christianity and the death penalty

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If the death penalty is so necessary than why do so many Western countries do fine without it?

I had a shirt with this logo and I wore it out. I got lots of positive and a few negative comments on it. I need to find another one.

Wow i have often times wondered about these kind of things but let me say that Christians are supposed to do what the government says because we are supposed to honor those in authority over us. because they wouldn't be there if god didn't want it to happen.

For me, personally, i think killing another human in any way shape or form is murder. However it is popular belief that self defense is ok. this is difficult for me as an aspie to understand. God says don't kill anyone. but then other people say its ok. im not sure whether i am being to literal or they are all wrong and as an aspie i have to be careful.

this is one reason i am not very sure what to believe at this point in my life, and its why i am not sure exactly what i am.
But on the death penalty that is on the shoulders of the person ordering it. I also think that we need less "life time prisoners" as it is very expensive for this country.

"Mercy" doesn't mean "don't punish people for their crimes".

This is an interesting question.

One possible answer is that killing a prison guard should be punishable by death. Of course, if you try to restrict it to killing prison guards, what happens to the guy who escapes from prison without harming a hair on the heads of a guard, and then slaughters 100 people before getting recaptured?

Another interesting angle: people who are already on death row, who are essentially already in this position.

Being slightly facetious you could get a job working in the social work department at Columbia. A prison with no conception of rehabilitation is just a death camp and I can't say I am in favour of death camps.

Last time Texas executed some possibly/probably innocent guy, there was a plethora of Texan politicians on the radio saying that it didn't really matter if he was 'really' guilty or not because he'd been found guilty by a jury and 'justice' had to be done. This was a couple of months ago, IIrc. Given the comments of Christians here, I wonder if I should have specified "Texan Christians," but I think that the attitude is pervasive in the South as a whole. There was a similar case with a guy executed in Georgia not too long ago, as well.

In addition, I've had multiple arguments about the death penalty where the pro-death-penalty side, when confronted with the possibility of executing an innocent person, basically shrugs and says, 'oh, well, it's worth it in order to get justice.' Usually they mean 'justice' for other, actual, murderers, but there's still that idea that killing the wrong person, if done by the 'authority,' isn't really unjust.

There may be more Texan politicians than not that are Christians (or at least claim to be), but that doesn't mean that their views on a political issue are representative of all Christians (or all Texans for that matter).

Punishing people to the point of them dying shows a lack of mercy, though.

That part of the bible isnt that easy. When Nazi germany began the unjust war against Czech republic, there were christian people that denied to serve in the Nazi-army for an unjust war. Priests that were Nazis too, argumented to them with the phrase you mentioned: "Give god what is gods and give the king what is the kings ownage..." or however it is translated in english. But the soul of a person is not the kings ownage, and breaking a major rule, so killing without any need to do so, which is a major sin, is not a kings ownage and is nothing that a king has a right to force you to do so. Taxes and other secular stuff is a kings ownage, the soul and existence of a person isnt. At the start the Nazis executed the people who refused to fight for them because of their christian believes, they hoped they could stop others to decide to refuse the army as well. In the end they gave up and people that refused "only" needed to go to concentrations camp.

From a non christian point of view. The moment you allow a person to die by the hand of another person, you tell people yourself that they are allowed to do so as well, as long as they seek long enough for good excuses on their own. I dont want Anders Breivik, a men who killed nearly a 100 teenagers, killed because of him being an enemy. Because he saw this teenagers as well as his enemies, so if I say it is right to kill him because of him being the enemy, I would justify his doings as well, because out of his view he did the same: He simply killed people he thought to be his enemies.

Murder for murder is not mercy.

I think you can make a good case for it being morally wrong. It could be argued that life is sacred and should never be taken (or only taken with consent), for example.

Isn't it the peculiar Western variation of Christian 'mercy' to baptise people before executing them? Tough luck if they already are Christian though.

Sorry, I could not resist.

1/ All christians will die, thank christ, oops, thank god, oops, well, they all will ide.
2/ All armies have a chaplain, and have god on their side, which means of course that god is quite happy for soldiers to die as he/she supports both/all sides.
3/ The bible says "Thou shalt not kill", but extra-judicial killing (murder), and other methods of government initiated murder without due process are fine.

New one on me. Evidence, please?

Not really. It might if the crime was minor, like stealing bread, but what about a serial killer? For someone who makes a hobby of murdering people in the most horrific ways they can think of, an execution that is not allowed to be "cruel and unusual" is merciful.