It is logically impossible, if such a thing exists, for anyone to have a right to sin (doing what is evil would be something one should avoid at all costs, not something each person can be in the right to pursue). There is the volitional freedom to sin, yet this is not the same as the right to believe, intend, or behave as one subjectively wishes no matter what. By necessity, this would extend to issues of religion. Not all religions can be true. Though there is an uncaused cause either way [1], all religions could be false. If Christianity is true, of course other religions are contrary to reality in an amoral and moral sense, and still, despite how some insist the opposite, the Torah with all of its capital punishment commands does not say to put anyone to death simply for mentally embracing another religion.
Philosophical beliefs and commitments are not what is to be punished with execution by fellow humans. Never does the Bible say to kill someone for being an atheist, which is not even an error involving commitment to another religion, or for being a Wiccan or an adherent of some other form of "mere" ideological paganism--that is, holding to the philosophy itself. Aside from the universal prescription of capital punishment for particular religious offenses (see the paragraph below), when Yahweh tells the Israelites to kill the inhabitants of the Promised Land, he does not say to do so because of their ideological errors or assumptions, but because of their deeds (Deuteronomy 18:9-13). See Leviticus 20:1-21 for some examples of what God says he is going to drive out the pagans of the Promised Land for (20:22-24).
Sacrificing to another god (Exodus 22:20), enticing someone to worship other deities (Deuteronomy 13:6-10), personally worshipping an idol, the natural world, or another deity (Deuteronomy 17:2-7), and practicing components of certain other religions like sorcery (Exodus 22:18) or spiritism (Leviticus 20:27) are capital sins, but not private mental assent to any form of paganism or other worldview, though many philosophical stances would be irrational or sinful to hold anyway. Not only are ideological religious commitments never decreed sins worthy of execution, but on their own, they could never provide evidence of their presence detectable by two or three witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15); non-telepaths cannot see into each others' minds, so the requirement of at least two or three witnesses for all executions and other criminal punishments could not be met if someone only believes, however fallaciously, in a religion besides Judeo-Christianity.
A person who silently holds to a given religious or even broader, more foundational philosophical error is not to be killed or otherwise legally penalized. It is not just a matter of them being silent and thus keeping their worldview a secret, but that sins of the mind alone are not sins to be terrestrially punished. By the standard prescribed in the Torah, this is not justice since every legally punishable offense is of an outward kind, but this is not because everyone has a right to believe whatever they wish. Whether or not morality exists, no one could be justified in believing anything apart from pure logical proof either through self-evidence as with axioms or because one thing follows by necessity from another. Also, whether or not morality exists, no one could have a moral right to believe as they please because if morality does not exist (only at most moral feelings/preferences or social norms), no one has a right to anything, and if it does, no one could have a right to believe that which is false or immoral.
What is demonstrably false by logical necessity or epistemologically assumed is baseless on the level of belief even in a wholly amoral sense, and what is immoral could never be anyone's right to believe in or practice because immorality is by nature that which should not be done. Even so, although the Bible's doctrines are consistent with all of this, it never says to punish someone in any form except for those who commit specific behaviors that have at least two or three witnesses/evidences testifying to their guilt. Having a certain worldview, no matter how asinine or evil it is, is not among these capital offenses. For sins strictly of the mind, only biological death and the second death in hell (Romans 6:23, Matthew 10:28, Ezekiel 18:4, 2 Peter 2:6) are deserved instead of premature death at other humans' hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment