Political debate

What about the way God deals with Cain in Genesis 4.10-15?

What about the way Jesus deals with the woman caught in adultery in John 7.53-8.11?

The scriptural evidence is mixed at best, so this is going to be my only contribution to the impending scriptural warfare.

The important question has already been posed on this thread by someone else: Are we willing to risk executing innocent people in order to keep capital punishment in force?

Tim Reynolds

 

I am. Yes.

 

Regards,
BiR

 

Thank you for being embarrassed for me BiR, I wouldn't have known I was foolish had you not pointed it out. Thanks again.

 

I do not enjoy debating with posters with non-Christian viewpoints, because truth is recklessly abandoned in these posts and debate from posters such as these is always wrapped in discord.

 

Have you changed in recent months? I seldom disagree with you any more.

 

No, I'm been in favor of the death penalty pretty much my entire life - except for a brief pacifist phase about 27 years ago.

 

I still cannot figure out why you responded by answering my question in post #30 (Again, notice that I asked you a question, going out of my way to make it clear that I was asking a question, and then simply let it go when you clarified your statement), then felt compelled to offer contumely with post # 39. What was this - an attempt to pick a fight?

Besides, I was not the only one who noticed both your responses to my question.

Regards anyway,
BiR

 

I still believe the Bible, don't you Curtis? No leaning necessary.:thumbs:

Sometimes it's so clear that, in order to question it's meaning, one has to deliberately blind themselves to it or allow Satan to do it for them.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bro. Curtis
Some of us don't lean, and see it just fine.

All one has to do is believe God's Word to know that government is empowered to enforce the laws up to and including the death penalty. It has nothing to do with America being "God's chosen country".

Do you have a problem with that?

 

Thanks for the try, but your source tells me you can't name even one, because they can't either or they would have.

 

With the hundreds of people being released from death row every year, after being found innocent it is not hard to believe people may had died who shouldn't have. Take Dennis Stockton in VA. He was executed and it was VERY CLEAR he did not have a fair trial, (shaky trial witnesses, and new evidence was turned up AFTER the states allotted time for new evidence ran out). There is no way he should have died without a new trial, or at the very least the new evidence being looked at. There is a GOOD CHANCE HE WAS INNOCENT, yet he still died on death row. I find it very suspect that the state, after the new evidence popped up offered him life in prison in return for him to drop the appeals process. He turned it down because he claimed his innocence. He had more faith in the appeals process than I do. I seriously doubt the legal system, as overloaded as it is, catches all the innocents sentenced to death.

 

"Good chance" and "seriously doubt" doesn't cut it.

Name one executed criminal that has been found to be totally innocent of the crime for which they were executed.

 

Well, considering the fact the state won't review evidence after the execution is complete, and most families do not have the resources to do so, there will most likely not be anyone found innocent after the fact.

Amnesty International (USA), and other projects and funds, such as the Innocence Project, have to focus all their efforts on freeing the innocent still alive, not determining the innocence of the dead. There is something wrong with the legal system if hundreds of people are released each year after being found innocent. Do you really believe no one falls through the cracks?

As far as Dennis Stockton, you are really ok with the fact he was executed without a fair trial? Even if you support the death penalty don't you think people should be afforded a fair trial where ALL the evidence is taken into account?

 

A hundred years ago, many of the people currently on death row would have been sentenced to death for the crimes they freely admit to; robbery, rape, attempted murder, etc.

In fact, I don't think I can recall hearing of even one person who claimed their innocence in a murder who had not been, usually multiple, other violent crimes.

Maybe we should do as some countries and chop off the hands of robbers and other "parts" of rapists. You don't see too many murders committed by paraplegics and eunuchs.

Are there innocent people on death row? I guess it depends on your definition of innocent.

One of the "possibly innocent" people on the deathpenaltyinfo website is Gary Graham. Here's how innocent he was:


http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/graham648.htm

Whether he actually was successful in the murder of Bobby Lambert or not, was he one of the innocent people we are supposed to believe didn't deserve death?

One of his victims was shot through the throat although he lived, thank God. Another was shot through the legs with a sawed-off shotgun, and he lived also, thank God, even if he is an amputee now.

If I was attempting to get rid of the death penatly, I would not pin my hopes on people such as this, who deserve to die for the other crimes for which their are still living victims, regardless of whether he killed Bobby Lambert or not.

In my opinion, just because someone is a bad shot, or a victim gets lucky and doesn't die, it does not take away from the fact that the crminial was intending to kill them and carried out the act. Simply because they were bad at it and it wasn't done right doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it right to them. Gary Graham, and other so-called "innocent" people on death row, are more than deserving of death, and they should count themselves blessed that we are not a country which would physically torture them first.

A lifetime in prison is not fullproof. Men escape from prison. There is never, ever a guarantee that we can always hold them. Men kill other people in prison. Say I'm in prison for tax evasion, or, better yet, say I'm one of those "innocent" people we keep hearing about, and I'm stuck in prison with a real murderer. He comes up to me and kills me for no reason, except for his jollies. What's the penalty? More life in prison? Were he executed, the innocent person, or even the guilty person, would not have been murdered in prison. What about the prison guard who is beaten and/or killed at the hands of an inmate? Were he executed, the guard would still be alive.

To prevent the murder of even one more person, whether the intended victim is a completely innocent person or not, I would gladly, myself, execute a convicted murderer.

Woe to us if our humanism makes us allow a murderer to live and he ends up killing another person. Who is repsonsible for that death, the murderer or the ones who enabled him to do it?

As I've said before, we should go back to public hangings, though not like Saddam's (there should be even the smallest bit of decency given at such a time), and youths who have committed violent crimes should be forced to watch and see what their lifestyle leads them to.

I wish to God that the people who so gallantly flock to save a piece of murderous scum like Gary Graham would raise even one finger to help one who is, without a shadow of a doubt, truly innocent and in no way deserving of a death sentence. That is, one who is not even born and has yet been incapable of the smallest illegal act.

On a side note, I think many of you know that this is a very personal subject for me, as I've stated before. My last living grandfather died when I was three. My uncle's(by marriage) father, who also happened to be a sweetheart of my widowed grandmother, was murdered by a man on coke. The man was the son of one of Pop's closest friends. He beat Pop to death with a coffee mug, which Pop had given him full of water, in Pop's own home. The man showered in Pop's bathroom, stole his wallet and his car, and was picked up the next evening 2 blocks away at a bar, still wearing Pop's blood on his shoes. The man was given 40 years. Each day, he continues to breathe the same air as my family. Each day, he is treated humanely. Each day, he is fed, bathes, works out, watches t.v., reads books, gets to read and write letters to and from his family. And each day, Pop is dead.

I loved Pop, and if executing that murdering (insert whatever name best suits a filthy swine such as Yul Lee here) could possibly, in the slimmest margin ever, even if he pinky promises never to do it again, even if there's only .00000001% chance of his doing it again, save another family from that experience that we will always have to live with, until the day that we die, of seeing blood-splattered walls, and being even unable to have an open-casket funeral due to the injuries, then I would execute that man with my bare hands if asked to. He is not deserving of life.

If someone were to contest that man's execution, had he been given one, in front of me, someone would be leaving with a broken nose.

These are the kinds of people that Amnesty Int'l, and anti-death penalty people are trying to get off the hook. If people experienced these deaths first-hand, in the same way I saw it as an 11 year old kid, the cries for Amnesty would be very few and far between.

Am I vengeful? Probably, but seeing what remains of a loved one's brains scattered throughout three rooms in his home can do that to a person.

I also want to point out that I am usually not as vehement and graphic as I have been in this post. It seems as if talks about no death penalty and supposedly innocent people set my memory back to that time.

Every murderer should be executed, period.

 

The United States Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment. If you do not agree with that, you are welcome to move to a country that uses such penalties.

 

How about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.