Echoes in Eternity

Brilliant. Spot on, Mr. Prager.



HT: Steve M.

I came across this blog post this week and am not sure what to think of it. On one hand, the author makes some good and Biblical points about contentment and personal holiness.

Contentment is a spirit of gratitude. It's the choice you make to either be thankful for the things you do have, or to whine about the things you don't have.
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I want you to want the Kingdom of God more than your own kingdom. And that's hard, babies, that is so hard. And that usually means passing up a lot of what the world considers happiness. But it means that you will achieve blessings directly from God that most of the world never dreams of because they are too occupied with achieving the perfect birthday present!

But I wonder if she sets up her children with a poor understanding of happiness by claiming that it is a "reaction that is based on our surroundings," rather than a choice of attitude. Dennis Prager, who spends an hour each week of his radio show devoted to the topic of happiness, argues that happiness is a moral obligation. In other words, one way to love other people is to act happy in front of them even if the circumstances aren't particularly helpful to a positive frame of mind. If you act depressed and allow the situation to control you, you'll depress others and add to their unhappiness. If you act happy, not only will you potentially make yourself happier, you'll also increase the happiness of others. What the blogger above does instead is to assume that happiness is a feeling (one which is governed by external circumstances) rather than a state of mind and choice of attitude.

Now some of this may just be semantics... one man's joy is another man's happiness and all that. Perhaps. After all, it is difficult being happy unless one is content. So maybe I am merely splitting hairs. Or maybe it's a hair worth splitting in a day where prosperity is common yet happiness is daily fading, an age in which emotions rule, an era when the thrill of life is as fleeting as the shallow entertainment that is now required to feed it.

UPDATE: This post spawned a reply post today on the Zeal For Truth blog, mostly from a Christian libertarian point of view. He doesn't address the Biblical support, only Prager's pragmatic argument for it.

In light of New Mexico's monstrous decision to outlaw capital punishment today, I thought it might be useful to give an in-depth reasoning FOR it (both from a Christian perspective and a secular one) and explain how one can be "pro-life" and in favor of judicial execution. Mostly, I will do so by using the arguments of others. But first, a couple of my own thoughts.

When it comes to politics, fads, cultural shifts, and social agendas, a Christian should usually (like a 99.9% of the time kind of usually) shy away from, transform, or outright reject anything that secular culture embraces. That is because the perishing world isn't just partly against God's way and His law, they are in COMPLETE rebellion toward it (Gen. 6:5). So, if they view a certain issue as important (like diets and physical appearance), it's pretty safe to say that they aren't aligned with God's priorities (not to imply diets are bad for Christians, but for entirely different reasons). Another example is environmentalism. The unregenerate world views this as a supremely important issue, even to the point that humanity is the problem. Now environmentalism isn't in itself wrong (it's Biblically proper to care for the earth), but it is wrong to the extreme which secular mankind takes it, actually serving the earth as their god (note the whole "Mother Earth" terminology, referring to the Greek god Gaia). If anyone thinks god/goddess worship is dead, just look at Earth Day.

Christians should likewise be hesitant about embracing the relatively new outrage over capital punishment - if for no other reason than the fact that the most secular, post-Christian countries are the strongest proponents against it. Unfortunately, I don't see this mindset in my generation of Christians. "Be in the world but not of it" was taken to an unhealthy extreme by two generations ago to the point of not being in the world, and now it is dangerously close to swinging to the other extreme where the current generation is both in it and of it. We need to listen to 1 Thess. 5:21-22. We are in danger of losing sight of a GODLY sense of justice in the church, and once justice is perverted, the loss of the Gospel is soon to follow. As the old maxim says, "What one generation knows and teaches, the second generation assumes, and the third generation loses."

With that in mind, let us test the idea of capital punishment (referred to as CP henceforth), comparing it first and foremost to the Word, but also to extra-biblical reasons. Let's begin with an excellent Scriptural defense of CP which you can read in entirety here.

The Biblical position is clear in both the Old and New Testaments that God is favor of capital punishment.
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Old Testament

Genesis 9:5b-6

[God] spoke these words to Noah after the flood, in the context of the covenant He made with mankind (referred to as the Noahic Covenant) to never again destroy mankind by flood. It is noteworthy that this divine command preceded the Mosaic Law. While the Mosaic Covenant was a temporary covenant whose laws were superseded by the New Covenant, the Noahic Covenant appears to be eternal in nature, and thus concurrent with the New Covenant.

The reason for the command is theological in nature. Man is made in the image of God; therefore, a fatal attack against God's image-bearers is an attack against God Himself. It is for this reason God commanded that the individual who sheds another man's blood shall have his own blood shed as well.

When we come to the Mosaic Covenant we find an expansion of crimes for which capital punishment was applicable. The Law of Moses prescribed the penalty of death for 21 offenses, most of which were moral and religious in nature. While human government is no longer responsible for administering capital punishment for most moral and religious offences (as they were under Mosaic Law), they are still responsible for administering capital punishment in the case of the intentional murder of an innocent human being (Noahic Covenant).

Exodus 20:13

The Hebrew word translated "kill" is ratsach. The root is used 38 times in the Old Testament, each time referring to the murder of an innocent human being (whether it be intentional or accidental). A more accurate translation of this Hebrew word is "murder." Nearly all modern translations translate it as such.
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We would do well to make a clear distinction between killing and murder as well. Killing can be just, but murder is always unjust. That's why it is factually incorrect to say capital punishment is the killing of those who kill others. Capital punishment is the killing of those who murder others. It would be equally wrong to say capital punishment is the murdering of those who murder others. Taking the life of an individual who unjustly took the life of another human being is not murder, but killing. To use "killing" or "murder" of both parties interchangeably is to confuse the just taking of life with the unjust.

New Testament

John 19:10-11

What is important to note about this passage is that Jesus did not challenge Pilate's gubernatorial right to sentence Him to death. He implicitly affirmed Pilate's right to administer capital punishment, and that the right came from God... Jesus challenged the source of Pilate's right, not the right itself.

There is no question that the state's execution of Jesus was unjust (because Jesus was innocent, and capital punishment is for the guilty), but that is no reflection on the just nature of capital punishment itself. While there may be unjust applications of a state's right to execute certain criminals for purposes of justice, it does not taint the just nature of capital punishment itself.

Turning our attention to Paul, he wrote the Romans saying:

[Romans 13:1-4]

According to Paul the purpose of human government is to reward good and punish evil, an example of the latter coming in the form of "the sword" (a reference to the Roman form of capital punishment). The reason for such is God's desire for retribution of moral wrongdoing. While vengeance is the Lord's, He has delegated some of the execution of that vengeance to human government in the form of justice generally, and in the form of capital punishment specifically.

While often ignored in this discussion, Acts 25:9-11 sheds some valuable light on this issue as well.

Paul maintained his innocence from those charges, but did not object to being put to death if he had done anything that was deserving of death. Paul did not object to the possibility of capital punishment by arguing that it was unjust punishment, or in contradiction to God's design. To the contrary, he acknowledged there were crimes deserving of death, and was willing to submit to that penalty had he actually committed those crimes.

For those who accept Scripture as the authority for faith, then, the Biblical teaching and rationale should be sufficient to arrive at a position on this controversial issue.
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Responding to Objections

Objection: Capital punishment is contrary to the pro-life ethic of Christianity.
Response: This argument, known as the "seamless garment," misunderstands the nature of the pro-life ethic. "Pro-life" does not mean we are against killing in general; "pro-life" means we are opposed to the murder of innocent and defenseless human life. To argue that consistency of the pro-life ethic demands that one oppose capital punishment as well as abortion confuses guilt with innocence. The unborn are innocent; murderers are guilty. To kill the unborn is the unjust taking of life; to kill the murderer is the just taking of life. "The right to life is not an absolute; it can be forfeited. This moral right is only prima facie; it stands only until challenged by some greater law, like justice or protecting the lives of the innocent."

Objection: Jesus would forgive.
Response: This objection proves too much. It not only argues against meting out capital punishment, but all forms of punishment. So what do you do with evildoers; i.e. those who are a danger to society? Do you invite them into your neighborhood to murder you or your neighbors so they can receive forgiveness again and again and again?

While Jesus may forgive, Jesus does not demand that Caesar forgive as well. God may forgive the sins we have committed against Him, but this does not cancel out the consequences for sins we have committed against other men. There are temporal consequences for sins we commit in this world. Some of those consequences come from God, while others come from man. For example, even though God forgave David of his sins of murder and adultery, there was a temporal price to be paid: David's child died.

This writer goes on to give plenty of other good responses to common objections, but for space considerations (this is already a long post), you'll have to read them by going to the link above.

Dennis Prager has written and spoken on this issue many times, and one of his best pieces on the issue can be found here.

Over the years I have offered many arguments for capital punishment for murder:

1. It is a cosmic injustice to allow a murderer to keep his life.

2. Killing murderers is society's only way to teach how terrible murder is. The only real way a society can express its revulsion at any criminal behavior is through the punishment it metes out. If murderers all got 10 years in prison and thieves all got 20 years in prison, that would be society's way of saying that thievery is worse than murder. A society that kills murderers is saying that murder is more heinous a crime than a society that keeps all its murderers alive.

3. It can, if widely enacted, deter some murders. Though I regard this as a less important argument than the first two, there is no doubt that it is true. Everyone acknowledges that punishments can deter all other crimes -- why wouldn't capital punishment deter some murders? Is murder the only crime unaffected by punishment?
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The most common objection opponents offer against capital punishment is that innocents may be executed.

My answer has always been that this is so rare (I do not know of a proved case of mistaken execution in America in the last 50 years) that society must be prepared to pay that terrible price. Why? Among other reasons, because more innocents will be killed by murderers who are not executed (in prison, or once released or if they escape) than will be killed by the state in erroneous executions.

So, yes, I acknowledge the possibility of an innocent being killed by the state because of a mistaken murder conviction. But we often have the tragedy of innocents dying because of a social policy. I support higher speed limits even when shown that they lead to more traffic fatalities. I support the right of people to drink alcohol even though the amount of violence directly emanating from alcohol consumption -- from drunk drivers to spousal and child abuse -- is so high.

And now I have an additional argument. Regarding murder, it is not only those of us who support capital punishment who support a policy that can lead to the killing of innocents. So do almost all those opposed to capital punishment. Nearly all opponents of capital punishment (and many supporters of capital punishment) believe that if the police obtained evidence illegally, the conviction of a murderer should be overturned.
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The people who believe in this policy do so knowing that it will lead to the murder of innocent people..., just as I believe in capital punishment knowing that it might lead to the killing of an innocent person. So those who still wish to argue for keeping all murderers alive will need to argue something other than "an innocent may be killed." They already support a policy that ensures innocents will be killed.

Lastly, I'll include a short reference to the issue by Theodore Dalrymple in one of his essays.

Let me say at once that, on the question of the death penalty, I face both directions at once. Viscerally, I am in favour of it - in my professional life I met quite a number of murderers for whom it seemed to me that death was the only just and indeed humane punishment - but I do recognise a very powerful argument against the penalty, namely the tendency of all jurisdictions, which after all rely on merely human institutions, to make mistakes and execute the wrong person. You might argue that only those of whom we can be sure that they committed a brutal murder should be executed: but in our system of law, all convicted prisoners are supposed to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and in that sense all should be equally eligible for any penalty that the law prescribes for their particular offence. I am, moreover, a little squeamish about the increasingly clinical nature of executions, as if they were medical procedures. I remember reading an account of an execution by fatal injection, though I now cannot recall where the account was published, in which the injection was preceded by a swabbing of the skin of the person to be killed. This seemed to me both ridiculous and sinister, as if we were trying to pretend that an execution was actually a surgical operation. This (if the account of the execution was accurate) is a terrible slippage.

On the other hand, I cannot share any sense of outrage against the idea of capital punishment, such as is now widespread in Europe. From the assumption of European moral superiority vis-à-vis the United States with regard to capital punishment, you would have thought that capital punishment had been outlawed in all of Europe in about 458 BC. In fact, the country in which the outrage is strongest, or at least most vocal, France, was the last country in western Europe to abandon it, in 1981 - hardly an aeon ago.

Feel free to comment and share your thoughts on the matter. For whatever reason, many Christians today are against the death penalty. I'd like to know how they square that with Scripture (if in fact they do, as opposed to just going along with the culture around them).

Dennis Prager said something interesting today during one of his radio hours (I'm sure he said something interesting during all three hours, but I only caught a part of one of them). It is his opinion that it is man's nature to celebrate or see what exists in his wife's character or personality while it is a woman's nature to notice what is missing in her husband's. Because of this (and other reasons), women are more likely to be unhappy than men when it comes to marriages. Now, obviously, he admits there are plenty of exceptions where some men only see what is missing in their wife, or wives who ignore their husbands' faults and only see the good, but this is not the natural inclination of either gender. On the flip side, he believes it's in a man's nature to want to stray while it is in a woman's nature to be monogamous.

Agree or disagree?

A couple of books (both of which I intend on reading when I find the time) have recently been released which further question the supposed "good" of environmentalism, liberalism, and the love child of the two movements: climate change hysteria. The first is Dr. Roy Spencer's Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor. Dr. Lindzen had this praise to give of Spencer's book:

Climate Confusion is the best book length treatment of global warming science that is available to the literate citizen. The title says it all. Spencer explains the broad agreement over the existence of some climate change and the existence of some human role, but he also explains why these have little to do with the implausible and overheated projections of environmental disaster. The author thus cuts through all the rhetorical brickbats of `denialism' and `salvationism' to allow the citizen to reach rational conclusions. Despite a light touch, Spencer does not pull punches when it comes to unclothing the moral pretenses of many in the environmental movement - pretenses often disguising some truly immoral agendas.

Regarding Spencer's qualifications, this is what Amazon.com has to say about him:

Roy W. Spencer is a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where he directs a variety of climate research projects. He received his Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Wisconsin in 1981, and was formerly a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA. Dr. Spencer also serves as the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) flying on NASA's Aqua satellite. He is co-developer of the original satellite method for precise monitoring of global temperatures from Earth-orbiting satellites. He has authored numerous weather and climate research articles in scientific journals, and has provided congressional testimony several times on the subject of global warming.

The second book is Iain Murray's The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About--Because They Helped Cause Them. Dennis Prager interviewed Mr. Murray this afternoon, part of which I caught as I was going to lunch. During the interview, Prager asked Murray to name the two most important catastrophes. The first on his list was the malaria epidemic in Africa and how liberals had successfully fought against the overwhelmingly best method of malaria prevention: the chemical DDT. It was banned because in large quantities, it POSSIBLY could cause some thinning of eagle's eggs. Because DDT has been out of commission for a few decades, 50 million Africans have died. In other words, liberals have the blood of eight Holocausts worth of victims on their hands. On the "bright" side, the U.N. has finally acknowledged that this was probably a mistake and are considering promoting the reintroduction of DDT on the African continent. But the environmentalists aren't giving up, they are still trying to get the U.N. to ban the chemical completely.

The other catastrophe mentioned by Murray is the ongoing one that I've already mentioned once or twice: the ethanol/bio-fuel subsidizing disaster. Because environmentalists mindlessly keep promoting ethanol even though it is MORE destructive to the environment than regular gasoline, governments keep spending huge amounts of money on it as well as other food-based fuels. This in turn means that land that would normally be producing food for human consumption instead is used to produce fuel, which lowers the supply of food while not changing the demand. The result: skyrocketing food prices, global food riots, and starving third world people.

Needless to say, liberal environmentalists who willfully ignore all the evidence to the contrary are committing some of the most atrocious evil this century has known (and that is no understatement if one considers the numbers of victims involved).

I was going to grab some lunch this Wednesday, and I caught Dennis Prager introducing his guest, Dr. William Gray. This is the same guy that I've mentioned before who is THE premier hurricane forecaster in the world, and is an anthropogenic global warming skeptic. Here is the interview.

Don't know if everyone realizes this, but we have a day of remembrance coming up tomorrow, not just a day off from work. In our historically-ignorant society, most of our holidays - religious or otherwise - have lost most of their original significance. Now President's Day is a chance to get a day off and go shopping at Sears, while Washington and Lincoln's birthdays are almost completely forgotten. What can we do to combat this? Dennis Prager suggests having a form of a Seder for the 4th of July, much like the Passover Seder.

Perhaps the major reason Jews have been able to keep their national identity alive for 3,000 years, the last 2,000 of which were nearly all spent dispersed among other nations, is ritual. No national or cultural identity can survive without ritual, even if the group remains in its own country.

Americans knew this until the era of anti-wisdom was ushered in by the baby boomer generation in the 1960s and '70s. We always had national holidays that celebrated something meaningful.
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Unfortunately...Columbus Day is rarely celebrated since the European founding of European civilization on American soil is not politically correct.

Christmas has become less nationally meaningful as exemplified by the substitution of "Happy Holidays" for "Merry Christmas."

Memorial Day should be a solemn day on which Americans take time to honor those Americans who fought and died for America and for liberty. But, again, fewer and fewer Americans visit military cemeteries just as fewer communities have Memorial Day festivities.

We come, finally, to tomorrow, the mother of American holidays, July Fourth, the day America was born. This day has a long history of vibrant and meaningful celebrations. But it, too, is rapidly losing its meaning. For example, look around tomorrow -- especially if you live in a large urban area -- and see how few homes display the American flag. For most Americans it appears that the Fourth has become merely a day to take off from work and enjoy hot dogs with friends.

Our national holidays were established to commemorate the most significant national events and individuals in our history; they now exist primarily to provide us with a day off. This was reinforced by the nation's decision to shift some of the holidays to a Monday -- thereby losing the meaning of the specific date in order to give us a three-day weekend.

National memory dies without national ritual. And without a national memory, a nation dies. That is the secret at the heart of the Jewish people's survival that the American people must learn if they are to survive.

When Jews gather at the Passover Seder -- and this is the most widely observed Jewish holiday -- they recount the exodus from Egypt, an event that occurred 3,200 years ago. We Americans have difficulty keeping alive the memory of events that happened 231 years ago.

How have the Jews accomplished this? By the ritual of the Passover Seder. Jews spend the evening recounting the Exodus from Egypt -- and as if it happened to them. In the words of the Passover Haggadah -- the Passover Seder book -- "every person is obligated to regard himself as if he himself left Egypt." The story is retold in detail, and it is told as if it happened to those present at the Seder, not only to those who lived it 3,200 years ago.

That has to be the motto of the July Fourth Seder. We all have to retell the story in as much detail as possible and to regard ourselves as if we, no matter when we or our ancestors came to America -- were present at the nation's founding in 1776.
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But someone -- or many someones -- must come up with a July Fourth Seder. A generation of Americans with little American identity -- emanating from little American memory -- has already grown into adulthood. The nation whose founders regarded itself as the Second Israel must now learn how to survive from the First.

I've already stated that I am not a supporter of Rudy Giuliani, but as of yet, I haven't really mentioned John McCain. So it was timely that Dennis Prager's column today deals with just that person. Prager routinely mentions on his radio program that he will not vote for McCain because of McCain's support for campaign finance reform, but rarely elaborates about why the reform was bad. But in his piece today, Prager does just that. Coupling this campaign finance reform business with his support this week of the immigration reform and his past involvement in the Gang of 14 debacle, McCain is obviously not fit to be President. He cares not for what his constituents think, is a bit of a jerk behind closed doors, and couches all of his most idiotic positions in terms like "bi-partisanship" and "crossing the aisle." Basically, he does whatever is good for John McCain and John McCain only. Say what you will about John Kerry, but the guy at least had some principles (even if they were immoral) that were not for sale. McCain will sell any of his positions if it is politically expedient.

The primary consequence of most campaign finance reform has been to ensure that more and more extraordinarily rich people run for office.
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By prohibiting a billionaire from giving more than $2,000 to anyone else's campaign but his own, campaign finance reform has ensured that with few exceptions, only the super rich will run for office in races that demand great expenditures of money.
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A few years ago, I considered running for the Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer. Ultimately I decided against it for family reasons and because I thought that having a national radio show enabled me to influence more people than even a Senate seat from California would. But what rendered running untenable was the campaign finance reform ban on individuals giving candidates more than $2,000.

Since no one can run in a California statewide election with less than $40 million and since I have no personal wealth, I would have had to raise tens of millions of dollars from tens of thousands of individuals. My life would have consisted almost solely of asking people for money. I had supporters who could have personally given me millions of dollars, but they are barred from doing so. Wealthy people can only spend such money on themselves, no matter how ill-suited they may be for public office.

That is what campaign finance reform has achieved -- discouraging, if not actually eliminating, non-wealthy Americans from running for office and forcing those who do run to devote their lives to asking for money; while at the same time pushing more and more extremely wealthy incompetents into office.

And I haven't even mentioned campaign finance reform's undermining of elementary freedoms. Who is the government to tell an American whom he can give his money to? So long as the giving is completely transparent -- i.e., the public knows exactly who has given any candidate money and exactly how much -- people should be allowed to spend as much on another person as on themselves.
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That is how damaging campaign finance reform has been to American democracy. And that is why John McCain ... cannot now get my vote. Which is quite something considering that I voted for him against a governor from Texas in the 2000 California presidential primary.

The one weakness in my eyes in Fred Thompson's political resume is his support of this same campaign finance reform. Here's hoping he has seen the error in his ways and will readily admit it when asked.

Every Friday, Dennis Prager spends an hour of his 3-hour long radio program discussing happiness. He always provides a unique and much-needed perspective on the moral necessity of people being (or at least acting) happy as much as possible. With that in mind, his weekly column today addresses that very issue.

When we think of character traits we rightly think of honesty, integrity, moral courage, and acts of altruism. Few people include happiness in any list of character traits or moral achievements.

But happiness is both.

Happiness -- or at least acting happy, or at the very least not inflicting one's unhappiness on others -- is no less important in making the world better than any other human trait.
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The pursuit of happiness is not the pursuit of pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure is hedonism, and hedonists are not happy because the intensity and amount of pleasure must constantly be increased in order for hedonism to work. Pleasure for the hedonist is a drug.

But the pursuit of happiness is noble. It benefits everyone around the individual pursuing it, and it benefits humanity. And that is why happiness is a moral obligation.