Comments | matthewstryker: Capital Punishment: the Asterisk in the Bible

matthewstryker

Capital Punishment: the Asterisk in the Bible

Nov 17, 2005 11:12

I think I'm going to write a position paper about capital punishment. I'm against it, and I think it's for pretty good reasons. I don't harbor any illusions that the people on death row are not criminals deserving of the harshest punishment available. That much is true. I just don't think capital punishment is effective or necessary, to say ( Read more... )

Comments 17

miaminyc November 17 2005, 17:03:41 UTC

Great minds think like mine.

Once Again anonymous November 17 2005, 18:54:16 UTC

There's really no need for me to point out the flaws in your post, but it will save a little time for when you inevitably ask me again how I could dare defend Republicans on almost any issue over Democrats. I know by now you're sick of me accusing you of resorting to Ad Hominem, but you make it so easy.

According to the logic in your post, these examples make sense:

"Well, blacks use crack. Republicans advocate tough laws on crack. Therefore, we must conclude Republicans hate blacks."

"Most death penalty supporters are Christian. Because the Bible says blah blah blah de-blah blah about blah, we must conclude death penalty supporters are hypocrites."

Scott

Re: Once Again dayadhvam November 17 2005, 21:26:28 UTC

Re: Once Again
dayadhvam
2005-11-17 09:24 pm UTC (link)
Comment Posted Successfully
Alright, Scott.

Enough of your attacking Ad Hominem. I'm gonna (pseudo) ad hominem you here. How do you think Jesus felt/would feel about the death penalty? No chance for reform, kill 'em? Yeah, I don't think so.

I'm not using "because the Bible says" here, because of the open-interpretation nature of the Bible. I'm just asking you. Does the death penalty gel with your vision of Jesus?

Re: Once Again anonymous November 17 2005, 22:40:38 UTC

Sounds like you're assuming I have a great relationship with Jesus. I never met the guy nor am I willing to assume what his beliefs were 2,000 years ago. We can safely say times were different ( ... )

Re: Once Again dayadhvam November 17 2005, 22:56:46 UTC

Im not attacking Christianity, so you don't get to wave that flag. Like I said, I was attacking you and your stance as a Christian. From your viewpoint, it seems like you're putting old testament scripture (on which we have already discussed its dubiousness as factual text) before the actions of Jesus, which is not what a "Christian" "does ( ... )

Thread 11

Exactly why I didn't major in law... ramzour November 17 2005, 23:34:23 UTC

I am in support of the death penalty. However, you do raise some good points that I cannot logically ignore ( ... )

Re: Exactly why I didn't major in law... dayadhvam November 17 2005, 23:44:31 UTC

But man, reciprocal punishment is a wretched system for justice because there is no way it can be completely reciprocal. The only way to have a reciprocical punishment for murder would be for the victim to rise and kill the killer in the exact same way, and that's just silly. Doing harm to correct harm is a bad, bad plan.

The "Eye for an Eye" thing in Hammurabi's Code and the Bible is so often taken the wrong way, it's ridiculous. It's a law of compensation, not retribution. It's been translated to have the modern meaning of "you take something from me, I take it from you," when its original meaning was "you take something from me, replace it with something of equal value." I don't know where this law of retribution comes from, but it doesn't work. It just means more and more people get hurt, rather than actually solving anything.

Also, so yeah. The "hell" thing...don't presume to speak for all Christians based on the wack-job ideas of some crazy fundamentalists.

I'm a religious Humanist, thank you.

Re: Exactly why I didn't major in law... ramzour November 18 2005, 01:07:11 UTC

"Eye for an Eye" or whatever you call it is not the sole basis of my argument. I don't care what Hammurabi said. As previously stated, dead criminals cannot make crime anymore. That's safe for society. People who live together in a region must obey the laws of that land. You are privledged to live in America and therefore you mustn't break the laws. If you do, you have earned the punishment. For certain crimes, the punishment is death.

It does not matter at all what the bible says. It does not matter what religion you claim to believe in. Both are entirely irrelevant to this entire discussion. Religious people consistantly confuse logic and faith. You can't argue with faith. And just in case you try to judge my character based upon those words, just know that I am not an athiest...I'm a scientist.

Re: Exactly why I didn't major in law... dayadhvam November 18 2005, 01:21:56 UTC

I'm a scientist and a Christian (but not a Christian Scientist...good God, no). Anyway.

Throwing out any moral arguments here (which I think is a bad idea to begin with, because existence without morals is robotic), I can understand your desire to get rid of the "problem."

The thing is, not taking any extrenuating circumstances into account (motive, etc), there is no way we could implement such a system when we can't even come close to 100% accuracy. So is it okay to kill innocent people? And if we do that, is it murder? Should we be punished for that?

You want a hive society, but we're not hive creatures.

Thread 5