I now turn to Chapter 5.<\/p>\n
How did \u201csin\u201d become \u201ccrime\u201d?\u00a0 Menninger\u2019s storyline applies only to Western Civilization (formerly known as \u201cChristendom\u201d).<\/p>\n
Early on, states were only concerned about their own property.\u00a0 \u201cCrime\u201d was so defined.<\/p>\n
What about the other transgressions, offenses and similar matters?\u00a0 Either a state-appointed magistrate or a religion-appointed priest could rule on claims by non-royalty over one another.<\/p>\n
This, ironically, is what we are returning to in some European jurisdictions, where state-appointed judges and Islamic clerics rule over identical persons based on entirely different sets of \u201claws\u201d.<\/p>\n
Over time, \u201cthe clergy was increasingly willing to relinquish their responsibilities for dealing with these ugly matters (50)\u201d.\u00a0 Transgressions of morality split into the merely \u201csinful\u201d and the \u201ccriminal\u201d.<\/p>\n
Apparatuses of the state developed to handle these \u201ccrimes\u201d. \u00a0They grew into proud, mighty, monstrous, slow, cruel, destructive, ineffective and tremendously expensive structures.<\/p>\n
Menninger went into great detail about several of these structures (53-66), concluding that the new custom was to legislate \u201cmorality\u201d and coerce \u201cvirtue\u201d by law.<\/p>\n
Menninger disapproved, quoting Oliver Goldsmith, \u201cNothing can be more certain than that numerous written laws are a sign of a degenerate community, and are frequently not the consequences of vicious morals in a state, but the causes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I now turn to Chapter 5. How did \u201csin\u201d become \u201ccrime\u201d?\u00a0 Menninger\u2019s storyline applies only to Western Civilization (formerly known as \u201cChristendom\u201d). Early on, states were only concerned about their own property.\u00a0 \u201cCrime\u201d was so defined. What about the other transgressions, offenses and similar matters?\u00a0 Either a state-appointed magistrate or a religion-appointed priest could rule […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-science-of-original-sin"],"yoast_head":"\n