What's in the Bible? The Ten Commandments (6/20): Thou Shalt Not Kill

The sixth commandment is: "Thou shalt not kill". (3 Nephi 12:21, Exodus 20:13, Mosiah 13:21, D&C 42:1) I think this one seems pretty obvious to most people. What is less obvious is its place in our society. 


Handling of Violence

On the one hand, the right to self-defense is being weakened increasingly under the false pretense that killing even in self defense is immoral, while on the other hand vicious, heartless shootings and other forms of violence seem to be ever on the increase. Our response to this has been efforts to prevent such things by destroying the freedom of everyday, innocent people instead of solving the real problem: lack of the love of God in society, lack of the respect for the lives of others which this love engenders.

We've had a rash of shootings in recent years, and in the aftermath, always the focus is on gun control or security measures or zero tolerance policies or mental health screening. But the father of one of the girls who lost her life in the Colombine shooting told Congress on no uncertain terms that what we need more of is God. Why? Forty years ago, the kinds of shootings that now seem commonplace were unheard of. People in general had a love of God - and felt His love for them - which went a long ways in preventing the kinds of depression, abuse, hatred and lack of respect for the value of life that have led some of these perpetrators to end so many lives, often including their own. We didn't need police confiscating our children's weapons in our high schools or government officials confiscating our hair gel at the airport because, albeit with some exceptions, for the most part we held ourselves answerable to the laws of God in our treatment of each other - even in public.

I myself survived junior high school and lived to tell about it. I probably bore as much abuse and rejection at the hands of my peers as did the boys of Colombine, but I didn't take the lives of those who tormented me. In possession of the love of God and having been inculcated with this commandment, I knew such punishment hardly fit the crime, and that it even if it did, it was not mine to administer. Having been raised in this way, thoughts of killing someone as a way to salve my pain never even entered my mind. Don't get me wrong; I don't count myself better than the boys at Colombine. I just consider myself to have had the advantage of better tools for dealing with my challenges. The simple, too-often overlooked power of prayer, of scripture study, and of frequent exposure to godly music gave me the moral compass and the emotional and spiritual strength to bear my trials without so much as entertaining the notion of losing my head and doing something insane.

No matter what else we try, our society will not eradicate senseless violence without first restoring the dutiful obeisance to God, indeed the love of God, that was once commonplace among us.

Colombine father's testimony to Congress on YouTube
What's in the Bible? Morality in An Immoral World: A Turning of Things Upside Down  

 
Abortion

In recent decades, our society has so far lost its moral bearings that it sanctions the destruction of human life at its whim. In any given hospital, a room full of doctors and surgeons toils through the night, making heroic efforts to save a pair of twins born nineteen weeks early. In another room of the same hospital, a woman is being told that her twenty-two week pregnancy represents nothing more than a lump of flesh. They inject chemicals into the fetus that no court of law would ever allow to be injected into a felon condemned to death because of the excruciating pain it causes as it sucks the life out of its victims. The fact that other forms of abortion are equally grotesque goes without saying. As we speak, society seeks to legalize near-term and even neo-natal "abortion". If you don't like your child, you'll soon have the legal latitude to have her executed after she's born! 

Those that perform these abortions know fully well they are administering death to one "patient", while doing all in their power to treat and save another - a direct violation of the Hippocratic oath! Many doctors placed in this situation have had a deep change of heart and have refused to continue performing abortions. Even many of those who once were the genesis of the abortion movement have abandoned the cause and spent their lives fighting against it. 

Those who believe they have the right to choose who dies and who lives call themselves "pro-choice". What about the right of the child to a life of choices? What about the millions of life choices that will be precluded by their crusade for "choice"? The destruction of human life - whether born or unborn - is anything but pro-choice! We decry the ancient practice of sacrificing infants to the idol Molech by burning them alive, yet in our day we sacrifice our own unborn children to the false and perverse god of sexual licentiousness, burning them alive with noxious chemicals, or tearing their squirming, fighting little bodies to pieces with pincers!

The commandment not to kill can be overridden by only one law: the right of self-defense. The scriptures teach us that we only kill animals to eat, and we only only kill human beings who are trying to kill us. That means the only time abortion is morally justifiable is when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother or when the child would be doomed to an inhumane existence by its condition. Even then, those responsible for making the choice ought to do so only wishing that there were another option.


Capital Punishment

Here in our society - a society that was at one time educated by the Judeo-Christian tradition - we still have debates over the morality of capital punishment. God gave Moses laws that decreed death unto those guilty of rape, murder, and other equally egregious crimes. People contend against capital punishment, saying that to put people to death is to play god (unless of course the person being put to death hasn't worn her first diaper yet). But it is God who has decreed to us the laws that govern the making and taking of human life.

Among the things God instructed Moses and his people to do is this:

"Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." (Genesis 9:3-6, see also Exodus 21:12, Deuteronomy 17:6, Romans 1:28-32, Alma 1:18, 30:10, 34:12)

Judging this to be immoral, we in our vengeance seek instead to see to it that, while in most cases the suffering of victims lasts for minutes, the torment of the accused lasts for decades. I hardly see how this is more "moral" than ending the lives of those considered unfit or or too dangerous to re-enter society. We need to either expect those found guilty of a crime to make right the wrong they've committed, or fine them, or put them to death. Keeping people in prison for years on end may not take lives, but it does destroy them, which causes more crime, not less of it.


Going to War

Regarding their reasons for waging war, the Nephite prophet Alma the Younger said this:

"...the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church. And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them, and also unto their fathers, that: Inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offense, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies. And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion. (Alma 43:45-47)

This right of self defense applies as much on a national level as on a personal level. We live in a nation that has long embroiled itself in conflicts that really did not threaten us at home. We responded to the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 by misplacing blame and attacking nations that had not attacked us. This same nation is currently training its law enforcement and armies to deal with "domestic terrorists" who insist on defending their constitutional freedoms, yet it is not "terrorism" to defend yourself, your right to the free exercise of religion and your freedom with your life - freedoms from which our increasingly corrupt society seeks to be "free". 

Were our founding fathers "terrorists"? No. They did not seek to scare or intimidate Great Britain into changing their religion or their ideology. It was only their intent to secure for themselves and for us the freedom which Great Britain had promised them, the freedom to live by their own ideology. We have condemned Israel for waging war against Palestine while the world is trying to negotiate peace, yet Israel has little choice but to either wage war or cease to exist, while the world continues to fumble with its false hope that Palestine will ever tolerate the existence of Israel.

Nations should only go to war to defend themselves and their allies! Ours has yet to learn both respect for the right of self defense and obedience to this commandment not to kill. If our world fails to learn obedience, we stand to see the ancient end-time prophecies concerning us be fulfilled.


Hunting, Fishing & Eating Meat

In one of his letters to Timothy, the apostle Paul foretold some details about society in the latter days:

"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith... forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.  For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:  For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer." (1 Timothy 4:1-5)

Incidentally, I believe the tradition of "saying grace" or otherwise offering a prayer at mealtime was inspired by this passage, by a reverence for the fact that everything we eat, whether plant or animal, comes at the cost of God's gift of life. In fulfillment of this prophecy, there are those in the world today who  believe it is immoral to eat meat or make clothing from animal skins - because you have to kill it first. But again, the word of God who is the moral authority in the universe is clear:

"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things..." (Genesis 9:3)

While He does hold as accountable for our use of them - look at Genesis 9 again - and we are to eat meat sparingly, God has given us animals for food and clothing. 

"And whoso forbiddeth to abstain from meats, that man should not eat the same, is not ordained of God; For, behold, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which cometh of the earth, is ordained for the use of man for food and for raiment, and that he might have in abundance." (Doctrine and Covenants 49:18)

To use them in this way is not against what He has commanded us.



God Says "Thou Shalt Not" Because He Loves Us

God has given us the commandment not to kill because He loves us. He loves the convicted felon, the innocent bystander, and the unborn child all equally. He does not want to see us experience the needless pain and loss of life that are becoming increasingly prevalent in our society. He does not want us to experience the misery and the guilt that so many mothers feel after they've had an abortion. He does not want us to experience the emotional and spiritual ugliness that attend those who kill for other reasons. If we would love God enough to allow Him to be our God, and if we would do as He has commanded, we would have less destruction of human life in our society, and we'd be a happier, more peaceful and more free people for it.