Torture: A Necessary EVIL?

Government is a divine institution. Simply because the institution is filled with many corrupt individuals does not make invalid the protocol of God for human government. Just as marriage is a divine institution, it too is filled with many corrupt individuals, this does not make invalid the institution of marriage, just as it does not make invalid that of government or any other divine institution.

Government is for all men everywhere. It is how law is enforced. Government is the recognized source of civil authority given by God for the enforcement of those laws. In fact, it is the believers duty to involve themselves in government, whether through voting, becoming a representative, the formation of law, the enforcement of that law (in so far as their Christian beliefs are not compromised and then they must suffer as a believer in whatever minimal or maximum measure the suffering is).

I simply don't see that removing one's self from governmental affairs because others involved are corrupt results in anything other than more corruption. The Bible does not call believers to live in a vacuum.

A note here. The term "Minister" that we commonly here used in England to refer to an elected official or governmental official of so sort comes right from the Bible. Whether a believer or not, England recognized that those doing the work of government were indeed by default, whether personally accepting of it or not, ministers of God.

So I simply must take issue here with this sentiment.

P.S. Your book on the other thread is interesting by the way.

 

It is never right to do wrong, even with a chance to do right. History will show when the Church becomes to close to a government, in the end it only hurts the church.

I wrote on this last week in my weekly column.

http://www.lincolnstandard.com/main.asp?SectionID=26&SubSectionID=301&ArticleID=2646&TM=70394.39

 

Torture is always justified for intelligence reasons.
Unfortunately torture is at the bottom of all
methods of collecting intelligence. So the reason
is always illogical. Torture is mean, even for non-Christians.

The Roman Rebublic (and certainly the
mean Empire that followed it was the same)
had three classes of Persons:
The Roman Citizen
The non-Roman Citizen (commoner)
The slave.

A court of law could only take testimony
from a slave only under torture (thus assuming that
slaves wouldn't otherwise tell the truth).

BTW, the hardest part of talking to contempory
Pagans [practitioners are known as 'Witches' (female)
or Wizards (male) ] is that in about 325 when the
Christians got to the top of the Roman Empire
political totem-pole, they began to make Pagan
Martyars (torture & death) Just like the Pagans
had done the Christians 210-215 in the the 10 &
greatest Roman Empire Persecution.
The Pagans seem to remember this better than
the Christians do.

One of the Baptist Banners is DON'T mix Religion
and Politics (AKA, also known as, SEPARATION
OF CHURCH AND STATE.)
I know it is tempting perchance to think otherwise.
I'm a citizen of Oklahoma and until 1964 we
SBC-ites were IN THE MAJORITY of voters in
Oklahoma. Until about 1988 Baptists (not
just SBC) were in the majority of voters
in Oklahoma. Yep, it was tempting. But now
we gamble and booze & pay our public school
teachers 3 notches from the bottom of the States.
Unfortunately in the 1980s a Federal sting sent
1/3 of the County Commissioners to jail - corruption,
you know, kickbacks. Reminds me that in sub-Saharan
Africa, the most Christian of the nations are the
most AIDS infected - heterosexual promiscuity
and sex with children The Pagan sub-Saharan
states in Africa are the least AIDS infected.

Anyway, Torture is mean - Christians shouldn't do it.
Torture is a bad intellegence collection technique.
US citizens who waste their intellegence collecting
time doing torture should receive the death penalty.

People who know Torture is a bad intellegence
collection technique should be supported for
political office. People who don't know Torture
is a bad intellegence collection technique should
not be supported for political office.

 

If that's what it takes to save innocent lives, then do it. The rights of the innocent take precedence over the comfort of the violent.

 

Thanks, Ed. You've made your point very well. We have two threads going on torture, and neither one makes any sense.

Recently I bought a book titled Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ, by William T. Cavanaugh (1998: Blackwell). I have a few other books I had planned to read first, but I may need to get to it sooner.

Tim Reynolds

 

I say we would all be speaking German today if our forefathers had that view.

 

That is NOT what we need to save innocent
lives. Torture is not a good way to
collect data. Torture is not intelligent
nor does it promote good intelligence

Again: we need to put emphasis on
the Intelligent part of intelligence
and eschew violence ( I have no problems
with killing terrorists).

If we aren't different from the terrorists,
then we have no reason to fight them.
Let the terrorists die!
Let the torturers die!

 

We won WW2 largely because we could
break enough of the enemy communication
codes that we knew what & when &
why they were doing.

The data I've seen whereby I make my statement:
"Torture is the poorest way of collecting
intelligence data" was collected in WW2.
The Japanese prisoners had been told they
would be tortured. But they weren't.
They told every thing they knew.
The Japanese were supposed to kill themselves
for the emperor instead of being captured.
So they considered themselves dead to the
emperor so free to say what ever they wanted.

We won the war with Japan on the naval side
because the Navy considered the life of people
important. The US Navy rescued both US & Japan
naval personnel at the scene of ALL naval battles
(or attacks with marines) - the Japanese at
NONE. The US had something worth fighting
to preserve: preservation of life, even
enemy military life. By contrast, the Japaneese
who practices data collection by torture had
no idea what was going on. The people captured
in the Pacific were six weeks or more away from
the planners and had no idea what the plans
were for the future. Meanwhile, we were copying
the private electronic mail and knew more about
what the Japanese planners were planning
than the Japanese military that had to implement
the plans.

INTELLIGENCE is about SMART, not TORTURE.
Torture is mean and stupid

 

I don't disagree Ed, I was commenting on his entire post.

Though if you have a terrorist in custody who you know has info regarding a terrorist attack on US soil, I might pull his fingernail out myself.

 

I went to a Mercedes dealership, found a car I liked, named it and claimed it. But they wouldn't give me the keys. Go figure. I have to remember to write Osteen or Dollar and ask them what I'm doing wrong.

 

You probably forgot to first send them your check for 1/10 the cost of the car.

 

Probably the not enough faith. I need to vow $2,000 to Robert Tilton to increase my faith.

 

I agree that this President is not leading by Christian principles and that the US in not a Christian nation. That doesn't mean that Christians should not try to introduce Biblical concepts into government.

 

But how do you know that the person you're torturing is guilty of anything before they've had their day in court? Of course, Bush doesn't believe that they deserve a trial nor do they deserve to be charged with anything or have access to a lawyer. What in the heck are we fighting for if not democracy? But it's democracy that is being torn down by this fight.

 

This article supports what I said:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...2150.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

//At a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing yesterday, Nance and Air Force Col. Steven Kleinman, a senior intelligence officer with decades of experience, said waterboarding is an ineffective tool for gathering information. Nance said that waterboarding sets off a fear of impending death and that people will say anything to get out of it. //

 

Doesn't sodium pentathol work anymore? Is that considered cruel torture?

 

I'd say it depends a lot on the rank of the prisoner. If it were Bin Laden's right hand man, I'd say he has a wealth of information. It it were a 14-year-old boy toting a machine gun and hand grenades, then I'd say he had little to offer.

Neither do I. In fact, I don't think we should be taking prisoners—generally speaking. If it's Bin Laden's right hand man, then yeah, take him prisoner and glean all the intelligence you can from him. But I believe in the total annihilation of the enemy.

Our own security.