U.S. Nears 1,000th Execution Since 1977

CMG, "why do you persist in these American things?"

PL - thanks for the comparison which I got OK. It still doesn't address the issue as to why you say that Gen 9 is normative but Gen 4 is not

 

Genesis 9 was spoken to apply to all of mankind. Genesis 4 addressed only the case of Cain.

 

But Gen 9 also demands that we do not eat anything with blood in it. How do you take your steak?

 

I don't eat raw steak. But I do enjoy raw cookie dough.

 

It is also a shame on our society at how many have been executed or even put on death row in the past who did not do the crime.

A friend of mine is a lawyer who represents people on death row and it is shocking to hear some of the stories he has told to me personally. Some of those who have represented a man accused of a crime ought to be hung for some of their laziness and political agenda behind it all. My response has been about why such things happen. The response to me stems around the idea that judges were former lawyers and try and prosecute a lazy lawyer or one with a political agenda.

 

Does that mean you are a vegetarian?

 

Because God gave the exception in Gen 4. Whenever God gives the exception, I will gladly abide by it. But until then, he expects us to live by his command.

 

No it doesn't...which is my point: why do some here seek to say that the capital punishment bit still applies today but not the eating of meat-with-blood-in-it bit? That smacks of selection, methinks. If you say that Gen 9 is still 'good law today' (as we in the law would say) then to be consistent, you should give up eating that rare steak as well as support CP.

I suppose the argument can be advanced that Gen 9 permits capital punishment for murder.

But (a) mercy is better than justice, and we can be Christlike by extending mercy

and (b) as others have said we can never be quite sure we've got the right convict and you can't undo an execution. So seeing as we are living in reasonably settled and non-violent cultures with the ability to lock people up rather than do away with them, its better that we do that & not risk killing the wrong person. If we were still living in little tribes in the desert, things might be different.

[ETA - cross-posted with PL, to whom I reply: if Gen 9 is universally mandated, then what about the meat issue in the same passage?]

 

Who on here has advocated eating raw meat?

 

Would you say the state has to prohibit the eating of rare or mediun-rare steak? Yes or no?

 

I like my steak medium rare. There is no blood running out of it.

 

That doesn't answer the question. (In any event, medium rare steak has blood in it - it may not be actually running out but it is still red in the middle - so would fall foul of Gen 9:4 - "you shall not eat flesh with the life in it, which is its blood")

 

Raw meat is not red because of the blood. It is read because of the muscle tissue just happens to be read when uncooked.

The blood is drained from the cow upon killing it. It is obvious that the law was to drain all of the blood, you cannot get every single speck out of it. That wasn't the point in the law. It was to prevent the drinking of blood as the pagean rituals did.

Eating rare meat has nothing to do with that commandment. It could be raw for that matter as long as the blood was drained when it was butchered.

 

My point is, this is apples and oranges---bad comparison.

 

No, the government should not be telling me that I can't eat my steak medium rare, or even rare, if I so choose.

Regardless, what I eat affects only me.

Murdering someone affects other people. The government has the power to stop murderers from murdering again.

Frankly, I'm not sure the execution of 36 murderers per year is worth this much debate. Since we are obviously not going to be serious about imposing the death penalty in this nation, we can just let those 36 murderers rot in prison for a few more years. Would that make you happy, Matt?

 

So when I cut my rare steak and red stuff comes out, what is that exactly - ketchup?

[ETA - cross-posted with KenH - yes, that would satisfy me - I'm pretty much on all fours with the concept of "life meaning life"]

 

Matt,

I am not sure what the difficult is. The reason you don't eat meat with blood has nothing to do with teh blood, but the life. THe point is to kill your meat before you eat it. The way you like it cooked isn't the issue, though anything more than medium rare is certainly not what God intended.

As Ross rightly says, "The point of the prohibition is that people may eat flesh so long as it no longer has life in it--and blood represented the life. The text is prohibiting not simply the consumption of blood but rather than pulsating lifeblood" (Genesis, p. 205).

Futhermore, look at the reasoning behind it. The reason for capital punishment is the image of God in man. That is an eternal reason. So long as people are in the image of God then capital punishment is the penalty for murder.

 

So, I ask again: would you be in favour of the state prohibiting the eating of steak in any form other than well-done?

 

Are you asking me? That is a totally irrelevant question to this topic. We are talking about the death penalty, not how you like your steaks cooked.

 

I like my murderers & rapists well done.