Joe Biden considering plea deals for 9/11 planners

[Fenris]

Putting this in "controversial" but it shouldn't be controversial at all. Joe Biden is considering plea deals from the 9/11 planners, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

This is after he gave Afghanistan back to the Taliban.

Every time I think this administration can't get worse, it gets worse.

[Sojourner]

Nothing surprises me anymore. Biden is not only the oldest man elected President, but also front-runner for the most inept, corrupt, and cognitively impaired individual to ever occupy the White House. And they'll be no respite should he die or become incapacitated. Instead, we'll be treated to the administration of cackling Kamala Harris.

[RabbiKnife]

To quote the "Rev." Jeremiah Wright, of Obama infamy,

"America's chickens have come home to roost."

You cannot worship money as a people and expect a moral, righteous society.

[Rebecca]

SICK

[Fenris]

I mean, I understand how some people are in principle are opposed to the death penalty. But that isn't a factor here. They just want to offer a plea deal avoiding the death penalty and not go to trial.



Biden is a horrible human being.

[Sojourner]

All of these unrepentant, murderous low-lifes deserve the death penalty, not a plea deal. The family and friends of their nearly 3000 victims have been waiting 22 years for justice and some semblance of closure, many having died still waiting for it. They live with their grief every day, and I'm sure every September 11, (which is right around the corner), is a stark reminder of their loss and deprivation of justice. Biden has rarely done anything right, so I don't anticipate him doing the right thing here.

Still, if it can't be avoided, I suppose there is an upside to life imprisonment instead of the death penalty: they'll be deprived of the glorious martyr's death they desire, and are ensured that their existence will remain miserable until the day they die. At any rate, whether they're executed or eventually die of natural causes, they'll end up in eternal damnation where they belong.

[RabbiKnife]

Each day they are alive there is the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to convict them of sin and draw them to repentance and faith.

That is an outcome for which we are commanded to pray, as offensive and grotesque as that may be to our flesh.

[Sojourner]

You are correct, sir.

*edited to add:

I'm happy the circumstances of these individuals afford them the chance to repent and be saved. It's tragic however, that the same opportunity was denied the unsaved among the thousands of victims whose lives were cut short by their malicious actions.

[Fenris]

All of these unrepentant, murderous low-lifes deserve the death penalty, not a plea deal.

Yes.

Still, if it can't be avoided, I suppose there is an upside to life imprisonment instead of the death penalty: they'll be deprived of the glorious martyr's death they desire, and are ensured that their existence will remain miserable until the day they die. At any rate, whether they're executed or eventually die of natural causes, they'll end up in eternal damnation where they belong.

The Pentateuch mentions the death penalty for murder in each of the five books. It's justice. 

[Fenris]

Each day they are alive there is the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to convict them of sin and draw them to repentance and faith.

Thanks, I hate it. They don't deserve forgiveness. I certainly don't forgive them for the trauma they caused in my own life. Does anyone think that the murder victims or their families forgive them? No? Then why should God?

That is an outcome for which we are commanded to pray, as offensive and grotesque as that may be to our flesh.

For a surprisingly long time, I think even into the early 1980s, there were Catholic churches in Spain that said a mass over Hitler's soul. This is an abomination.

[Fenris]

For people who enjoy this line of thinking, there's an excellent book I have to recommend. "The Sunflower" by Simon Wiesenthal (the famous Nazi hunter.)

During the Holocaust, he was imprisoned in a work camp. One day he was taken from his usual task and brough to the hospital wing. There was a German soldier dying in a bed. The soldier confessed to him that he was a Nazi and he had participated in a terrible massacre of Jews. The Jews, men women and children, were locked in a house and the house was set on fire. As the Jews tried to escape the fire, he shot them. On his deathbed, he felt remorse and wanted forgiveness.

Simon Wiesenthal let the soldier finish speaking, and then he left the room.

After the war, he wrote this in a long essay and sent it to great thinkers to ask what they would have done in that situation. He then took their answers and published them in this book.

To a person, the self-identifying Christians said that he should have forgiven the Nazi, and to a person the Jews said he did the right thing by not forgiving him.

The rationale by which the thinkers come up with their conclusion is interesting. One of my favorite comes from Albert Speer, the Nazi War Production minister (he served 20 years in prison for his war crimes). His answer was something along the lines of "Ask Simon for forgiveness? I can't even forgive myself for what I have done!"

I think that the Christian obsession with forgiveness and mercy robs justice. I also think that Christians in a theological sense seem incapable of differentiating between small sins and large ones, probably because in a theological sense you guys think that God can't do it either "any sin separates us from God".

[RabbiKnife]

Each day they are alive there is the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to convict them of sin and draw them to repentance and faith.

Thanks, I hate it. They don't deserve forgiveness. I certainly don't forgive them for the trauma they caused in my own life. Does anyone think that the murder victims or their families forgive them? No? Then why should God?

That is an outcome for which we are commanded to pray, as offensive and grotesque as that may be to our flesh.

For a surprisingly long time, I think even into the early 1980s, there were Catholic churches in Spain that said a mass over Hitler's soul. This is an abomination.

That is a marked difference between Judaism and biblical Christianity, I understand.

Praying for Hitler's soul is stupid.  Hitler has been dead for almost a century, and non-Catholic theology has no possibility of redemption after death, as you know.

Christians pray for living sinners because each of us should understand that our offense is no different qualitatively.

Again, I understand that this is a Christian/protestant distinctive and not a part of Jewish thought.

[RabbiKnife]

I also think that Christians in a theological sense seem incapable of differentiating between small sins and large ones, probably because in a theological sense you guys think that God can't do it either "any sin separates us from God".

The Roman Catholic Church certainly differentiates between mortal and venial sin, but correct, Protestant theology does not make a distinction when it comes to the issue of forgiveness being offered or received by faith.

Protestants, if they are consistent, should forgive those who sin against US.  I have no basis for forgiving someone else's enemy...Forgiveness from a Christian perspective is giving up one's right to get even, or to demand retribution.

Sin, for the protestant, is an issue that is left to God to judge or to punish.  Of course, for evangelicals that believe in an unlimited atonement in the person and sacrifice of Jesus, we hold that the sacrifice of Jesus paid the sin debt of all mankind once for all (to quote The Epistle to the Hebrews.)  Then, the ultimate question of eternal destination is not one of punishment or reward, but one of choice... if one chooses to be separated from God for all eternity, then God grants them that request, and they have to deal with the consequences.

[Fenris]

Protestants, if they are consistent, should forgive those who sin against US.  I have no basis for forgiving someone else's enemy...

And what's interesting is that in Judaism, neither can God. The Nazi who murdered those Jews can't ask God for forgiveness without asking his victims for forgiveness also.

Sin, for the protestant, is an issue that is left to God to judge or to punish.  Of course, for evangelicals that believe in an unlimited atonement

Right, this too does not exist in Judaism.

Then, the ultimate question of eternal destination is not one of punishment or reward, but one of choice... if one chooses to be separated from God for all eternity, then God grants them that request

By that "choice", what you mean is accepting that Jesus was sacrificed for the sins of mankind. Which leads to the interesting conundrum that, following that line of thought, there are Nazis in heaven even as their victims are in hell.

[RabbiKnife]

That is a true and correct analysis.