The death penalty and religion

An interesting idea, but you fail to make your case.

If a MISTAKE was made and a murderer goes free, there was no knowing support for murder. Hence your exmaple does not support the point you want to make.

Whether it's ever "clearly" appropriate is debatable. Would Jeff Dahmer be an example of clearly appropriate execution? I say no. Dahmer was messed up to be sure. But for that very reason I would suggest keeping him alive and studying him.

 

What has "just war" to do with "death penalty"? Downsized a just war would be a kind of self defense. Non one denies self defense.

If you say the absolute sentence "Execution should never be allowed" you would need an institution what is able to create this law for the whole world and you would need an institution who has the right and the might to defend this law. Or you could try to convince the most people in all nations on this planet that death penalty is always a wrong way.

http://youtu.be/40DykbPa4Lc

 

You want to discuss the Just War Docrine? Start another thread.

 

Jesus denies self defense.

 

Someone else brought it up. I was just chiming in.

 

The justice system is hardly infallible. Which is a good reason to be against the death penalty. I am a Catholic, and I am against the death penalty in most cases. People that are dead don't have any time for repentance, yet if they pose too great a threat to society, then they should be put to death. The introduction of maximum security prisons has made maximum security prisons obsolete.

Why execute people when you could simply send them off to some prison colony planet in the future where they will have to fight to survive for the rest of their lives?

 

This is my biggest issue with the abolitionist crowd. They're so quick to pity the guilty murderer that it becomes a blind spot crowding out every other consideration, including the innocent victim. Does it even occur to these people so concerned about the murderer getting a chance for repentence that the victim had absolutely no chance? Anyone sentenced to death has at least 10 years to think things over and come to terms with their maker, but their victim? No consideration is given to the fact that they might have died in mortal sin.

 

Why do you think so?

http://youtu.be/J5kBqrHphjo

 

Sorry that I took only this little part now - but it moved me. We are speaking sentences of death while god speaks words of life. Is this not harrowing?

http://youtu.be/f_ptqXqjsZw

 

The existence of a victim doesn't give you the right to throw caution to the wind.

 

Not "to the contrary." You have CHANGED YOUR ARGUMENT in order to not be wrong. I can't argue with people who move the goalposts because I don't know where to kick the ball.

 

I diagree that rehabilitation is an issue.

Obviously any testing done would have to be humane. I am not condoning inhumane treatment. You however seem willing to let some arbitrary notion of potential rehabilitation trump the potential benefits of knowledge.

 

Who said anything about throwing caution to the wind? What ball field are you playing on?

 

And can you not pitty both? Is retribution the only recourse open to us and our society? We should tend to the victim and also to the criminal. They are both Gods children and both deserving of forgiveness. Look back at the very beginnings of our Church and how government has used the death penalty. How many of the Apostles were executed by the state? Of the eight that suffered violent deaths five for sure were killed by the state. (Thomas was stabbed with a spear in India so I dont know and James, Son of Zebedee was stoned by the Jews but I dont know if it was official)

If the state can kill the direct followers of Jesus. The students that listened at his feet. How can you say that it is just or right?

 

Romans 13
1 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.
3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.
4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.

I keep posting that scripture because it's the very scripture that abolitionists are fond of ignoring. Abuses in capital punishment are not an impetus for doing away with it altogether.

 

Good point, and Paul wrote this during the reign of Nero. Now, that should say something! I take my point of view though on the death penalty from the Catechism Of The Catholic Church:

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2267.htm

 

No one deserves forgiveness. It is through God's Divine Mercy that we may be saved. You are presuming too much.

 

The CCC does not support a blanket opposition to the death penalty and it never will. Sacred Tradition does not reverse itself or conflict with itself. Moreover, the fact that most Catholics oppose capital punishment is a pop culture fad and certainly does not represent Catholic sentiment on the issue for 2000 years. This is not unlike the pretribulation/dispensationalists who think that the imminent rapture of the church was something Christians always believed in, not realizing it was a 19th century cult started in Great Britain and imported here in America.

To say that Paul supported the government's right to apply the death penalty and the CCC flatly rejects this is to have a fundamental misunderstanding as to how Sacred Tradition works. You say you take your view from the CCC, and only the pop culture's misguided interpretation of it, I say I take my view from the entire history of Christianity and view this contemporary fashion trend as a temporary hiccup.

 

That's a good catch. Maybe we can take this to its logical conclusion, that murderers aren't deserving of mercy which is the reverse side of Christ's teaching in the Beatitudes. Mercy is for the merciful and those who mercilessly slaughter other people cannot rightly expect to be treated with mercy. Moreover, it can never be impugned upon the state negatively when it gives a murderer precisely what he deserves.

 

This passage does not mean that you should not try to change the laws of your country when they are commiting evil and doing bad things. Should we stand by silently as they alow abortions? Should we not have spoken out during the 60's agianst the racist policies of segrigation? What about slavery, should many of our ancesters not provided support for the under ground railroad? Of course not, when we see a wrong or an injustice we must speak out and try to change things for the better.

To defy the civil government is to defy God, but this only holds true if the laws are not in opposition of God. When civil rulers are in direct opposition to God, the believers must follow God. Look at Acts 4:19 and 5:29.

 

Oh, yes... TO THE CONTRARY, and I did not change a thing about my argument. I merely elaborated upon it so to make it easier for you to grasp.

Perhaps, you don't know where to kick the ball because you have no feet.

 

What arbitrary notion of potential rehabilitation?

Do you really believe that someone like Jeffrey Dahmer could ever be released back into society without serious risk to public safety, regardless of all appearance of his having rehabilitated?

It's really quite simple, if a convict can be rehabilitated, and his crime is not so heinous that the risk of a repeat performance makes even the thought of his ever being released categorically unacceptable, then he should be provided with a genuine opportunity to rehabilitate. (That means a prison environment where he is not forced to defend himself against incorrigibles.) Otherwise, he should be executed within five years of his conviction.


BTW: Five years should be adequate time for scientific inquiry. Bear in mind that the bulk of corrections funding should be reserved for the more useful study of rehabilitating the salvageable, not on mere academic tinkering with the unsalvageable. Regardless of whatever curiosities neurologists or criminologists might have discovered using Subject Dahmer, he was never going to be released. Therefore, at least in my book, he should have got the needle.

 

I think you don't understand. I see fewer executions and more abortions in the same light, both signalling a departure from the sanctity of human life.

My idea of "better" would look something like Texas.

The government has the right to execute. That's the unassailable message in the passage I quoted. It cannot be refuted, denied, softened, or massaged to mean something else. I'm going to start a thread in the Political Beliefs forum. This issue is going viral.

 

The governement does have that right and we have the right to try and change it.