opencarrybilly
Regular Member
imported post
(While the following thoughts come out of the discussion of the death of the Pastor, I thought it might not be helpful to putthis there. I hope I might be forgiven if I misplace it here.)
Smoking357 said to me, “You have lost your faith in the cops, but you still have faith in judges? You must not deal much with judges.” My response, “I have faith only in God,” was a rather smart-aleck lead-in to my point that cops and judges are human and, so, some will behave badly and some well.
I am not really one to nitpick about religious expressions, and I did not really think that Smoling357 intended “faith” in this context as a religious reference. But, in the meantime, I got to thinking further about the idea that humans are capable of both good behavior and bad. I thought about my religious training as a traditional Lutheran. And, I remembered that Luther said that we areeach simultaneously saint and sinner.[/i] (Sorry, I don’t know how to write the Latin.)
“Well, then,” I thought. If we accept this as applicable psychologically as well as theologically, perhaps we have yet another approach to working toward the encouraging of good behavior from cops. Maybe we can appeal to them, cajole them, shame them, or in some other way cause them to act upon their inner desire, or natural tendency, to do good instead of evil. How? I think that will take a smarter person than I to answer. The good news is that there many people among you who are smarter than I.
Nor am I suggesting that we go soft on bad behavior. It must be appropriatelypunished.
(While the following thoughts come out of the discussion of the death of the Pastor, I thought it might not be helpful to putthis there. I hope I might be forgiven if I misplace it here.)
Smoking357 said to me, “You have lost your faith in the cops, but you still have faith in judges? You must not deal much with judges.” My response, “I have faith only in God,” was a rather smart-aleck lead-in to my point that cops and judges are human and, so, some will behave badly and some well.
I am not really one to nitpick about religious expressions, and I did not really think that Smoling357 intended “faith” in this context as a religious reference. But, in the meantime, I got to thinking further about the idea that humans are capable of both good behavior and bad. I thought about my religious training as a traditional Lutheran. And, I remembered that Luther said that we areeach simultaneously saint and sinner.[/i] (Sorry, I don’t know how to write the Latin.)
“Well, then,” I thought. If we accept this as applicable psychologically as well as theologically, perhaps we have yet another approach to working toward the encouraging of good behavior from cops. Maybe we can appeal to them, cajole them, shame them, or in some other way cause them to act upon their inner desire, or natural tendency, to do good instead of evil. How? I think that will take a smarter person than I to answer. The good news is that there many people among you who are smarter than I.
Nor am I suggesting that we go soft on bad behavior. It must be appropriatelypunished.