Witness Protection

Crazy hypothetical: Witness Protection*

You have just witnessed a major crime. The authorities want to put you in witness protection. These are your options.
#1. You can go by yourself and be absolutely guaranteed that everyone you care about including yourself will be safe. The person that committed the crime will most likely be convicted. You however will never be able to talk, see, and have contact with anyone or anything from your old life again. You must change everything that can that can connect you to your old life.

#2. You can go with your family. You and your family will be 90% likely to survive. Any friends or associates you leave behind will have a 75% chance of survival. The person that committed the crime has a 50/50 chance of being convicted. You will be able to live with your family but never be able to talk, see, and have contact with anyone or anything from your old life again. You must change everything that can that can connect you to your old life.
#3. You can stay where you are at and testify. You will be protected but someone in your family or friends will die. Your life will not have to change, but the conviction rate for the criminal will be a lock.
#4. You can refuse to testify. Your life will not change but there will still be a danger that you will be killed to keep you silent. Your friend and family will be protected but the criminal will absolutely go free.

What do you choose to do? Does the crime committed affect your decision? (IE Corporate crime vs. a murder) What change in odds would affect your decision? What if you were the one that had to die?

*Crazy Hypothetical is a mental game that gives you a conditional choice that gets you thinking about a subject. I used these for several years as discussion starters in Bible class. This is one of my favorite because it all the different consequences. It is a great way to start thinking about subjects like sacrifice, justice, and family.

Comments

I Know All Those Words, But That Sentence Makes No Sense To Me

Let’s say you travel back in time six hundred years or so. Luckily, you happen across a fellow that speaks English. Upon hearing your tale, he describes you as nice, smart, and handsome. Wouldn’t you feel good? You shouldn’t. As Sol Steinmetz in his book, Semantics Antics , explains; Nice originally meant someone who was foolish, ignorant, senseless, or absurd (middle English 1300). Smart for the first 300 years of its use meant causing pain, sharp, cutting, or severe, a sense that survives in the idiom "smart as a whip.” Handsome wasn’t complimentary. When coined around 1425, it just meant easily handled; it didn’t have its current positive connotation until 1590. You might think he said you were a kind, intelligent, good looking bloke, when in reality he said you were a foolish pain easily dealt with. Words have an annoying habit of changing meaning over time in the same language and it becomes even more compli...

Master Your Self

In a contest for the toughest president of the United States, it would be hard to go against Theodore Roosevelt. He was known for his “manly” pursuits hunting big game, climbing the Matterhorn, participating in boxing match while president. (These weren’t play fights, he lost the vision on one eye because of them!) Once before he was about to give a speech an assassin shot him in the chest. Roosevelt refused to go to a hospital and insisted on giving his speech, still wearing his blood-soaked shirt! Teddy might have become tough but he wasn’t born that way. He was a sickly child that suffered from severe asthma that almost proved fatal. As was a young boy, doctors discovered that he had a weak heart, and advised him to get a desk job and not strain himself. He was homeschooled because of his many illnesses and spent most of his time indoors. But then as a teen his father, whom Teddy Roosevelt revered, told his son, “ ...

The Gift You Give Yourself

I always hated buying gifts for my Mom. If I got her something like a new set of pans, it was like saying “Here’s something you can use to go make me something to eat”. A gift for her was seemingly a gift for me. There are however gifts you give that benefit you more than the receiver. For example, forgiveness. When you give it, you are giving it to yourself as much as you are giving it to them. Jesus said that when we forgive others it means God is forgiving us our wrongs (Matthew 6:14-15). I once read: “ Heaven is where everyone's forgiven. Hell is where nobody's forgiven. So, when we forgive we pull heaven down into our lives. When we withhold forgiveness, we pull hell up into our lives ” Give yourself something nice today, Forgive.

Ecclesiastes 12:10

Search This Blog