Caning, Dentists, & the Problem of Pain & Love |
Gregory Koukl
If God really loved me, He wouldn’t allow me to go through this painful experience. Greg examines this false view of God from the perspective of the dentist’s chair.
| I want to talk a little bit about the caning in Singapore, partly because of the thoughts that I had about it relative to my visit to the dentist last week and because there has been a lot said about this particular caning as we’ve anticipated it and surprisingly I think to a lot of people the response was somewhat mixed. The letters poured into Singapore from the U.S. that were actually very supportive of the caning. Much can be said about the issue, but that is another issue and I don’t want to take that up today. Nor will I comment here on my feelings about the caning itself and the appropriateness and whether it’s a good punishment or bad, or how it relates to our legal system. That’s really not my concern today. I do have some opinions that I’m in the process of developing, but today I’m interested in something else. Clearly Americans have had an ambivalence about this. On the one hand we believe in law and order, but there is something else in current American social values that has really animated the outcry against what some have called cruel and unusual punishment. Some have even referred to it as torture. (more…) |
