Tag: punishment

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2392

The reason God cannot live together with people on earth is that a unified view has not been established in the families. Once a unified view is established, God can come back and live together with them. When you say “true love,” there should be one integrated concept of the oneness of minds and bodies, of husbands and wives, and of sons and daughters. If these three can create unity, the family of true love will become the starting point of God’s Kingdom on earth and in heaven. When you unite into one centering on God and True Parents, you can build God’s Kingdom on earth and in heaven. Where does God’s Kingdom on earth start? It starts from you and your family, and from your children. (260-185, 1994.5.8)

Cheon Seong Gyeon 1549

It would have been fine to have five races, all of different complexions, living together in that world. Skin color is merely a reflection of one’s environment, and so having numerous peoples with different skin colors is a natural and fine thing. Then how did these peoples come to have different languages? Due to the Fall of the first ancestors, God separated them. (156-202, 1966.5.25)

Society

Law and Punishments

1. The Law’s Noble Purpose

Teachings of True Father Sun Myung Moon

What are laws? Laws exist to prevent the destruction of things that are worthy of protection. There is a natural law that protects the universe from destruction. Likewise, nations have laws to protect society from destruction. Once we understand the purpose of laws, we can appreciate the importance of obeying them. (118:198, June 1, 1982)

Every country has its laws, whose purpose is to maintain goodness. After all, a nation’s constitution and the laws enacted by its legislature function to protect the general welfare, not destroy it. What about people who violate the law? All countries have prisons to punish them. Yet the standards of what is allowed and what is prohibited differ from one country to another according to the system of government and the views of its leaders. (216:306, April 15, 1991) Continue reading “Social Order Should be in Agreement with the Untainted Conscience”

Cheon Seong Gyeong 2219

Your loyalty will be immortalized by your descendants, and when you go to the spirit world, you will be commended for your merits of your efforts. The age of indemnity has now passed, and from now, you will be able to establish a bright tradition commensurate with the level and extent of your activities. This will become your estate. Let us devote ourselves to our task with utmost sincerity, knowing that we are placed in such a point in time. (38-126, 1971.1.3)

Cheon Seong Gyeong 1655

Don’t you all claim to like love? Aren’t you looking for it? The question is: what path would you take as the most direct way, the shortcut to love consistent with the fundamental formula of the universe? (184-58, 1988.11.13)

What is the origin of the universe? God is an absolute being who has power. Yet power is not the origin, any more than knowledge is. Then would it be money? As viewed from the next world, people who try to make money for themselves look like they are collecting garbage and useless things. In other words, saving money is the same as collecting waste material. People like me may have money, but I am not going to use money that has been collected like this. (191-18, 1989.6.24)

Society

Law and Punishments

GOVERNMENTS ENACT AND ENFORCE LAWS to protect their citizens, restrain evildoers, and promote the general welfare. God is the origin of law; He created this universe to function according to the laws of science and implanted a conscience within each human heart to know right from wrong. The constitutions and statutes that constitute a nation’s laws approximate the heavenly law; that is why we they usually are in agreement with the dictates of conscience.
Laws are needed to restrain wickedness. People who do not follow the dictates of conscience, by which they ought to govern themselves to do right and avoid wickedness, are restrained by the law’s sharp distinctions between right and wrong, what is permitted and what is prohibited. In this sense, people who cultivate their character to become people of conscience do not need the law and are unlikely to run afoul of the law.
Laws prescribe punishment as a deterrent to crime and to establish justice. The government in meting out punishments is a co-worker with God, who is the final dispenser of justice. Indeed, one can regard hell as a vast prison in the spirit world to restrain evildoers from trampling on heaven’s domains. Punishment can serve as ‘indemnity,’ an opportunity for the criminal to pay the debt of sin.
On the other hand, there should always be an element of mercy in the criminal justice system, should the criminal repent with sincerity and turn his life around. Father Moon teaches that the chief purpose of prison should be education and rehabilitation. This was, in fact, the core idea of the twentieth century movement to convert prisons where inmates languished in cells into ‘penitentiaries’ where they could be rehabilitated through work and education. The two poles of justice and mercy form the perspective from which to view ethical issues such as the death penalty

1. The Law’s Noble Purpose

When Marduk commissioned me to guide the people aright and to direct the land, I established law and justice in the language of the land in order to promote the welfare of the people.
    The Code of Hammurabi

The Creator… projected that excellent form, Law. This law is the controller of the ruler; therefore, there is nothing higher. So even a weak man hopes to defeat a stronger man through the law, as one does with the help of a king.
    Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.14 (Hinduism) Continue reading “Laws Are Needed to Restrain Wickedness”