Vinnie

It depends on how you define morally acceptible. I have no practical example buy say a person took the fall for his brother because he knew the punishment would kill him. Obviously we could debate whether or not this is "morally proper" but I was thinking of something like that. In the hard sense though, guilt is not a transferrable commodity.

Vinnie

Kosh

Ah, another Clinton fan.

Vinnie

worldling

Vinnie wrote:
OK, let's debate whether or not this is "morally proper".

I would suggest that the purpose of punishment is threefold:
1) Deterrence - the thought of being punished may prevent someone from committing a crime
2) Correction - once the crime is committed, the perp must be made to understand that it was wrong.
3) Closure, or justice for the victim of the crime - a psychological necessity for the victim to move on.

In your example, none of these three purposes are fulfilled. There is no deterrence, because if he knows his brother is going to take the rap for him, he will do anything he wants. There is no correction, as he gets away scot free. And there is no justice - at least if the victim knows that the wrong person is being punished.

How does this relate to the crucifixion story?

Vorkosigan

No. Discussing the exact meaning of Original Sin is like arguing over which hand Frodo held it with when he peed.

Vinnie

I'll try to work with those three. But I don't want to debate this as I don't feel too strongly on this and this is not how I see Jesus' death anyways so its somewhat irrelevant.:

That is your assumptiuon. How do you know he won't see the sacrifice his brother made and then change? Maybe it will deter him from future acts? By seeing how much he is loved and seeing his brother experience the pain he should have endured could produce real change in the person's heart.

That is not necessarily true either. it may hurt him worse in the end to see how his brother suffered in his place. It may also cause a change in this peerson.

I don't adhere to strict retributionism. I believe in something called mercy. Obviously this depends on the "nature" of the act though.

As far as closure is cocerned, if the person trully repents because of this and feels remorse and has a change of heart, well, I think that could be closure enough. This all depends on "what" was done of course.


I said it doesn't in my view. I do not hold to "penal substitution". I have a different atonement theory. That is why i am not too interested in discussing this.

Vinnie

worldling

OK, Vinnie. There's no point pursuing this if you don't think it's relevant.