Religious Ones: Why do you support the death penalty?

Well I'm a Roman Catholic Christian and here are my reasons for not supporting the death penalty!

I don't believe in the death penalty, period!

It is not justice, it is revenge!

I have had someone close to me and my family that was murdered, but that didn't change the way I feel or think about the death penalty! The person who murdered my family friend was given the death penalty. My friends family as well as my own family have agreed to help with this persons appeal for Life with out Parole when the appeal comes up. I know that might be hard for you and anyone reading this to understand, but we believe that only God should decide when a person dies!

I have been writing to prisoners for over 12 years now as part of a Lay Ministry at my church and once you get to know some of them the way I have you just can't think of them as just "that evil monster" who committed such and such crime! Even if the crime was murder! Do I think that a murderer should ever be released because they have become a "Christian, or some other religious faith person?" The answer to that is NO! You do the crime you do the time, period!

I just moved to the State of Wisconsin this year and this State doesn't have the death penalty, thank GOD!

I lived most of my life in the State of Illinois, which does have the death penalty and has lethal injection as the means of murdering the murderer! Yes, I did say "murdering the murderer, not executing the murderer!"

Look how many people have been released from death row in the past 10 to 15 years because DNA proved they were not guilty! How many more might be proved not guilty as DNA testing gets better as time goes on?

It costs taxpayers MUCH more to execute someone than to imprison them for life and It is not a deterrent - violent crime rates are HIGHER in death penalty jurisdictions like the States of Illinois and Texas! Also there are many cases that prove that it is inconsistently and arbitrarily applied!

What most people don't know or seem to care about here is how many executions here in the States have gone wrong and the condemned man/woman died horribly!

There was an electrocution in the State of Florida back in 1999 where the man being executed had his nose broken before the electrocution even started because the guard put the leather strap that holds the persons head in place in the wrong spot and the man could not breathe! When the electricity was finally turned on, the man, who suffered from high blood pressure, had blood explode out of his nose and a large pool of blood formed on the front of the mans white shirt! The judge who sentenced him to death found out and had the pictures the prison staff took of the man just after the execution posted on the web and has now become an anti-death penalty judge!

There was an electrocution a few years before that in the State of Texas where the man being executed had his head burst into flame because the cone on his head had a faulty wire!

For those who think that lethal injections are "easy and humane" on the condemned person you should do a little research on the lethal injections that have gone wrong not only in the United States, but in other countries as well!

Those are just some of over 60 cases I have researched on mistakes made during executions here in the United States that have caused the condemned to suffer horrible and very cruel deaths!

I will never understand how any country that calls itself civilized can pass laws saying that murder is wrong, and it is, and then go and do the same thing to a person they convict of murdering someone!

In case you or anyone reading this doesn't know, when a person in the United States is executed, the coroner by law has to list the persons death as a homicide! Which the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

states is = NOUN:

The killing of one person by another.

A person who kills another person.

Which in this country is a class X felony, and can get the murderer the death penalty in most states, but you don't here about the executioners being arrested and tried for murder, do you?

Life without parole is on the books in most states now, and it means what it says. People who get this sentence are taken off the streets for good. I have written to three prisoners who are existing in prison under this sentence, notice I didn't say "living!" They all said the same thing about their sentence, they are glad they didn't get the death sentence at first, but after 10 + years behind bars in a cell 8' X 6' and the memory of why they are there they wondered if dieing wouldn't have been easier? They all get to appeal their sentence, just like a death row inmate, but all have been turned down now once, and one twice! That is justice in my opinion!

God Bless and Peace!

Source(s):

The 12 + years of research on the death penalty that I'm doing.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/

Excellent question. Like most topics, you can find Biblical evidence to support either side if you look hard enough. Shakespeare once wrote, “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”

It is true that there are many Bible passages (especially in the OT) that support capital punishment, often for relatively mild offenses:

- Adultery (Leviticus 20:10)

- Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16)

- Breaking the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14 & 15)

- Disobedient children (Exodus 21:15 & 17; Leviticus 20:9)

- Homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13)

- Not being a virgin on your wedding night (but only if you're a woman - Deuteronomy 22:20-21)

Some people cite Romans 13:1-7, which states that all governments are sanctioned by God, and if the government dictates something (like capital punishment), then it is God’s will [one could also use this passage to legitimize abortion]. However, I have YET to see a coherent reconciliation of this passage with governments like Hitler’s Germany, or Stalin’s Russia, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or any of the hundreds of others that were responsible for horrible atrocities throughout history. Governments are run by people, who are – inherently – imperfect. This is why the U.S. has a system of checks and balances, and why our laws are constantly changing (remember, there was a time when slavery was legal, when women couldn’t vote, when there were no child labor laws, etc.). This argument simply does not fly.

The New Testament (starring Jesus) is primarily ANTI-death penalty. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus praises mercy (Matthew 5:7) and REJECTS “an eye for an eye” (Matthew 5:38-39). James 4:12 says that GOD is the only one who can take a life in the name of justice. Romans 12:17-21 guides us not to answer evil with evil, because God will have the final word. In John 8:7, Jesus says, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

There are many, many practical problems with capital punishment (that I won't get into here), but purely from a moral standpoint, it is pretty clear that Jesus did not support it. True CHRISTians shouldn't, either.

Jesus did preach and teach forgiveness on a personal level, but he never abolished personal responsibility.

He said that he didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. The law that he spoke of stated that someone who was found guilty of certain things should be put to death. In a way, our punishment for the original sin in the garden of Eden was the death penalty.

Jesus never condemned the death penalty, in fact, he died by it, as did the two on either side of him. He made some profound statements from the cross and if the death penalty were something that he wanted to speak against, surely he would have done it then, but no, he succumbed to the law of the land and followed it even though there was no reason for him to be crucified.

I am anti-abortion, but you are looking a two very different issues. One where a life is taken from someone, and another where a life is required as payment for taking another.

There are many instances in the Bible where the death penalty was required and never once is it condemned. I can personally forgive you of your act against me, but you still have to pay the penalty, that doesn't change just because you have my forgiveness.

Suppose we are both out having a good time, and you have a little too much to drink and on the way home because you are not in a condition to be driving you wrap the car around a tree, severely injuring both of us. I can instantly forgive you for making the mistake and putting me in that position, but the consequence of the mistake still has to be paid for by both of us. Forgiveness only wipes the slate clean from this point forward, it does nothing to erase the results/payment of the wrong that has already occured.

I'm christian and I don't support the death penalty for several reasons.

I believe you should pay for your crime but don't believe the death penalty is the way because for one I do believe some innocent folks may have died. But I do believe they should be put into hard labor not some place where you got it better than a lot of folks on the outside.Back to crushing rock's boys.Earn their keep and may not have such a return rate.Abortion is taking the life of an innocent child don't see where you can fit that in with manson!

The God Yahweh we worship established the death penalty with His nation as part of The Mosaic Laws. It was to help maintain law and order amongst His people's society. Capital punishment removed the violent individual from society and helped scared the rest into not committing murder through anger and crime. It was mankind who changed Yahweh's death penalty law claiming it was too barbaric for a modern civilized society to use. The result has been a increase in our societies becoming uncivilized. Don't blame God for our ignorance on questioning His motives for the human race.

No. One is Guilty and the opposite Innocent. Most of the American secular media, as good as many progressivist devout experts and left-wing pursuits, are seeking to strike down the laws of the States that bring the dying penalty as punishment for distinct crimes. Catholic doctrine because it was once taught till Vatican II does no longer help this liberal function. On the opposite, it certainly states that the dying penalty is reputable. As a contribution to help the proper function, in these days we convey to the concentration of our Readers one excerpt from St. Augustine and 2 others from St. Thomas protecting capital punishment. ???St. Augustine??? The equal divine authority that forbids the killing of a man or women establishes distinct exceptions, as while God authorizes killing by means of a standard legislation or while He offers an specific fee to an man or woman for a restricted time. The agent who executes the killing does no longer devote murder; he's an software as is the sword with which he cuts. Therefore, it's never opposite to the commandment, 'Thou shalt no longer homicide' to salary struggle at God's bidding, or for the representatives of public authority to place criminals to dying, consistent with the legislation, that's, the desire of essentially the most simply cause. (The City of God, Book a million, bankruptcy 21) ???St. Thomas Aquinas??? It is written: "Wizards thou shalt no longer endure to reside" (Ex. 22:18); and: "In the morning I placed to dying all of the depraved of the land" (Ps. one hundred:eight). … Every facet is directed to the entire, as imperfect to ultimate, wherefore each facet exists clearly for the sake of the entire. For this cause we see that if the well being of the entire human frame needs the excision of a member, given that it grew to become putrid or infectious to the opposite participants, it could be each praiseworthy and healthy to have it reduce away. Now each man or woman character is concerning the whole society as a facet to the entire. Therefore if a person be hazardous and infectious to the group, because of a few sin, it's praiseworthy and healthy that he be killed as a way to preserve the normal well, given that "a bit of leaven corrupteth the entire lump” (a million Cor. five:6). (Summa Theologiae, II, II, q. sixty four, artwork. two) The incontrovertible fact that the evil ones, so long as they reside, can also be corrected from their mistakes does no longer restrict that they could also be justly carried out, for the hazard which threatens from their lifestyle is larger and extra distinct than the well that could be anticipated from their benefit. They even have at that crucial factor of dying the possibility to be transformed to God by way of repentance. And if they're so obstinate that even on the factor of dying their middle does no longer downside from malice, it's viable to make a particularly possible judgment that they could in no way come clear of evil.” (Summa contra gentiles, Book III, bankruptcy 146)

There is no moral reasoning to be had here.

I firmly believe that the bottom line is this: you can not be both Christian AND pro-capital punishment.

Lethal injection is better than dying of cancer or some other painful illness.

It is humane. We put our pets to sleep all the time and they never did anything to deserve it.

Death is not the worst thing in the world, suffering is

For the record, I am AGAINST abortion and to compare the death penalty to abortion is ignorant. They are two entirely different things

I don't.