It's called reaping and sowing. You reap what you sow. Cause and effect.
That's not quite right. You're comparing the DP to something like a natural consequence -- cause and effect. There is nothing natural about the DP and nothing that suggests we are compelled to execute people for crimes we deem worthy of death.
If you kill others, others can kill you.
What makes this justifiable and who gets to draw the lines? Can soldiers or police officers be held to account for their killings? Why is it ok to kill in one setting or profession but not others?
Consider an executioner who unknowingly puts to death an innocent person. Are we now justified in killing that executioner? After all, he killed an innocent person. Should they not pay for their crime?
What you are looking for is forgiveness.
Not at all. I want to live in a society that doesn't think killing more people is a solution to people killing each other. It's not. It's only revenge we are satisfying.
Oh, and there is. Forgiveness takes the form of Jesus Christ. This will totally transform a person so they will not want to kill anymore and they can be forgiven of their sin of murder.
Are you saying Christians cannot sin once they've accepted Christ? I don't buy that.
I see no problem in a person facing the same end that they have caused if they are not willing to repent or change before God.
What if they do repent? Should they still face execution?
If they do evil, and they always want to remain that way, then they should be put to an end so as not to cause harm to others. So as to promote a place of peace. In the end, evil will not exist.
Well then... If that's the case, nothing we do now will really matter in the end. The good and faithful will have their rewards regardless of what they suffer and the wicked will be disposed of. That's God's plan, isn't it?
The wicked will not be tortured alive in flames for all eternity. God will destroy all those who do evil so that those who have believed in Jesus and have done good will remain. So that peace, goodness, and order will only remain. Those who have chosen God and His good ways will live forever. So why would you want evil hanging around? It would just cause more heart ache and chaos.
That's a really nice sounding idea but it doesn't really apply to world we are currently living in. In this world there is evil and there are consequences for it but we can't just take that as an excuse to treat convicts as bad as we want because we feel they deserve it. That includes the punishments we decide on for crimes.
But sometimes they get out and kill more people or they kill the police guard who has a loving family.
But until they do, we can't assume someone is going to do these things. Unfortunately, we have to wait until a crime is committed before we can prosecute someone for it. If only the potential to be evil is needed to put someone to death then we should all be executed just to save time since we all have that potential.
I disagree. Punishment is always an effective deterrent for crime.
How is it effective if the crime has already been committed?
Most everyone knows you get the DP for killing someone yet,
people still murder. Every murderer that commits his crime was not deterred at all by the threat of death, or they wouldn't be murderers. What makes you think it'll work with the next one?
If people knew they could go to jail for 3 months for going over the speed limit, I think more people would stop speeding. If our prison systems included torture, I think more people would stop stealing and murdering others. For who wants to be tortured? That is worse than death many times.
I agree. And if we had these punishments for
all crimes no one would ever break the law at all. Right? Everything would be peaceful so, why don't we just do that?
Could it be that torturing people is wrong, no matter the circumstance? Why don't we feel that way about killing people?
Granted, I am not for torture mind you. I am just saying that bad things can be a deterrent for a person who wants to do something wrong.
But that alone does not make it the right approach to crime prevention. Sure, it's effective. So is cutting off hands for theft. But there's a reason we don't do that and it has a lot to do with the kind of society we'd like to be.
For if a person knows that they can get eaten by sharks by swimming in a pool of sharks with chum in it, then why would they want to do that? Bad things happening to a person can be a very effective deterrent. Don't touch that hot stove. It will burn you, etc. Cause and effect. You do bad things, then bad things will come upon you.
Again, you are comparing a totally unnatural consequence (the DP for X crime) with a natural cause and effect (burning yourself on a hot stove). These two things are not comparable. I get the point you're making that murders should be punished harshly and let me be clear that I am not suggesting we let them go free. But the punishment of death for a crime is not a natural consequence. That is something we literally made up because it made sense to early, more barbaric societies. There's nothing that suggests the proper punishment for murder has to be yet another, state sanctioned murder.
