Comment by ImJamal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ImJamal | Hacker News Reader

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I am not sure what your point even is. What is typically referred to as killing (thou shalt not kill) is referring to murder / unjustified killing. This is how Jews and Christians have interpreted it for almost the entirety of their existence. It is only in the more recent years that a small minority have disagreed.

There is no exception because it is not talking about just killings only unjust ones.

Wars, and killings within them, can be just (look up just war theory). The point of a war, at least from a Christian perspective, is not to kill people, but to stop an invasion, protect innocents or the like. If it isn't doing that then the war is not just. If you are wanting to kill, rather than protect innocents or whatever then you are fighting for the wrong reason. This is what is known as the principle of double effect.

The Crusades were intended to stop the Muslim invasion, regain Christian lands, prevent the fall of the Byzantine Empire, allow for safe travel of pilgrims, etc. Those are considered just things to protect. (Obviously not all people in the Crusades had the same motives, but that is on them not the war in general).

Also, just because Christians, Jews, or whoever do something, doesn't mean it is inline with their faith. People justify bad things, ignore teachings, don't actually believe, etc.

To give a more modern example and one relevant to the thread, jumping on a live grenade is not considered suicide because you are not attempting to kill yourself, but to stop others from being blown up. You know you are probably going to die, but since you are not intending to kill yourself it is not an unjust killing. Jesus said "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends".

The point is a simple one, in the space of a few comments you've moved from:

    Every Jew and Christian, until recently, interpreted thou shall not kill (more accurately translated as murder) as a ban on killing yourself or another ..

to

    (paraphrased) except for when justified.

meaning that there has been considerable latitude in the reading and interpretation of what in modern english is stated as "Thou shalt not kill"

There will be some who interpret:

    Jesus said "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends".

as making suicide acceptable so as to not place a burden on friends and family due to { reasons }.

There are many Christians, Jews, and Muslims in this world and many interpretations of the many and varied texts and translations.

I may not have been as clear as I should have been.

I was making a distinction between killing and murder. All murders are killings, not all killings are murders. If you kill somebody it may be acceptable or it may not be. Killing somebody in defense of another is fine so long as you are intending to protect the innocent not to kill. You may end up killing, but it would not be murder and as such would be justifiable.

Bringing up the latitude and interpretation is a major problem some Christians have, but this is a modern problem. The Church, historical, had always believed there needs to be people involved to help guide people. The Bible itself makes the point in Acts 8: "So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him."

You are highlighting a reason why somebody shouldn't just read the Bible and assume they know what it means. This is a problem that only applies to a portion of the Protestant churches not the remaining Protestant churches or the Churches that existed before the reformation (Catholic, Orthodox, etc).

You bringing up English translations is why I was making it clear that murder was a more accurate way of understanding the decree against killing. I knew if I didn't specify that it was only murder, somebody would ask about war. Apparently I wasn't clear enough.

Can you find a single prominent Christian or Jewish scholar, theologian, saint, etc who lived 1000 years ago who believed that Jesus was allowing suicide?

Like I said, this is a modern problem because some Christian churches have gone off the rails and have rejected the traditional views held by the Church. They are clearly wrong. Using them as justification for something is ridiculous. Imagine if somebody said Stalin / Mao / whoever was a communist. Communists are atheists so that means atheists can kill people like those people did. You would argue that those people do not represent an accurate description of atheists. Just as you would reject that argument against atheists, I reject your argument against Jews and Christians.

bravo for trying. its bizarre to me that we are at a point in time that someone could even imagine that suicide, esp assisted, would be permissible in Christianity.

the protestant view dominates "public Christianity". even Catholics will happily tell you that "yeah we believe in this, but I certainly dont" in regards to things like abortion. they just ignore the leap in logic because it's "permissible" by some protestants.

for many, Christianity is simply "turn the other cheek" on steroids, wrongfully interpreted as "mind my own business" and "only believe in the parts I want to".

> Can you find a single prominent Christian or Jewish scholar, theologian, saint, etc who lived 1000 years ago who believed that Jesus was allowing suicide?

The debate on whether jumping on a grenade to save others is suicide or self secrifice, et al has passed you by?

Is it your claim that not a single prominent Christian or Jewish scholar / theologian has wrestled with that conundrum and if they had they all fell in line in unison?

> because some Christian churches have gone off the rails and have rejected the traditional views held by the Church.

There's cetainly less church sanctioned burning of Catholics and Cathars alike .. I don't believe there's a uniform monolithic corp of "traditional views" prior to modern times .. even the implication of a singular Christian "the Church" appears to be an ahistoric over simplification.

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