Okay … let’s see … where do I want to begin …

I agree with your point regarding murderers and fear of death. Causing another person’s death is not quite the same as being faced with your own. I’m sure that Alex is right - there are some people who don’t fear death, but classically, our humanity endows us with a will to live, and I would surmise that the fellow who laughs in the face of his own death, murderer or not, would be a rare individual.

And at this point, we are both unsure of the proper stance to take. In one case, we have God saying “Thou shall not kill.” Then, in the other case, we look at the “holy wars.”

About the “holy wars.” *sigh* Eric, there are a lot of arguments on both sides of that issue. This is my view: in the Old Testament, God had the Israelites murdering entire cities - men, women, children … down to their slaves, animals … etc. This was done to preserve the Hebrew race - unsullied by “contamination” through exposure to idolatry, human sacrifice, and so on.

In the New Testament, we were told: “You have heard that it was said,’You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:43-45)

So, the old law was obviated by the new. I don’t believe that we’re wrong to defend ourselves - or to defend others. I also don’t believe we’re wrong to liberate ourselves or others. Aggression is another story … and so is unnecessary cruelty during war. You need to intensively research the “Holy Wars,” and draw your own conclusions. I think you’ll discover that there were some heroic and holy moments - and some …. that were not. When you look at the entire picture, you’ll have to weigh the balance of what you discover in order to have a sense of how “Holy” the wars were …

Also, I’m still having a difficult time understanding this logic:

… if one is caught DURING the unjust act, killing is acceptable so as to prevent a crime. But if one is caught AFTER the act, one should rather be imprisoned…

That’s one I have a bit less trouble with than the “Holy Wars” … during the fact, there’s a victim who can be saved. That doesn’t mean you should just kill the perpetrator as a matter of course, but solely if that’s your only option - and if it is, then you’re justified. The idea is to save the innocent person, even if it means taking the life of the perpetrator. Of course, you should always strive to not take a life …

Once the crime has been committed … it’s too late to save the victim. At that point, it becomes mere revenge to kill the perpetrator. The only purpose served would be to discourage others from following the same path … and I question how effective that is. Very few people commit a crime with the thought that they’re going to get caught, after all. To my mind, killing the perpetrator after the fact is a bit like closing the barn door after the horses escape … pointless.

If someone were to break into your home, and try to kidnap one of your siblings, you would want to do everything you could to prevent the person from taking him or her …

If, however, you didn’t catch the kidnapper in the act … and he got away with it, and was caught later - you may want to do something awful to him, but if you did, it would still be too late for your sibling, and whatever harm you caused to the kidnapper would be revenge. Beating him up, killing him, won’t prevent what was done in the past.

The kidnapper should be removed from society because he’s a danger … that serves two purposes: protects the innocent from sociopaths, and also gives the prisoner ample time to appreciate why he is where he is, and the damage he’s done to other people. If you speak to those in prison ministries, you’d be surprised to learn how many seemingly hardened criminals undo these sort of changes in time … and spend the rest of thief lives preaching to and counseling other prisoners.

Phew! Sorry this is so long! Thanks for the opportunity to share in this discussion!

Let me quickly clarify that when I said this…

I was arguing that if your options are either killing them or putting them in jail for life, you aren’t really concerned with punishing them in the sense of temporal correction.

…I was only addressing Alex’s argument. He seemed only to be concerned with punishing. I do realize that the point of all of this is to secure the common populace. My point was more of a question: “Okay, so you want to punish these people… why?”

In fact, Alex and I were just discussing this very fact moments ago, and we discovered that if salvation of convicts was not an issue, the question becomes one of a human’s right to kill. And at this point, we are both unsure of the proper stance to take. In one case, we have God saying “Thou shall not kill.” Then, in the other case, we look at the “holy wars.”

There seems already to be some inherent gray areas, so it is difficult to draw a distinct line.

Also, I’m still having a difficult time understanding this logic:

… if one is caught DURING the unjust act, killing is acceptable so as to prevent a crime. But if one is caught AFTER the act, one should rather be imprisoned…

As for my thoughts on some of the other inter-related issues:

I cannot find any syllogistic logic in saying that insofar as someone is a murderer, he or she does not have an innate fear of death. To me this is like saying that because you are a fireman, you are not afraid of your own house catching fire. Or to put it more malicious way, on the simple fact that you are a computer hacker, you are not afraid of someone hacking into your own computer.

But moof already addressed this issue by saying that “everyone is an individual.” I agree, so I will not press the matter.

I guess that’s it for now.

First of all, our “lie detector” tests are not accurate, and can only bring back a broad profile of what the person being interrogated was feeling. They’re so innacurate, that the results are not admissible in court in most states.

Consider a case in point: an elderly friend of mine was accused of doing something really reprehensible to a little girl. Now, before I continue, I want to tell you that I was there at the time it was supposed to have happened … and it didn’t. I was not the only person there, either. So, my friend had staunch eye-witnesses to stand up for him, and he also passed a lie detector test with flying colors.

His lawyer told all of us before the trial to be very careful to only answer what we were asked while the on the stand, or things could go much worse for our friend. We did as we were told.

The jury never heard any of us say that we were all there when it was supposed to have happened … they never heard that he passed a lie detector test … they never heard anything in his favor.

This very kind man, who did nothing but church work with his elderly, was sentenced to prison - because the jury was never allowed to hear all of the truth.

What if his alleged crime had been a capital offense? It happens. I do not believe in our death penalty, because I do not believe that our legal system is just. I’ve seen its corruption over and over, and I have no faith in it whatsoever.

That said … I want to compare your argument against Alex’s … you said:

Would not the immediate horror of death influence one to find the faith sooner than a likely wicked life in captivity?

And Alex said:

[…] most murderers not having an innate fear of death, thus, you aren’t really punishing them by killing them.

Conflict of ideas there …

Actually, I believe it might hit somewhere between what you’re saying and what Alex said … because people are individuals. One fellow may react to imminent death with repentance, and another with a more “devil-may-care” attitude.

All religion aside though - short of putting a dangerous person permanently out of commission (imagine here some fellow with ESP who can smite entire cities in their sleep! ;o) - we are not going to teach anyone anything positive by murdering murderers. We descend to their level, is all, and we do so as a people. We should harness the man-power from behind the high walls and machine gun turrets to do/make/create/whatever is difficult or unpopular as work on the free side of the wall, and let them 1) spend the rest of their natular lives thinking about why they’re locked away … or 2) have time, if truly innocent, to find a way through friends on the outside, to clear their names and regain their freedom.

I was arguing that if your options are either killing them or putting them in jail for life, you aren’t really concerned with punishing them in the sense of temporal correction.

Eric, I think it’s as much about the protection of society as it is about “punishment.” Punishment is paying a fine … being forced to take a hard look at what you’re dong is when they force you to do “community service” … and putting someone away for life is protecting the world from sociopaths.

[Quick Edit]  I took out what I had here before because it was rather off-topic, and I was mostly just admitting ignorance of certain subjects without really adding anything to the conversation. So, it’s gone! Poof! Just like that! 

In its stead, I would like to comment on the point moof explained about the guilty (or questionably guilty, as it were) finding some kind of salvation before their deaths. I’ve thought about this, but I probably wistfully dismissed it as unconvincingly religious. I seem to have a problem with using matters of faith in argument, because you can never persuade anyone outside of your religion to your way of thinking. However, now that I think about it more, I see how good that argument is to anyone with a sense of religious conviction. To put the case in my own understanding: the longer a convict is allowed to live, the greater chance he or she has or reconciliation. To practice capital punishment is to strip the guilty of all hope of moral revelation. 

My argument against this is as follows: Would not the immediate horror of death influence one to find the faith sooner than a likely wicked life in captivity? 

This was the case with my uncle, an extremely morally corrupt man. He was diagnosed with cancer in May about four years ago and, having been given only months to live, quickly immersed himself in Catholicism. In August of that year he died, and all the faithful of his family believe him to be in heaven. My grandmother was obviously saddened by the event, but it was a bittersweet sadness. She relented that if he had somehow been cured, he would have gone right back to his old, corrupt way of life. The way I see it, the looming presence of death would convert one more quickly than any other means.   

I believe that Alex was not arguing that the guilty might find salvation in prison, but that, in a rather paradoxical sort of way, a life sentence would be more of a punishment to the guilty than death. I believe he said something about most murderers not having an innate fear of death, thus, you aren’t really punishing them by killing them. 

I was arguing that if your options are either killing them or putting them in jail for life, you aren’t really concerned with punishing them in the sense of temporal correction.

In my mind, the death penalty, although it does deal with life/death, is a completely different issue than abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, etc.

My own opinion is rather well explained by Alex in the post. Time - perhaps to find some sort of “salvation.”

However, there’s a bit more to it than that. Over the last several decades, I’ve been given ample reasons to not trust our judicial system. Our legal courts are not set up to prove the innocence or guilt of an individual - but as a competition that often leaves the guilty party free - or the innocent part trapped in the deceit of others.

When lawyers stop fighting to win a case, and start fighting for the truth, I will begin to put more trust in the system that sends some of our citizens to the ultimate punishment of the “death penalty.”

That said - I still don’t believe that, in this day and age, there’s a good excuse for a death penalty.

I’m going back to the idea of “it’s always easier the first time.”

First we harden ourselves toward taking the life of a “blob of tissue” … for the sake of the “life of the mother”, of course. We try to forget that the “blob of tissue” is a genetically unique individual.

Next, we need to define “life of the mother” … does that include her being so upset and depressed over being pregnant that she wants to suicide? And we harden ourselves a little more, with the new criterion.

It’s even easier to continue from that point to “quality of life.” Slippery slope there - that path leads straight into the eugenics maze. “This baby is going to be blind, or deaf, or have a heart condition.” ( … So are a lot of people who still manage to enjoy their lives … )

From quality of life - it’s just a hop into “we won’t have the quality of life we want if we have a child now. We want to have our mortgage paid off first.” Ayuh … quality of life suddenly grows to include “convenience.” Now we’re really into it …

Without a lot of brain-busting, we can see how this growing miasma of fuzzy excuses for taking the lives of those who are the most helpless among us (plainly put: those who are inconvenient and costly) can grow to include the elderly, the mentally retarded, the Terri Shiavo’s, and who knows, eventually, even those with a chronic illness, or who are unproductive … who draws the line?

Those who are discerning can see where I’m going - agree or not. It only gets easier - the definitions only get broader, and from medical necessity, we move all the way over to convenience.

The really scary part is that so many people can’t see - or won’t admit that they see - what’s happening.