What's the difference?

A little boy was playing ball in the back yard. He hit one long and busted a window.

He was scared; he knew what was going to happen - 3 spanks on the bottom! That was the punishment. He knew it, and he knew it was coming.

His dad put him over his knee... Gave him two spanks, and stopped. The boy wondered where the third one was...

But his dad instead told him, "Get your shoes on, get in the car." The boy did, wondering what was coming.

The dad took him to the ice cream shop and got him an ice cream cone.

The boy had not idea what was going on. His dad knew this, so he told him...

"Son, the Law said I was supposed to give you three licks. Mercy kept it to two....

Grace bought you the ice cream."

This post isn’t aimed at anyone in particular, it’s just a comment on my reaction to the story in the OP.

Why should we make people feel guilty like as if they’ve done something wrong when they have an honest accident?

I think we do this far too often. We see a result that we consider to be ‘bad’ and then feel like someone needs to ‘pay’ for it via punishment. A punishment inflicted by physical violence in this case.

Wouldn’t it be better to explain to the boy that he has done nothing ‘wrong’ and should not feel guilty at all. And instead, explain that he should feel responsible for the results of his actions even if they weren’t intentionally bad.

What is served by spanking the boy? Wouldn’t it be much better to teach the boy to be responsible for taking part in the repair of the broken window? Why instill in him with guilt for having done something wrong? What’s the point to that?

If our religious beliefs cause us to view everything in terms of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ then they have failed to teach us anything of value.

I personally feel that this attitude that everything must come down to judgments of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ is unhealthy. There is an entire universe of concepts that need to be embraced that have nothing at all to do with ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

We should be instilling those higher values in our children through the positive mentorship of taking the time to explain how to address life’s issues without it always boiling down to judgments of whether something was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Or that someone should be made to feel guilty for having made an honest mistake. All that attitude instills in the child is the idea that every time something goes wrong, someone needs to be punished for it!

That’s an extremely unhealthy thing to teach a child.

There’s more to life than ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and unfortunately our religious institutions fail miserable in teaching us much of anything beyond this. Everything always seems to boil down to being right or wrong.

This is why I see no value in these kinds of teachings. There are more constructive ways to handle things than to always be reducing them to judgments of right or wrong and delving out punishments to the victims of what was judged to be wrong.

Here... here...

Wow - we've simultaniously have gotten the point, missed the point, and proven the point.

Impressive.

No sense in doing things half-hearted.

WORD! lol..

"The Law" saids you are suppose to stone unruly children to death ...

Who would a Jew consider his true father? God. So if a Jew decided that his own son was so unruly that he had to be killed, what fate should God plan for that Jew? It was supposed to shame the parents into admitting that their children weren't that bad. It was supposed to make it clear that if a human parents could be so disappointed with their child as to kill the child, the how much more righteous would it be for God to kill his children? The Old Testament is one example after another of God showing that we should be merciful to one another, just as he is merciful to us. I really hope that you learn something from what I have posted. Just like Ogres, the Bible has layers. You only look at the most simple layer, use your mind to look at the deeper levels and partake of thousands of years of accumulated wisdom.

didn't the Jewish father just carry out God's law? ...so one would think that the consequence would be on the plus side

I should have known. I wish you well.

ok so if someone actually followed all of God's laws it would still envoke God's wrath? ...well come to think about it that does explain the story of "JOB"

God's laws? Do you mean "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD."? Jesus taught that is the second most important law given to us by God. Wouldn't killing your son or daughter because you were offended BREAK this, the second most important commandment?

“God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.”

The idea that, in the beginning, God was all there was, and now God has enemies, can only mean one thing,… God creates enemies.

to carry out God's punishment against thy neighbor for breaking God's laws was not considered as seeking revenge




but didn't Jesus teach that one must obey God without question




if that was true then God wouldn't have asked Abraham to do it or allow it to happen to Jesus ..so God's own actions or inactions endorsed this practice

Here's the part you missed.

So, in other words, you’re saying that you can pull one quote out of the Bible and that negates the whole rest of the book.

I see.

And I totally agree.

Jesus said this is the second greatest of God's laws...therefore, it trumps all other laws except one.

I explained that...God is the one that said stone people to death ..are you saiding that God made a mistake telling Moses that?