly of every ordinance and judicial law, it is abolished. But we conceive, the whole bulk of the judicial law, as judicial, and as it concerned the republic of the Jews only, is abolished, though the moral equity of all those are not abolished; also some punishments were merely symbolical to teach the detestation of such a vice, as the boring with an awl the ear of h im that loved his master, and desired to serve him, and the making him his perpetual servant. I should think the punishing with death the man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath was such; and in all these the punishing of a sin against the moral law by the magistrate, is moral and perpetual; but the punishing of every sin against the moral law, tali modo, so and so, with death, with spitting on the face: I much doubt if these punishments in particular, and in their positive determination to the people of the Jews, be moral and perpetual. As he that would marry a captive woman of another religion, is to cause her first pare her nails, and wash herself, and give her a month or less time to lament the death of her parents, which was a judicial, not a ceremonial law; that this should be perpetual, because Christ in particular has not abolished it, to me seems most unjust; for as Paul says, "œHe that is circumcised becomes debtor to the whole law," surely to all the ceremonies of Moses' law; so I argue, a pari, from the like, he that will keep one judicial law, because judicial and given by Moses, becomes debtor to keep the whole judicial law, under pain of God's eternal wrath. Divine Right of Church Government Vindicated (London: 1646), p. 493-494.

And on moral equity Rutherford had this to say:

No man but sees the punishment of theft is of common morall equity, and obligeth all Nations, but the manner or degree of punishment is more positive: as to punish Theft by restoring foure Oxen for the stealing of one Oxe, doth not so oblige all Nations, but some other bodily punishment, as whipping, may be used against Theeves. A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience (London: R.I. for Andrew Crook, 1649) 298-99.

 

[Arch2k]

I'm siding with Robin and Kok on this one. It seems that there are some who would like to see an increase in the government. Not me. The government was a curse from the beginning (kings like the pagan nations...see 1 Samuel 8). We must come to a biblical conclusion on what the proper role of the government should be...and In my humble opinion, the less the better.

This has been debated and discussed alot of times, but each time I study it, I come to the same conclusion that our founding fathers weren't all wet. The principle of "life liberty and property" have guided our country well, and they stand as the best way to see civil peace in a country.

First you have to ask yourself, do we, as fallen depraved sinful people have any rights in this world? If we're talking rights with God, the answer is no, if we're talking rights in relation to other people, the answer is yes. What rights?

1) Life. I have the right to live.

2) Liberty. I have the right to believe according to my conscience. It may get me to hell, but religion can not be forced on anybody. Whatever is not of faith, is sin.

3) Property. I have the right to own stuff without fear of it being taken by others.

These are the basic principles upon which a country should be founded (and any deduction from). As soon as you start placing other moral laws under the sphere of the civil government, you start giving them too much reign. Now the government is given part of the keys no? We must not mix the civil magistrate and the church. Seperate!

A good verse to keep the governement in check?:

Mat 20:25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them.
Mat 20:26 "Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.
Mat 20:27 "And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave;
Mat 20:28 "just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

If you want to see the church having too much authority, look at Rome.
If you want to see the government having too much authority, look at England.
If you want to see an expired theocracy (but with principle's we can learn from) look at Moses.

I'm against Theonomy if you can't tell.

 

[RamistThomist]

With all due respect intended, you really don't understand the political nature of theonomists. You write:

It seems that there are some who would like to see an increase in the government.

No, no, no, a thousand times no! I am an ardent defender of limited, decentralized government, thus supporting the confederacy in the Second War for American Independence. Read Bahnsen (go figure) and you will see him castigate governments that grow in size (and tyranny).

Originally posted by Jeff_Bartel
We must come to a biblical conclusion on what the proper role of the government should be...and In my humble opinion, the less the better.

Wow, you sound like a theonomist. Rushdoony has maintained against tyranny and pluralism (which is a more veiled form of tyranny) for maxium individual liberty under biblical law.

This has been debated and discussed alot of times, but each time I study it, I come to the same conclusion that our founding fathers weren't all wet. The principle of "life liberty and property" have guided our country well, and they stand as the best way to see civil peace in a country.

Why are you bringing up 1776? My only mention of Jefferson (and that in passing) was that he had a better understanding (if ultimately flawed and inconsistent) of political government than most modern, conservative Christians.

First you have to ask yourself, do we, as fallen depraved sinful people have any rights in this world? If we're talking rights with God, the answer is no, if we're talking rights in relation to other people, the answer is yes. What rights?

1) Life. I have the right to live.

2) Liberty. I have the right to believe according to my conscience. It may get me to hell, but religion can not be forced on anybody. Whatever is not of faith, is sin.

3) Property. I have the right to own stuff without fear of it being taken by others.

These are the basic principles upon which a country should be founded (and any deduction from). As soon as you start placing other moral laws under the sphere of the civil government, you start giving them too much reign. Now the government is given part of the keys no? We must not mix the civil magistrate and the church. Seperate!

I don't really know where you are going with this. But people always read into the (very badly articulated) phrase of separation a notion foreign to theonomists that theonomists seek to articulate. I maintain, over against pluralisstic, autonomous political thought today, the separation of church and state as it is biblically understood. In other words, get the State out of the church (we ought to be non-taxable, rather than sacrificing our rights for tax exempt status). Simultaneously, we ought not have Jerry Falwell calling the shots. But a separation of Church/state does not imply a separation of God/state.

If you want to see the church having too much authority, look at Rome.
If you want to see the government having too much authority, look at England.
If you want to see an expired theocracy (but with principle's we can learn from) look at Moses.

I'm against Theonomy if you can't tell.

Cute, and if you want to look to a society that executes citizens without due process of law (Terry Schiavo), then look to Pluralistic America! But that's good because we are not a theocracy.

If you want to live in a society where private property is confiscated because the Supreme Court (the Nazghul) say so, come to America where the Church is not allowed to make religious judgments on the state.

Men are afraid of theocracy (btw, how can a state that operates on 10% of its income be tyrannical?) but cherish the slavery they are living in right now! We are like the children of Israel longing to go back to Egypt. We think we are free merely because we have been told in our secular textbooks that we are free, and we have been foolish enough to believe it!

Since you mention the Founding Fathers, I will do you one better: What we call liberty, they call bondage.

Now back to the thread: he's a moron building a religion on arbitrary standards.

[Edited on 6--29-05 by Draught Horse]

 

[Arch2k]

Sorry for the rant (I do feel better now! :bigsmile: )...I'll leave it for another thread! We'll duke it out another time Jacob!

I agree that this witch guy is a moron. It's a shame that people are so easily deceived....and people that were raised to be so-called "christians."

 

[RamistThomist]

And I apologize if my tone was a bit caustic.

 

[crhoades]

For a different approach:

Ex. 22:18
(ESV) You shall not permit a sorceress to live.
(KJV) Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live

WCF 19.4
IV. To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.

Exod. 21:1-23:19; Gen. 49:10 with I Peter 2:13-14; I Cor. 9:8-10

So here we have one of the sundry judicial laws as refereced in the proof texts above. It has expired. But the question we must ask ourselves to be good confessionalists is how are we obliged by it? What does the general equity of this verse require?

You can almost condense the verse down into 2 words: Kill witches. How can we dig into this to find the general equity? Punish witches? I think a strong case could be made to say that it still stands but I don't see how we can say that we hold to the general equity of this verse and then say that it is Ok to allow witches to be in regular society, make movies about them (new Bewitched movie starring Nicole Kidman and Will Farrel - not to mention Harry Potter), etc. Are we pluralists or Westminster Confession folk?

Again to split the hairs...as individuals and as the church we should seek repentance on the witches behalf. We should share the gospel with them. We should pray for them. My comments are directed to what a just law and what a just punishment *should* be in a just society. Not talking about our Constitution. Not talking about how this would be arrived at. Just talking about Normative ethics as applied to the civil magistrate.

What does the general equity of this verse require?