The Death Penalty
- Thread starter RickyZ
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Z
I don't think Jesus would vote either. Here's the complication for me, Jesus is endless forgiveness, grace, and mercy, but that is only attainable when the person is truly remorseful of their past and will to give their lives to God. As far as the death penalty goes in the world we're in today, Jesus knows when someone is genuinely sorry and wants forgiveness, we don't, that's the reason it's not our authority to bestow forgiveness. So what do we do with a repeat, violent criminal who absolutely swears to change his ways? We certainly can't just let him go. Do we keep him in prison for the rest of his life, taking up jail space, keep in mind our tax dollars going to feeding and taking care of a man who has no life yet, or do we just put him out of his misery?
Still a little on the fence with this issue.
Still a little on the fence with this issue.
F
I didnt know about this...i do live in CA. didnt even relize that it existed here...i knew that there were a few scattered states and nothing more. i heard some places still allow death by firing squad...thats no where close to humane. i think that if i could vote i would keep it though. because there r some people who have killed too many times over and gone psychopath... imagine someone murdering someone u r close to, and whe u go to court they say, "oh sorry, this person took a life but the best we can do is spend your money to have him locked up for the next 50 years." i would be outraged!!!!
A
Is the most loving thing you can do in this world to take enormous amounts of money from hard-working citizens and use it to house murderers for life in prisons where they head prison gangs causing a great deal more violence while preventing a great deal of real reform from happening in the rest of the inmate population?
K
Ever since Jesus said "let he who is without sin cast the first stone", societies claiming Judeo-Christian descent have searched for a rationalization to punish criminals at all. Until a century or so ago, "humane" execution (which of course, changed definition with who was prescribing the method) was alleged to be important, since it satisfied some of the penalty God would exact in the afterlife.
Better question, why, 2000 years after Jesus said to go and tell all nations, and gave us the power of the Holy Spirit to do it with, do we still have crime?
Better question, why, 2000 years after Jesus said to go and tell all nations, and gave us the power of the Holy Spirit to do it with, do we still have crime?
S
You may think Im wrong for speaking my oppinion here...but you asked lol..I believe an eye for an eye..you murder you should be killed also..I hate how i have to worry about my children as they leave the house..and tax money provides there food and so forth when they dont even deserve the privilages given to them..Yes I believe in forgivness..but God gave us wisdom for a reason diod he not? We have criminals being given more rights then the victims..I believe when u disobey the law your rights should be tooken from you..And if they ask for forgivness thats bewteen them and God. As for me id say kill em and hopefully they met God before thye left...I mean it sad to say we as a nation have to suffer just because some people out there dont wanna live in a world free from violance and criminal activities..You rape a child i think your BLEEP needs to be cup off..Im forgiving just not stupid
You all do realize that in the end it actually costs more of your taxpayer dollars for someone to be sentenced to death rather than life in prison. Mostly attributed to a long and drawn out appeals process that can take decades. Just thought people should know this since they are whining about where their money is going.
O
i totally agree why pay for them to have cable tv,free mail service we pay for that if we want it they gave up thier right too bee in the community life of thier community they should not be able too vote like they can in some state Canada has far less crime cause of far stricter laws that are enforced thier in prison no special stuff at all,we need no 5 days a month given off 4 good behavior they should get added time fr bad behavior.i am all about and all 4 ForgiveNess,but proper Social Justice,they do not need extra rights the Victims do not have.
A
I agree wtih you that getting a death penalty conviction instead of a sentence to life in prison costs taxpayers way too much money.
It shouldn't cost taxpayers $5 million dollars to get a death penalty conviction every time someone walks into a convenience store and murders the clerk for $50.00 as happened in this case: Death penalty rarely means case closed - Los Angeles Times
There's something very wrong with our system of justice when taxpayers are victimized to the tune of millions and millions of dollars (whether life in prison or they get the death penalty) every single time someone decides to murder another person in our country.
We are literally allowing the worst criminals in our society to become "gypsy millionaires" at our expense as enormous amounts of money that could be spent on education, our economy, our natural wildlife, etc... are taken by force from a law abiding population to pay for their trials, incarceration, etc...
But even at the present ridiculously high cost of prosecuting murderers (in both death penalty cases and life sentence cases), if they would actually carry out the execution in a timely manner after convicting someone for murder, the cost would be less than incarcerating them.
But here's what's not talked about much: when you aggregate the enormous indirect costs of allowing these murderers to impact the rest of our nation's prison population, our nation's streetgangs and criminal associates, our nation's at-risk population, etc... as "lifers" heading up their race's respective "blood in blood out" prison gangs: the costs for not executing them literally skyrocket.
I argue that our system of justice is in need of reform.
On the one hand we are literally extorting enormous amounts of money to care for the worst of the worst while they negatively affect our entire society after conviction (death penalty conviction or life in prison).
On the other hand, we continue to aggressively punish everyday Americans with ridiculously high fines for even the slightest infractions which often are really just a matter of interpretation of one's liberty.
Where I live, if you pull into a handicap spot for two seconds to turn your car around in a crowded parking lot: the fine is over $1,500.00 by the time all the excises and fees are added up. Here's an article on the sprawling expansion of the prison-judicial complex over the lives of everyday Americans today: Rough justice in America: Too many laws, too many prisoners | The Economist
We lock up too many people unnecessarily and fine everyday law abiding Americans enormous amounts of money for the slightest infractions on one hand while taxing Americans enormous sums to allow the worst-of-the-worst "blood in blood out" murderers to stay in control of what is supposed to be a system of reform.
Both problems need to be adequately reformed in my opinion.
It shouldn't cost taxpayers $5 million dollars to get a death penalty conviction every time someone walks into a convenience store and murders the clerk for $50.00 as happened in this case: Death penalty rarely means case closed - Los Angeles Times
There's something very wrong with our system of justice when taxpayers are victimized to the tune of millions and millions of dollars (whether life in prison or they get the death penalty) every single time someone decides to murder another person in our country.
We are literally allowing the worst criminals in our society to become "gypsy millionaires" at our expense as enormous amounts of money that could be spent on education, our economy, our natural wildlife, etc... are taken by force from a law abiding population to pay for their trials, incarceration, etc...
But even at the present ridiculously high cost of prosecuting murderers (in both death penalty cases and life sentence cases), if they would actually carry out the execution in a timely manner after convicting someone for murder, the cost would be less than incarcerating them.
But here's what's not talked about much: when you aggregate the enormous indirect costs of allowing these murderers to impact the rest of our nation's prison population, our nation's streetgangs and criminal associates, our nation's at-risk population, etc... as "lifers" heading up their race's respective "blood in blood out" prison gangs: the costs for not executing them literally skyrocket.
I argue that our system of justice is in need of reform.
On the one hand we are literally extorting enormous amounts of money to care for the worst of the worst while they negatively affect our entire society after conviction (death penalty conviction or life in prison).
On the other hand, we continue to aggressively punish everyday Americans with ridiculously high fines for even the slightest infractions which often are really just a matter of interpretation of one's liberty.
Where I live, if you pull into a handicap spot for two seconds to turn your car around in a crowded parking lot: the fine is over $1,500.00 by the time all the excises and fees are added up. Here's an article on the sprawling expansion of the prison-judicial complex over the lives of everyday Americans today: Rough justice in America: Too many laws, too many prisoners | The Economist
We lock up too many people unnecessarily and fine everyday law abiding Americans enormous amounts of money for the slightest infractions on one hand while taxing Americans enormous sums to allow the worst-of-the-worst "blood in blood out" murderers to stay in control of what is supposed to be a system of reform.
Both problems need to be adequately reformed in my opinion.
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I dont have a problem with convicted people being sentenced to death for certain crimes, but they need a reasonable number of appeals,not the chance to drag it out over and over, there have been a number of innocent people condemned to death and later proven to be innocent, if there is no doubt of a persons guilt, caught in the act of a murder,rape,etc, then they should get fewer appeals, there's a difference between reasonable guilt and absolute guilt
M
I am not from the USA and we don't have the death penalty in the UK. But I can see why people feel very strongly both for and against the issue.
Can I put something to you to maybe open up a different perspective, if you want to chew my ear off that's ok.
There are several possible scenerious with the most simple being as follows:-
An unsaved person, committing a crime against an unsaved person, who is convicted by an unsaved person and then put to death by an unsaved person.
What are your thoughts on the above sceneria.
Or to make it more complicated would your thoughts change if any of the persons above were saved.
For example if the person carrying out the excution was a child of God, or if the prisoner became a child of God, or any of the others along the chain of events.
I was just curious as I believe this emotive issue has many variables and just wanted to put a christian element into the picture.
Personally if I was a victim of some terrible crime that warrented the death sentence - if I died then I would be with God and it would not matter any more to me. If I lived, then I would hope that I could ovecome whatever had happened, how long that might take etc i dont know. But right now (and I dont know if I would still feel the same if something did happen to me) but right now I am not sure that I would want a person to die on account of me. (Although Jesus did).
I definately could not carry out the sentence to put another person to death - I just couldn't.
But maybe that just means I would make a terrible judge and executioner.
Can I put something to you to maybe open up a different perspective, if you want to chew my ear off that's ok.
There are several possible scenerious with the most simple being as follows:-
An unsaved person, committing a crime against an unsaved person, who is convicted by an unsaved person and then put to death by an unsaved person.
What are your thoughts on the above sceneria.
Or to make it more complicated would your thoughts change if any of the persons above were saved.
For example if the person carrying out the excution was a child of God, or if the prisoner became a child of God, or any of the others along the chain of events.
I was just curious as I believe this emotive issue has many variables and just wanted to put a christian element into the picture.
Personally if I was a victim of some terrible crime that warrented the death sentence - if I died then I would be with God and it would not matter any more to me. If I lived, then I would hope that I could ovecome whatever had happened, how long that might take etc i dont know. But right now (and I dont know if I would still feel the same if something did happen to me) but right now I am not sure that I would want a person to die on account of me. (Although Jesus did).
I definately could not carry out the sentence to put another person to death - I just couldn't.
But maybe that just means I would make a terrible judge and executioner.
A
I can forgive a murderer, love a murderer, witness to a murderer, lead a murderer to Christ, and support the exectuion of murderers in my government's criminal justice system all simultaneously.
What I cannot do, in good conscience, is allow murderers to continue murdering directly with their own hands or indirectly through the criminal networks they control. For to do that, turns me into an enabler of murder. I become indirectly guilty of the blood of those murdered by enabling murderers to continue murdering.
The most loving thing you can do is to stop murder. There is no dichotomy between the Christian worldview and support for the death penalty in the case of murder.
Gods Criminal Justice System, Bob Enyart
What I cannot do, in good conscience, is allow murderers to continue murdering directly with their own hands or indirectly through the criminal networks they control. For to do that, turns me into an enabler of murder. I become indirectly guilty of the blood of those murdered by enabling murderers to continue murdering.
The most loving thing you can do is to stop murder. There is no dichotomy between the Christian worldview and support for the death penalty in the case of murder.
Gods Criminal Justice System, Bob Enyart
I think JESUS would have mercy in the spiritual,but in the fleshy way of thinking,we have laws that must be obeyed,and if the people vote for the death penalty,then you have to pay if you are tried and found guilty.
Romans 13:7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.
Romans 13:7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour.