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3 ideas
20842 | Rational animals begin uncorrupted, but externals and companions are bad influences [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: The rational animal is corrupted, sometimes because of the persuasiveness of external activities and sometimes because of the influence of companions. For the starting points provided by nature are uncorrupted. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.89 | |
A reaction: If companions corrupt us, what corrupted the companions? Aren't we all in this together? And where do the 'external activities' originate? |
7337 | In Mosaic legal theory, crimes are sins and sins are crimes [Johnson,P] |
Full Idea: In Mosaic legal theory, all breaches of the law offend God. All crimes are sins, just as all sins are crimes. | |
From: Paul Johnson (The History of the Jews [1987], Pt I) | |
A reaction: This would seem to define Josephus called a 'theocracy'. Not just rule by a priesthood, but also an attempt to make civil law coincide with the teachings of sacred texts. But doing 80 m.p.h. on a motorway at 2 a.m. hardly seems like a sin. |
7339 | Because human life is what is sacred, Mosaic law has no death penalty for property violations [Johnson,P] |
Full Idea: Where other codes provided the death penalty for offences against property, in Mosaic law no property offence is capital; human life is too sacred, where the rights of property alone are violated. | |
From: Paul Johnson (The History of the Jews [1987], Pt I) | |
A reaction: We still preserve this idea in our law, and also in our culture, where we are keen to insist that catastrophes like earthquakes or major fires are measured almost entirely by the loss of life, not the loss of property. I approve. |