Would You Murder Your Kids if they were Gay?

@Great-Big-Stees said
Is one of Christians’ tenet not, “turn the other cheek”?🤔

Here is the answer from Claude AI

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1. Turn the other cheek
The cheek-slap and lethal violence are different categories. In Matthew 5:38-42, being struck on the cheek was a first-century gesture of personal insult, not an attempt on someone's life. Jesus is teaching how a disciple absorbs personal humiliation without seeking revenge — not laying out a rule for what to do when someone is trying to kill you or a third party. Treating "don't retaliate against an insult" as equivalent to "never resist lethal violence" stretches the text well past what it says.

2. Carry a sword
Jesus told his disciples to arm themselves. In Luke 22:36-38, shortly before his arrest, Jesus tells the disciples: "let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one." When they say they have two swords, he replies, "It is enough." This is a real textual counterweight to a pacifist-absolutist reading — if "turn the other cheek" meant Christians must never possess or use lethal force to defend themselves, this instruction would be strange to include just verses before his arrest.
It's worth being honest that this passage is debated even among Christians. Some read it literally, as Jesus provisioning the disciples for genuine self-defense in the dangerous period ahead. Others read it more symbolically — Jesus is quoting Isaiah 53:12 ("he was numbered with the transgressors"😉 and using the swords to fulfill that prophecy by making him look like a criminal leader when he's arrested, since he rebukes Peter moments later for actually using one (Luke 22:49-51, Matthew 26:52). Either way, the fact that Jesus explicitly directed his closest followers to carry swords at all undercuts the idea that he intended total non-resistance as a hard rule.

3. A short case for self-defense within Christian ethics:
• Human life is described as bearing the image of God (Genesis 1:27), which grounds an obligation to protect it — including one's own life and the lives of others facing lethal threat.
• Exodus 22:2 permits lethal force against a nighttime intruder without penalty, showing the Mosaic law itself didn't treat self-defense as morally equivalent to murder or forbidden retaliation.
• Romans 13:4 describes governing authority as legitimately "bearing the sword" to restrain evildoers — establishing that armed defense of the innocent is not inherently un-Christian, just properly ordered rather than personal vengeance.
• Major theologians (Augustine, Aquinas) built on this to distinguish personal revenge (which Jesus condemns) from defense of self or others against unjust lethal harm (which they treat as licit, sometimes even obligatory toward a third party you could protect).

"Turn the other cheek" addresses how to handle personal insult and minor wrongs without vengeance — it was never a comprehensive doctrine against self-defense. The fact that Jesus told his own disciples to carry swords, and that Christian ethics has a long tradition distinguishing revenge from legitimate defense, shows the "Christians must let themselves be killed" reading isn't what the text or the broader tradition actually teaches.

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@KellyJay said
Do you believe killing your kids is always wrong, no matter what, or do you have a list of exceptions so it could be done?

There are some exceptions, some of which are listed in the Bible. These situations are also played out in movies etc. Eg, I recently was watching Chicago PD. This father protected his pedophile murderer son for years, but could not continue on with the charade and eventually killed him. Sometimes this is necessary and just.

@Great-Big-Stees said
Pretty sure I’m not, but thanks for asking. How ‘bout you?

I cant tell that you are not

@Rajk999 said
There are some exceptions, some of which are listed in the Bible. These situations are also played out in movies etc. Eg, I recently was watching Chicago PD. This father protected his pedophile murderer son for years, but could not continue on with the charade and eventually killed him. Sometimes this is necessary and just.

I wonder if the father could have thought of an alternatiive less murderous solution to his pedo son problem?

@Rajk999 said
There are some exceptions, some of which are listed in the Bible. These situations are also played out in movies etc. Eg, I recently was watching Chicago PD. This father protected his pedophile murderer son for years, but could not continue on with the charade and eventually killed him. Sometimes this is necessary and just.

There are no exceptions.

Who among us lives in a country without a criminal justice system?

@Sprogladog said
I wonder if the father could have thought of an alternatiive less murderous solution to his pedo son problem?

Lobotomy? Conversion therapy (think Clockwork Orange)? Chrismation?

@Ghost-of-a-Duke said
There are no exceptions.

Who among us lives in a country without a criminal justice system?

The USA is currently a criminal justice system.

@my2sons said
You probably missed my latest post that I said I would never kill anyone for being gay. However, I could never support the gay lifestyle. They whether relation or not would be dead to me.

Perhaps you should be more careful with your words, as in a thread about murdering kids if they were gay you said they would never see another sunrise.

That doesn't read well.

@my2sons said
You probably missed my latest post that I said I would never kill anyone for being gay. However, I could never support the gay lifestyle. They whether relation or not would be dead to me.

Veganism is a life style.

Heterosexuality is not a life style. Neither is homosexuality a life style. People are born that way. It's like having blue eyes or brown eyes: you can cover it up, hide behind sunglasses, try to deny it, but you don't choose it and can't change it.

@moonbus said
Veganism is a life style.

Heterosexuality is not a life style. Neither is homosexuality a life style. People are born that way. It's like having blue eyes or brown eyes: you can cover it up, hide behind sunglasses, try to deny it, but you don't choose it and can't change it.

All vegans are dead to me. If I encounter one in the supermarket (invariably in the quinoa aisle) I completely blank them.

@my2sons said
You probably missed my latest post that I said I would never kill anyone for being gay. However, I could never support the gay lifestyle. They whether relation or not would be dead to me.

Not Freddie Mercury though, right?

@Ghost-of-a-Duke said
There are no exceptions.

Who among us lives in a country without a criminal justice system?

Watch the series Chicago PD.
Watch the movie Citizen Vigilante.
Use Google or Claude or CoPilot.
Search "repeat offenders who committed gruesome murders".
Search "why the criminal justice all over the world has failed"

@Rajk999 said
Watch the series Chicago PD.
Watch the movie Citizen Vigilante.
Use Google or Claude or CoPilot.
Search "repeat offenders who committed gruesome murders".
Search "why the criminal justice all over the world has failed"

Alternatively, engage your brain.