Correction

[avevale_intelligencer]

In the previous post I said that the only thing that mattered about Jared Lee Loughner and Timothy McVeigh was that they wanted to kill.

I was wrong. I'm sure many people have moments when they want to kill, and then they move on. So the *other* thing that mattered about them, that maybe mattered *more*, was that they saw no (EDIT: sufficient) reason not to.

Christians, and Jews, and Muslims, and atheists, and agnostics, and Hindus, and Buddhists (especially Buddhists, perhaps) all see (EDIT: sufficient) reasons not to kill. ()EDIT: as do pagans, of course, and worshippers of the Spaghetti Monster and anyone else I hadn't thought of.) Some reasons are given in religious scriptures, some arise naturally from the consensus codes of morality by which we live, some are deeply personal. They're all good.

Let me be very, very precise about this: nothing justifies murder. No political ideology, no sacred precept, no failure of justice, no crime, no iniquity, nothing. Murder is never justified. Not even in those rare cases where it becomes necessary, when even I would admit that there was no other choice. Never.

To see no (EDIT: sufficient) reason not to kill is to see no reason. It is to be lost. It is to be pitiable and dangerous at the same time. And it is true of too many people.

EDIT YET AGAIN: and just in case anyone was wondering, I do not believe abortion or contraception are murder.

Comments

[howeird]

Tangential semantics here: the Hebrew for the Biblical commandment which is often mis-translated as "Thou shalt not kill" is really "Thou shalt not murder". The difference being that murder is a planned act, usually with a motive of greed. For what it's worth.

[batyatoon]

There's more to the difference than that. For instance: by Biblical definition, it is not murder to kill an enemy soldier during a war, or to execute someone who has been condemned to death by a court -- both planned acts, and both often referred to as murder (or considered tantamount to murder) by some who consider said acts immoral.

[howeird]

Thanks - both of those are excellent points.