I find the conservative objection to that Bible passage particularly amusing, because I could make the same point using many other passages - the Jesus of the Gospels spends more time denouncing the hypocrisy of the religious than condemning the immorality of the irreligious.
As for prison and punishment, I've thought a lot about it and I honestly want the role of punishment should be to bring people to repentance and redemption, which is obviously very Christian language but hopefully has secular relevance as well. The popularity of stories of forgiveness and atonement suggest that we do want criminals to become people that no longer want or need to commit crime, without having to kill them or lock them away forever. I don't think prison is very effective at achieving this, and it honestly amazes me that some people manage to change for the better even while locked away in that place.
(The popularity of stories about revenge and retribution suggest that we simultaneously want criminals to suffer for what they've done, human preferences are complicated and contradictory.)
I find the conservative objection to that Bible passage particularly amusing, because I could make the same point using many other passages - the Jesus of the Gospels spends more time denouncing the hypocrisy of the religious than condemning the immorality of the irreligious.
As for prison and punishment, I've thought a lot about it and I honestly want the role of punishment should be to bring people to repentance and redemption, which is obviously very Christian language but hopefully has secular relevance as well. The popularity of stories of forgiveness and atonement suggest that we do want criminals to become people that no longer want or need to commit crime, without having to kill them or lock them away forever. I don't think prison is very effective at achieving this, and it honestly amazes me that some people manage to change for the better even while locked away in that place.
(The popularity of stories about revenge and retribution suggest that we simultaneously want criminals to suffer for what they've done, human preferences are complicated and contradictory.)