how dare you quote from the world best selling fiction book

Well, take it straight from the 10 commandments. "Thou shalt not kill." That pretty much sums it up. No matter if they committed a heinous crime or not, it's vengeful punishment and IS murder.

John 8:7 = The adulteress was about to be stoned, Jesus said to them "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.". Who are we to take a life when we've all done something wrong in our lives? I'm not saying give the creep a chance...but life behind bars NO parole would be a fine deterrant.

Personally, yes, I did take some satisfaction when I watched the news of Tim McVeigh's execution. I really did think he deserved to die. But just because I FELT that way, doesn't mean that it was the right action. The heart, weather you're religioius or not, is decietful.

And please don't go playing the "but my transgressions aren't murder!" because that's been obliterated, if you put any credibility into The Bible as I do. All sins are equal in magnitude.

Secularism also means not only to keep politics and religion two separate things, but to keep religion and legislation separate, too. Refering to the Bible is not better or worse than having the Sharia, which also rejects to keep politics, legislative and religion separate, and sees itself as motivation for and guardian of the right way of believing.

So the Bible hopefully is not seriously the basis of western law. and in fact, it isn't.

If the laws are better off with or without religious references is not the issue. Secularism is a decision of principle. You can't switch it on and off according to your opportunistic needs in a given situation. You either follow secularism, then you do it in totality, or you don'T follow it at all. Else, legislation turns into arbitrariness - not good.

It's right!

None of you will change my mind!

Death penalty rules!

I agree with you entirely. But listen...is killing someone a wrong thing to do? Religious or not, people generally agree that murderers suck. How is capital punishment different?

Is it wrong for a police officer to shoot someone in the line of duty? Is killing to protect someone directly better or worse than killing someone to prevent the possiblity of them murdering again? I agree that one of the best arguments against the death penalty is the chance that the person being executed might not be the guilty party, but in a case where there is no longer any doubt I'm all for it. I was glad to see Ted Bundy go.

Police firing in the line of duty is a totally different subject. If an officer is in a position where the suspect has pulled a gun on him, he is completely entitled to defend himself in any way, shape, or form...just as you and I are entitled to if someone broke into our house.

As for "keeping killers off the streets". The justice system needs to take a more literal understanding of the term "Life without parole".

As I often have argued, "death penalty" is a contradiction in itself. In modern law, where it is not about revenge (at least it should not be about revenge), a penalty is a measurement by which the behavior and acting of an offender should be sanctioned, hoping that by suffering from that "aversive stimulus" he will not do it again. If you kill the offender, he cannot chnage his behavior, nor experience an aversive stimulus - for that it is a precondition that he survives the procedure. So rejecting someone freedom, or force him to suffer material losses or physical pain, are penalty. Executing him is not.

I am not naive, death and dying is a fact of live, and so is that sometimes man kills man. I could imagine to kill offenders under very strict and serious conditions, not as a penalty, but as a preventive measure - if their threat potential is extremely high, far-leading and wide-spread. This does not include simple murder, but describes for example Mafia bosses, or leading minds behind drug and weapons smuggle, other extreme categories can be imagined.

So i want to see death "peantly" being removed from the set of standard penalties, and being understood as a tool of prevention against major damage for considerable parts of society, done by major figures of international crime and terrorism, whose impriosnment would not stop them to still control their business from inside the prison or who could become the motivation for kidnapping, murder, fighting in general by their criminal buddies in order to blackmail the state to release the prisoner in question.

This is a general description only, of course, and needs further specification. But you get my general idea.

What also speaks against death penalty, as discussed in this thread earlier or in one or two other threads on this issue, months ago, is simple statistics. A link between lower crime rates and death penalty has still not been proven, and statistics tell us of the unacceptably high error rates and many flaws and misjudgements concerning court sentences and proceedings resulting in death penalties. Everybody easily ignoring this must ask himself if he/she really seeks just penalty, or is more about bloodthirsty hunger for revenge and the thrilling kick of a sensation when watching people getting executed. when watching audiences outside US prisons applauding and celebrating when an execution order has been completed inside, I only think of such people as "Primitives." They have my utmost disgust and contempt, even more so if they wave christian slogans or ther Bible.

I'm not with the churches or any other religious groups, so religious texts of whatever an origin are not the kind of argument that will make me rethink my position.

Death as a penalty: nol, it is an illogical conception. Death as prevention against ongoing major crimes of excessively high scale and "quality": if the "whens" and "ifs" are adequately and precisely described, I can imagine it, and rate it as somethingmlike collective self-defense of society and state.

Two examples:

Would I execute the serial killer who raped and killed nine girls and mutilated and ate their bodies over the past 14 years? - No. It's life-long prison.

Would I execute the Mafia boss or the chief of a cartel who from inside prison would continue to conduct his business of drug smuggling, girl trading, selling military goods to unappropriate customers, or the religious fanatic leader whose followers are violant enough by his teachings that they would commit kidnappings and murders to blackmail his release? - Without hesitation, without regret.

I see. But please don't think that all Christians in America are "primitives" as you say.
There are many of us who are educated people arguing in opposition to such barbaric acts as 'cheering when a death sentance is carried out' as you say.

I haven't indicated that. I refered precisely to a specific audience, as described: those chanting and celebrating.

Well... it ain't really cheering when a criminal is executed... it's kinda like...

Its about freakin' time!!!!!

From the King James Version bible translation:

Daniel 9:4 And I prayed unto the LORD my G-d, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful G-d, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; (KJV)

Nehemiah 1:5 And said, I beseech thee, O LORD G-d of heaven, the great and terrible G-d, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments: (KJV)

1 Chronicles 16:13 O ye seed of Israel his servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen ones. [14] He is the LORD our G-d; his judgments are in all the earth. [15] Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations; [16] Even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac; [17] And hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant. (KJV)

Isaiah 24:5 The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. (KJV)

More on Christianity's new covenant wishful thinking.

:huh:

Killing someone for something he has not done yet, but which you think he will do or not stop doing ... :hmm:

No. What you quoted refers to someone who has already been found guilty of a capital crime. Hence the quote refers to them as "inside the prison."

If I understood correctly, he is in prison for what he has done yet, but Skybird suggest we kill him because he will not stop doing the same again, either directly when released or ordering it from inside the prison.

So we kill him because, based on what he did, we conclude that he will keep doing so. And thus we kill him for something not yet done.:hmm: