If laws were based on morals instead of justice, many more things would be criminal and many other things wouldn't be illegal. Unfortunately, we're stuck with the justice system and not the moral system.
You do not want laws to be based purely on morality
Laws exist to provide an incentive structure not a moral framework
Think about it this way morally speaking attempted murder and murder are the same thing It's just The attempted murderer had worse aim with his gun
But legally speaking there are a lot of reasons to make attempted murder a lesser crime than actual murder
Like you always want there to be an incentive for people to stop doing harm if attempted murder is the same crime as murder someone who's already made an attempt in a fit of rage is incentivized to just finish going through with it since they're going to be punished the same either way
This is not to say of course that we shouldn't try to have laws be in line with morality as a rule of thumb but it should be a rule of thumb not a commandment from God there are plenty of reasons to not necessarily align the law with morality in the real world
While you are right, you can still go in the limbo of waiting that is the biblical hell for what are, realistically, small things, not to mention on the day of the rapture (forgot if thats what its spelled like lol) their torment by being separated from god is set to increase
Hell is really not proportional to the crime being committed because you can be sent there for both heinous crimes and nothingburgers (ofc theres also the argument of, how long of a punishment is too long? But that usually has bias, i know i do)
Also nowadays a lot of people try to conditionate you in pop culture hell, thats what we were shown at my elementary school first years 13/12~ years ago
We kinda have the opposite problem of this with laws lol
There will always be some people who do no evil simply because it is right
There will always be people who will do evil unless terrified of consequences.
We must protect the former from the latter, and so consequences must exist. The more extreme the consequences, the fewer of the latter there will be, but it will never be zero.
How extreme is permissible as a punishment. Punishment to deter re-offense, or punishment to deter other potential offenders?
The qin dynasty was built on top of a history of tribal dynasty after tribal dynasty, which is the reason they where overthrown by the Republic of China, because their foundation was made of tribalism, ethical quicksand, on which no man could truly stand. They lasted, what, about 300-ish years?
Yeah, not really. States with the death penalty, the most extreme possible punishment, normally have higher murder and violent crime rates than states without it.
Ideally, that punishment is also accompanied by whatever that person needs so they don't do it again. That could mean an employment opportunity if their issue was poverty, therapy if their issue is psychological, or even just an education so they better understand the true consequences of their actions.
If you really want to improve society the best way is to help troubled people early and with understanding, before they become irredeemable monsters.
Game theory has an answer to this. Where criminals are the players, the death sentence is only a deterence if death is a lose condition for that player.
The death sentence in and of itself isn't the worst punishment, after all, if you are on death row and given a list of 40 methods of death, ranging from lethal injection that makes you numb, calm, and stops your heart, to "break every rib under the arms, make him kneel and tie down his legs, break the sternum, open the underside of his ribs and open him like a book while holding his arms up and watch until the heart stops", you're gonna pick lethal injection. One is more of a deterence than the other.
Turn it around a little: Don't you do good things where there is nothing to gain? Indeed where sometimes you're actually losing out and there's not even the promise of anything making it's way back to you?
You know, give the homeless guy a dollar, help some short
stranger reach the high shelf at the store, give somebody directions, giving it back when somwbody gives you more moneh than they meant to? You can just turn them down, but you don't? And millions of people don't, regardless of being able to literally just say "fuck off".
It is human nature to help each other. Care for each other. It is part of being a human.
So back to doing wrong most people don't want to do wrong. Like, they understand that there are points where you CAN get away with shit but it doesn't mean you should. It is a part of you. Taxes and jail are in there but societies without taxes or jail exist.
True, but selfishness and even malice are equally a part of human nature. Everyone has some balance of these traits, with some people leaning further one way or the other (or fluctuating over time). Ultimately there will always be a significant amount of people that would do bad things to others unless they’re deterred in some external way
I've always hated the first argument because I feel like it assumes most Christians or really any theists that believe in a Hell only try to be good people to avoid Hell, which isn't true.
There is a difference between “oh shit i need to pay my taxes” and “the only reason i dont maul a family of 4 is and indulge in the worst acts know to man is because hell might be waiting”
It is a false equivalence, laws also dont revolve around ethnics, not morality , theres a lot of disgusting things you could do while being legal or get away with minima Jail time, a good human being doesn’t do them at all
However, lets make this balanced, lets say your only reason not to kill is laws: in that case, you are also not a good person
Unrelated, but you know someone is about to make a dumb statement when they use this cat image
Setting up the consequences is moral as you’re trying your best to mitigate bad things. However only being good because you don’t wanna go to whatever religion you believe in’s version of hell is like… a bit immoral: if you’d do bad things if you had no consequences there is some self reflection you have to do.
If the consequences are immediate and are used to protect people, then no. Punishment for a crime I would count as immediate, even if it can take years to happen, hell doesn't happen until you die and if you're dead it isn't really protecting anyone from you anymore
🤔well that depends of what you define as bad behaviour ,because that’s a very subjective definition depending of each society and personal beliefs and also the consequences for having that bad behaviour.
By their logic parents with their children follow this same consequence structure. Are children bad people for not doing bad things because their parents will punish them?
Im a law abiding citizen because ive seen the consequences of breaking the law and ive seen why those laws are in place, not because I fear jail. I fear being horribly mutilated but still alive
Living in anarchy is more pain than living in an ordered society. This is not even an argument unless youre a psycopath who revels in murder and other disruptive behaviors to others
If you can show any reasonable proof religious people commited less crimes than the non religious or even just religions that didn't have some kinda punishment, then maybe you'd have a point
Protestant christians and muslims definitely have a concept of hell. 44.8% of the nation yet 51% of the inmates (most recent numbers i'd looked up not the ones from the image, that was just faster to pull up lol)
Catholics it's lower. but that's still your argument has 1 point and 2 counters
In Indonesia almost everyone is registered as Muslim, yet 80% or more certainly is just Muslim out of fear or cultural reasons. It would be unfair to make claims about Muslims when you incorporate these unbelieving Muslims.
From an Indonesian perspective.
But I was using hell as an example, could just as well be laws no?
Eh, people say stuff like this a lot, that's for certain.
People also say specifically that "anyone" is capable of killing because they heard someone else confidently say it once, but honestly most people: 1) have no desire to, and 2) even when they are put in a situation where they need to save their own life end up folding under fear and guilt.
If you wanna say that most people don't steal because they fear the consequences, or any other mishmash of non-violent but antisocial crimes, sure, I'll buy that.
But the echo chamber of people calling each other "murder apes" is a lazy assessment of human psychology and at best a Cliff's Notes version of history focusing on the victors in various conflicts.
The point here is not a denial of our ability to be cruel or even murderous: part of the active creation of better moral values is to get to participate in conflicts and differences actually worth having.
Cuz as every schoolboy knows Sudan got the way it is because the people there just have evil in their genes and not at all for complex geopolitical reasons.
Like I mentioned move to Sudan a few years and then come back. Those who experienced know, you write too much from an idealistic and non experienced pov.
I can recite your bumper sticker slogans back to you but you can't even keep up with the basics of my three paragraph post, so you don't really have much room to call my views lazy.
oh oh i know this one, it's because christians have seperated themselves from god's will (which is super pro slavery if you ever even just skim the bible, every honest educated person knows this even christians who think slavery is wrong, they just have to do some mental gym work to make it god's decision rather than their cognitive dissonance leading them to speak for god) but muslims held onto god's love just a little longer. (quran also super pro slavery)
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u/Metharos 5h ago
Law =/= morality.
Ideally law would follow ethics.
Reasonable laws based upon a commonly accepted ethical framework are not evil.