2118 And This Triagonal Sign.
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This is an update for anyone coming to the site for new pages. At the moment I am locked out of the site except on my phone. Once this session ends I’ll be locked out completely. I don’t know what’s wrong but I’ve locked everything down I can from here until I can get back in. You can check the twitter for updates. I’ll be back as soon as I can sort things out.
Betweenfailures.tumblr.com/
www.facebook.com/betweenfailures/
Are both always updated with new pages in case of situations like this.
Thomas is having a rare moment of being the voice of reason in an ethical quandary. What is just, and the word of law don’t always coincide. Ideally they should, but in reality you can’t write enough legislation to cover the multitude of situations, & nuance, life presents. There are unjust laws & justifiable crimes. The black & white simplicity that humans desire innately sometimes isn’t available & we have to muddle through. What is & isn’t just can vary from person to person based on any number of factors as well. Religion comes to mind. Thou shall not kill… Unless god says it’s cool. Who will let you know what he thinks? Probably someone with no ulterior motives I’m sure.
29 Comments
A very interesting character Dynamic here, though it does I think fit with how Thomas usually acts. He likes to mess with authority, but he generally stays safe and is very careful with how he does it. As to your post, you commented on the Thou shall not kill line. That is actually not entirely accurate. Both the line itself and the theology behind it, if your referring to Jewish and Christian beliefs at least. In truth that line is a slight but very important incorrect translation. The oldest and more accurate translation is thou shalt not MURDER, not kill. The distinction there is important because while murder means to illegally kill someone (in regards to Gods, and possibly human laws), killing is obviously the act itself. So in fact in terms of biblical theology, killings itself is not entirely and completely outlawed, its just mitigated to only being acceptable in very specific circumstances( like self defense). Many of the commandments are built like that, with the other versus and theology being a great deal more in depth then is often considered.
That’s certainly very interesting, but the problem is that the mistranslation is what’s been used for so long it doesn’t really matter unless the church actually addresses the issue. Nuance in scripture that only a handful of people know about isn’t very useful.
I pretty much agree with all that you have said.
The topic of, is it “thou shall not kill”, or “thou shall not murder”,…for [most?] Jewish congregations, + for [most?] Christian congregations, seems to be presented pretty well on wikipedia, [in my opinion].
You can see the topic, here, at- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou_shalt_not_kill
But, no humor intended, but- I live in an area/society, + a state, + a town, where my being involved, in a murder or killing will likely never happen to me- the closest I will probably get to stopping a killing will be to convince my neighbor to stop eating 6 doughnuts every day. *shrugs*
When you start translating the terms from the original Hebrew it starts looking a lot more like “thou shalt not murder.” If you really get into Leviticus, there were several instances in which you could kill a guy and it wouldn’t count as murder. Accidents were covered, as were issues of self-defense. “Duty to retreat” is not an Old Testament concept.
And yet, in spite of the fruition of the mistranslation, many traditional churchgoers continue to abide by the King James translation of the Bible, which is considered to them to be THE version of the English Holy Bible. Any attempts to modernize the English translation would be seen as heresy and sacrilege to them, which is bullshit but ultimately moot in the grand scheme of things when religion and non-religion constantly butt heads.
I prefer the King James version to most others I’ve seen-things that sound profound in the KJV sound kind of common in others(so, uh go away and don’t sin anymore….) That said, definitely believe in the difference between killing and murder-would say it can also be justified in defense of the innocent/ weak/ helpless. Also take much of what Paul says with a grain of salt. Some of his ideas he admits are his own/ what he believes. (Women quiet/silent in church, etc. Authority is sanctioned by God -tain’t always so.)
What is preferential and what is accurate are two very different things though. Even with the King James version of the Bible, you are still subject to the misinterpretations of the original Dead Sea Scrolls and the accounts of other followers in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.
So, unless you want to maintain that sense of misinterpretation in the name of english tradition, you’re only subjecting yourself to an inaccurate sense of worship unless you’re keen on telling the difference between what is written and the context that is derived from it.
Exactly right on “you shall not murder.” The King James version is nice, but it has its flaws, and that is probably THE most glaring one that causes good people to stumble. In fact, in almost every other translation I’ve seen, it is translated as ‘murder’. If it were simply ‘kill’, Christians in the police and military would never be able to do their jobs. In fact, according to the New Testament, the first Gentile to become a Christian was a Roman soldier. Jesus did not require him to renounce his military service as a result of his conversion.
I know someone personally who struggled with this for many years, since he had to kill a person in the line of duty while serving with the Army Special Forces in Bosnia. He agonized over this for a long time until I convinced him that the actual, correct translation of the Hebrew word used was ‘murder’, NOT ‘kill’.
In fact, the right to self-defense is advocated in several places in Scripture.
That’s just one of the many reasons it’s extremely important to NOT take anything out of context in the Bible. It helps to compare different translations as well. I have a parallel Bible which has together, printed side-by-side, the four major translations commonly used in the U.S.: the KJV, the New International Version, the New Living Translation, and the New American Standard Bible (the last one being my preference).
Who is to say that they even have to tell the cops? Free supply storage.
Then the body doesn’t get its proper burial, really.
About the only way to do that is to go down there, empty the place out, leave the secret door open and then tell the authorities that it was all like that when they got there it really was.
But that’s the beauty of it; its already buried.
But that is actually a good idea. Steal everything over months and then report it months later.
I trust Reggie to ensure the proper burial more than I trust the police.
“JUSTICE, is one thing! The LAW, is what we settle for.”- Arthur Conan Doyle.
(ACD wrote the Sherlock Holmes novels.)
Sir, Sir-Arthur Conan Doyle. It’s different with Paul. He’s been Paul since “I Wanna Hold Yer Hand” was a hit on AM Radio. Don’t make me do the math, it’s too depressing.
Of course.
Honestly, I think I subconsciously left off the “Sir”, because I didn’t want people to think I was being snooty. Oh well.
I’m just curious- what kind of castle did they give “Sir Mix-A-Lot”? :D
Also, to run my ideas firmly into the ground-
I DO admire [Dame Judi Dench’s earning her Damehood, aka a Knighthood-type of thing, more than the Royal Family deciding to make Sir Paul McCartney a Knight, and/or a Sir. Go fig-yah! :)
Irrelevant.
Easy there, Locutus. Let’s not be a jerk about this. You’ve got a point; don’t hammer it into the ground.
[the smell of singed hairs n flesh fills the air at the “no ulterior motive” comment]
can somebody say, “ouch”? i knew they could.
in all seriousness, though, i agree. there’s just too much chaos for there to be Strict order in all situations.
would we like there to be? sure. but it’s just not possible in all cases. some of the smaller extra bits just slip into the cracks and leave the rest in a mess for others to try sorting out.
“What is just, and the word of law don’t always coincide.” Another phrase I am hearing which is close to this is “rule of law”, a phrase that I have not heard, other than when someone’s rights were being trampled.
It goes right along with being charged solely with resisting arrest after hitting the officers fists with ones face.
When did the handle of peace officer [Adam 12, Dragnet, etc] change to Law Enforcement?
During the Nixon administration.
I’m not sure.
etymology.com, under the article named “peace”, says that the pre-US / American colonies said, “peace officer”, around 1714.
Wikipedia’s article named, History of the Metropolitan Police Service, seems to imply that the MPS was called “law enforcement”, before 1829.
For those readers not into the MPS, which was sometimes called…The Peelers,…the MPS is the main police force of London, England.
Black and white ethics in lifestyles would never work considering the vast multitude of situations that will always arise but the closest we could ever hope to reaching that kind of lifestyle is if sound logic and reasoning were to prevail over one-sided interests, which is unlikely to happen under our current democratic system. I don’t see this year’s election being any different.
Not a democracy. Never have been. God willing, never will be. A democracy is majority rule -no representation if you’re not among the majority. New York and California would decide everything. Course’ then if you lived in Kansas, you’d never have to bother voting again.
Yes but no – the electoral college members supposedly represent the people who placed them there yet they are not beholden to those people and can do what they want without repercussion – then there are the sates where a majority of college votes becomes a block vote for the whole state – it is a pinch point rife with shenanigans. It is how Clinton got the nomination last time around resulting in a majority of the Bernie supporters going screw this and voted the orange one if they didn’t give up on everything and either not vote or wrote in the spaghetti monster.
I voted for the slab of concrete [in my own countries last federal election]
Consider this, maybe it WAS a proper burial, Egyptian pharaoh style?
Hidden tomb, grave goods to bring with him in the next life?
It belongs in a museum!
Hee hee hee!
Grab HIM, Indy! He’s stolen the CB radio of Coronado!
*Starts playing the theme tune of Raiders of The Lost Ark*
Bizarre- and disappointing- how quickly they go from ‘This is historically valuable- do you trust the cops with all this?’ to ‘I want my cut of the loot!’ And cool how they went from AD&D to a real dungeon dive.
It is not so much AD&D to something else as it is a a change in campaig.
I liken it going from Living City to Living Greyhawk in it’s first year.
Universal starting items for the successful Greyhawk adventurer that year were, intelligence, compassion, attention to detail, a claw hammer and a chicken.
The claw hammer was to take all the nails before taking everything that wasn’t nailed down.
As I pondered ways one could respond to this situation, one thing occurred to me: Fame. This is a chance to get your name in the paper, or the modern equivalent of that expression. Not just for the local town, but maybe to get a mention as a blurb on a statewide news level. If you keep it secret, you don’t get to also brag about it; but this is an epic, once in a lifetime situation. It’s exactly the kind of thing it’d be awesome to be able to tell people about; since you’d have proof in terms of police reports n stuff that you aren’t just making it up. Many peoples lives aren’t that eventful, and a chance to get even 15 minutes of fame is rare.
I’m not sure how exactly I’d value fame compared to the monetary reward, but I’d at least put it at a few hundred dollars worth, maybe quite a lot more. It’s also a nice way to develop an “in”, for if/when they start work on Jo’s movie. Having some prior exposure may make it easier to try to build an audience.