An Eye For An Eye?? Would It Make The Whole World Blind??


MharkNeilCudal's avatar
Im not much of a fan of the bible myself but I think this is a very big topic at the moment but I wnat to know what YOU think about the subject anyway your response matters alot to me :)

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' Exodus

"An eye for an eye can make the whole world blind." Ghandi

Who is wrong? Who is right? YOU decide!!
Comments57
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
taylor17387's avatar
An eye for an eye. That's fair game. And if everybody ended up blind, it would be because everybody deserved it, right? (However, that would never happen: most persons aren't criminals, and less so if the law was so strict).

People find talion law barbaric nowadays, but think about our current system for a moment. In some Muslim country (I don't remember which one, exactly), some guy dropped acid to the face of his wife, and the punishment was burning half his face (because a woman is worth half than a man there). If that had happened in my country, they'd have put the man in jail for some years (not many, really), and after that, he would have gone out and live happily ever after (there's no life imprisonment here, and living conditions in jail are not so bad as in USA).
For me, that doesn't pay for having a burnt face during your whole life. Burning only half his face is also unfair, ok, but still better than the other option.
Or another example that was so much discussed in the media here: A group of young guys, some of them underaged, raped and brutally murdered a teenage girl. They hid the body and refused to tell the police where it was. Everybody knew that they were the murderers, but since there was no body, there was no case.
Now that girl is buried, and all those guys are free and happy. The mother of one of them even received money to talk in a TV show.
THAT'S barbaric.
WhiskyOmega's avatar
Well, the vast majority of the Bible is "do onto others as others do onto you",
where as Ghandi is more like "rise above what bad things others do onto you", be the better person, sort of speak.
At least, these are my interpretations, anyway.
I could be wrong.
:shrug:

Personally I believe stooping to the person's level who's done me wrong makes me just as bad as they are, which I don't want to do because then I can't condemn them for what they've done to me if I'm just as willing to do it to them also. Doesn't really solve anything, in my view.
Being the better person and not paying them back in kind doesn't mean I let them get away with it, however, as there are other ways of making them pay for the wrongs they committed against me.
Vanhir's avatar
Vengeance doesn't solve anything, so Ghandi.
Ragerancher's avatar
An eye for an eye implies revenge and that would make the whole world blind. However the concept of proportionate punshment for crimes through a legally accept judicial system is sound.
Zareste's avatar
If the whole world is guilty, yeah, it would make the whole world blind.
justMANGO's avatar
An eye for an eye. Because Kant.
DutchConnaisseur's avatar
Neh, poke out my eye, and I will kill you.
MharkNeilCudal's avatar
Hhahah :L Fair enough
alzebetha's avatar
bible of course.
qwepoirtqoewiutyoqwe's avatar
You still have one eye left... idiots.
MharkNeilCudal's avatar
It's a qoute in the bible, have you ever heard of the bible MaskedGuardian? These people are not idiots you just dont understand the meaning.
qwepoirtqoewiutyoqwe's avatar
Wow, way to take what I said way too seriously. Of course I know where it's from. But since you don't seem to get it, allow me to explain the joke to you:

See, the phrase "eye for an eye", when taken literally, means that if you were to take out someone's eye, you lose your eye as punishment. Ghandi said that an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind. The joke is that no, it wouldn't, because humans happen to have two eyes, and so even if we lost an eye for an eye, we would still have one left.
MharkNeilCudal's avatar
Genius never before have I seen someone phrase such a joke with such complexity. Hmmmm actually I have in a nursery full of illiterate two year olds. Please tell me more you could recite the whole ABC's to me, oh wait do you even know how to do that?
qwepoirtqoewiutyoqwe's avatar
Look at you, so cute :pat: Just admit you didn't get the joke at first, and we can all move on.
MharkNeilCudal's avatar
Amusing are your taunts please carry on unless you want to apologise like mature people unless an like you wants to carry on a like a three year. I admit I have done a mistake on you and I apologise but really adding a statement like that is not appropiate, its not even funny. Look Im an atheist and I still dont appreciate that bad joke. Set things aside
etheara's avatar
Hi! The verse from Exodus is taken out of context by some people. However, it applies only when "people are fighting, and hit a pregnant woman, and she gives birth prematurely, and there is serious injury".

Exodus 21 (NKJV)

[22] “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[e]
but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. [23] But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, [24] eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, [25] burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

The world will surely not go blind as it will require a lot of conditions for the law to apply.

Also, I think justice can stop violence. As our national hero in the Philippines wrote in his novel El Filibusterismo, "Ang pagpapaumanhin ay di laging kabaitan, ito'y kasalanan kung nagbibigaay-daan sa pang-aapi. Walang mang-aalipin kung walang paaalipin. (Absolution is not absolutely decent; it is a crime if it gives way to violence. There is no oppressor to the strong.)"
MharkNeilCudal's avatar
I am filipino aswell :)I think you are completely right you hold wisdom in your words
etheara's avatar
That's nice! Do you speak in Filipino? Because I'm quite worried my translation didn't do Dr. Rizal justice.

Thank you. :)
Jeysie's avatar
Darn, Lytrigian and ZCochrane beat me to what I was going to post. They're right, while in the current day the concept seems barbaric, at the time of the Bible the idea was actually extremely fair and just compared to the typical standard of disproportionate retribution.
dodobirdsong's avatar
In my opinion Ghandi is more right than the other because "an eye for an eye" allows the idea that a person should be able to do the same wrong that has been done to them to the person who has done them this wrong. Unfortunately, this "eye for a eye" idea can make the whole world blind because sometimes there is no way to measure the wrong done, so the same wrong can be done again. If the wrongs are repeatedly overestimated, perhaps we might have a escalation of the Butter Wars (Dr Seuss) or just a certain taste that if karma will not work immediately it shall happen now and that might not be good for life.
MharkNeilCudal's avatar
Yes I would agree with you there. As we know violence leads to more violence
defaultking's avatar
"Would It Make The Whole World Blind??"

Only if everyone was poked in both eyes.
etheara's avatar
HAHA! smart ass.