[ausvisaissues]

> And considering forgiveness is such a core tenant of Christianity,

In civilization, individual members give up the right for revenge to the state, who punishes perpetrators. Individuals may forgive a perpetrator, but that doesn't mean he/she should not be punished by the state.

Compare this with societies with practices such as qisas or blood money: if an individual (or family) forgives a perpetrator, they are not punished.

Having the government punishing people and the main religion stopping revenge cycles is a really good system!

Furthermore, the USA is lenient in sentencing and family are forging towards convicts. Compare this to Asian countries (such as Japan). In Japan, parents will break off all ties to their children if they are sentenced for a crime -- even a fairly minor one.

Try to do some petty vandalism or other anti-social behaviour in Japan, Korea or Singapore and compare the result with the result in the US.

[selimthegrim]

Downsides of qisas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Allen_Davis_incident

[rblatz]

That's reads more like spies doing spy stuff with other spies. The guy was going to get out of it anyway, but blood money was the most politically sensitive way for the US and Pakistan to deal with the issue.

[zhemao]

On the other hand, those countries have very low crime rates and incarceration rates, so ...