Capital Punishment

Tejretics: Because it's God's Word.

Krazy: First, why should the state be obliged to follow God's word?

Second, prove that religious document(s) are God's word. The onus is on you to prove that some Earthly document is the "word" of such a transcendent entity.

Tejretics: Because when you mix your labor with resources, you should be allowed the fruit of your work. If God exists, then he has ownership of the Earth and can do with it as he pleases, including creating laws we may or may not agree with. (God homesteades Earth so....)

Krazy: The Big Kahuna wrote "Thou shalt not kill" and He outranks Sonny Boy.

Tejretics: First, why should the state be obliged to follow God's word?
Because it's God's Word. That's a really silly question.

Second, prove that religious document(s) are God's word
Well if you don't believe or trust in Jesus as your personal Savior, then you're not going to believe the Bible no matter what evidence is shown to you. Because Jesus Christ is the Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1 KJV

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 KJV

Polymath: The Big Kahuna wrote "Thou shalt not kill" and He outranks Sonny Boy
Jesus Christ and the Father are one.
I and my Father are one.
John 10:30 KJV

Jesus/God one?. Depends who you read. ( and believe ).

admin: 1) it restricts a more fundamental right
What about the rights of the victims? Stop worrying about the rights of the people who do wrong and be more concerned about the innocent victims of the crime.


2) it is irreversible
So is prison. See, let me tell you what happens when a guy gets thrown in jail. What happens is, their wife will probably divorce him, taking the children, they grow up without a father, it's hard for the mother to support herself and the children without the father, it destroys families. You ruin the man's chance to get a job when he gets out of jail, if he gets out. You ruin people's lives. Which one of those things are reversible? Not to mention he learns new bad behaviors from other inmates who are in there for worse crimes and they end up worse off after they get put in jail.

3) prisoners can contribute meaningfully to society
By taking everybody's tax dollars to feed them, to pay for their living expenses, and to pay for the prison's security? Prisoners contribute crime to society.

Krazy: All that could be true and my point would still stand. The list proves that the death penalty is harsher. If you think it is equally or less harsh, I suppose, you wouldn't object to its removal anyway.

admin: Well of course it's harsher, you're right. Your 3 points lacked logic though.

Honestly, prison is a stupid institution. Take for example, stealing. Instead of putting someone to jail for theft, make them pay 4 times of what they stole back to the victim. That seems like a much better penalty and more reforming (or rehabilitating, whatever term people use) to the criminal than sending them to a cage for 5 years with other horrible people. Also, if they take the thief to jail, how does that help me get my money back? "Oh sorry, we can't reimburse you of your money. But don't worry, we'll take your tax dollars and put him in jail for a few years." How does that help me? But if he just worked hard and paid back 4 times of what he stole, that will give the victim his money back plus some, and the thief learned the value of hard labor and likely won't steal again.

admin: A fine, a lashing, or death. That's enough for the criminal justice system. Prison just makes everything worse. It's not rehabilitative at all and not a very good retribution.

Krazy: For that you need to accept that death and lashings are justifiable limitations on bodily autonomy. I don't think prison makes everything worse if it is used properly. People also have this weird view of the criminal justice system as unbiased, impartial and consistent. Which is totally wrong.

admin: What about the lore/law? The bible tells us to execute killers and the judges tell us the same. To say execution is morally wrong is laughable. A killer puts themselves outside any moral consideration Their act is the worst crime committed in a civilised society and should be met with the harshest punishment.
The only thing stopping executions are lawyers and not because they think their clients innocent but because they are cash cows. If they were paid more to ensure the death of their clients there wouldn't be a living soul on Death Row.
Executing the innocent is not an issue. The innocent murdered every year massively outnumber any possible executions of the innocent.

Polymath: Law is meaningful only insofar as people give it meaning. There's no absolute standard - rather, laws are culturally and politically determined in particular times in particular places. And while I believe some things are absolutely not moral (on other grounds) that is not to say something immoral cannot be legal, or something illegal cannot be moral. Just like how the bible has been interpreted in many ways through the centuries to support both moral and immoral acts. Personally I would put murder (in this case meant as, the killing of another human being on purpose) among the immoral acts, and killing killers as state-sponsored murder. As an aside I'm neither Christian nor in a country where the death penalty is legal, but regardless I wouldn't support it notwithstanding those facts.

Clemency is also stopping executions, but consider how many lawyers succeed in exonerating clients who, frankly, are largely unable to pay them. Ask a lawyer what they think of legal aid pay. It's actually terrible, in every country, even the most liberal.

I strongly disagree that the execution of a small number can be justified by the execution of a larger number. That just makes no sense to me. Either way people get killed, you might as well try to minimize the number of people dying as far as I'm concerned.

admin: How can it be state-sponsored murder? Murder is illegal but state executions are legal by definition. Remember the saying " the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few "? Those on death row need executing even at the cost to the few. On what grounds is it morally wrong to terminally remove an individual from society when that person is a danger to that very society and may continue to be so.
If legal aid pay is so bad why does the U.S. pay billions to lawyers? Do you think a very expensive law firm sends their experts to appeal courts on behalf of penniless clients out of compassion? Expensive law firms didn't become expensive on pro buono work.

Polymath: So we take murder here in its non-legal sense. I defined murder as the killing of another human being on purpose. States kill other people on purpose when they impose laws to execute them.

I disagree with the saying that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few. All people have rights and therefore all their needs must be considered. I think it moral conceitedness to deny human rights by way of election.

It's morally wrong to remove life because life defines human beings, and is therefore a human right. It cannot be traded as per the social contract which binds the legitimacy of states. So you cannot offer to surrender your life in the event of your committing immoral acts.

The US pays billions to lawyers because it has a crime problem, which in turn leads to a prison problem. Even on low pay, that adds up. In my view this is caused by a deeply conservative ideology for a time of romantic liberalism where cowboys were heroic murderers. Crime is idealized. Instead society should aim for happiness, harmony, health etc. As for expensive law firms, those are reserved for a very small minority of death row cases.

Krazy: Because it's God's Word. That's a really silly question.

No, it isn't. State and God are separate entities.

Well if you don't believe or trust in Jesus as your personal Savior, then you're not going to believe the Bible no matter what evidence is shown to you.

Show me some of your "evidence." That this religious document is inerrant.

It's inerrant because God cannot lie.
In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
Titus 1:2 KJV

But you won't believe that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, making Him a liar.
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
1 John 5:10‭-‬12 KJV

You don't really want evidence. It just comes to the matter of whether you believe that Jesus came, God manifest in the flesh, to save the world. You either believe Him or you don't.

admin: You don't believe the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" which is the very basis of morality. You then use morality as an excuse to deny the death penalty which makes you a hypocrite.
To your own knowledge what murderer has EVER offered to surrender their life because they killed? Which killer has told his lawyer to plead guilty and accept the death penalty without appeal?
I, personally, am all for revenge and would be happy in the knowledge that a killer is feeling a growing terror as their execution date grows closer and closer. It is right and just that they suffer not physical, but mental agony, before they die.

Polymath: I believe the basis of morality is different. I believe morality is premised on human empathy, encompassing care for the environment and other people. Even if there were no other people, there would still therefore be morality. So if all people are important, that means murderers are important too. There's no heirarchy, "you're more deserving of rights" - no, everyone has the same basic entitlement to rights, only a few of which can be justifiably traded or sold. Where you see justice as a consequence of a crime, I see it as an outcome of a long series of rights (units of morality) being traded, starting with the basic social contract. There's nothing moral about removing rights unless such a removal is in the interests of the killer and can be traded. That's why killing is immoral in the first place.