Punishment for Sin

It's always interesting to discuss Christianity with Christians. The main reason for this is that most Christians, being human, are pagans at heart. Their instincts are contra-biblical, so to speak, and never more so than when they talk about the just punishment (in this world) for misdeeds.

Normally, their main line of argument, whenever something bad happens, is to blame it on collective sin, ancestral sin, or personal sin. A recent example of this was blaming the Haiti earthquake disaster on alleged national Satanism. I've even heard that the reason one man had to have a heart bypass was because of the wrongs he had done to others. All this is plainly inconsistent with Christian scriptures.

To all Christians who pursue this unhealthily pagan obsession with finger-pointing, I simply suggest a thorough re-reading of the Bible in general. Sometimes, I point to the books of Job (where five different explanations for such phenomena all meet the disapproval of God), Ecclesiastes ("...time and chance happen to them all..." and other paradoxes of why good people get bad things happening to them while evil people don't), Romans ("...all have sinned..." and hence everyone should be visited by random disasters, I suppose) and the Gospels. Sometimes, I get tired of pointing to all the many cases where the Bible tells its readers that being born blind, or being shipwrecked, or being in a tower that collapses, has nothing to do with being in a state of sin.

The one comeback that I've found most common is a quotation from Exodus, often taken out of context, in which God says that he visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. To such people, I point out that the entire Mosaic code is a legal contract. Essentially, if your forefathers did something bad, somebody normally had to pay the price. This is especially clear when people read the Ten Commandments and stop at Exodus 20.

For example, there's an injunction (Exodus 20:12) that goes, "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." It is also known as the Fifth Commandment, the only one with a promise attached. But it is also a logical threat, if you read the elaboration of Exodus 20 that continues into Exodus 21 and beyond. If you read Exodus 21:15,17, these verses say, "And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death... And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death." Well, that explains why dishonouring your parents will make your days short, doesn't it?

The Ten Commandments are of course the most frequently taken-out-of-context statements of the Bible, although they aren't the only ones. People get embroiled with varying interpretations of 'Thou shalt not kill' (the Sixth Commandment) even though subsequent passages and books clearly differentiate between a) manslaughter, b) accidental killing, c) 'lying in wait', d) military operations sanctioned by higher authority, and so on.

The problem really is selective retention of a collective whole. The Bible's legal code is as consistent as anything else can be said to be consistent, and is remarkably liberal for its time once you read it as the contract it is meant to be part of. It is this burden of massive legal contract which prompted St Peter to say in Acts 15, "Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" as the answer to whether Gentile converts should obey the Mosaic law.

The first key point of Christianity, with respect to sin and punishment, really is that if everyone is a sinner, then retribution should fall on everyone. It is like failing a pass/fail test; you can fail by 1 mark, 10 marks, or get a big fat zero — but a fail is a fail and you will suffer the penalties.

The second key point of Christianity, is that an unbelievable and unjust and undeserved general amnesty has been declared. No matter how much you failed by, you get a pass. Maybe not a distinction, but a pass. This of course will irritate people who have passed by working hard, but since the Examiner has decided to do it, you can't complain (see the parable of the workers in the vineyard, Matthew 20).

A Christian is technically one who claims that amnesty. It can be claimed by just walking up to the Examiner and saying two things: 1) I admit I have failed (hence, I qualify for the amnesty), 2) I believe you have the administrative right to grant that amnesty and I want it from you. Most people don't believe it is so easy.

But this is exactly what should happen if you follow the basic premise of why the amnesty is given. According to the Christian Bible, God wants everyone to pass. If you cannot pass on your own merit, you have to ask for the amnesty. The catch is twofold and completely based on faith. Firstly, there is no direct evidence of what your score really is — you are only told that everyone fails. Secondly, there is no direct evidence that you need the amnesty (or even, that the amnesty exists or works as advertised).

To me, what's really interesting is the different ways humans interpret this situation. Sometimes, I think to myself, "That's a great deal, why don't more people take it up?" This is often answered by, "What deal?" or "I'm sure to pass!" or "There's no test, there's only a great deal of schooling for no final reason."

Perhaps this is why so many people insist on one of two main ideas: for every human sin, there must be some sort of retribution; and, there's no such thing as retribution—all disasters are just the logical effects of people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The idea of undeserved benefit is an alien one, even though it crops up often enough in human society.

A Thousand Ages

It has seemed that long. I remember when my previous employer ghoulishly decided that enforced remedial classes should be called 'concentration camps' ("...it's a camp, and they have to concentrate!") I was pretty sure that nobody would take it seriously. But to my horror, a bunch of sycophants told him it was a great idea, and there we were, the first Atlantean educational institution to run 'concentration camps'.

I remember thinking to myself that there were words for this kind of thing, mostly in German and written by victims of the Third Reich. I'm sure Herr Hierophant can translate.

Stacheldraht, mit Tod geladen,
ist um unsre Welt gespannt.

Drauf ein Himmel ohne Gnaden
sendet Frost und Sonnenbrand.

Fern von uns sind alle Freuden,
fern die Heimat, fern die Fraun,
wenn wir stumm zur Arbeit schreiten,
Tausende im Morgengraun.

Doch wir haben die Losung von Dachau gelernt
und wurden stahlhart dabei:

Sei ein Mann, Kamerad,
bleib ein Mensch, Kamerad,
mach ganze Arbeit, pack an, Kamerad,
denn Arbeit, Arbeit macht frei!

Quietly, that awful name has faded. I think they call them 'study camps' now. It's a lot better and less provocative to many of greater social and cultural sensitivities. I wonder what would have happened if that person had proposed this idea anywhere in the Euro-American world.

One last thing. I remember him saying, "We will stretch them as much as we can." At that moment, in the temporary unhinging of my brain, I felt some sort of separation of identity. I felt as if I was looking at myself from a distant height, and saying, "How can you think of silly translingual puns at a time like this?!" For the word that had dropped into my brain was the word Dachshund.

Daily Punishment

A really bad joke with classical antecedents appeared fully-armed from my head tonight.

αυτολϋκος - flow reversed
12:04
like Helen of Troy
12:05
her face launched a thousand ships; it was a fleeting beauty.

Oh dear. And it happens at least once a day, this kind of joke.

Random Encounters

I used to live for random encounters. You travel from place to place. You roll a d100. BAM: 1-4 crocodiles, estuarine, giant. You fight, pointlessly and amusingly. You survive. You keep going. It was all wonderful, pointless fun. Then one day, I got to be management. I could look at a roll of 76 (turtle, snapping, colossal) and turn it into a beach barbecue not to be forgotten, as the island sunset turns into an island which is not amused at having its shell decorated with chicken bones.

It has always been fun to be management. But the cardinal rule is: never forget when you were a worker; better still, never forget what it's like to be a client. It makes things so much more fun. I will never forget the day I caught those scouts attempting to forage under the back gate. In my head, the memory of self as a guy who crawled under the athletic field's fence, warring with the concept of crime and requisite punishment.

But some people seem never to have had childhoods, or earnestly put all childish things behind in a literal sense. They would never be caught doing childish things, or thinking childish thoughts – and at some point, the restriction becomes 'I will never be a child in any way'. And then they are caught anyway, caught by that very interesting statement of the Messiah in one of those chapters of Matthew's gospel that serious people sometimes oddly forget to read.

Here it is:

And he called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them;
And said, "Truly I say unto you, unless you are changed, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
"And whosoever shall receive one such little child in my name also receives me.
"But whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
"Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"

Yes, that's it. Along with the injunctions for fathers not to frustrate their children and such, there's this section about how moral offences against children are dire indeed. Sure, the old part of the Good Book also says that sparing the rod leads to spoiling the child, and hence recommends the precise use of the rod as a corrective; but it doesn't say that children in general must get the stick stuck to them unless there is good reason.