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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Can shopllifting really be justified? Why violating civil law is not always immoral Can shopllifting really be justified? Why violating civil law is not always immoral The Church of England's Archdeacon of York Richard Seed has issued a statement on their website in response to the controversy surrounding comments made by priest Tim Jones suggesting people shoplift when in a desperate situation The statement, dated December 22, read: Jones, despite what the media headlines would have everyone believe, is not advocating shoplifting, but rather explaining that in a desperate situation, it is better than a violent alternative. He explained to his congregation, as reported in SkyNews When people see provocative headlines regarding a "priest" , no doubt most of them are going to assume it is a Catholic priest. Fr. Tim Jones is not Catholic, but he does bring up some interesting and valid points as to an individual's moral conscience versus the so-called 'civil (government) law'. If one closely examines the myriad of laws issued by "the state" throughout civilization and in particular the United States in the last 200+ years, it is not difficult to concede that ignoring or even purposely breaking certain laws is not only sometimes justified, is is sometimes required by Christians. Bishop Lynch of St. Petersburg, Florida announced in February 2009 that they will ignore any law Congress enacts which violates the Catholic religion: In the recent Manhattan Declaration, comprised by a union of Catholic, Orthodox and evenagelical clergy, they explained why breaking civil law was sometimes required and not a violation of conscience, but rather a dictate of it: Henry David Thoreau, in On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1848), wrote: The Catholic encyclopedia, on Civil Authority, explains: There are many other examples, of course, of how civil law is in direct opposition to moral law. Laws against stealing are not immoral or contrary to moral law, of course. Laws against stealing are rooted both in civil common law and on the Ten Commandments. Some argue that common law itself is based on the Ten Commandments, although freemason Thomas Jefferson purportedly believed otherwise. However, I think the point is that stealing does not always constitute a grave violation of moral law. For some prime examples of government laws that were invalid, one could examine the case of Mildred Loving (who just died last year) and her husband, who were routed out of bed in the middle of the night and thrown in jail merely for being a married couple of different races; they spent years fighting and eventually overturning that supposed "law" banning interracial marriage. Was such a law, enacted by so-called 'civil authority', ever valid? One could also revisit the ugly history of eugenics in America, in particular when our nation's highest court ruled that forcible sterilization of lower-class women was 'constitutional". Was that ruling ever "valid"? NO, it wasn't. So, if a family has no food to eat and no other means of providing sustenance, would shoplifitng in that instance be a mortal sin? I heartily think not, but let's leave it up to the good Lord to work it all out.
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#1. To: Artisan (#0)
I don't know about a mortal sin, but it would be a sin. If no one cared to help them out and they all starved to death then the ones who didn't help them out will be held responsible by God.
How many times have you driven past a homeless person, or panhandler and didn't give something? I can tell you that more often than not I do not give to the homeless, or people begging for money. If you do it, it's no different than feeding a stray animal. Eventually that animal is going to bite you if you don't keep feeding it, or it will eventually move on to somewhere else where it will be fed. The problem with this whole stealing is a sin and all that, or it needing to be justified, is all bunk. Charity begins with kindness. We have oceans of that sort of thing in America. Where the problem starts, is the fact that Churches are being run like corporations, FOR PROFIT. I don't see them doing enough to help out the poor. Just like I don't see many people going to church, because they know that the churches are nothing more than corporations that work for profit, that don't pay taxes to the government. You want a solution to the poor and homeless epidemic in this country? Get rid of the two party system, and create ONE party that cares ONLY about the good and prosperity of this nation. Once we have THAT, the economy will take care of the lowest of the low. In the 1950's, there were virtually NO homeless people because even the lowest of the low could earn enough to take care of themselves. That is the difference between a HEALTHY economy, and one that is fraudulently healthy. The economy we have now is so screwed up it's not even funny, and we are going to see a lot more people losing what they have in the economic downturn that is all part and parcel with the liberal NAZI agenda. Thank you Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Your outright treason will bankrupt this nation faster than anyone ever imagined.
#9. To: TommyTheMadArtist, *California list* (#3)
Small-business bankruptcies rise 81% in California
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