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Comment by JulianMorrison | Hacker News Reader

Prison was always about revenge. And slavery. Nasty, childish thing.

Now, this is what has always baffled me about the US. I will try to condense this a bit.

The US is primarily a christian country supposedly founded on christian values etc.

I am an atheist, and a nihilist in that I do not think there is an inherent moral in the universe. However, that means that life is a chance happening. There is probably life elsewhere in the universe but it is rare as far as we know. This means each life is inherently special and we should strive to enable each and everyone to reach their maximum potential and explore this great opportunity we have. This means adopting a humanistic approach to life (and in my case, life as in all life not just humans).

Back to the US. I have read the bible and I have taken many lessons from it even though I am not religious. Jesus was one of the first real humanists and have many great things to say.

Do no kill.

Do to others as you want them to do to you.

Turn the other cheek.

Forgive..

This is the essence of christianity.

They make sense to me even if I am not religious. Many of his guidelines would improve everyones life. But in the US you are so hell bent on revenge that the words fall on death ears. I know I am generalising here and this is not the case for every American. But as you say, prisons were always about revenge.

Is there any explanation for this paradox?

Sure, Jesus practiced what he preached and the result was he got nailed to a cross.

But at least he didn't have to suffer through subpar American prison conditions!

If you label something as evil, as the anti-Christ, and as an assault on the Kingdom of God, there's nothing you can't justify. If you listen to conservative radio, you'll hear people very soberly talking about how the literal Apocalypse is just around the corner, about the insidious operations of the Illuminati, and other things like this. It's the same on alt-right cesspools like /pol/. They think that gender studies professors are literally the true seat of political power in the U.S. and that they're trying to sabotage the nation by sowing degeneracy into our lives. They think that degeneracy (which includes things like homosexuality, nudity on television, etc.) will destroy the social fabric within our lifetime and we'll descend into chaos and our civilization will end.

If you're convinced that your civilization is literally about to end, locking up these evil criminals actually becomes an act of kindness and mercy.

Because you don't truly know how you'll act until you are put in the horrific situation where a friend or family member is murdered. Forgiveness does not naturally come easy, and why should it? Ultimately those guidelines are so you can find peace for yourself, not so the offender has a better life.

> Ultimately those guidelines are so you can find peace for yourself, not so the offender has a better life.

I agree with this, however he also say that you should do to others as you would them do to you.

In other words, embrace empathy. What would you want to happen to yourself in a situation where you murdered someone in a psychosis. Would you want a chance to get back to a normalish life or sit in a cell alone steadily having your mentality degrade?

I also do not know how I would act myself if one of my daughters were murdered, I hope I am prepared to forgive.

The Christian standard of appropriate punishment for even the smallest transgression is burning in a fire for eternity.

I can't believe I am actually defending christianity here, but yes this is true. I am not religious and have just taken the humanistic parts of Jesus to heart not the religious parts.

However even in christianity it is god who will exact this punishment, not the people. He sais men is not to judge each other. I can't get this to fit with the revenge mentality either.

For the record, the hell part is, in my opinion, one of the most glaring inconsistencies in the religion. God loves all.. but you will still burn in hell for eternity if you do not accept him/her/it blindly. I find that very sadistic and cruel.

I feel it's worth noting that the doctrine of annihiliationism asserts that non-believers will simply be consumed by hell and cease to exist, with proponents asserting that the doctrine of eternal conscious torment is a mis-reading of the original text influenced by Western/Platonic notions of the immortal soul.

This is actually what I think will happen when I die, I will cease to exist. It is much better than being told that I will be tortured in hell forever :)

I always thought it was kind of fascinating to think about how much of Hell is actually early Catholic in origin. Most of the bible's descriptions of Hell come from the book of Revelation, which is basically just some guy's drug-trip 100 years after historical Jesus died. The apostles also talk about Hell a little bit, but not really with much description. And they were just people like anybody else.

Historical Jesus barely talks about Hell at all in the bible, and when he does it's somewhat ambiguous whether or not he's talking about an actual literal trash dump not too far outside of Jerusalem's city limit (translation notes on this are fascinating).

Most of the modern concept of Hell really comes from Revelation and from works of art/books written during long after the events of the Bible were supposed to take place.

That is true for most branchs of Protestantism, yes.

The Orthodox and the Catholics have the notion of Purgatory, where a soul goes through a transition of detachement of what prevents him/her to actually enjoy the close presence of God (ie. heaven). They also hold that people are not qualified to make a statement whether a person will go to hell (or heaven for that matter); hell defined as being away from God forever: those who repeadedly persist in not wanting to love God will not be forced to be with him.

What is perverse is the attempt at bringing this judgement of the will on earth. If someone is in prison, is deepely remorseful and asking for help to ammend their ways, it should be our duty as a society to assist that person. Attempting to "play God" is in opposition with Christian dogma.

> The Orthodox and the Catholics have the notion of Purgatory

What kind of orthodoxy are you talking about in this context?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church#Eschat...

This one explicitly rejects Purgatory.

You're right, the doctrines are not the same. But it's more nuanced:

> Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Kallistos Ware acknowledges several schools of thought among the Orthodox on the topic of purification after death. This divergence indicates that certain Catholic interpretations of purgatory, specifically the satisfaction model, more than the concept itself, are what is universally rejected. Also, there are Orthodox sources that indicate some sins can be forgiven after death; but which also reject the teaching of purgatory because of the doctrine of indulgences and idea of literal purgatorial fire that are tied to it. Still other Orthodox hold to the notion of the Toll Houses and that those who pass through them after death have no assurance of final salvation.

> Rather than say that the doctrine of Purgatory is a heresy, it is more accurate to say that it is an ancient ecumenical tradition which, due to the mysterious nature of the subject matter, Christians throughout history have interpreted and explained in a very wide variety of ways, some of which were strongly rejected by Eastern Orthodox Christians.

from https://orthodoxwiki.org/Purgatory

Perhaps it is because all it takes to "be a Christian" is to say "I believe in Jesus", or at least that is how it has been predominately defined by the religious authorities over the past 2,000 years. From then on it is supposed you will go to Heaven no matter what sins you commit

To my knowledge, the "just say the magic words" approach is a much more recent, Protestant/evangelical phenomenon.

This is also a somewhat popular view in Islam that if you say the words you will eventually go to Heaven, even if you have to get roasted in Hell for a while first.

No it wasn't. The principle of Sola fide is a Protestant one. I suggest googling for that phrase if you're interested in learning more.

A fair question. There is actually a sizeable movement within American Christianity that fits within your expectations, calling for the end of the death penalty, visiting and ministering to prisoners, etc, however there is certainly a more dominant retributive aspect. I'm not qualified to fully answer your question, but I think a partial answer would involve remembering that Christianity overall explores the tension between mercy/forgiveness and justice/judgment (ex. Romans 11:22), and in the work to build a functioning society, some gravitate more easily towards one or the other...

> The US is primarily a christian country supposedly founded on christian values etc.

Nitpick: the predominant Christianity flavor in the US is a branch that split off after ~ 15 centuries, officially for purist reasons but practically for "pick-and-choose" reasons. Naturally, that's instable and that branch furter split into more and more isolated denominations, carfully picking what they choose to believe in and rejecting the rest (or rejecting factual history, thus doomed to repeat it).

In particular, many in that group (but not all: it's impossible to generalize here) have forgotten how "life is inherently special" and became more preoccupied with justifying how their particular branch/flavor of belief is the best, applying personal judgement despite the warnings of the One they claim to follow.

Of course, being Catholic, I'm biased in this matter and am certainly no saint. But there's a fundamental difference between adhering imperfectly to a set of beliefs which are hard but coherent, and adhering to a subset carved out in order to feel good about being able to follow everything and judge all those who don't.

And worse: there are many Catholics who use particular points of doctrine to cast judgement on others and white-wash their personal bias, and missing out on the bigger picture. This is something we're continually having to address because we are all imperfect and living within the influence of our culture. But this is where time and plurality of culture comes in, because over the centuries, knowledge has been accumulated regarding cultural notions that turn out to be very bad ideas, and distilled into a (relatively) compact compendium.

So offenders don't deserve to be put behind bars and have their time taken away from them? Lawful society only exists because there is punishment. This is just how the human mind works - if you don't follow an unlawful action by a negative experience, they will never learn to change.

Hang on, while your statement seems logical, it doesn't necessarily hold true. Certainly does not work when training dogs.

https://nij.gov/five-things/pages/deterrence.aspx

> This is just how the human mind works - if you don't follow an unlawful action by a negative experience, they will never learn to change.

Not only a property of the human mind: if there are no negative consequences then they have no rational reason to change their behavior.

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