Executions Can Save Lives

[Francis Drake]

And God's call to have mercy is rejected by the executioner.

There is a complete difference between the need for a public judicial system, and our personal attitude of anger and unforgiveness.
You are taking the teachings of Jesus about man's heart condition, and wrongly applying then to the judicial system

I suspect that like many, you see a big difference between the God of the Old Testament, and the God revealed in Jesus through all his NT teachings.
But a simple reading of countless scriptures will show that in everything Jesus did or said, he revealed in himself, the God of the Old Testament completely unchanged.

Here's a description we would easily attribute to Jesus.-
"......…… merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin… .’”
This of course come from God's description of himself in Exodus 34v6.
And this is the same merciful God who gave Moses the statute Book of Laws for governing a nation, which included the death sentence for all murderers.
Moses judicial Laws will never contradict what Jesus taught, because Jesus was the author of the Law of Moses!

 

[Yarddog]

In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, whether he had been executed or died naturally as scripture shows, the rich man would be in exactly the same place.

But, if he had lived, he had a chance to repent. Since he died naturally, he was stuck. An execution ends the choice and judgment is placed on the executioner.

The executioner doesn't kill the prisoner because he hates him, he does it because of a judicial decision of guilt.[/quote@]
He carries out man's judgment. All involved will have to answer to God for their decision.

 

[The Barbarian]

We still don't have any death penalty advocate willing to tell us how many condemned innocent people would be acceptable, in order to kill murderers. I suspect they just don't want to think about it, feeling that if they don't think about it, it doesn't happen.

You still haven't told us when you stopped beating your wife.

We get it. You don't want to think about it. But it happens whether you think about it or not. Do those innocent people deserve to die?

Now THIS is something I agree with 100%
The threshold for capital cases should definitely be much, much higher than "reasonable doubt"

How much higher? Would 90% be good? Or 95%? Tell us about it.

 

[Francis Drake]

But, if he had lived, he had a chance to repent. Since he died naturally, he was stuck. An execution ends the choice and judgment is placed on the executioner.

You are giving unregenerate men an excuse when Romans1 denies everything you say. Go read it

 

[Yarddog]

You are giving unregenerate men an excuse when Romans1 denies everything you say. Go read it

So you think Paul should not have had the truth revealed to him?

 

[The Barbarian]

Still no death penalty advocate willing to say how many "mistakes" we should accept in order to kill murderers.

 

[Dale]

Executions Can Save Lives

Given that America has 4% of the world's population, but approximately 25% of its prison population, the commonly held assumptions that incarceration and executions act as effective deterrents to crime just don't hold up to scrutiny!

I don't see mass incarceration as the problem. I see crime as the problem.

What is the solution to a high incarceration rate, besides turning criminals free?

All evidence shows that executions do deter crime when they are done within a year or two of the crime. Obviously executions that happen twenty or thirty years after the crime will not deter anything because criminals have a short time horizon. They have trouble seeing consequences even in the near future and they don't see consequences further into the future.

 

[ripple the car]

You missed my point. There is the death penalty in the OT for those who commit murder, but also for many other crimes......does that mean we are called to continue to do it? Do parents have the right to excute their children? If life is sacred, if Jesus died for all, are we to use the state to kill. Espcially since it is usually the poor who die, the rich can afford lawyers that can get them off from meny heinus crimes.


Peace
Mark

Your compassion and kindness is wonderful, Mark, yet NT Scripture also describes judgment through the sword, as it were, as a right given by God to the State.

Romans 13:1-4.

In most cases, simply keeping a man in prison could be enough. But some crimes are truly horrific, and the message needs to be sent to society that some acts will cost you your life. There is no excuse for entering a person's home and forcing yourself on them for hours, before stabbing them to death. That is sad, and horrible.

I am glad you write to prisoners. That's awesome. They are people, too, and need grace. And mercy. But some crimes do, imho, need to be used as an example. And while I understand some Christians' opposition to the death penalty, perhaps in some cases it is wise and merciful, even for the criminal.

 

[The Barbarian]

I don't see mass incarceration as the problem. I see crime as the problem.

What is the solution to a high incarceration rate, besides turning criminals free?

All evidence shows that executions do deter crime when they are done within a year or two of the crime.

The problem is that all evidence shows that states which kill murderers end up with higher homicide rates and this fact is consistent over time:

Obviously executions that happen twenty or thirty years after the crime will not deter anything because criminals have a short time horizon.

There's a problem with that. You know those dozens of condemned, but innocent people in Texas? The only reason they are alive today, is because they managed to play out the appeals system long enough for someone to show they were actually innocent. If we didn't have that years-long system, they'd all be dead.

Is that what you want? How many of them sent to death would be O.K. in order to kill murderers more promptly?

That's not a rhetorical question. I'd like to know what you think.

 

[Mark Dohle]

Your compassion and kindness is wonderful, Mark, yet NT Scripture also describes judgment through the sword, as it were, as a right given by God to the State.

Romans 13:1-4.

In most cases, simply keeping a man in prison could be enough. But some crimes are truly horrific, and the message needs to be sent to society that some acts will cost you your life. There is no excuse for entering a person's home and forcing yourself on them for hours, before stabbing them to death. That is sad, and horrible.

I am glad you write to prisoners. That's awesome. They are people, too, and need grace. And mercy. But some crimes do, imho, need to be used as an example. And while I understand some Christians' opposition to the death penalty, perhaps in some cases it is wise and merciful, even for the criminal.

Thanks for commenting. Yes, if only the guilty were put to death, but more than a few have been put to death, or actually spend decades on death row before they were found innocent. DNA is helping.

Also, most murders are crimes of passion, not premeditated. The state does have the right to execute, but is it really necessary? Also, how often is it really true justice?

Again thanks, my friend.

peace
Mark

 

[The Barbarian]

Still no answers. I believe death penalty advocates wish that they could just make all those innocent people wrongly convicted, go away.

The problem is, most of them likely do.

 

[ripple the car]

Thanks for commenting. Yes, if only the guilty were put to death, but more than a few have been put to death, or actually spend decades on death row before they were found innocent. DNA is helping.

Also, most murders are crimes of passion, not premeditated. The state does have the right to execute, but is it really necessary? Also, how often is it really true justice?

Again thanks, my friend.

peace
Mark

Thank you for dialoging, Mark.

I agree that we should not seek to use the death penalty out of revenge. But there is, arguably, a societal incentive for using the death penalty as an example to society at large, that in the eyes of the State, human life being precious, to commit the kind of act mentioned in the OP, will get you killed. If this deterrs another person who might be thinking about committing an evil act, one has saved a future victim, and a future criminal, from the effects of that crime.

I believe in the past, the death penalty was also meant to help inspire penance and contrition in the condemned, in hopes that they would be more ready to face eternity feeling sorrow for what they had done.

 

[jgarden]

Numbers executed in 2018

At least 21 countries performed executions in 2018

• Africa (5 countries): Botswana (2), Egypt (43+), Somalia (13+), South Sudan (7+), Sudan (2)

• Americas (1 country): United States (25)

• Asia-Pacific (14 countries): Afghanistan (3), China (unknown number), Iran (253+), Iraq (52+), Japan (15), North Korea (?), Pakistan (14+), Saudi Arabia (149+), Singapore (13), Syria (unknown number), Taiwan (1), Thailand (1), Vietnam (85), Yemen (4+)

• Europe (1 country): Belarus (4+)

Capital punishment by country - Wikipedia
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Executions Can Save Lives - given the current nations engaged in state sponsored capital punishment, America finds itself surrounded by a "motley crew" of military dictatorships, Moslem countries practicing Sharia Law and communist states, past or present!

The United States is the only nation with a large Christian population that sanctions capital punishment and the only country in the Americas that conducted an execution in 2018!