Judicial or juridical punishment (poena forensis) is to be distinguished from natural punishment (poena naturalis), in which crime as vice punishes itself, and does not as such come within the cognizance of the legislator. Juridical punishment can never be administered merely as a means for promoting another good either with regard to the criminal himself or to civil society, but must in all cases be imposed only because the individual on whom it is inflicted has committed a crime. For one man ought never to be dealt with merely as a means subservient to the purpose of another…
[W]oe to him who creeps through the serpent-windings of utilitarianism to discover some advantage that may discharge him from the justice of punishment, or even from the due measure of it, according to the Pharisaic maxim: “It is better that one man should die than that the whole people should perish.” For if justice and righteousness perish, human life would no longer have any value in the world.
What, then, is to be said of such a proposal as to keep a criminal alive who has been condemned to death, on his being given to understand that, if he agreed to certain dangerous experiments being performed upon him, he would be allowed to survive if he came happily through them? It is argued that physicians might thus obtain new information that would be of value to the commonweal. But a court of justice would repudiate with scorn any proposal of this kind if made to it by the medical faculty; for justice would cease to be justice, if it were bartered away for any consideration whatever.
The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of humanity’s basic freedoms and rights requires courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act – and if necessary, to suffer and die – for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied. These lessons must be learned anew by each succeeding generation, and that generation is fortunate indeed which learns from other than its own bitter experience.
Today is the 120th anniversary of the birth of Haile Selassie I (23 July 1892 – 27 August 1975), whom Wikipedia tells us “is revered as the returned messiah of the Bible, God incarnate, among the Rastafari movement.”
I don’t know much about the Rastafari movement. Rastafarians are sort-of Christian, in the same way that Mormons are sort-of Christian. Unlike Mormons, however, Rastafarians smoke lots of marijuana. In fact, many Rastafarians are too stoned to comb their hair. Bob Marley was a Rastafarian most of his life. One of the best MPs New Zealand ever had was openly Rastafarian. Also, the Rastafari movement is not an organised religion as such. The movement tolerates a diversity of theological views within it. So I figure that Rastafarianism can’t be all that bad!
(Suppose, for the sake of argument.) God created the heavens and the earth … the sun, the moon, the stars, the skies, the land, the seas … the plants, the animals … and mankind. All in the space of six days! (By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.)
How did he do it?
To some it may seem presumptuous even to ask how God went about the business of creation. But mankind is a curious creature. His inquiring mind wants to know. Humans (some of them) thirst for knowledge for knowledge’s sake. That’s why we have philosophy and science and why, today (thank God), we live in a technologically advanced age. The gains in scientific knowledge made since the Enlightenment are nothing short of stupendous.
And now we know.
We now know, for example, that the several references in the Old Testament to God “stretching out the heavens” refer to the metric expansion of space which is a key feature of Big Bang cosmology. We now know that the Universe had its origin in a moment of creation some 13.75 billion years ago.
Let it be said, however, that cosmology is a better example of human ignorance than human knowledge. We’re still in the dark about so many of the fundamentals. Dark matter and dark energy are aptly named. But in other branches of science we know a great deal more. We know so much, in fact, that we can, and do, “play God”. To illustrate this point, here is a recent news headline.
We’ve mapped the human genome. We’ve mapped the genome of Mycoplasma genitalium and run software simulations of the entire organism. We’ve even constructed artificial life (assuming, of course, that a virus can truly be called a living thing), building it from scratch in a laboratory, one RNA molecule at a time. And this is only the prelude to what is to come.
We know how animals (albeit, very small ones) are made. We know how they work. We can simulate them. We can even build them ourselves.
Where am I heading with this? Actually, this post is for my co-blogger, Tim. God made animals, but he also made the human mind. I anticipate that one day we will find out how the human mind is made. We’ll run a simulation of a human mind on the powerful computers of the not-too-distant future.
READ THE SUBTITLE!
Darwin’s Origin of the Species by means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of the favoured races in the struggle for Life.
And People try and say Hitler was a Christian!
He Got his Ideas about ‘the Master Race’, Eugenics, and ‘Sub Humans’ directly from Darwins ‘Scientific’ textbook. The Final solution was the Philosophy of Darwinian Evolution *in Practice*… for the preservation of the ‘favoured’ race… in the struggle for Life!
Bertrand Russell wrote on the Subject of Darwin and Eugenics before Hitler rose to Power.
“Biological arguments for racism may have been common before 1859, but they increased by orders of magnitude following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.”
—Stephen Jay Gould, a leading evolutionist (Ontogeny and Phylogeny, 1977)
Now Racism has indeed been a perpetual plaugue upon mankind, yet Biblical Christianity has never supported the idea Of ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ races. It clearly taught that All Mankind are one Family decended from Adam and Eve.
St Paul declared God… ” hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth…” (Acts 17:26.)
And also that ” As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:… For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Romans chapter 3)… thus both physically and Spiritually there is no distinction between the races.
What more The Christian Gospel declares Gods love and concern for All individual human beings and that He Sent St Paul to preach the gospel of grace and to declare… “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10vs 13)
Salvation being the gift of God (Eph2vs7,8) All believers were to be united in love for one another and in fellowship. They were instructed to forsake any notions of Racism they may have held as heathens because … “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
*These teachings are the very opposite of Nazi doctrine*
One of the Great Blessings of Humanitarianism, Liberty, and enlightenment that arose out of the Reformation and the Publication of the King James Bible was a great religious awakening in the doctrines of St Paul… and it was in this great movement of the spirit of charity and humanity which brought about the Anti slavery movements in Brittan and America. The Christian Protestant realising that Negroe Slavery was against the Spirit of Christ, and that Negroes had Full Rights and dignity as Human beings in God’s eyes, and that they were in fact ‘Family’.
The Negroes in Western civilization ought to be grateful for that period of Christian awakening… it came in the nick of time because had Darwin’s ideas of race had been developed one hundred years earlier they would never have been liberated!
The truth is that Darwinism was responsible for ending this period of enlightenment and humanity!
It is also easy to perceive the roll it has played ever since… in Racial conflict and inhumanity.
The records of 20th century Atheist Socialism are the Bloodiest in the whole of human history!
Not only was the Holocaust against the Jew the implementation of Social Darwinism, likewise was Himmler’s ambitions to create ‘a master race’…. Read…. Historic Photos Show The Third Reich’s Evil Attempt To Create A “Master Race”
How is it that today millions of people foolishly believe that Darwinism saved mankind from evil religious values? How can the be so ignorant as to not understand that Darwinism was responsible for all of the Nazi doctrines and ambitions for world domination?
How is it that the dark secrets of Darwinian Philosophy in action have been hidden from the masses?
How many people who worship Darwin today even know what the Racist subtitle to his book is?
How is it that in the light of what Darwinism has achieved that Pretentious Bastards like Richard Dawkins Dare to hold up Darwin like a Saint, and condemn Christianity and their God for their barbarity?
And why … for goodness sakes would so many Christian concur with the vile rantings of such False teachers… and forsake the teachings of the Bible… which are both scientifically accurate and morally pure , and embrace this de humanizing philosophy which renders mankind down to an Ape… nay down to a colony of germs?
Evolution is one Great Big Fat Dirty Lie!
Satan Laughing spreads his wings
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Darwin, like many evolutionists, believed that some hominids developed larger brains faster, leaving others behind. The most advanced species (in the evolutionist’s evolved brain at least) was a 19th-century European gentleman who was supposedly far more evolved than an Australian Aborigine. This revolutionary, evolutionary idea added fuel to racist thinking and vice versa.
Quotes from Darwins Body Snatchers
“Pickled Aboriginal brains were also in demand, to try to prove that they were inferior to those of whites. It was Darwin, after all, who wrote that the civilized races would inevitably wipe out such lesser-evolved ‘savage’ ones.”
“Good prices were being offered for such specimens. There is no doubt from written evidence that many of the ‘fresh’ specimens were obtained by simply going out and killing the Aboriginal people. The way in which the requests for specimens were announced was often a poorly disguised invitation to do just that. A death-bed memoir from Korah Wills, who became mayor of Bowen, Queensland in 1866,4 graphically describes how he killed and dismembered a local tribesman in 1865 to provide a scientific specimen.”
Update. 23-7-12. A friend posted me an interesting link on facebook.
It says Darwin’s first hand experience of South American slavery appalled him, yet as the following Quotes show Darwin’s cold ‘scientific’ rationale… and that he formulated his Evolutionary theory purposefully to accommodate and even vindicate Slavery… as Natural to the survival of ‘the strong’… and trump any contrary Conscience…
Darwin made comments upon Observation of the behavior of Ants…
“I loiter for hours in the Park & amuse myself by watching the Ants: I have great hopes I have found the rare Slave-making species & have sent a specimen to Brit. Mus. to know whether it is so.”9,10
“I had such a piece of luck at Moor Park: I found the rare Slave-making Ant, & saw the little black niggers in their master’s nests.”11
“I have had some fun here in watching a slave-making ant; for I could not help rather doubting the wonderful stories, but I have now seen a marauding party, & I have seen a migration from one nest to another of the slave-makers, carrying their slaves (who are house & not field niggers) in their mouths”12
In his Origin of Species, Darwin devotes several pages to what he called the “slave-making instinct”.13 He refers to the ant species Formica (Polyerges) rufescens (of Switzerland that he had read about)14 and Formica sanguinea (the one he observed in southern England), both of which make slaves of the ant species F. fusca. Darwin begins by “doubting the truth of so extraordinary and odious an instinct as that of making slaves” (p. 220). Then after giving his own observations he says: “Such are the facts … in regard to the wonderful instinct of making slaves” (p. 223).
Darwin then suggests that
“the habit of collecting pupae15 for food might by natural selection be strengthened and rendered permanent for the very different purpose of raising slaves. When the instinct was once acquired … I can see no difficulty in natural selection increasing and modifying the instinct—always supposing each modification to be of use to the species—until an ant was formed as abjectly dependent on its slaves as is the Formica rufescens.” (p. 224). “ … it is far more satisfactory to look at such instincts as … ants making slaves … not as specially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die” (pp. 243–244).
Every week it seems we read of defenseless people… in our own towns… being assaulted or robbed by thugs.
Just recently I have herd several disturbing stories about innocent people being intimidated by Gangsters into keeping silent in regard to crimes… and the Police doing nothing about it. I’m talking about Machete wielding criminals threatening to kill innocent people, and getting away with it.
And if I personally know of two such cases in very recent times then this Bullshit must be happening all day every day in this country!… This Shitty country which denies our right to possess Guns for self defense!
In one of the above cases the victims have been so let down by the Police… whom told the criminals the name and address of these people whom had reported witnessing the violent crime they had committed… and so intimidated by the Thugs who them went around to their homes with a machete….that they say they will never come forward to report a crime again, and as they have no means of self defense…they now live in fear.
In my view, I believe that it’s a real pity that they did’nt have a Gun, and so couldn’t shoot this machete wielding piece of shit dead on their doorstep!
That is justice in my book!
Why should these Good people live in terror?
Why is it we have such a backward system which benefits the Criminals?
I know why. It’s because the Government and the Police don’t give a shit about the us, but simply want to keep us powerless so that *They can do what ever they want to us*
That’s right! I blame the Government and the Police that Criminals have a free reign.
I told these terrified people that they cant rely on the Police to protect them, and that they need to take steps to be able to defend themselves.
Next thing I am reading about The Batman Massacre in Colorado, and the Man they have in custody… James Holmes..24.
What disturbed me was this statement…
““He’s not on anybody’s radar screen — nothing,” the law enforcement official said, adding that investigators were sifting through social media sites in an effort to determine whether Mr. Holmes had ever posted anything that might indicate some violent tendencies.”
Now at first glance this appears to be a legitimate thing to do, yet it occurred to me that this has very dangerous ramifications for Free speech and Political activists like myself who readily express views which are contrary to the politics of the status quo.Ie My advice that I dish out on ‘social networks’ like Facebook and this blog about preparing for self defense against Gangsters and thugs… could be used by the police in any court case that which I might find myself.(I am not intending to end up in court for any reason, yet because ‘shit happens’… it is very possible! Just recently I ended up ‘Down town’ because I intervened when a Man was assaulting a young woman across the street, and when he tried to attack me I hit him with my baseball bat.)
And this being so… the intimidating thing about it is that the Police using this sort of thing in court… will tend to stifle free speech which advocates the right to self defense… out of fear.
Ie This tends to stifle political descent and make it harder for a reform movement to get traction.
Thus it is that I am writing this blog with the walls closing in from both sides… The need for the right to Bare arms for self defense appears to be growing… while the intimidation by the Authorities to keep us quite and defenseless is likewise on the rise.
And the anti-Gun lobby and powers that be have another weapons on their side…
Ignorance and Fear.
Unfortunately Many New Zealanders are ignorant of the Data which proves that the more Guns there are in the General population… the less crime you have.
The logical explanation is that Criminals prefer unarmed populations.
Again when I was reading another article about the Batman Massacre it talks about the sensationalism such crimes provoke amongst the general population yet statistics prove again…
More Guns… Less Crime!
“Although a 19-year-high 47 percent of American adults report owning a gun, the firearm homicide rate has dipped remarkably. Gun murders sank from more than 10,000 in 2005 to 8,776 in 2010, and appeared to drop again in 2011, according to a recent FBI preliminary report. Gary LaFree, a criminology professor at the University of Maryland, told msnbc.com that the crime rate is at its lowest since World War II.”
What is even more Diablocal is that from reports I have herd President Obarma is about to sign a UN Gun control treaty which will effectively wipe out the Second Ammendment!
This is a most frightful Proposition… If that happens… If the American people allow that to happen… The end is Nigh!
Tim Wikiriwhi.
Libertarian Independent.
Christian.
Update: 30-7-12.
Good news! The UN Arms Treaty collapsed because America refused to sign.
Yet this was not a principled decision on Obarmas part, but a forced expedience, Re:Obarma’s sence of Political self-interest.
American Gun Owners and second Amendment Activists flexed their mussels.
The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance!
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning —the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning —the second day.
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. ” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning —the third day.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning —the fourth day.
And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning —the fifth day.
And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. ”
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food. ” And it was so.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning —the sixth day. (NIV)
So goes the (main) Biblical account of creation. Implausible? Perhaps so. But no more so than the atheistic alternative.
I love the theory of evolution. Darwin’s theory of evolution (or the modern evolutionary synthesis, as it’s called these days) is a monumental intellectual achievement. It’s a thing of great beauty and power. Modern biology would be lost without it. (So, too, would modern atheism!) Nonetheless, as creationists never tire of reminding us, the theory of evolution is only a hypothesis.
I’ve studied biology. I’ve studied the philosophy of biology. I understand both the theory of evolution, and its philosophical implications. But most people don’t. (Most people haven’t read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.) Ayn Rand didn’t understand the theory of evolution. Or, she understood it well enough, and didn’t like its implications. I suspect the latter. Her one-time lieutenant (and lover) Nathaniel Branden recounts
I remember being astonished to hear her say one day, “After all, the theory of evolution is only a hypothesis.” I asked her, “You mean you seriously doubt that more complex life forms — including humans — evolved from less complex life forms?” She shrugged and responded, “I’m really not prepared to say,” or words to that effect.
Not prepared to say? Isn’t that evasion, Miss Rand? Surely not!
I have serious doubts about the theory of evolution. Because it has serious flaws. (I don’t like its implications, either.) Fatal flaws? I’m really not prepared to say.
