I had a series of thoughts this morning that led me to a question. Follow me as I walk through them.
Yesterday I heard about the new movie "Redacted". I looked it up on IMDB and its own website. The movie is about "...the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers..." (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0937237/synopsis). I looked at some of the trailers. It seems to me that the movie is intended to and will succeed in having the effect of giving aid and comfort to enemies of the United States. What were they thinking? Certainly Mark Cuban has the right to make the movie. Certainly I have the right to not go see it. ("If the people don't want to come to the ballpark, how you gonna stop 'em" - philosopher Yogi Berra).
But this was just the first step on my mental journey.
Certainly the crime (which is mentioned in the movie) committed by the soldiers was heinous. I am assuming that it really happened. If history is any guide, rape often accompanies war. So if it didn't happen in Iraq, it did somewhere else. It is an unjustifiable act whenever & wherever.
We are also told that our intelligence gatherers in Iraq are torturing POWs in order to obtain information to more successfully prosecute the war. Now I am all about successfully prosecuting the war. But ends do not justify means. It is sin to committ unjustifiable acts just because they aid in successful prosecution of the war.
Torture is defined as: the act of inflicting excruciating pain ... as a means of getting a confession or information ... . (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/torture) I "redacted" the definition a little to fit the intelligence gathering function of torture.
Tom Landry once said that a football coach was supposed to make men do what they really didn't want to do in order to help them achieve what they really wanted to achieve. (or something like that) No doubt some of the pain was excruciating. But it isn't torture.
When my children were young, I frequently spanked them. Sometimes part of the goal of the spanking was to get a confession (leading to repentance). They tried hard to make me believe that the pain was excruciating, & it is OK with me if it pained them. But that wasn't torture either.
The difference between what Tom Landry and I did, and torture is (I think) our intent. We intended it for the good of the recipient, and the torturer intends it to harm the recipient (or at least as a means to harm the recipient's army).
OK, one more stop on this path and I will have arrived at the conundrum.
Killing a human is wrong - usually. There are 3 times when it is OK to kill a human (I think): (1) After due process of law - capitol punishment, (2) Self defense, (3) War.
Now in war, we don't think it is necessary to give the other guy an even break. If we have overpowering force, or surprise, or any advantage then we use it and it is fine to do so. If the enemy combatant is a POW, we have overpowering force at our disposal in dealing with him. It is possible to torture him without killing him. & we would have been justified in killing him in combat. So are we justified in torturing him?
This leads me to a place where I am very uncomfortable. I seem to have created a justification for a means of prosecuting war (torture) that I naturally abhor.
Here are the points that I think are important in this issue:
(1) In war, we intend to do the enemy harm. This is OK.
(2) One of the things that makes the infliction of pain = torture is our intent.
SO - the implication is that the infliction of pain with the intent of prosecuting the war is OK.
Again, I am uncomfortable with the result of my logic. Help me out here.
Friday, November 30
Thursday, November 15
Thought Experiment - ethics
I don't know where this stuff comes from...
I was driving down the road today and began to think about the morality / ethics of the lottery. I have always thought that gambling was the same general kind of thing as the consumption of alcohol. It is not immoral per se, but it easily becomes sin when it takes control of part of a Christian's life. But many people consider both gambling and alcohol to be immoral on any terms. I know of a church where the staffers have agreed among themselves to completely abstain from the consumption of alcohol in order to avoid the taint that it might bring if someone who considered it immoral learned of their use.
On the subject of gambling, consider the following thought experiment:
Suppose you were a pastor of a conservative, evangelical church. And you found that someone had placed a lottery ticket in the offering plate. Would you check to see if it won anything?
I was driving down the road today and began to think about the morality / ethics of the lottery. I have always thought that gambling was the same general kind of thing as the consumption of alcohol. It is not immoral per se, but it easily becomes sin when it takes control of part of a Christian's life. But many people consider both gambling and alcohol to be immoral on any terms. I know of a church where the staffers have agreed among themselves to completely abstain from the consumption of alcohol in order to avoid the taint that it might bring if someone who considered it immoral learned of their use.
On the subject of gambling, consider the following thought experiment:
Suppose you were a pastor of a conservative, evangelical church. And you found that someone had placed a lottery ticket in the offering plate. Would you check to see if it won anything?
Thursday, November 8
A better job than I deserve
When I started this BLOG several weeks ago, I had in mind a series of posts along the line of "A better ____ than I deserve". One of them was "A better job that I deserve". But I didn't get arount to posting it in the natural order of things.
In mid-August we started a major software upgrade at my place of employment. It hasn't been going as smoothly as hoped, so the stress level has been high. So I haven't been energized to post on this topic until now. The upgrade project is making progress, and I have come to a significant realization.
Even when things are going below-average-well at my job, it is a better job than I deserve.
The thing that happened that put that thought in my mind was when the 4th or 5th person (department-head-level person) told me today that they appreciated what I have been doing for the County during this upgrade process. They realized that it had not been easy for anyone, but they thought it would have been harder for everyone without my efforts. I don't think that I have been looking down-in-the-mouth or like I needed encouraging (I hope not, anyway). And I have been here a long time without hearing that kind of encouragement (at least not in the quantity that I have heard it lately). So it just goes to show me that my co-workers really are better than I deserve.
My uncle once told me that there are a lot of people (probably a majority) in this world who get up 5 mornings a week and go to a job that they detest because they badly need the paycheck that comes with it. I enjoy my job (even when the projects aren't going as well as I would like). And that enjoyment is rare (if my uncle is right & I think he is) and so even more valuable. I don't deserve it.
I think that work is a gift from God. Work that I enjoy, that adequately provides for my family (if not in the style that they would like to become accustomed to, at least comfortably), that is valuable to (makes a difference to) the community, is indeed to be valued highly. It is more than I deserve.
Thank you, God.
In mid-August we started a major software upgrade at my place of employment. It hasn't been going as smoothly as hoped, so the stress level has been high. So I haven't been energized to post on this topic until now. The upgrade project is making progress, and I have come to a significant realization.
Even when things are going below-average-well at my job, it is a better job than I deserve.
The thing that happened that put that thought in my mind was when the 4th or 5th person (department-head-level person) told me today that they appreciated what I have been doing for the County during this upgrade process. They realized that it had not been easy for anyone, but they thought it would have been harder for everyone without my efforts. I don't think that I have been looking down-in-the-mouth or like I needed encouraging (I hope not, anyway). And I have been here a long time without hearing that kind of encouragement (at least not in the quantity that I have heard it lately). So it just goes to show me that my co-workers really are better than I deserve.
My uncle once told me that there are a lot of people (probably a majority) in this world who get up 5 mornings a week and go to a job that they detest because they badly need the paycheck that comes with it. I enjoy my job (even when the projects aren't going as well as I would like). And that enjoyment is rare (if my uncle is right & I think he is) and so even more valuable. I don't deserve it.
I think that work is a gift from God. Work that I enjoy, that adequately provides for my family (if not in the style that they would like to become accustomed to, at least comfortably), that is valuable to (makes a difference to) the community, is indeed to be valued highly. It is more than I deserve.
Thank you, God.
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