The Bible and Torture: A follow up
I
want to respond to some questions and comments on my previous post, “The
Bible and Torture.”
One commenter asked,
“Would you condone the torture the Catholic church inflicted on thousands? Simply because the Pope said so.”
And again,
“Would you condone the torture, by the army of England against those who fought for liberty here in the Revolutionary war? Would you condone torture by Abraham Lincoln against those men who fought in the south during the Civil War.”
The answer to all three questions is contained in my original post, especially the part where I said,
“I want to stress that we are talking about the use of inflicting pain to extract information only in exceptional cases."
Exceptional means, “forming an exception or rare instance; unusual; extraordinary.” (Italics added for emphasis.) In my post I go on to give the only example I can think of.
What qualifies as an exceptional case? One in which there is an imminent threat of attack which is likely to result in the loss of…
One commenter asked,
“Would you condone the torture the Catholic church inflicted on thousands? Simply because the Pope said so.”
And again,
“Would you condone the torture, by the army of England against those who fought for liberty here in the Revolutionary war? Would you condone torture by Abraham Lincoln against those men who fought in the south during the Civil War.”
The answer to all three questions is contained in my original post, especially the part where I said,
“I want to stress that we are talking about the use of inflicting pain to extract information only in exceptional cases."
Exceptional means, “forming an exception or rare instance; unusual; extraordinary.” (Italics added for emphasis.) In my post I go on to give the only example I can think of.
What qualifies as an exceptional case? One in which there is an imminent threat of attack which is likely to result in the loss of…