Revenge: good or bad?

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

I was not implying that you were saying that. But making the point, if you
say that religion is against violence, becasue Jesus says turn the other cheek.

If there is another passage in the bible that supports violence

Well then you are suggesting that the passages that are against violence are more correct then the ones that support violence.

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Do you mind if you could please give that passage that supports violence? I never been across a passage that supports violence in a way that tell us that it is acceptable.

I am suggesting that because there seems to be no passage that tells us that we should commit violence, and there is a very direct passage that tells us revenge should be avoided. (yes turn other cheek is one) As there cant be another interpretation that revenge is bad, it is simple, bible tells us that violence, especially in form of violence, is unacceptable.

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Originally Posted by limajean

Yeah i guess i never thought of it that way...

But then again, i guess in a situation where i would seek revenge, i wouldnt be thinking about the consequences.

If someone burned my house down, id probably burn theirs down - being even more illogical, it'd probably turn into a huge fight until one of us or both of us were dead.


Now - that is revenge at it's most dramatic.
If someone did something nasty to me, it would depend on the situation if i responded.

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Yes, if one of you ended up dead, then it would mean revenge is unacceptable as revenge resulted in avoidable death. This unacceptability would mean it is obviously bad no matter the measure of damage caused.

Yes but i still dont see it as "bad"

I mean, take cause and reaction.

Someone kills my family, my reaction - i kill them.
Sounds extreme yes, but to me, it'd be almost instinctual.

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Originally Posted by limajean

Yes but i still dont see it as "bad"

I mean, take cause and reaction.

Someone kills my family, my reaction - i kill them.
Sounds extreme yes, but to me, it'd be almost instinctual.

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Most everything in our lives are simply reaction. The act of stealing an apple from a store because you are hungry can be regarded as a reaction. But in moral aspect, it is wrong. If you think this way revenge I believe is also wrong as it involves someone acting wrong (ie killing) in order to satisfy one self.

As a buddhist, it should be against my nature to kill, anything for that matter.
I mean, i save ants from the damn shower...

but..the thought of someone wiping out my family, its hard to banish the thought of killing from my mind

As a buddhist, it should be against my nature to kill, anything for that matter.
I mean, i save ants from the damn shower...

but..the thought of someone wiping out my family, its hard to banish the thought of killing from my mind

Talking of Buddhism, I think it seems inevitable for a religious person to link religion with revenge, just as limajean you did. The reason why I am bringing this point is because delta40 suggested that people should look for other ways of discussing revenge other than religion. In order to satisfy his suggestion, may be we should not include religion in this thread any longer.

Delta40, the only reason why we religious users link revenge with religion is because sense of morality is discussed in this thread: revenge, and religion promotes a strong sense of morality therefore, it becomes natural for us to link religion with nature of revenge.

Both religous and non religious people have morals, this dictates one's approach to revenge, i believe.
Then again, theres a big difference between what you want to do and what you're told - by religious beliefs, you shouldn't do.

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Originally Posted by limajean

Both religous and non religious people have morals, this dictates one's approach to revenge, i believe.
Then again, theres a big difference between what you want to do and what you're told - by religious beliefs, you shouldn't do.

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True, but the religious beliefs that tells people what they should do and what they should avoid are based by morality, always telling us to do the good over the bad. Except for the religions that promote freewill of course, however karma seems to promote good as well: Do the right thing to get good things back to you.

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Originally Posted by skasian

Do you mind if you could please give that passage that supports violence? I never been across a passage that supports violence in a way that tell us that it is acceptable.

I am suggesting that because there seems to be no passage that tells us that we should commit violence, and there is a very direct passage that tells us revenge should be avoided. (yes turn other cheek is one) As there cant be another interpretation that revenge is bad, it is simple, bible tells us that violence, especially in form of violence, is unacceptable.

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I don't have the Bible memorized but I am sure with a little looking into I can find one.

Isn't the old an eye for an eye very misquoted and taken totally out of context? What I mean to say so I am not misunderstood is this: Jesus totally refuted this approach and recommended turning the other cheek. Still, even today people conveniently extract that one line, as if it were some sort of justification for revenge and say because it is written in the bible, it is legitimate.

I've posted this in another thread but it is of interest to this disscusion if you want to see the Buddhist take on the matter. (You could put me firmly in the non-revenge camp.)

The Parable of the Saw
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit...021x.budd.html

It is featured right at the bottom of the link posted if you want to read it.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

Isn't the old an eye for an eye very misquoted and taken totally out of context? What I mean to say so I am not misunderstood is this: Jesus totally refuted this approach and recommended turning the other cheek. Still, even today people conveniently extract that one line, as if it were some sort of justification for revenge and say because it is written in the bible, it is legitimate.

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But if you say, that is not legtimate just becasue it is written in the Bible, then nothing in the Bibile can be called "legitimate"

For who is to determine what passages are more legitmate then others?

That is my point! People extract what they want to use and apply incorrect interpretation. They don't look at the context in which it is said. That is what makes the part passage they use non-legitimate.

Though people take An eye for an eye out of context, the passage still supports the use of violence, as well as captial punishment for certain offesneces.

He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death
(That is a pretty clear cut case for the death pently right there)

And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.

And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
(The execution of unruly children)

And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.

Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money
(It is ok to beat your slaves as long as they survive the beating)

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot

Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe

And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.

And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.
(It's okay to beat your slaves; even if they die you won't be punished, just as long as they survive a day or two after the beating. But avoid excessive damage to their eyes or teeth. Otherwise you may have to set them free.)

But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.
(If your ox kills someone, you should be put to death, and your ox stoned to death)

Interesting how revenge is tied up so much with religion and morality. The word revenge has negative connotations in the west. However if replace with other similar words like vindicate or retribution does it become easier to argue for?

skasian I do not know the exact passage in the bible but in the old testiment god is vengeful and he also commands his people to commit genocide. Of course if you do not refer to the old testament the new testament has problems as well. Can you really turn the other cheek knowing full well the perpetrator will harm others in the future?

I'm curious about the aphorism an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. This only applies to two parties with unsettled and differing ideas of justice. In homogenous societies punishment for heinous crimes are agreed upon. Technically it leaves two people blind?

I don't know about the cost of revenge itself, as even Dumas makes his 19th century superhero, the Count, exact too high a price, but the cost of not acting can also do you physiological harm, that I know. I was hurt, psychologically, and economically, by both a woman and an institution surrounding her, repeatedly over the years, after my career ended at another org they had partnered with, essentially meaning I still had a professional relationship with the first.

I am now about to get serious, and hire an attorney, file the appropriate grievance with the appropriate authority, and yet my inner psyche watching me dance like Bonzo wonders what I am going to achieve? Even in the event that I *win* concessions, or a settlement, can I really fix a broken and corrupt system that is a nationwide pathology of lies? (If you ask how I know this, I have met numerous former and angry disabled employees of said institution(s) which are federally mandated, but state controlled.)

In proportion to the degree of my anger, I am beginning to feel that the Italian mafia is, to a great degree, a cultural ingenuity.

Part of me in fact just wants to do something radical, like flee to Italy, and then continue to fight with my pen. Part of me wishes I had the brawn to send my former colleague to sleep with the fishes. The other part remembers how much I had once valued her friendship. I had a *talk* with her former boss this evening; he is dying. No one says anything but it is self-evident, as I knew him before his strokes and heart attacks. He doesn't want me to sue, and once more, tries to pacify me, even though he profited by certain events which caused me great suffering--and this time, it isn't enough. Not that I believed in him, her, or the old guard I came up with.

Perhaps I'll be sleeping with the fishes when the dust settles; maybe I should have fought back sooner. Maybe it is too late altogether.

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

I don't have the Bible memorized but I am sure with a little looking into I can find one.

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I see you have provided passages that does contains reference of violence. But I assume this was taken out from the old testiment. If it is, then this is part of Law of Moses, where it is now unaccountable. It is because when Jesus was preaching, he altered the old rules.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

That is my point! People extract what they want to use and apply incorrect interpretation. They don't look at the context in which it is said. That is what makes the part passage they use non-legitimate.

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When the extract is directly straight forward then there is no chance of having an incorrect interpretation. As we were discussing revenge, the extract about Jesus turns the other cheek cant have multiple interpretation other than be forgiving and to avoid violence and revenge. If you want more information, read the context, it makes the extract even more straight forward.

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Originally Posted by Ohmyscience

Interesting how revenge is tied up so much with religion and morality. The word revenge has negative connotations in the west. However if replace with other similar words like vindicate or retribution does it become easier to argue for?

skasian I do not know the exact passage in the bible but in the old testiment god is vengeful and he also commands his people to commit genocide. Of course if you do not refer to the old testament the new testament has problems as well. Can you really turn the other cheek knowing full well the perpetrator will harm others in the future?

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Ah, then there is the power of speech and persuation to help the offender from acting violent in the future. Turn the other cheek does not necessary mean that we should be dumbfolded and do nothing about the damage. Jesus gives an insight that violence is not the answer and there are other methods of approaching conflict. For example, talk to them without violence and revenge to smooth things out.

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Originally Posted by skasian

an incorrect interpretation. .

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Thanks for agreeing with me Skasian

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Originally Posted by Delta40

Thanks for agreeing with me Skasian

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I beg your pardon? I said NO CHANCE of an incorrect interpretation. Unless this is a lame joke, you should read more carefully.

I believe people do the same thing with partial extracts from the bible Skasian. They take them out of context. Thanks for assisting me.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

I believe people do the same thing with partial extracts from the bible Skasian. They take them out of context. Thanks for assisting me.

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Please tell me why you think this way, how does a person take out a small segment of extracts that can result in an entirely different interpretation? I have never been across this, nor the person who does this.

matthew 5:38-5:39

Concerning Revenge

38 ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;

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Originally Posted by Delta40

matthew 5:38-5:39

Concerning Revenge

38 ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;

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Which creates a convenient martyr complex. We are sitting wherever we are sitting, on machines which were not even on the radar screen of our grandparents, connected by electric pulses or satellite signals, and a simple majority can do nothing more advanced with a moral issue, one that is covered by many great writers, even geniuses, than to toss around 2000 year old texts not even properly translated from ancient Hebrew into Shakespeare's English, let alone modern English.

It is stuff like this that makes it seem remarkable to me that the modern human lasted 100,000 years. Like language itself, we must be an evolutionary accident which evolution itself will correct within the next thousand years, if not less.

I am ashamed at what we cling to. I really am.

I am not ashamed of the history of humankind. It loves. It learns. It errs. It aspires. It inspires.

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Originally Posted by skasian

isnt the moral that is important?

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there is no moral certainty in specific situations. you're looking for moral absolutes--which have a similar reality to that of the tooth fairy

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Originally Posted by skasian

Do you think violence is the way of things?

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i dont think violence is the way of things. but it is a way. peaceful civil disobedience, for example, has it place, but its just one of many responses to violence. for instance: do you really think the world can deal with radical islam by way of peaceful resolution?

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Originally Posted by skasian

Do you think that a person must give up and surrender in bloodshed in order to finish a conflict? surely there must be a better method of dealing with conflict.

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until we master jedi mindtricks, peaceful conflict resolution can only be an ideal to strive for, not the rule to live by.

One thing I find interesting that I am starting to notice here, is the way in which revenge is automaticaly being tied into voilence. In my mind the two do not have to be synomouous with each other. While exmpales have been made, by myself included of extreme cases in which violence is used, this seems to be truning more into an argument of trying to justifiy the use of violence in some circumstances and moving more away from the act and nature of revenge in of itself.

You know there are ways in which a person can relitalite against another where no one is physcialy harmed, and where there need no be any bloodshed of violence. Revenge does not by default equal violence.

Just look at the things you could do to a person using computers and the interenet.

Dark has a good point--but I think how we act to some degree conditions the end result. I was interested in the posts of members who acted, (perhaps with a little extra-legality) and regretted it--which is why I posted a little of my story--to show that not acting has consequence, as my health and well-being has suffered--and not just by the cruelty of the institution, but by my inability to come to peace with it.

As I indicated, part of me wants to drop this, as there is always going to be internal dynamics under which a certain percentage of people get chewed up and spit out--and yet, in a way I know so much that my own feelings of principle says "fight to fix it."

I am not any saint. I have a terrible temper and have had my share of thriller fantasies where I get my power back at the point of a gun--which is at once laughable, but also corrosive to me, as violence strips us of positive civilizing influences.

But if I fight the right way, then maybe I too join the chorus that puts enough pressure on policy makers to change the rules which cater to the abuses.

Revenge, as a word, has a kind of onerous quality. I think previous posts have pointed this out, but vindication is more positive, and connotes victory has been achieved.

I agree that revenge does not have to involve violence. Of course, your discussion opens up a can of worms there. What is violence?

For the sake of this discussion I am decalaring violence meaning physically assulting another person. Causing physical injury and pain, or death.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

I agree that revenge does not have to involve violence. Of course, your discussion opens up a can of worms there. What is violence?

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Violence is inflicting physical harm upon someone else. I don't see how that definition can be embellished upon, because I can't imagine violence as anything other than just that.

I guess we view revenge as a violent act because of the cultural connotations it carries. Almost all the mobster movies portray revenge as beating the victim to a bloody pulp. In Shakespeare, Hamlet wants to kill Claudius, Shylock wants a pound of Antonio's flesh, and so forth. It's just easier to imagine revenge being carried out as a violent act rather than, for instance, stealing.

Yes that is true, but then look at highschool, which I am sure most of us has experinced. There revenge, generally tends to come in the form of gossip, and slander, writing phone numbers on bathroom walls. And today probably involves postings on Myspace and blogs.

While in Lieature and movies revenge generally tends to be about voilence, in the real world, I think revenge takes many forms. Runining someones reputation, trying to get someone fired, acts of vandilizim against property. Uploading emrbassing and damaging viedoes on the internet.

Revenge doesn't have to be violence, it could also be destruction of property, etc.

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Originally Posted by NikolaiI

Revenge doesn't have to be violence, it could also be destruction of property, etc.

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I would think destruction of property involves the use of excessive force.:p

But what Dark says about highschool seems to be a basic truism, and made me smile. CILS are very highschool, and even middle school, at times. You have the AB's (able-bodied persons) who lord their ableness over the tarts, and those can be anyone, not just the MR diagnosed. Major disabling conditions lessen developmental maturity, regardless of whether retardation is actually present, then you have the staff with various minor impairments, deafness, gimp-leg, blindness, but otherwise matriculated successfully, then the smart quads or near quads (like me) and then after that you have the seriously disabled, through which those up the food chain earn their living--and it just doesn't work, and never will, which is why the parts and parcels that make up what a CIL is, need to go back to the drawing board, and I am not the only disgruntled voice which brays about the degree to which the concept is broken.

Destroying the system, which really wouldn't take more than a federal class action lawsuit, would be part vengeance for some of us who broke our backs on the IL creed, but part idealism too, in that what IL really is supposed to stand for should be more than doled out lip service by would-be school marms, or highly inept case managers--whichever classification suits one's fancy.

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Originally Posted by Delta40

matthew 5:38-5:39

Concerning Revenge

38 ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;

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38Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

39But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

40And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

What ever you are trying to support, it is clear that Jesus opposes revenge. The first statement He says is "You have heard that it was said An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”" that implies that we are used to being accepted of using revenge, then the second statment "39But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also" is Jesus CORRECTING our acceptance of using revenge. Therefore Jesus is advocating that we should NOT use revenge. Last statement "40And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." is Jesus advocating the idea of forgiveness, and taking pitty and sympathy to the evildoer.

So, I would like to say that people DOES NOT take out a small segment of extracts and turn it into an entirely different interpretation. Thank you Delta for refreshning my memory of Jesus's words about revenge.

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Originally Posted by billyjack

there is no moral certainty in specific situations. you're looking for moral absolutes--which have a similar reality to that of the tooth fairy



i dont think violence is the way of things. but it is a way. peaceful civil disobedience, for example, has it place, but its just one of many responses to violence. for instance: do you really think the world can deal with radical islam by way of peaceful resolution?



until we master jedi mindtricks, peaceful conflict resolution can only be an ideal to strive for, not the rule to live by.

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"there is no moral certainty in specific situations."
In what ever specific situations, it is important for us to act in a moral sense, ie good over bad. For example, every decision should be chosen in a good way in order to be beneficial or efficient.

Of course violence is one of many conflicts to solve a conflict, however I was trying to express that violence should be the last to choice of a list of many methods. The only reason why people cant use peaceful conflict resolution is because of their temptation to use evil, ie violence, but there is no rule that it should be a rule not to live by.

Isnt destruction of property a form of violence? A quick defintion of violence: Extreme force; Action intended to cause destruction, pain, or suffering; Widespread fighting; Injustice, wrong.

I know some have tried to think of other aspects to link revenge other than violence, but I couldnt resist to say that as violence can be defined as "wrong" and that some people can accept linking violence to revenge, revenge can also be defined as "wrong"..therefore fulfilling the threads title, revenge = bad.

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Originally Posted by skasian

38

So, I would like to say that people DOES NOT take out a small segment of extracts and turn it into an entirely different interpretation. Thank you Delta for refreshning my memory of Jesus's words about revenge.

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People so often (perhaps after engaging in a revengeful act,) cite Jesus as have preached an eye for an eye.