Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Is There Biblical Justification For Capital Punishment? Message-ID: Date: 16 Mar 90 08:37:00 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Services Lines: 89 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article jrossi@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Joe Rossi) writes: > >Thats a very good point. It would seem to me that those who favor >capital punishment would just as soon deny a person thier chance to >learn about God, to be healed, to know God's mercy. > and > >Now its only my opinion that those who appeal to scriptures for justification >for capital punishment, are trying to justify sinful feelings of vengeance, Joe, I won't for a moment deny that some advocates of capital punishment are motivated by a desire for vengeance. However, to suggest that *all* such advocates are simply nasty, vindictive people is an absurd straw-man argument. I don't necessarily espouse capital punishment myself, but I hate to see it get misportrayed this way as a simple black-and-white "vengeance" issue, without any discussion of the real dilemmas involved. Let's take it one point at a time... >[discussion of reaction to violence against one's own family deleted] > . But once the offender was apphrehended, even if the >burning rage in my being screamed for justice, I would oppose his death >penalty. Rather I would even shower him with all the love in the world, >all the compassion in the world, all the love that I had for my loved >one's whom he took from me in an act of violence. That's very noble, Joe. (no sarcasm intended). Would you continue this while he murdered someone else? And another? A family here, a child there? How long do you continue to let *him* abort people's chances to find God, in order to give his soul every last chance? Who knows how long it might take to "cure" this person. He might even be incurable. In the meantime, are you going to let him loose on society, so that he can duplicate the tragedy that you're trying to avoid by saving his life? Probably not. So, you have to confine him, somehow. Limit his freedom. Put him in a cage, with other animals. This is going to make it difficult to "shower him with love" in any way that he'll appreciate. Let's face it, prison (and its kin) is a dismal failure in the reformation business. In the meantime, you're spending hundreds of dollars a day to maintain this person. This money, if not needed there, could go to feed starving children (more souls sent heavenward prematurely), or educate the poor, or any number of causes with long-term rewards for many. It's all very well to say that each person's life is infinitely valuable, and deserves all our efforts at bringing him/her to salvation. In practice, though, each of us has to choose where to direct our finite resources of time, money, and energy. >Why? >Because hatred only reinforces the feeling of seperateness that pushed him >to kill in the first place. To hate him, to call for his execution, to see >in him only a monster who took my loved one's lives, is to push him farther Hatred is a straw man. Of course it is wrong. But we're not talking about hatred, we're talking about executing certain criminals. One need not hate the executed criminal, any more than one need hate the cancer that is cut out, or the passenger for whom there is no room in the lifeboat. > And if don't want to forgive and love our capital >offenders, why should God show us any forgiveness? We can forgive and love *and* execute them. (Again, I'm not necessarily *advocating* this, but it remains an undiscusses possibility). What else does God do when he allows us to condemn ourselves? He loves us no less. The "judgement" warned against in the Bible is not legal judgement, but moral judgement. The judge who sends a criminal to death, in humility, and with the thought "There but for the Grace of God go I", is not guilty of violating the "Judge not, lest ye be judged" commandment. >>I think an even better example might be the woman caught in adultery--a >>stoning offense; that is, she was guilty of a capital offense. Jesus' >>response was most interesting, "Let him who is without sin cast the >>first stone." Not one remained to cast the first stone. Personally, I think the best bet for a Christian opposition to capital punishment is in the "turn the other cheek" passage. This has extremely wide-ranging consequences, if taken seriously. Is this where you're coming from, Joe? -- David M. Tate | "It made the basses of their being throb in dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu | witching chords, and their thin blood pulse | pizzicati of Hosanna..." "A Man for all Seasonings" | -- Wallace Stevens