Can you be a Christian and Support the Death Penalty?

Actually, my name is supposed to be a pun on the name Otto and the word automaton, and is ony a nom de guerre but I'm sure nobody really cares.

Not to be supercilious, but I would hope that you would accept that you are morally superior to some people. Napoleon, Hitler, Tomas de Torquemada, Pol Pot, and Joseph Stalin all come to mind. In my mind there is a big difference between believing yourself to be morally superior and believing in moral superiority. I firmly believe that there are morally superior views and I think you do too or you wouldn't be fighting with Jorge.

I try to achieve personal moral superiority, but I don't presume to make judgements on how I or others are doing. At the same time, the Christian perspective repeatedly makes clear that such an accounting can an will be made by God.

Here is the story from John 8:1-11 that is aluded to in a well known trusim and sumarises this view;

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But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, sir," she said.

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
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In fact, in your arguement with TJ, I personally lean towards your viewpoint much more than TJ's. I apologize for my angry response at the time. It upset me that you said "Jesus has this official policy" instead of "In my understanding this is what Jesus is teaching" but I shouldn't have flown off the handle.

In my view the well documented fact that people have perceived the justice system as being for "corrections" and the well being of society to one of "punishment" is a horrible travesty and is corrosive to the (I hate to use this phrase) "moral health" of American society. Punishment is rooted in the sadistic concept of revenge. Desire for revenge only tears people up inside. Even if someone has to be removed from society for a life prison sentence or (if deemed appropriate) put to death, it should only be done because the judement is that they pose a permanant danger to free society that is greater than the fundimental cost of violating their humanity.

I also don't believe that a humanist perspective and a Christian religious one conflict. For me, the enduring image of the New Testament, beyond the crucifixion, is Jesus treating the downtrodden as people when the “upright citizens” only saw them as sinners or law breakers.

It is also important to be clear that the law is fundimentally a seperate consideration from morality. As an extreme example, I have no problem with laws against jaywalking, but I don't think anybody would argue that jaywalking is immoral. Laws exist for the smooth functioning of society and while they may mirror morality, they don't pronounce it.

I'm pretty sure that I introduced that particular concept to the discussions around here, so really I'm correcting myself. I wasn't so much aiming it at you as lending some weight to the arguments that the Old Testament strictures, which were being dismissed out of hand, still bear some weight.

But, that having been said, I think in other parts of the New Testament (and in fact in nearby verses) there are conflicting opinions introduced. In many ways the position which you asked about is correct. Otherwise Christians the world over would be shunning bacon for breakfast.

In my best understanding, the teachings of Jesus give a bit of license bend or even break the strict laws of the Old Testament if one does so in pursuit of the spirit of those laws? But I definately don't claim that my interpretation is the only correct one and the one which you asked about may still be correct or more correct.

(BTW, one of those "yes" votes should be a "no" I accidentally clicked the wrong radio button)

Finally, I understand that the cost issues relating to death row and life imprisonment often come up and on the surface seem relevant. But while I can abide people who believe in the death penalty for justice, and I even understand how overwhelming emotions can lead someone to crave for revenge, I will never ever, ever, ever, be able to stand any human being who makes judgements about the life of even the worst criminal on the basis of how much it costs. That strikes me as the most morally offensive thing I can imagine.

If you are using cost analysis in your judgment on the death penalty, I urge you to think long and hard about it. It reduced human beings, no matter how horrible they are, to no more than objects of your own convenience. From there you start to contemplate things like invading countries because it's cost effective and benifical to the economy.

 

There aren't any statutory requirements for thinking yourself a Christian. You might be pro-life , anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, a money mooching psuedo-preacher or a trappist monk. You rationalize your definition to your personal beliefs and tolerance for conformity. You choose you own level of hypocracy.

So yes you can.

If you don't think that's true why aren't there more pacifist, more paupers devoted to selfless service or christian communes and how could you explain the Mega-church movement.

 

On the dilemma of one brutally murdering or raping members of your house and revoke the Death Penalty, if I want to kill the SOB, I'll do it with my own hands and accept the court's punishment rather than using the state as a means to exact their definition of justice upon me.

I can be cruel. I can be weak.

If I was in that position of being a loved one's victim, I'd want all means to see the criminal die in pain and cry in remorse. Yet our government doesn't allow a definition cruel and unusual punishment that would right my vision of justice. The most the witnesses at the execution will see is the whimper of an individual's life who once perpetrated a heinous crime(s). There isn't swift or fair justice for those who seek that. Their family member(s) are still dead and gone.

I guess that makes me barbaric or uncivilized...

I like playing games with moral superiority because it's one giant joke to me.

We're born nude and then put on clothes to distinguish ourselves. Later on, whether from age or nature, you land in the hospital. They strip you of everything and even open you up....possibly replace some parts here and there all for the sake of preserving that spark. Whether you recover or not, you are not the same nor do you look it. Then when you die, loved ones stuff you back in your best clothes.

Sounds nihilistic, but I don't see how in this case "respectability from others" would make me different from something almost everyone will have to experience. Life isn't worth living for that, even if at times it's necessary...

 

In debates, the cost factor gives people a tangible representation of the failures in the system. Administratively, the mass public views the penal system as a drain upon society. I've read quick comments where that money could be saved with bullets from a firing squad, so in the back of some people's minds, the death penalty can be means to relieve that strain....

Finally, while heinous and reprehensible considering the cherished value of life, we live in a population of mass scale. In order to sustain that large number, cost factors into all avenues. For example, if the government spared more money to hire better qualified public defenders, many current Death Row imates would've initially plead to a life sentence without parole or would've had a better fight. If we spent more on public services..... etc...

Call me cynical. As someone reading and working in the environmental field, cost/value of a person comes up a lot. Whatever I feel about one issue, in order to convince clients and decision makers, I'd need cost to prove it.

 

What do moral superiority and "respectability from others" (I'm not exactly sure what this means but would "respectability in the opinion of others" be an acceptable paraphrase?) have to do with each other? Behaving in a virtuous was often requires doing something especially when scorned by others.

 

If you believe in God and the Bible, what happens to the person that administers the lethal injection, gas, shock, bullet, or whatever? I mean: Exodus 20:13 Thou shalt not kill. It doesn't say unless, except, but, or...it says Thou shalt not kill.

 

FWIW, there seems to be a feeling that this is a mistranslation of the King James edition. For the most part kill is now rendered as murder

The New International Bible New American Standard, New King James, and others render this as:

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You shall not murder

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Dictionary.com defines murder as:
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The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.

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In that case, the guy flipping the switch is not performing an unlawful killing because the state is sanctioning it.

I don't necessarily endorse this viewpoint, just explaining.

 

OK, this is what I am used to. There is always a loophole involved when talking about the Bible.

 

Well I'm convinced that it does cost more to kill someone than to keep them in jail. Still though, it was never a reason nor should it be used as a reason to approve/disapprove the death penalty

 

There is only one thing that you need to believe to be a Christian, and it has nothing to do with the death penalty, abortion or gay rights. Thus making this entire topic moot.

 

The cost comaparison would depend on the average lifespan of the no-parole prisoner. Since most criminal offenders are young I would guess it would be a long incarceration. On the otherhand executions are expensive because of the societal requirments for legal proceedure.

Here in Texas we do enough volume to achieve ecomomies of scale.

 

My apologies since my posts have been riddled with typos and grammatical erros....

I guess my reply comes from my own point of view, where I'm the one that's hardest upon myself. I believe in a form of moral relativism, but using a mathematical analogy, the space inbetween 0 (evil) and 1 (good),or any consecutive whole number for that matter, is near-infinite. Taking that view, I could hate blood thirsty people, but I can't morally judge them since they're as human as I am. I defer their final punishment to God or God's "civil servant".

So I agree with your point that there's a distinction in convincing oneself to be morally superior and believing in moral superiority. My joke is that we all seem to debate on what position we are on the continuum of good and evil, and I think some have resigned themselves that the convincing aspect has to be reinforced by others, through encouragement or no response.

What cases of scorn are you referring to? If there was ridicule upon a person who believes in temperance, I could image that person could form his own group and heap ridicule on others...

Behaving saintly could get you burned at the stake, but society encourages virtuous behavior.

I'm not even a math major... but I can't fault people for falling above or below me on the moral relativism bell curve. For one thing, I'm not sure where I fall, even if I can see the beginning and end....

 

Hey save "erros" for the bed room, or forums of a different nature... please!