Thursday, April 30, 2009

Freedom for (not from) Terrorists

The Obama administration wants to release into the US Chinese Muslims held at Gitmo. They were taken from an al-Queda training camp!

Obama does not understand terrorism, the reality of religious evil, or what a strong nation does in response to it. God help us.

If you want to understand why the Left cannot condemn terrorism, read David Horowitz, Unholy Alliance. Barack Obama is the most far-left President in the history of the Republic.

5 comments:

Mike Aubrey said...

I agree with you that this release is not a good thing.

But.

Were they arrested and being held legally to begin with? Were they ever charged?

What legal right do we have to keep them in prison if they were not?

Simply put, there are too many legal and moral issues revolving the imprisonment of many of the gitmo detainees for me to be willing to make the sort of sweeping statements that you are here.

Unknown said...

I wonder to what extent Christian support for imprisonment and torture is prompted by theological views. If God condemns everyone who fails to have the right beliefs to eternal suffering in hell, is it really so ungodly to subject wrongdoers to earthly prisons and torture? Just imitating God, I guess.

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. said...

The issue is justice. God, being all-knowing and all-powerful and all-wise, will bring perfect justice in the end. The issue is not pettiness regarding beliefs, but how one responds to the evidence for God in nature and in one's own consciousness and conscience. See Romans 1-2 on this.

In a fallen world, imprisonment and aggressive interogation is called for in some cases. The interrogation used by the US was (1) legal (2) necessary for the saving of lives. In fact, these methods did procure information used to stop at least one more terrorist attack. If a terrorist had to be made uncomfortable to achieve this, then so be it.

Unknown said...

Whether it's petty or not, I don't know. The fact is that God doesn't countenance the liberal right to freedom of conscience.

If you believe that the all-knowing God thinks it is all-wise and perfectly just to condemn unbelievers to eternal suffering in hell, then you have quite a role model. (And why assume it's only about securing protection for others, rather than retribution?)

To defend the use of such "interrogation" because it is "legal" is simply to fail to engage this issue at a sufficient depth.

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. said...

In the divine case, it is not about securing protection; I didn't say it was. I was speaking of our situation with terrorists.

I address the justice of hell in an on line essay, "What About Hell." Please consult that.

God's treatment of unrepentant rebels has nothing to do with my philosophy of interrogation. You made that connection; I did not. Nor will psychoanalysis serve your cause. You need to address the argument as stated, not bring in theological claims that do not fit the case. Moreover, many support Gitmo who are not Christians or even theists.