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Comment by tastyface | Hacker News Reader

I can't speak for anyone else, but as a Christian, it's really quite simple: any death that you help cause is a black mark on your soul. Maybe you can repent for it, someday. But it's not something that will just be let go when the day of reckoning comes.

Incidentally, I'd feel the same way about killing someone in self-defense.

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As someone from a Catholic country I always find hard how we mix that peaceful message with was was done in destruction to this day in the name of spreading faith since the ruling religions changed a few centuries ago.

I thought accepting and believing in Jesus as Lord was all you needed to enter heaven?

John 6:40 (KJV) 40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Do you honestly think you're raising a novel point and not just being trite? If so, try reading Luther's Concerning Christian Liberty, where he dispenses with this argument. Or if you want a short version of what he says, if you just claim to "believe in" God but that doesn't affect your behavior in any way, then you don't really believe.

I'm certain I could not raise a novel theological perspective on Chrstianity even if I devoted my entire life to it. But from what I can tell, killing is not a black stain that precludes you from salvation. God is good, and He is forgiving.

You have to seek forgiveness and truly understand the nature of your transgression against your fellow man, not be like "welp, collateral damage is just part of the job."

Sure, I'd say that's a requisite for believing in Christ. But like I said, that belief can be sparked after what seems like any number of transgressions.

OK, but part of repenting for something is genuine contrition, which is not really incompatible with knowing it's wrong but doing it anyway since you read that you can be forgiven.

If you believe something, that will obviously have consequences on your actions, so there's obviously no inconsistency between the verse you quote and what he said.

Sure there is. They're a Christian, and think any action that causes death directly or indirectly condemns you to hell, and it's not given that you can repent. But scripture says belief in Christ will save your immortal soul, and that God is forgiving and merciful. That is not consistent with OPs views, who puts salvation as a "maybe" if you've caused death. If you find a genuine faith in Christ after the fact, you will be saved.

But scripture also says that many people will believe that they are holy and will be saved, and won't be, and this is one of Jesus's parables.

So it's far from clear. People who believe will have works, this is also something with scriptural support. So if you are doing harm, such as by killing people, you probably don't.

What if avoiding causing a death instead results in thousands of deaths? Do you give yourself a moral high five and stick your head in the sand?

That is not my call to make.

In a life-or-death situation, maybe a Christian could make the decision to take another life, then spend the rest of their life burdened by the guilt and sorrow of breaking the unambiguous 6th Commandment. There is room for repentance in this context.

That is *far* from the reality of the "defense" industry, however. Making widgets so that some dude at a computer terminal has an easier time drone-striking buildings full of kids halfway across the world is, essentially, evil.

Some nominal Christians like Hitler and Putin had odd ideas on that stuff. I'll give you Christ was pretty peaceful.

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