Thirty years on death row and innocent. Thankfully he was not executed before proven innocent.
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Capital Punishment -- Proof it should be eliminated
- Thread starter Crabtownboy
- Start date
This is not proof of anything except error and your personal theology.
Zaac
Well-Known Member
The stance of people on here seems to be that abortion should be eliminated because innocent lives are being taken but capital punishment should remain an option even though innocent lives are being taken.
But some wonder why I have said that abortion with some of you really has NOTHING to do with Christ and everything to do with..you guessed it...the modern day god of the new Christian...POLITICS.
More personal theology? More personal analogy? I know, the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, and the Neighborhood of Martha's Vineyard.
Not as many as had their lives taken and were guilty?
Zaac
Well-Known Member
So is the life of the many more important than the one? Again, one of the reasons I believe Scripture points to the default of the Christian needing to be life and not death.
We are told to speak life.
As I've said before Don, the issue gets disordered when politics is infused with Christianity. Can you love your neighbor as yourself and want him to die?
If you truly have the love of God in you, you will follow his commandments, and not add to his words.
It is in error to assume that the motivation for agreeing with the death penalty is nothing but politics. Or it could be that the assumption is made so one can have an issue to rail against conservatives.
Because we all know that if the true motivation is nothing but a heart felt belief arrived at only after giving careful consideration of all the facts then there would be no ammunition to demonize conservatives with.
So the assumption has to be made.
Because we all know that if the true motivation is nothing but a heart felt belief arrived at only after giving careful consideration of all the facts then there would be no ammunition to demonize conservatives with.
So the assumption has to be made.
Sapper Woody
Well-Known Member
Zaac, I know this is an area that you and I disagree. But so there's no confusion, my stance is both that capital punishment is Biblically mandated, and that the few (less than a dozen in the last 50 years) innocent that die from it is a pittance against the good it does.
Abortion, on the other hand, is knowingly taking an innocent life. I honestly don't see the correlation. On one hand, you are punishing murderers and other class x felons, with the very rare innocent thrown in. Abortion is the killing of a life that has done nothing (earthly speaking) wrong, and not deserving death.
If an innocent dies on death row, it is the system that needs to be under trial, and not the penalty.
Abortion, on the other hand, is knowingly taking an innocent life. I honestly don't see the correlation. On one hand, you are punishing murderers and other class x felons, with the very rare innocent thrown in. Abortion is the killing of a life that has done nothing (earthly speaking) wrong, and not deserving death.
If an innocent dies on death row, it is the system that needs to be under trial, and not the penalty.
The system? WTH
It is the system is putting people to death, has people on death row, who are being proven to not have committed the crime for which they are awaiting death.
How can the penalty be okay, justified, if the system that leads to said penalty is flawed?
Explain please?
It is the system is putting people to death, has people on death row, who are being proven to not have committed the crime for which they are awaiting death.
How can the penalty be okay, justified, if the system that leads to said penalty is flawed?
Explain please?
So the death of a few innocent folk is just hunky wonderful with you, right? Collateral damage, right?
Wonder how you would feel if you had been framed and was sitting on death row even though you are innocent.
Can you show me where it is Biblical to execute innocent people?
Zaac
Well-Known Member
Hey Sapper Woody. Hope you're doing well today. I agree that capital punishment is Biblically mandated, but only in the OT for instances in which GOD gave the decree to His people or the prophets or in which He defined instances for the Jews to punish to keep themselves unlike the Gentiles.
Everything after the Cross says life...grace...and the mercy of God. He has not, post OT, given any decrees to "completely destroy this person or people". And the Jews are now the ones who are rejecting Him so there's no need to keep them apart from the gentiles who also reject Him.
All about perspective..
The correlation is that human life is human life. We have socially created something of a caste system that seems to value some more than others. But BIBLICALLY, human life is human life. Scripture tells us that God does not show favoritism. He has not decided that one life is more innocent than another. We have.
Human life is human life.
The penalty in this case is a result of the system.
It is not Biblical to execute innocent people. You always write that point and no one ever disagrees with you. Your point is pointless because no one advocates executing the innocent. Nor do we chop the heads off of journalists in this country.
Here's hoping that you get a life soon!
He likes to ask "Have you stopped beating your wife" questions. He gets mad and can't help himself.
And yet many who say the are Christian advocate capital punishment knowing there are innocent folk who will be put to death. The man in the OP was fortunate to be found innocent. But what a terrible thing to spend 30 years on death row. But it does show that there are people on death row.
So, how can you advocate capital punishment knowing that there are innocents who will die?
Here again you wander off into absurdity. I do not know anything about the guilt or innocence of particular murderers. I know that we have a legal system designed to try people and upon conviction to execute them. There is nothing that you have ever written to show that it is not Biblical to execute murderers.
:thumbs::applause::applause:
Sapper Woody
Well-Known Member
Firstly, I'd like to respectfully ask you to refrain from the usage of that acronym. People can say that they don't mean it as a cuss word, and insert "heck" in there, but its common usage is cursing.
The system of finding someone guilty of a crime is not what is putting them on death row. The system only determines guilt. The punishment and the system are two separate entities.
Even the liberal media puts the innocent rate at 4.1%. The conservative rate is 1.6%. And that includes pardons, charges dropped, and those where more evidence was found.
With this sentence, you just contradicted yourself when you said that the system is putting people to death. You showed that you understand that the penalty is separate. However, to answer your question, let's look at the system. As I said, the system is somewhere between 95.9% - 98.4% accurate right now. Even in the opposition's estimate, it estimates 340 of the more than 8,000 death row convicts since 1973 have been innocent. (I know this contradicts my earlier post where I said less than a dozen in the last 50 years. I'm not too proud to admit I was wrong there) The system is pretty accurate, and getting more accurate all the time with DNA evidence.
Your first fallacy, a strawman. I never said I was happy that innocents were killed. I have already made my stance clear. Compared to the good it has done (which is verifiable with a simple google search), those few innocents that have died are justified. Sad? Yes. But justified. This is opinion. Opinion cannot be debated.Crabtownboy said:
Your second fallacy - an appeal to emotion - aside, of course I would be outraged. I would do everything in my power to appeal. But that's not the point, is it. Regardless of my personal feelings, my opinion and stance still stands.
And the third fallacy. A strawman argument. I assume you know what this means? But just in case, I'll explain it. You took something I am NOT arguing for, and made it seem that I AM arguing for it, then attacked that instead of my actual argument. I am not even going to dignify this with an answer, as you and I both know that is not what I am saying.
You're 0/3 in this post alone, CTB. In fact, you didn't put one thing in that post that was valid for conversation. Quit trying to wrangle what I am saying and actually take what I say at face value, and discuss what I am saying, not what you want me to have said.
I understand this. I do realize that it's opinion. How much gain does it take to justify loss? That's for each person to decide for himself. For some no loss can be justified. For others, it's a percentage game.Zaac said:
I can agree with this in the scope of eternity, and eternal destination. Where I diverge is in the earthly realm. Sin is sin, and all deserve Hell for it. However, while stealing an $.80 candy bar is enough to send you to Hell, it will not get you 45 years to life. On earth, we have a scaling punishment system. Even as parents we do the same thing with our children. You stayed out 5 minutes past curfew? You might get grouned for a while. You went out with your friends and got drunk? You're probably going to get something more than grounded, and not be able to hang out with those friends.
This being said, that's why I believe the death penalty is appropriate for some crimes. If you destroy a (earthly) innocent life, then your life is no longer (earthly) innocent, and is forfeit.
I am not going to discuss the Biblical portion of it, and how I believe the command still stands. This is an area in which we obviously disagree. I know the arguments saying it's not Biblical anymore, and I have come to a different conclusion.
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What I find hypocrtical is those who demonize Capital Punishment under a flawed system because it is believed some innocent may die but are willing to support Planned Parenthood even though under their system many do die innocently. They will justify supporting Planned Parenthood because of other things PP does they believe are good but demonize those who support CP for the same reasons.
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