If the death penalty is immoral.. ?

Kasmic: To be fair, I did just lose a debate on this topic on DDO.

To be clear, what's exoneration? Is it where your sentenced as guilty, but then proven innocent later on?

Krazy: LOL I am sorry, I see exoneration is when you are cleared of charges... For some reason I was thinking of letting someone who is guilty go. So sorry for the confusion.

To clarify my point above haha... I am saying that if the choice is either to let murders, thiefs, etc go free or give them the death penalty is a ridiculous idea. There has to be some kind of "punishment to fit the crime." All or nothing doesnt work.

I suppose my entire comment above is really out of place due to me not thinking about what the word exonerate means.

Krazy: Yip

Krazy: Sometimes the criminal justice system is fine, it's the evidence that changes as time goes on.

Kasmic: Lol okay. There are various definitions but the main one is where a person is convicted of a crime but is later proven innocent from that crime. In relation to the death penalty though, the judiciary system needs to be improved. Changing the punishment (abolishing the death penalty) is not the answer.

As for the "punishment to fit the crime", that's entirely true. If somebody takes a human life; their human life should be taken in response. It's to send a message to the rest of society that the crime of murder is so serious, that your life will be taken if you do it.

What do you mean by "All or nothing doesn't work."?

admin: Oh okay.

admin: Out of the spirit of inquiry, why do you think that capital punishment is immoral?

admin: "Sometimes the criminal justice system is fine, it's the evidence that changes as time goes on."

That's true.

Krazy: Because in my personal view:
1. I think if there's any hope of rehabilitation, states have a duty to act mercifully
2. False convictions will happen even in a perfect justice system until the crystal ball is invented
3. It doesn't achieve anything

admin: Do you value rehabilitation over retribution?

admin: Or should the state I mean?

Krazy: Personally yeah. I've argued that topic a lot in debating lol, and so I can clearly see the arguments both ways. I think it's ultimately a moral issue. Should states EVER be prepared to forgive a crime? Even for the worst offences? There's no clear pragmatic answer, but I've always been inspired by turn the other cheek in response to meanness.

All this being said -- my lax approach to modding this site has, in some people's minds, allowed trolls to brood here for too long haha. I'm always one to give second chances and I can get why some don't appreciate that. Though there's only so much rehab I can enforce online, I can see the other extreme as well. There's many parts of the world where prison can just become a second home, and we have to be careful not to allow it to become institutionalized.

admin: Yeah I get what your saying. Like for example, my mom, before she joined the US military in the air force, she was a prison guard for several years. From her observation, she said that there are a lot of people who intentionally commit crimes with the sole purpose of going to jail - just because they don't want to provide for themselves in society. Because what's not to love? In jail, you are provided food. Most don't have to work for it in jail necessarily. That's one the reasons I think prison life should be made utterly terrible (it already is to some degree; but should be worse).

To some extent, there should be a balance of retribution and rehabilitation, but I lean more toward retribution.

For me, the death penalty stems from my belief in God. Because according to Genesis, humans are made in His image. So murder is a unique crime - in that it kills people made in God's image. So the death penalty is necessary in response to such an evil crime.

Krazy: I used to be... fairly christian. I don't think I ever settled on it for certain but I went through the whole baptism thing and read the bible a lot.

Isn't there that part where Jesus is dying on the cross and forgives a murderer? Or that other bit where he prevents the execution of an adulterer? Something about being allowed to cast the first stone if without sin?

admin: When He was dieing on the cross, there were 2 thieves on another cross next to Him (apparently, stealing was punishable by death in the Roman empire). But anyway, one of the thieves said "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom". He had faith in Jesus to save him from his sins. The other thief didn't trust in Him. And Jesus said back "Today, you will be with me in paradise." Again, as the Bible consistently teaches, everyone is a sinner worthy of eternal torment after death. Only Jesus can save us from that destiny because He is God in human form and is the only person to pay the penalty. Since we sinned against an eternal God, there are only two choices: We pay the penalty eternally, or an eternal Being (Jesus) pays the penalty once. It's those who trust Him to do that who are saved.

As for when Jesus prevented the woman from being put to death, I'm not so familiar with that passage. But there is a great website that answers Bible questions that anyone may have. It's called www.gotquestions.org
They have articles on just about everything that concerns the Bible.

Here is a GotQuestions article titled "What did Jesus mean when He said 'he who is without sin can cast the first stone.'" This is probably what your looking for.

Jesus’ statement “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” is found in John 8:1-11. Jesus was teaching in the temple when the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, and they asked Him if she should be stoned as required by the Law of Moses. However, they cared nothing about this woman; they were using her to trap Jesus. In their minds, if He told them to set the woman free, they could claim He did not hold to the Law of Moses. If He told them to stone her they could claim He was not the Savior, and if He said nothing they could claim He lacked wisdom. Jesus did not answer immediately but stooped and wrote something on the ground, and they kept pressing Him. Finally the Lord said, in essence, “Go ahead and stone her because that is what the Law requires. But the Law also requires that the first stone be thrown by a person that is sinless in connection with this charge” (John 8:6-7).

There is no doubt that this woman was guilty of a capital offense and that the Law required that she be stoned, but the Law also required that the guilty man be stoned as well (Deuteronomy 22:22), that witnesses be produced, and that a witness begin the execution. But the Jewish leaders came with venom against Jesus and were thwarted by their own single-minded hate. They did not produce the guilty man and they were unwilling or unable to produce the required witnesses. We do not know what Jesus wrote, but after He wrote a second time the Jews left one by one, from the oldest to the youngest, without saying another word. Jesus then set the woman free with a warning to her to sin no more.

From this passage we learn that we do not accuse others unless we first thoroughly search our own hearts and minds to make certain that we are pure in every possible aspect (Matthew 7:3). Also, if we must admonish someone, we should do so as instructed in Scripture; we always look to God’s glory and never cause unnecessary division or harm (Matthew 18:15), but we do work to keep the church pure. Moreover, Jesus was the only sinless person in the temple scene, and instead of condemning the woman He looked ahead to His work on the cross and offered her life. Likewise we should use every possible opportunity to forgive and to reach out with the gospel and the love of Christ, always remembering that we, too, are sinners in need of the Savior (Romans 3:23).

Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/without-sin-cast-first-stone.html#ixzz3bmUgjuml

Lol, Deuteronomy, the part of the bible we like to pretend isn't there

Krazy: I'm a practicing Christian and even though I've never tried, I'm pretty confident I could defend the idea of abolishing the Death Penalty from a biblical perspective.
I certainly don't think you could use the Bible to advocate for it.

Maybe we should settle this the Edeb8 way!

nzlockie: Yeah, the Bible isn't as straight forward as far as the death penalty goes. On issues such as abortion and homosexuality, it's pretty blunt that those things are wrong; but concerning capital punishment, the Bible doesn't explicitly say that it should or should not be in effect as an absolute moral law.

Are you saying we should start a debate about this?