ok so i am slack

sorry ed, was planning to write about this and make some point etc but never got around to it. been well, ya know, not doing it. so this is basically a quote from what i read. hope it’s not too out of context being ripped right out of a chapter. it reminded me of the punishment discussion we had/have.

….the victim ploy (aka i am the result of my circumstances, society… my genes etc..) can be attractive because it frees us from having to admit to wrongdoing. yet it is in admitting guilt that we find our true dignity, for doing so affirms the moral dimension of human nature. for centuries western law codes and social morality were based on a huge regard for individual responsibility. it was understood that human beings were moral agents capable of distinguishing right from wrong and are therefore accountable for their actions.

of course, acknowledging responsibility means attributing real praise and blame, in turn imply’s the legitimacy of punishment. thats what makes moral accountability so bittersweet. yet punishment actually expresses a high view of the human being. if a person who breaks the law is merely a dysfunctional victim of circumstances, then the remedy is not justice but therapy; and the law breaker is not a person with rights but a patient to be cured.

to be punished is to be treated as a human in Gods image.

the lesser of two evils.

you know when you hear some cool idea or have some medium thought or something, but leave it a couple of days or weeks before writing it down and when you do it comes out weak and un-inspired? yer. this is one of those times.

was totally awesome last week or so. but you know how things are. anyway.

ill record it, so maby some other time or some other person will progress the thought some. (dont let that sound like it was mine btw, im sure i read this somewhere)

say you have a situation when you can do either one of two bad things. the typical lesser of two evils position you would think. what we need to do is apply the half full glass trick. to see this as which would be the greater of two goods. im not saying that these alternatives may have any good in themselves, but relatively, there is a greater good. ie; the lesser evil.

the cool part is that this way it becomes morally right to choose the greater good..

eg: you must either protect human life and lie or hand over the innocent life to be killed. So it is not the lesser of two evils but the greater of two goods, and in this instance morally obligatory.

for a nice example think of rahab and the spies(joshua2:9).

ahh, found where i was reading about this too.