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There are a lot of things wrong with our legal system. For instance, the wealthy, of course, wanted money to be a factor and so it is. It shouldn't be, but it is, and that makes the system horrifically biased against the poor. The ability to buy a "dream team" defense as opposed to being appointed a public defender only a year out of law school can make a big difference in whether you're convicted. Bail is another issue; why should the wealthy await their trial sipping martinis on a tropical beach while a poor man must await his trial behind bars?
Then there's the simple fact that so many human beings are not good thinkers. Sorry, but that's been my experience. People like things simple and immediately understandable. As a result, sometimes cases can be won or lost based almost entirely on what the accused looks like or what kind of accolades he has (a pillar of the community? Or an unemployed factory worker?). Was it any surprise, then, that O.J. was acquitted? As a result, juries can seriously screw up if a case becomes too complicated and people's minds start to shut down. Plus, if trials go on too long, juries might be tempted to just get it over with as quickly as possible. That $50/day you get for jury duty isn't even minimum wage - and that might be a serious financial setback if the trial goes on for months.
The system isn't perfect, and I'm sure we're all aware of death row inmates who were found innocent thanks to new DNA evidence. But it's the only system we have, and while we could improve upon it (though the wealthy will never allow that), we have to make due with the justice available to us.
I wish there was a such thing as "poetic" justice. I wish that "what comes around goes around." I wish there was such a thing as karma. I wish life could be a lot more fair than it is - where good people always have better lives than the baddies, but all too often, it seems just the opposite is true.
Cosmic justice - or divine justice - is even worse. In Christianity, all one has to do is repent (and mean it, of course) for even the most evil and vile person to escape the hangman's noose (so to speak). No one can be certain that those serial killers, those child rapists, those who kill infants for crying, those who abuse and torture animals, those who commit acts of terrorism, and all of those sick bastards in the world who make our blood boil - there is NO guarantee that cosmic/divine justice will be meted out. Rather, those people could just as easily be embraced by the Lord and welcomed into Heaven while the good and kind atheist who would rather spend an hour catching a fly and releasing it outside than kill it will end up being tortured in Hell for eternity. Ergo, Christian cosmic justice is egregiously flawed - meaning one doesn't have to be an atheist to see the problem.
Then there's the problem of the punishment itself - eternal torture. Let's face it, torture itself is evil much less subjecting someone to it for eternity. Some posts have touched upon the subject of revenge and how that is not justice. Rather, revenge is an emotional indulgence which often makes the whole issue worse. Just think of the Hatfields and McCoys. I can only ask Christians: What does eternity in Hell truly sound like to you? Justice? Or revenge?
Such an extreme, cruel, and violent punishment sounds like a god who is merely angry over the fact that some souls do not spend their lives worshiping, praising, and adoring him so out of revenge and anger, sends them to be tortured forever.
I know the OP didn't mention any specific religion, but given we live in a country were most people are Christian and almost everyone on this forum is Christian, I figured Christianity may as well be the central point of cosmic/divine justice.
Atheism means a belief in zero God(s). Nothing more. There is no legitimate answer to your question.
Yep, Atheism means a belief in zero God (s).
This is an understood concept and we are not questioning whether Atheism believes in any God(s)?
Athiesm's opinion to render justice to anyone who is dead is not possible since death neutralizes them. We discussed and understood this part.
The point where we at now is,
"Atheism's opinion about injustice done to a party that is alive.
Say someone breaks into your house, beats your dog with a metal rod to death, stabs your cat with a sharp knife, rapes your wife, shoots you in the leg, steals your money and is never get caught by law enforcement.
Now, do you think is there anything wrong or something out of balance in this scenario?
If no, then perhaps there is no "right or wrong" for an Athiest.
If yes, what's Athiesm's opinion/suggestion to balance out this situation or render justice?
Yep, Atheism means a belief in zero God (s).
This is an understood concept and we are not questioning whether Atheism believes in any God(s)?
Athiesm's opinion to render justice to anyone who is dead is not possible since death neutralizes them. We discussed and understood this part.
The point where we at now is,
"Atheism's opinion about injustice done to a party that is alive.
Say someone breaks into your house, beats your dog with a metal rod to death, stabs your cat with a sharp knife, rapes your wife, shoots you in the leg, steals your money and is never get caught by law enforcement.
Now, do you think is there anything wrong or something out of balance in this scenario?
If no, then perhaps there is no "right or wrong" for an Athiest.
If yes, what's Athiesm's opinion/suggestion to balance out this situation or render justice?
Anything beyond the lack of a belief in any God(s) is beyond the scope of Atheism, so your post is pointless.
Say someone breaks into your house, beats your dog with a metal rod to death, stabs your cat with a sharp knife, rapes your wife, shoots you in the leg, steals your money and is never get caught by law enforcement.
Now, do you think is there anything wrong or something out of balance in this scenario?
If no, then perhaps there is no "right or wrong" for an Athiest.
If yes, what's Athiesm's opinion/suggestion to balance out this situation or render justice?
Big Phil Robertson fan, are ya?
He fantasized about a similar scenario at a prayer breakfast and asked the same question about atheists. There's a least one thread on it. Did you steal that from him or did you spend time thinking up that violent rape scenario so you can quiz atheists? If you didn't steal it....sheesh. What is up with fundamentalists dreaming up these violent "what if's"?
Last edited by DewDropInn; 05-18-2015 at 10:00 AM..
Say someone breaks into your house, beats your dog with a metal rod to death, stabs your cat with a sharp knife, rapes your wife, shoots you in the leg, steals your money and is never get caught by law enforcement.
Now, do you think is there anything wrong or something out of balance in this scenario?
If no, then perhaps there is no "right or wrong" for an Athiest.
If yes, what's Athiesm's opinion/suggestion to balance out this situation or render justice?
You have already specified in the question that justice is not rendered ("is never get caught by law enforcement"). If justice is based on human morality and societal expectations, then it is only enforceable by human/societal means.
The moral to the story is that injustice happens. One can clearly see this from history, or even simply by opening your eyes and observing the world around you. The best we can do is try to continually improve our human and societal application of justice, and make sure that in our quest for justice in some cases we do not overlook others, or casue new oppressions through the law of unintended consequences.
In short we do the best we can, change what we can, and live with the rest...
And, unsurprisingly, that is exactly how people who believe in a god have to handle it as well.
Yep, Atheism means a belief in zero God (s).
This is an understood concept and we are not questioning whether Atheism believes in any God(s)?
Athiesm's opinion to render justice to anyone who is dead is not possible since death neutralizes them. We discussed and understood this part.
The point where we at now is,
"Atheism's opinion about injustice done to a party that is alive.
Say someone breaks into your house, beats your dog with a metal rod to death, stabs your cat with a sharp knife, rapes your wife, shoots you in the leg, steals your money and is never get caught by law enforcement.
Now, do you think is there anything wrong or something out of balance in this scenario?
If no, then perhaps there is no "right or wrong" for an Athiest.
If yes, what's Athiesm's opinion/suggestion to balance out this situation or render justice?
Unfortunately there are many cases where what you may consider 'justice' may never be served.
Certainly in the cases of genocidal fascist dictators, or serial killers, justice can never really be served.
When you are responsible for the death and torture of millions, nothing is ever going to help appease the injustice inflicted on those people.
'Belief in an afterlife' does not necessarily stop people inflicting pain on others. Look at ISIS -they believe they are acting on the will of god and expect an afterlife in paradise.
From my personal perspective, the Christian concept of accepting Jesus and therefore wiping away all previous wrongdoing is certainly an unjust concept in itself. Look at the extreme example of Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killer who repented in jail and became a born again Christian.
While that is extreme, the concept of 'repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away', seems to me to be quite unjust. I'm all for forgiveness, but there are limits. Just be kind to people in the first place, then you wont have anything to feel bad about.
We can only hope that justice is served in some way within a persons lifetime. That's really the best we can hope for.
Anything beyond the lack of a belief in any God(s) is beyond the scope of Atheism, so your post is pointless.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DewDropInn
Big Phil Robertson fan, are ya?
He fantasized about a similar scenario at a prayer breakfast and asked the same question about atheists. There's a least one thread on it. Did you steal that from him or did you spend time thinking up that violent rape scenario so you can quiz atheists? If you didn't steal it....sheesh. What is up with fundamentalists dreaming up these violent "what if's"?
In my opinion. you are avoiding the question. And it's OK.
From the Atheist point of view,
How is or should justice be rendered to, for example, Hitler and his victims who are not alive?
Well that's about as silly as criminalizing suicide. Or as silly as how sometimes in history some monarch or other, finding its vengeance thwarted by the death of a fugitive, would order the corpse abused in various elaborate ways, and/or visited punishment upon the fugitive's family or associates, guilty or not. It is just so much impotent fit-throwing.
Pragmatically speaking when Hitler was alive he was producing way more harms than benefits, and in that situation you either remove the person from the position of power he was operating from or, if you can't be that nuanced, you remove him from life itself. Problem solved. How is further punishment or retribution going to undo any of the actual harms? In fact, any meaningful setting things right is going to have nothing to do with the perpetrator and everything to do with the humanity and compassion of completely unrelated people. For example the other day an octogenarian veteran came home from a battle with prostate cancer to find his cupboards AND his stomach empty. No knowing what else to do, he called 911. The emergency operator, rather than berating him for misuse of the service, organized a community relief effort and saw to it that the man had food and whatever else he needed. THAT is the kind of thing that will heal the harms in the world. Not sitting around insisting we have to punish various people who we might, legitimately or otherwise, hold responsible for the veteran being in the position he was in.
It has always seemed to me that there's no net difference between either option. When someone has violated you, if they are alive there's always some chance they can escape or reach out through intermediaries to do mischief in the world, potentially to you, and therefore still a potential existential threat to you. You obsess about whether they are sufficiently remorseful or not, whether their sentence is sufficiently harsh, whether prison is too comfortable, how slowly the wheels of justice turn, and so forth. If they are dead you don't have the faux closure you think you want in that regard. Either way, you suffer because you cling to particular outcomes, and either way, you have to let go of that attachment or you will continue to suffer. In other words for any given victim, the way out of suffering is (1) stop the harm to the victim (2) help the victim to move on in a healthy way. NEITHER of those involves the perpetrator at all, beyond making sure he can't perpetrate anymore.
If both the wrong doer and the victim are alive but the wrong doer is able to dodge the local justice system, or an innocent person is wrongly convicted (say 50 years prison) for something he didn't do - how does Atheism look at these scenario?
Atheism wouldn't look at them in any way. It's a concept.
Atheists would look at them as any ordinary person would - with sorrow and regret.*
*Full disclosure: I am not an Atheist. But I've been hanging around enough them hereabouts that I'm pretty sure I could play one on TV.
In my opinion. you are avoiding the question. And it's OK.
No, never heard of Phil Robertson.
So you've resisted the Duck Dynasty marketing machine. Books, TV shows, trash cans, wine, clothing.....they'll be disappointed.
I've not answered the question because I'm not an atheist and they are more than capable of speaking for themselves. Lots of highly intelligent atheists on CD. However, it has been my experience that Yes, atheists believe in justice.
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