Posted on 11/17/2005 8:39:27 AM PST by Rutles4Ever
I would like to know about the difference between the two.
A moment of freedom, versus being alive and a lifetime of being with their family and loved ones? Doesn't make sense.
So, what is the difference? Both are intentional acts, resulting in death.
Is it just a difference between meaning well, and not?
Except that this murder can easily be prevented.
Sure. Just bow down.
So are you saying Jesus Christ committed suicide?
Better yet, just continue to worship however you want in secrecy.
That way....you can stay alive, take care of your family, continue to preach to others (secretly of course), continue to worship and thank God.
I really can't believe that God wants people to die, in order to praise Him.
Is there a difference?
It isn't a moment. The young woman was arrested and executed for thinking and believing things not approved by the gang of sick murderers and slavemasters who run her country. Thinking and believing. The woman and all the rest were arrested and executed for daring to be human. They sought to excercise some of the ordinary aspects of human life that we take for granted (would you and I be having this kind of discussion if we were in North Korea?)and the response from their government was to splatter their brains. And it wasn't as if they were being very public and getting in the face of the regime. The woman's Bible was hidden in the laundry. The Bible and church membership documents of the executed pastors were found hidden in a basement of a building that was being torn down.
"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church," and the blood of the martyrs is what it is going to take if North Korea is ever to be humane and free. I hope the communists' little object lesson backfires on them, and that the witnesses to the executions, once they overcome the horror of the memory, will see these people for the heroes that they are.
Yeah. Of course, I'd like to think I would. But I hope to God that I don't have to. God help the people of North Korea.
You should read the article. They were worshipping in secret.
Quoting:
Among the first-hand reports are eyewitness accounts of Christians' being executed for the underground practice of their faith.
The study recounts, for example, how in November 1996 in North Korea's South Pyongan province, a unit of the North Korean army was tasked with widening a highway connecting Pyongyang to a nearby port city. While demolishing a vacant house, soldiers found in the basement, hidden between two bricks, a Bible and a list of 25 names. Among the list were individuals identified as a Christian pastor, two assistant pastors, two elders, and 20 parishioners who were identified by their occupations.
Hunted down at their workplaces by military police, the 25 Christians were rounded up and detained without any formal judicial procedure. Later that month, the parishioners and their clergy were brought to the road construction site, where spectators had been arranged in neat rows to observe the public execution of the pastor, assistant pastors, and elders. According to a report based on an eyewitness account, the five church leaders "were bound hand and foot and made to lie down in front of a steamroller," accused of subversion and of being Kiddokyo, or Protestant Christian, spies.
The 20 parishioners were detained near their clergy, and watched, along with the assembled audience, as the five Christian leaders were told they could escape death if they denied their faith and pledged to serve only Kim Jong Il and his father, the first dictator of communist Korea, Kim Il Sung. According to the eyewitness, the clergy remained silent.
For their steadfast belief, the Christians were executed. According to the report, "Some of the fellow parishioners assembled to watch the execution cried, screamed out, or fainted when the skulls made a popping sound as they were crushed beneath the steamroller."
Another account contained in the report says that on a summer day in North Korea in 1997, a young woman was washing clothes in a tributary of the Tumen River when she dropped a small Bible she had hidden amid the laundry. Spotted by a fellow washerwoman, the girl was reported to North Korean authorities on the suspicion that she was engaging in an exercise of thought or religion condemned by the state. The girl, believed to be in her 20s, and her father, estimated to be around 60, were arrested by local national security police and imprisoned for three months.
One morning, they were taken to a public market area, where, after a brief show trial, the father and daughter were condemned as traitors to the North Korean nation and its communist dictator, Kim Jong Il. The father and daughter were then tied to stakes a few meters from where they had been "tried," and, before an assembly of schoolchildren, were riddled with bullets by seven policemen who fired three shots each into the pair. According to a report drawn from eyewitness accounts, "The force of the rifle shots, fired from fifteen meters away, caused blood and brain matter to be blown out of their heads."
End quote.
They were already worshipping in secret. But you are right, to escape death, all they had to do was bow.
Is there a difference?
I was asking you. You appear to be saying, yes, He did.
> secondly, the person wishing to be killed is not trying to get killed for any other reason then to end his life.
Usually true, but in some cases, such as the Koreshies and others, getting others to kill you has some sort of religious or political intent. The Chechen "rebels" who took the Russian theater a few years back were probably hoping that the Russian cops/military would come in and mow them down in a massive bloodbath, taking out the hostages as well, for instance.
Granted, these are rather extreme examples in comparison to a guy who does "suicide by cop" in North Korea or Saudi Arabia by letting it be known that he, say, will give you a copy of the Bible or preaches the truth of Buddha or openly follows Falon Gong or whatever.
Second Book Of MachabeesThe glorious martyrdom of the seven brethren and their mother.
1 It came to pass also, that seven brethren, together with their mother, were apprehended, and compelled by the king to eat swine's flesh against the law, for which end they were tormented with whips and scourges. 2 But one of them, who was the eldest, said thus: What wouldst thou ask, or learn of us? we are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of God, received from our fathers. 3 Then the king being angry commanded fryingpans, and brazen caldrons to be made hot: which forthwith being heated, 4 He commanded to cut out the tongue of him that had spoken first: and the skin of his head being drawn off, to chop off also the extremities of his hands and feet, the rest of his brethren, and his mother, looking on. 5 And when he was now maimed in all parts, he commanded him, being yet alive, to be brought to the Are, and to be fried in the fryingpan: and while he was suffering therein long torments, the rest, together with the mother, exhorted one another to die manfully,
6 Saying: The Lord God will look upon the truth, and will take pleasure in us, as Moses declared in the profession of the canticle: And In his servants he will take pleasure. 7 So when the first was dead after this manner, they brought the next to make him a, mocking stock: and when they had pulled off the skin of his head with the hair, they asked him if he would eat, before he were punished throughout the whole body in every limb. 8 But he answered in his own language, and said: I will not do it. Wherefore Ire also in the next place, received the torments of the first: 9 And when he was at the last gasp, he said thus: Thou indeed, O most wicked man, destroyest us out of this present life: but the King of the world will raise us up, who die for his laws, in the resurrection of eternal life. 10 After him the third was made a mocking stock, and when he was required, he quickly put forth his tongue, and courageously stretched out his hands:
11 And said with confidence: These have from heaven, but for the laws of God I now despise them: because I hope to receive them again from him. 12 So that the king, and they that were with him, wondered at the young man's courage, because he esteemed the torments as nothing. 13 And after he was thus dead, they tormented the fourth in the like manner. 14 And when he was now ready to die, he spoke thus: It is better, being put to death by men, to look for hope from God, to be raised up again by him: for, as to thee thou shalt have no resurrection unto life. 15 And when they had brought the fifth, they tormented him. But he looking upon the king,
16 Said: Whereas thou hast power among men, though thou art corruptible, thou dost what thou wilt: but think not that our nation is forsaken by God. 17 But stay patiently a while, and thou shalt see his great power, in what manner he will torment thee and thy seed. 18 After him they brought the sixth, and he being ready to die, spoke thus: Be not deceived without cause: for we suffer these things for ourselves, having sinned against our God, and things worthy of admiration are done to us: 19 But do not think that thou shalt escape unpunished, for that thou attempted to fight against God. 20 Now the mother was to be admired above measure, and worthy to be remembered by good men, who beheld seven sons slain in the space of one day, and bore it with a good courage, for the hope that she had in God:
21 And she bravely exhorted every one of them in her own language, being filled with wisdom: and joining a man's heart to a woman's thought, 22 She said to them: I know not how you were formed in my womb: for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you. 23 But the Creator of the world, that formed the nativity of man, and that found out the origin of all, he will restore to you again in his mercy, both breath and life, as now you despise yourselves for the sake of his laws. 24 Now Antiochus, thinking himself despised, and withal despising the voice of the upbraider, when the youngest was yet alive, did not only exhort him by words, but also assured him with an oath, that he would make him a rich and a happy man, and, if he would turn from the laws of his fathers, would take him for a friend, and furnish him with things necessary. 25 But when the young man was not moved with these things, the king called the mother, and counselled her to deal with the young man to save his life.
26 And when he had exhorted her with many words, she promised that she would counsel her son. 27 So bending herself towards him, mocking the cruel tyrant, she said in her own language: My son, have pity upon me, that bore thee nine months my womb, and save thee suck years, and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this age. 28 I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also: 29 So thou shalt not fear this tormentor, but being made a worthy partner with thy brethren, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren. 30 While she was yet speaking these words, the young man said: For whom do you stay? I will not obey the commandment of the king, but the commandment of the law, which was given us by Moses.
31 But thou that hast been the author of all mischief against the Hebrews, shalt not escape the hand of God. 32 For we suffer thus for our sins. 33 And though the Lord our God is angry with us a little while for our chastisement and correction: yet he will be reconciled again to his servants. 34 But thou, O wicked and of all men most flagitious, be not lifted up without cause with vain hopes, whilst thou art raging against his servants. 35 For thou hast not yet escaped the judgment of the almighty God, who beholdeth all things.
36 For my brethren, having now undergone a short pain, are under the covenant of eternal life: but thou by the judgment of God shalt receive just punishment for thy pride. 37 But I, like my brethren, offer up my life and my body for the laws of our fathers: calling upon God to be speedily merciful to our nation, and that thou by torments and stripes mayst confess that he alone is God. 38 But in me and in my brethren the wrath of the Almighty, which hath justly been brought upon all our nation, shall cease. 39 Then the king being incensed with anger, raged against him more cruelly than all the rest, taking it grievously that he was mocked. 40 So this man also died undefiled, wholly trusting in the Lord.
41 And last of all after the sons the mother also was consumed. 42 But now there is enough said of the sacrifices, and of the excessive cruelties.
> But you are right, to escape death, all they had to do was bow.
Yup. And then, when the authorities have moved on, stand back up. And preferably stab 'em in the back.
I take it, then, that you've never been to India.
In the next war, please stay out of my foxhole.
Look at his FR home page.Doesn't actually believe in anything and can't understand why anyone would suffer discomfort for beliefs.
It seems that one would have to profess something, in order for anyone to know what they thought and believed.
Obviously wasn't too secret.
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