Oh - I appreciate the clarification. It shows I really am not well-educated in religious stuff. Still I wonder how such a commandment can be wiggled around, to me it doesn’t leave any room for other interpretations.
The main arguments for wiggling around it are based on balancing multiple lives against one. There’s a ton of commentary that are basically trolley problem examples. So self-defense is ok, intent matters, etc. Very similar to how most Western legal codes (quite possibly more, I’m just less familiar) distinguish between manslaughter, murder in the moment, planned murder, etc.
Keep in mind it is a religious text, so it obviously also carves out a bunch of stuff around killing for the purpose of enforcing laws (capital punishment), warfare, etc.
I would not be surprised if there’s something in there about how it’s ok to kill people who tie their shoes the wrong way.
I think most religious texts could be interpreted to support anyone’s need to justify brutality toward others somehow. I would hope that human conscientiousness and empathy would prevail and keep people from ever wanting to hurt each other, but that’s just not the reality we live in. It kind of scares me how people tie themselves into pretzel-knots of justification for their horrible actions. But I truly believe - bible or not - killing is always wrong no matter what the reason someone uses for it. Hey that’s just me, but…I’m glad I am that way.
The Hebrew is לֹ֥֖א תִּֿרְצָֽ֖ח which in modern Hebrew translates as “Don’t murder”. It’s also the 6th, not the 1st.
Oh - I appreciate the clarification. It shows I really am not well-educated in religious stuff. Still I wonder how such a commandment can be wiggled around, to me it doesn’t leave any room for other interpretations.
The main arguments for wiggling around it are based on balancing multiple lives against one. There’s a ton of commentary that are basically trolley problem examples. So self-defense is ok, intent matters, etc. Very similar to how most Western legal codes (quite possibly more, I’m just less familiar) distinguish between manslaughter, murder in the moment, planned murder, etc.
Keep in mind it is a religious text, so it obviously also carves out a bunch of stuff around killing for the purpose of enforcing laws (capital punishment), warfare, etc.
I would not be surprised if there’s something in there about how it’s ok to kill people who tie their shoes the wrong way.
I think most religious texts could be interpreted to support anyone’s need to justify brutality toward others somehow. I would hope that human conscientiousness and empathy would prevail and keep people from ever wanting to hurt each other, but that’s just not the reality we live in. It kind of scares me how people tie themselves into pretzel-knots of justification for their horrible actions. But I truly believe - bible or not - killing is always wrong no matter what the reason someone uses for it. Hey that’s just me, but…I’m glad I am that way.
I hope you stay that way. I lost most of my faith in humanity at some point, and what little was left is gone after October 7th.