"Thoughtcrimes"

There can be no "thoughtcrimes" except perhaps in some kind of dystopia.

Morality governs the interactive behaviour of humans, not their thoughts, in and of themselves.

What are your innocent thoughts on this?

Example:

Lustful thoughts are not immoral in and of themselves if they do not manifest themselves in morally unsound deeds.

This is an interesting topic.

Jesus is quoted as referring to Exodus when he said “you shall not commit adultery” and then expanding with an example of thought sin “but I tell you if a man looks at a women with lust then he has already committed adultery with her in his heart”.

Jesus also talks about the “heart” in other places such as the sermon on the mount “blessed are the pure in heart” for example.

I feel that problems arise when one attaches ‘’law’ , morality’ and ‘judgment ‘ to the concept of what I’ll call “thought sin”.

My reasons are that when using the bible text as a lens, “morality” is a human secular description of behaviour and sin is a spiritual concept of source of motivation. “Morality” isn’t mentioned in the bible at all, as far as I know, but sin is mentioned thousands of times, as is righteousness.

I don’t think “crimes” is mentioned in the bible either (not sure on this though) when discussing thoughts and behaviours, but “transgressions” is mentioned throughout the various books.

Problems of interpretation continue then when “judgment” is conflated with punishment, retribution, vengeance, etc. what happens is that some Christians leap from “thinking sinful thoughts” to “burning alive in hell” because if “a little leaven levens the whole lump” then “thinking a lustful thought, equals raping babies” … and “if I’m saved by Jesus then my lustful thoughts are now excused because I’ve had some strong thoughts about Jesus saving me and pardoning me”.

What you end up with is a paradigm similar to the one kellyjay promotes which is based on the premise that everyone is totally evil irrespective of what they do or don’t do, but I’m ok because I’ve had some good thoughts about Jesus and I really really really believe what I thought”.

@divegeester said
“I tell you if a man looks at a women with lust then he has already committed adultery with her in his heart”.

This assertion, attributed to Jesus, simply dilutes and diminishes the meaning, seriousness, and real life destructiveness of adultery that make it immoral. It has a whiff of the work of people creating a new breakaway thoughtcrime-based religion decades after Jesus lived.

@fmf said
There can be no "thoughtcrimes" except perhaps in some kind of dystopia.

Morality governs the interactive behaviour of humans, not their thoughts, in and of themselves.

What are your innocent thoughts on this?

I can see no evidence in the bible that people are going to be judged for 'thought crimes'. Similarly there is no evidence that anyone is going to be judged for 'thought good works'. It is clear from all descriptions of judgment day that it is what one actually does, and the motives for their action, not what they are thinking, is the criteria used in judgment. God knows how to discern these things.

A man sees starving neighbour who needs help, and he thinks 'poor guy, I hope he gets help'. Another man stops and gives him food. The virtuous one is the second one and the first man thinking good thoughts count for nothing.

@fmf said
This assertion, attributed to Jesus, simply dilutes and diminishes the meaning, seriousness, and real life destructiveness of adultery that make it immoral. It has a whiff of the work of people creating a new breakaway thoughtcrime-based religion decades after Jesus lived.

Here is my take on that passage. Let say we have 3 men see/meet a beautiful sexy woman :
Man #1. Acknowledges that she is beautiful and sexy.
Man #2. Attitude is ... boy .. if I get her, I will surely take her [but he cannot for whatever reason]
Man #3. Actually does commit adultery/fornication with her.

Man #3 is the sinner according to the Law of Moses, and Christ
Jesus said Man #2, has also sinned in his heart. The only thing that stopped the act of adultery is the fact that he could not get her. Had she been available to him he was going to do it.
Man #1 is also a sinner according to some Christian churches who have misinterpreted what Jesus said. There is no sin in what the first man does.

The point is there is a lot to be said about a man's intention... man #2's intention was to commit adultery. Some also do good with the wrong intention. They do it for pride, or for recognition or for showing off... again this is wrong.

@fmf said
Example:

Lustful thoughts are not immoral in and of themselves if they do not manifest themselves in morally unsound deeds.

I agree that some thoughts, in of themselves, are immoral. If someone is thinking about raping a child, that is immoral even if they never act on it.

That said, I don't think it would be moral to punish people just for thoughts that are never acted on. Some thoughts are hard for people to control. For a victim of abusive parents or a horrible crime, having hatred is understandable.

@vivify said
I agree that some thoughts, in of themselves, are immoral.

If you think immortality can only happen as thoughts without them resulting in action, then we don't agree.

@vivify said
For a victim of abusive parents or a horrible crime, having hatred is understandable.

Do you believe that having hateful thoughts or feeling hatred is immoral?

@rajk999 said
Here is my take on that passage. Let say we have 3 men see/meet a beautiful sexy woman :
Man #1. Acknowledges that she is beautiful and sexy.
Man #2. Attitude is ... boy .. if I get her, I will surely take her [but he cannot for whatever reason]
Man #3. Actually does commit adultery/fornication with her.

Man #3 is the sinner according to the Law of Moses, and Chris ...[text shortened]... wrong intention. They do it for pride, or for recognition or for showing off... again this is wrong.

You’ve fudged point one.

Jesus didn’t speak of “acknowledging that she is beautiful and sexy” he talked about lusting after her.

But I see what you did there.

@fmf said
If you think immortality can only happen as thoughts without them resulting in action, then we don't agree.

You meant immorality, I'm sure of it.

A little immortality on the brain, I suppose.

@fmf said
There can be no "thoughtcrimes" except perhaps in some kind of dystopia.

Morality governs the interactive behaviour of humans, not their thoughts, in and of themselves.

What are your innocent thoughts on this?

It's an interesting question.
These are my initial thoughts
God doesn't have a human form, He's a spiritual being.
[But is He only in spiritual form or is that the Holy Spirit part of Him (?)]
So, to only count crimes made in the physical human form we have could be to ignore all sins that count to Him.
Also, if I'm thinking about eating the rest of yesterday's cake, for example, I'm more likely to eat that cake later then if I hadn't remembered it. Or if when I remembered, it I had decided to not think about it.
So perhaps what Jesus was saying, in Dive's post, was more about the decision to exercise your mind. When I taught my son to ice skate I told him to look where he wanted to go. Not at the floor, if he didn't want to fall.

Maybe a crime is only a crime if there is a victim.
But a sin is something else, something that doesn't necessitate a victim?

Perhaps to really discuss this there needs to be a separation between what is a thought crime, what is an immoral thought and what is a sinful thought.

@fmf said
There can be no "thoughtcrimes" except perhaps in some kind of dystopia.

Morality governs the interactive behaviour of humans, not their thoughts, in and of themselves.

What are your innocent thoughts on this?

I agree with your first two paragraphs, so can't really add very much, except to say that I think it's a pity that this thread has immediately been hijacked by the 'Jesus said' brigade.