Subject:
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Re: Excellent news!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 4 Mar 2005 08:49:48 GMT
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Viewed:
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1007 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
<snip>
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That’s an interesting argument. For me, the problem arises when we try to
grant one person the authority to kill another. A state-sanctioned
execution, once the prisoner has already been rendered harmless, seems to me
no different morally from a deliberate and willful murder.
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Surely you’d agree that the victims differ from the two cases of loss of
life-- one “victim” is a murderer, and the other is an innocent. Therein lies
all the difference in my view.
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Two key elements
of first-degree murder are premeditation and malice aforethought; due-process
executions are certainly premeditiated,
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You could say it that way, but so what? The focus should be on the victims of
first-degree murder and due-process executions. That is where I believe your
analogy breaks down.
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and if they’re permitted as a form of
societal retribution, then they also entail malice aforethought.
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I don’t believe capital punishment is malicious; in fact, one could argue that
allowing a murderer to live is malicious to the surviving family of the innocent
victim.
<various snippaging>
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Since the SC handed down this decision, I’ve heard a whole bunch of voices
raised in outrage about “activist judges out of touch with the mainstream.
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Scalia, predictably, is all a-froth about the involvement of international
conventions in matters of US law (page 79). He’s also upset that the SC has
acted in the absence of a national consensus (page 65 and following).
Scalia’s second objection is baseless. The role of the Supreme Court is
not, despite Scalia, to act as a weathervane indicating the tides of
national sentiment. Instead, the Supreme Court is charged with interpreting
law, and that what has occurred here.
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Hmmm. I seem to remember last year (?) the Supremes taking a look at the
constitutionality of executing the mentally retarded and using a change in
social outlook as justification. Forgive me if I don’t dig into this topic too
much:-)
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Okay. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. But here’s my question:
how do Christians reconcile this apparent hunger for capital punishment with
the biblical call for mercy? I don’t recall which section of the Beattitudes
demanded that seventeen-year-olds be executed, but I haven’t read them in a
while. Isn’t it sufficient to incarcerate the murderer until God takes him,
thereafter to be judged by The Judge?
I’m not asking this flippantly, and in this context I won’t rebut
intra-Christian beliefs with secular viewpoints. I just don’t understand how
the desire for capital punishment can be consistent with Christian grace.
Also, I’m not mocking Christians as a whole--I’m just holding up two
professors-of-the-faith as examples of a viewpoint I’ve heard from numerous
Christians in my life.
Thanks to any and all for their insights.
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Yeah, it’s a valid question, because Christians are on both sides of this issue.
The problem in my mind is applying personal ethics (turn the other cheek, for
example) to those on a societal level. Society simply cannot simply “forgive”
criminals for their behavior, or soon there would be no order, and I don’t think
it was ever Jesus’ intention to advocate that. Personally, I do not think that
forcing criminals to pay the consequences for their crimes is unchristian. So I
don’t believe that the teachings of Jesus (as in the Beatitudes) can be made to
apply to a society, but only to individuals. The society would subsequently be
transformed by persons who adopted Jesus’ teachings. Does that make sense or
come off as a dodge?
JOHN
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Excellent news!
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| (...) Bruce has already mentioned the problem of certainty, which is a pretty strong objection IMO. The current system has numerous examples of convicted people who didn’t commit the murders of which they’re accused, so we’re actually executing (or (...) (19 years ago, 4-Mar-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Excellent news!
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| (...) That's an interesting argument. For me, the problem arises when we try to grant one person the authority to kill another. A state-sanctioned execution, once the prisoner has already been rendered harmless, seems to me no different morally from (...) (19 years ago, 3-Mar-05, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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