Is murder/killing ever justified?

So earlier today I was in a Scheel's with a couple friends looking at shotguns. I myself was not looking at the guns to buy any of them. Although, staring at the shiny things helped me remember a documentary I recently watched on America's fear and gun culture. The documentary gave an argument concerning our gun culture as thus:

1) The mass media incites fear and creates a cultural environment of fear.

2) In response the American public buys more guns.

3) As a result the overall amount of violent crime increases which in turn creates more fear.

4) More fear means more guns.

Let me first qualify this by saying that this argument is based off of sociological evidence and that arguments based off of sociological evidence are notoriously weak and often very slippery. Still though I think there is truth to be said in this argument. Why do we have the highest amount of guns per ca pita in any modernized nation? And why is everyone so scared? Although, before I go off on a wild tangent I will get to the reason why I started typing this in the first place. After we left the store and on the car ride back we got into a little argument on whether or not a Christian can ever be justified in killing someone even out of self defense. I didn't get to have my voice heard which is why I am typing this in the first place. I held the stance and still do that you can never be justified in killing another person unless God directly commands you like in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. The reason why I believe this is that Christians worship a God who says to his followers that his second greatest commandment is to "love your enemy as yourself". Now how can I possibly love my enemy if I can kill them even out of self defense? To me this would seem like a total contradiction. Also as Christians we are foreigners in this chaotic world. Our true home is in heaven. Saying this why would Christians, including myself, ever fear death? I mean in a way if you kill me your sort of doing me a favor because I get to be with my Father in heaven sooner than naturally possible. After all this, is hopefully, the closet that I will ever get to hell. Of course, I don't want you to kill me and cover your hands with blood for your sake. So doesn't this rule out the need for self defense? Why do I need a gun if I fear no one? Where is grace when you kill someone? Doesn't everyone deserve second chances? "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, ¹⁵but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14-15) On the whole justification matter no one can ever truly know if they are justified in killing someone, because they have no right to make judgement calls. Only God does. I guess an objection here would be that if you truly believed that God gave you permission to make the kill it would be alright. My response is that given the passages that I just pulled out of the New Testament it is beyond reasonable doubt that that circumstance would ever occur. In conclusion if someone pointed a gun at me that would be a wonderful chance for me to share the beautiful Gospel of Jesus Christ!

A prayer.

I think these lyrics from one of my favorite songs will sum up what I have been feeling lately:
"MAKE THE WORLD KNOW THAT I AM YOURS. I WILL NOT BE SILENCED. I WILL NOT BE SILENT." I have a mission to the world. That is to spread the good news that Jesus Christ was raised bodily from the dead and is now sitting at the right hand of God judging the living and the dead! Jesus said to die to myself and pick up my cross. Now to begin. Please keep me in check my God so that I can serve you with my actions, and not pay lip service to your Word. My Lord, My God, My Savior, and My Redemmer please help me seize the day!

tolerance is not love;

love is not tolerance.

wealth is not happiness;

happiness is not wealth.

love is not sex;

sex is not love.

a new song.

My thoughts of you are like the melting snow.
Your fleeting now.
Your fleeting now.
You thought you conquered us.
But with some help we ended up conquering you.
Your dominion has been cut to pieces.
As are my thoughts of you.
As are my thoughts of you.
Just a fleeting wind.
Just a fleeting wind.
May my thoughts of you return as dust to the ground.
May they go in peace.

the problem of evil.

This is a message between me and a good friend:

Hey! How are you? I have couple of philosophy related questions. If you have any time do you think you could help me? I am writing a paper about religion, my topic is “can God allow innocent suffering?” I wrote it but then my teacher gave me some comments on it and I’m not completely sure how to fix them.
First, I have a sentence “Contradictors say that even if suffering helps people build their character, which how they claim is doubtful, the character is not worth the cost in pain and anguish.” Do you know why do atheists think that character is not worth the cost?
Second, free will reconcilers believe that free will is a greater good (meaning the world with evil and freedom is better that the world with no freedom). Why is free will so good? thank you!

OK this is going to be fun for me. I love talking about philosophic issues and I can help you anytime. so I think you are talking about the problem of evil based off of your statement 'can God allow innocent suffering?'.

To answer your first question: Atheists are working from their own presuppositions about the world. (as am I) They look at the world and all the suffering in it and ask why? They will not find an answer though, if pain and suffering does not build character or serve some other greater good than it is absolutely purposeless. Saying that character building from pain and suffering is not worth it, is making a truth claim from ignorance, which is a fallacy. You cannot test whether or not it is worth it, unless you are omniscient (all-knowing). You cannot know whether or not suffering creates some kind of greater good with any certainty without knowing everything that has ever happened. The only person who could make this claim would be God himself. Even if you cannot see the character building in your life it could still be taking place.

To answer your second question: Without free will, moral responsibility does not exist. Why would I throw a murderer in jail for murdering my wife if I knew that he was determined by the laws of nature to kill my wife? Doing so would be greatly unfair. Secondly, under determinism all of our decisions would be made for us. For instance, if I decided to marry a women I would marry her not because I loved her, but because I was predetermined to love her. I had no choice in the matter it was decided before I was even born. If the Creator God exists, (which I believe He does) we would be forced to love him no matter what, because He created us to love him. We would be little robots who worship God without control. How can robots truly love anything? That is not love.

A few objections I have to the problem of evil:
1. We are not in a position to claim whether or not we can know of greater goods. i.e. We are not all-knowing.
2. God could still exist in a world with purposeless evil.
3. The problem of evil borrows from theological concepts of good and evil.

Now to show that the problem of evil comes solely from presuppositions about the world:
The atheist believes that God cannot exist. So he builds his argument off of that premise:
1: If gratuitous evil exists, then God cannot exist.
2: Gratuitous evil exists.
C: God must not exist.
Although a Christian, like myself, can rearrange the argument like this:
1: God exists.
2: If gratuitous evil exists, then God cannot exist.
C: Gratuitous evil must not exist.
So the atheist presupposes that gratuitous evil exists, and the Christian presupposes that God exists. Both presuppositions cannot be proven with certainty, which makes both arguments very weak, because their key premises cannot be proven.

*Free feel to raise objections or questions to my ideas in the comment box.

**If you want more information on the problem of evil I would recommend William Lane Craig's podcast on the problem of evil. It can be found at www.reasonablefaith.org.