Bootstrap wrote: ↑Fri Jul 11, 2025 2:07 pm
Did you watch the video? Do you see cruelty in that video? If this were you and your wife, would you consider it cruel?
Even if there were some clear reason these people should be deported, this seems like a particularly cruel way to do it. But they came here legally. And their status as persecuted Christians from Iran was probably a major reason they were allowed to enter legally.
I don’t consider being detained or arrested to be “cruel. I don’t think it’s wrong if the government detains migrants.
I don’t understand what’s “cruel” about detaining or arresting people without warning. Perhaps you could help me understand.
Bootstrap wrote: ↑Fri Jul 11, 2025 3:51 pm
Another thought experiment. Imagine this video showed the Iranian government doing the same thing to people who committed no crime. Would we have a moral obligation to look the other way? Is this OK for some governments but not for others?
I don’t enough about the Iranian government to know how I would decide if they committed a crime or not. Obviously, I don’t think people should be detained or arrested without an indictment or other reason to be detained, such as a traffic stop, investigation, Terry stop, migration violation, and so forth.
I feel there’s an attempt to try to portray migration detention as an arrest for a crime. It isn’t.
Szdfan wrote: ↑Fri Jul 11, 2025 3:11 pm
And John, since you’re claiming that Christians don’t have any responsibility to speak out about systems and polices, I’d like to ask this —
If these Iranian Christians were your next-door neighbors and therefore directly in front of you, would you have a moral responsibility to speak out if masked agents came and took them without warning? What if you looked out your front window and saw these refugees who were your neighbors, who you knew from your neighborhood or even you church being taken away would you have a moral obligation to speak out?
Does proximity change the obligation?
No, I don’t have a moral responsibility to “speak out” about people being arrested or detained. I frequently drive past people who are detained at traffic stops and I don’t “speak out” against it.
I’m not sure why saying “masked agents” is relevant. Does anyone doubt that these are duly authorized federal agents?
If I knew them I would certainly try to find out why they had been detained and see if I could lawfully do anything to help.
Szdfan wrote: ↑Fri Jul 11, 2025 3:42 pm
Jesus was crucified because he confronted power.
Jesus was crucified because he decided to do so in order to bear the sins of the entire world and humanity.
The specific charge against him was claiming to be the Messiah.
Not because he “confronted power”.
Why do you think Jesus’s claim to be the Messiah was so threatening to both the religious authorities and the Romans that they executed him?
What was it about that claim that made it dangerous enough to require a public death?
0 x
"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless."
Jesus was crucified because he decided to do so in order to bear the sins of the entire world and humanity.
The specific charge against him was claiming to be the Messiah.
Not because he “confronted power”.
Why do you think Jesus’s claim to be the Messiah was so threatening to both the religious authorities and the Romans that they executed him?
What was it about that claim that made it dangerous enough to require a public death?
How can we be sure that was the Romans motivation? Did they really think they were threatened by Jesus?
The Romans weren't really threatened by Jesus. They tended to be pretty tolerant of various religions across the empire as long as they behaved. Jesus was more of a threat to local religious and civil authorities, not the Roman empire.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Why do you think Jesus’s claim to be the Messiah was so threatening to both the religious authorities and the Romans that they executed him?
What was it about that claim that made it dangerous enough to require a public death?
How can we be sure that was the Romans motivation? Did they really think they were threatened by Jesus?
The Romans weren't really threatened by Jesus. They tended to be pretty tolerant of various religions across the empire as long as they behaved. Jesus was more of a threat to local religious and civil authorities, not the Roman empire.
I think the Gospels are clear that it’s the religious officials who were the driving engine behind Jesus’s crucifixion, but I tend to group the Romans with them because they were complicit. Pontius Pilate’s acquiescence to Jesus’s crucifixion even though he believes Jesus is innocent is an injustice — a failure of the Roman system to protect the innocent and to give into the bloodthirsty demands of the mob.
Pilate’s failure isn’t just political. It’s also a moral failure. It shows what happens when those in power refuse to stand against injustice, even when they see it clearly.
1 x
"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless."
R7ehr wrote: ↑Sat Jul 12, 2025 12:54 am
How can we be sure that was the Romans motivation? Did they really think they were threatened by Jesus?
The Romans weren't really threatened by Jesus. They tended to be pretty tolerant of various religions across the empire as long as they behaved. Jesus was more of a threat to local religious and civil authorities, not the Roman empire.
I think the Gospels are clear that it’s the religious officials who were the driving engine behind Jesus’s crucifixion, but I tend to group the Romans with them because they were complicit. Pontius Pilate’s acquiescence to Jesus’s crucifixion even though he believes Jesus is innocent is an injustice — a failure of the Roman system to protect the innocent and to give into the bloodthirsty demands of the mob.
Pilate’s failure isn’t just political. It’s also a moral failure. It shows what happens when those in power refuse to stand against injustice, even when they see it clearly.
I don't have any argument with any of that. All of it is true. I'm simply pointing out that Jesus was not seen as a threat to Romans generally, or the Roman Empire writ large. The Romans only tended to crack down on local religious groups that strayed into politics and insurrection like the druids in Britannia or the Jews when they actually revolted in Palestine decades later. Which was more of a regional insurrection than a religious one.
Jesus was very deliberately a-political. So he wasn't a political threat to the empire, only a religious threat to the established religious order.
0 x
A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Sat Jul 12, 2025 12:40 pm
Jesus was very deliberately a-political. So he wasn't a political threat to the empire, only a religious threat to the established religious order.
I think this analysis is only possible from a post- enlightenment world view where gods only exist in the mind and their power is only in the influence of the inner self and the rest of the universe falls under the domain of science and reason. I think the ancient world didn't generally make the distinction of religious vs. political threat.
