Comment by geowwy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by geowwy | Hacker News Reader

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>>> Committing crime, any crime, was to “sin” – and it appeared that as far as the church was concerned, so long as you were sorry, God would forgive you your sins. For me forgiveness was the sole prerogative of the victim.

Maybe the priest didn't explain this very well, but repentance in Christianity does actually include repaying the victims of your crimes. It's not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

e.g.

(Matthew 5:23-26) So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

(Luke 19:1-10) He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

And in the old sanctuary laws up until the 17th century you were immune to arrest if you reached a place of religious refuge - but would lose all your wealth and be exiled as a pilgrim. Given everyone in other countries knew what it meant when a foreigner arrived in those circumstances they didn't tend to have the best of times.

Bible says that reparation needs to compensate the victim for the loss, and then an additional fifth.

However, in the current system, there is no compensation to the victim. On the other hand, 3rd parties ( us, the tax payers ) spend additional money to keep the criminal locked up.

When the criminal earns in prison, it should pay the victim theoretically.

> Bible says that reparation needs to compensate the victim for the loss, and then an additional fifth.

Not exactly. Or at least, I'll need a citation on that.

Christ specifically said to go above and beyond when someone demands something of you. If they want you to walk a mile with them, walk two. All of this is out of the motivation to love others as yourself and value relationships over rules. Or, to look at another way, if you ask God "so what am I supposed to do here?" then you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking "how can I honor You and love my neighbor in this circumstance"? It may seem subtle, but intention and relationship is 100% the point of Christianity.

And, on the other hand, if a Christian is victimized, they should be at peace with being under-compensated since having your debts forgiven by God while demanding repayment from others is hypocritical. Anyway, what can another person give you that God couldn't provide ten times over?

Problem is that prisoners get paid next to nothing, they get next to little job training, and when they're dumped into society, they're denied job by pretty much everyone.

Kinda hard to pay reparation when you can't feed yourself.

It remains though that defaulting to seeking forgiveness from a third party, rather than the aggrieved, was one of the revolutionary ideas that allowed Christianity to spread very quickly from its inception.

In both Judaism and Christianity, if you need to ask forgiveness from your neighbor, you need to ask forgiveness from God as well. If you knocked over a toddler at the park, would her dad be a third party? No.

pretty sure you're referring to God as the "third party" -- but I'm not sure how it was revolutionary considering Judaism had a very similar system in place where offerings were presented to God for forgiveness. Jesus is just the ultimate offering in that sense for Christianity.

For forgiveness of sins against God. For sins against another person, forgiveness may only be granted by that person.

Judaism does not recognize absolution as part of the process of sin and repentance. There is no designated authority who can dispense forgiveness of sins after confession and penance; rather, sins between persons require the asking and granting of forgiveness by the parties concerned while sins between persons and God require the asking of forgiveness by the penitent and the granting of forgiveness only by God. Finally, Judaism does not recognize reconciliation (the whole-hearted yielding of all inner negative feeling) as a necessary part of the process of sin and repentance. Although reconciliation is known and even desireable, rabbinic Judaism realizes that there are other modes of rapprochement that are fully adequate and, perhaps, more realistic.

http://www.js.emory.edu/BLUMENTHAL/Repentance.html

I'll underscore the point that sinning against your neighbor is also sinning against God. You actually have to ask for forgiveness from God and the victim, not use religion to skirt the responsibility to make amends.

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