I think the issue of the death penalty can be resolved very simply for any religious person ....

[Rosco T.]

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" - 6th Commandment.

"Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord." Romans 12:19

You don't kill, leave it to God.

End of discussion.

[thucythucy]

1. Or as Lenny Bruce used to say:

"'Thou shalt not kill' means that. Not 'Amend Section A.'"

[-none]

2. I brought that up a while ago and I was told it was "Thou shall not murder", so the death penalty

was OK with them. Never mind it was the State and not some criminal, do in the killing. Proper authority, ya know?

[TexasProgresive]

3. The death penalty is murder carried out by the state in our name.

We are all accessories. And it is the most premeditated form of murder there is.

[-none]

8. Can't argue with that.

The death penalty shows just how far we have not advanced toward civilization.

[onenote]

14. The word "murder" is not synonymous with "killing"

I'm a death penalty opponent, but I think its rather silly to suggest that it's a "simple" issue when obviously it's not.

[TexasProgresive]

24. The one thing seperates the death penalty from murder it is lawful

Now if you take into account the probability that innocent people have been executed "lawfully" in the country, would you say those deaths were murder/

[onenote]

28. As a legal matter, no they're not murder.

but it is because mistakes happen that I oppose the death penalty.

[TexasProgresive]

30. I will accept that the death penalty is not murder

as dfined by law; however my opinion is not changed that it is de facto murder by the state which makes us all culpable. I use to think that our adversarial system of jurisprudence while flawed was the best there is. After much thinking and observation I have come to the opinion that the attorneys are generally not concerned about bringing out the truth but winning.

On the prosecution side this attitude is front to back- the police want to close the case, the elected prosecutor wants to look tough on crime to the voting public, the prosecutor who has the case wants his/her boss' job. And then there is the defense; if it is a high profile case of a well healed defendant it is all about making the defense attorney looking good so to get more publicity. When the defendant has no money or notoriety how does he/she mount a defense against the mighty machine that is the prosecution team of police, state and federal labs and lawyers?

It goes without saying that I never make it through the voir dire. Sometimes it is nothing I say in answering questions, maybe it is subtle cues of body language. In on such ordeal an astute defense attorney picked up something about me during the prosecutor's questioning others in the pool. When he got his turn he got answers out of me that I feel tainted the whole pool. This retrial went to a hung jury just like the one before. It was never retried.

I have no solution to the deadly faults in our jurisprudence system. The problem is the people at the top have mixed motives and prejudices. The adversarial method could be more acceptable if the judges could leave there prejudices in the car or at least in chambers and be absolutely focused on justice being done.

[el_bryanto]

4. So you would advocate using religion - in this case the Christian Religion - to make political

decisions and judgements? I'm religious myself, but I'm not sure that is a good idea.

Bryant

[Rosco T.]

5. No I'm saying that if a Religious type supports the Death Penalty...

... they have to deal with that bit of incongruity in their belief system.

Sane people already oppose it.

[el_bryanto]

7. You keep using Religious when you mean Christian/Jewish

Do you think that if a Christian goes to war he has to deal with a similar incongruity?

There are numerous references to being generous and not turning away the begger in the scriptures; does that imply that if Christians do not support a welfare state they have to deal with an incongruity there?

Bryant

[jberryhill]

6. First of all, plenty of religions don't find the Bible very interesting

And, secondly, given that the Bible has death penalties out the wazoo for a number of infractions, it seems unlikely that "Thou shalt not kill" was intended to apply to the various things in which believers are affirmatively instructed to kill people for.

Bible believers are supposed to kill people for any of the following:


Murder (Exodus 21:12-14; Leviticus 24:17,21)
Attacking or cursing a parent (Exodus 21:15,17)
Disobedience to parents (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
Kidnapping (Exodus 21:16)
Failure to confine a dangerous animal, resulting in death (Exodus 21:28-29)
Witchcraft and sorcery (Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27, Deuteronomy 13:5, 1 Samuel 28: 9)
Human sacrifice (Leviticus 20:2-5)
Sex with an animal (Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 20:16)
Doing work on the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14, 35:2, Numbers 15:32-36)
Incest (Leviticus 18:6-18, 20:11-12,14,17,19-21)
Adultery (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22)
Homosexual acts (Leviticus 20:13)
Prostitution by a priest's daughter (Leviticus 21: 9)
Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:14,16, 23)
False prophecy (Deuteronomy 18:20)
Perjury in capital cases (Deuteronomy 19:16-19)
Refusing to obey a decision of a judge or priest (Deuteronomy 17:12)
False claim of a woman's virginity at time of marriage (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
Sex between a woman pledged to be married and a man other than her betrothed (Deuteronomy 22:23-24)

God certainly ordered a raft of killings in the same book, so I'm not seeing why your "end of discussion" would be very persuasive to someone who believes the Bible to be the literal word of God.

Really. Working on the Sabbath:

Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.

[gordianot]

9. So a Priest can have a daughter anyone told?.....nevermind

Good list, I also had one that laws covered for non capital crimes This works well with fundies.

[demwing]

11. That's the Old Testament God for ya

thirsty for blood, and a real mother fucker

[Maedhros]

13. To be fair, when Jesus showed up he said very specifically that the old rules were to be thrown out

in favor of a new one: "Love one another."

Nobody likes that rule, though.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

15. wow... funny that he never said anything of the sort

and indeed said pretty much the opposite...

But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void. --Luke 16:17

sP

[Maedhros]

19. Why are you being so hostile?

The "New Covenant" could be interpreted this way:

Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. 34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. —John 13:33-35 (KJV)

I believe this relates to the "Law of Christ" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Christ):

Many Christians believe that the Sermon on the Mount is a form of commentary on the Ten Commandments. It portrays Christ as the true interpreter of the Mosaic Law.[3] In the Expounding of the Law, Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). In the apocryphal Gospel of Marcion's version of Luke 23:2 we find the extension: "We found this fellow perverting the nation and destroying the law and the prophets".[4]

While the New Testament records several unique sayings of Jesus that may be described as "commandments," it only records one that he explicitly identified as such. This is the New Commandment of John 13:34-35 that the disciples should love one another as he himself had loved them.

These commandments are commonly seen as a basis of Christian ethics.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

25. not hostile... you're just making it up as you go, though

Jesus never said he had come to do away with the Law... neither subtley nor 'specifically' as you suggest. AND, 'love one another' was not exactly a new command as 'love your neighbor as you love yourself' is in Leviticus.

so, when people misrepresent what is in scripture, i tend to call it out. sorry if the truth offends you... but it is the truth.

sP

[Maedhros]

26. "Sorry if the truth offends me?"

No need for you to condescend.

And no need for me to read any more of your posts.

/ignore.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

27. apparently it does

and you will find snark and condescension where you look for it... though none was intended. you were falsifying what is contained in the Bible. i called you out on it. you got offended... and in the process proved the point with this post that you were offended by the truth.

sP

[onenote]

17. That is hardly a universally accepted point of view among theologians

For example, many theologians point to the Sermon on the Mount as evidence that the old testament law was not "thrown out":

17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19*Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven

[demwing]

10. Some people want to correct, some want to punish

IMO, the only time punishment is warranted is when it leads to correction. When punishment is an end in itself, it's nothing more than vengeance.

[MoonRiver]

12. Unfortunately these creeps are complete hypocrites.

They will twist the bible into a pretzel to support their vicious causes.

[Bradical79]

16. Yeah I always thought it was pretty straightforward

even when I was a conservative Christian. It always baffled me how many supported such a wide variety of exceptions to this commandment.

[Bluenorthwest]

18. Of course the Bible commands the death penalty for a wide variety of behaviors so this theory is

as bogus as can be. Eat a shrimp, die. Sass your mama, die. Wrong haircut? Death. Blended fabrics? Death. Homosexuality? Death.
You get the picture and what's worse is that you KNEW all of that prior to foisting this 'religion is authority' bullshit. Take your religion to a private place and kindly keep it out of politics.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

20. Would you class Hindus as religious? N.T.

[former9thward]

21. Do you oppose just wars?

Because in war people are kill one another. Is that a violation of the 6th? The death penalty is not necessarily about revenge. It is about terminating someone's existence in society when they have committed acts which indicate they are at war with society.

[meow2u3]

22. That's the 5th Commandment according to Catholics

"Thou shalt not kill" also applies to convicted murderers.

Even God didn't kill Cain when he bumped Abel off. He gave Cain the primitive equivalent of life w/o parole: forever being on the run and paranoid about someone finding and killing him.

[jberryhill]

29. "Even God didn't kill Cain when he bumped Abel off"

OTOH, he drowned damn near everybody in a flood a few chapters later.

[Orrex]

31. Hey! Spoiler alert!

[madville]

23. They follow "Thou Shalt Not Kill"

In their mind anyway when they are applying it to abortion, to them life begins at conception.