Originally Posted by Dogstar
I am not saying that Jesus wants people to kill or burn goverment buildings down because that '' goverment '' imposses a law that goes against God's or their personal beleives. That would be a sin in its self. If a government requires someone to sin, then the person should refuse even if it cause them to be punished...even unto death.
I may be not understanding you, but this is an example of what I think your saying.... If a goverment makes a law that must be followed, and those that refuse will be put to death and other citizens are randomly selected to kill them, and if a Christian is selected for this task, then YOU are saying that Jesus is saying to go ahead and do it because it the goverment that wants you to even though God does not....? ?
other citizens are NOT randomly selected to kill them. an executioner's position works a little different than jury duty. so if a Christian decides to be an executioner then obviously their take on the whole issue will be swayed more towards my outlook. whatever the case, i don't think that they will be judged as sinners as their duty is a civic duty the moment they are employed by the government.
Originally Posted by Dogstar
I have also stated and feel its clear that I am against the death penalty and HAVE stated in several earlier post several time as to why. Mainly as I said first, because of my faith.
Also I HAVE addressed, not you directly, but your general thought that the death penalty is a deterant to murder. I dont know if you read those post, must not have, but they are there.....
I have said that I dont think it is....As a citizen, without useing religon as a reason, this is the only way one can look at it, to justify it. Theres no way to know if it truely does reduce them, IMO, because of reasons I also said in those earlier post. Compareing states or countries with and without one and the numbers of murders in them, just dont really make the argument one way or the other.
IMO, if the numbers did justify it, then I could understand that, still not agree, but understand your position, you may think they do and thats fine. But the other reason that I would understand more, would be for revenge, as justice for the family and victims.....We use both reasons in America for haveing it, as a prevention and also revenge/justice for the family and victims......as far as torture, your not alone there either, again, teterent or revenge....I am not opposed to putting people in prison, although I feel there are innocent ones there, I will state that prison can be considered torture on its own, I know you mean something worse, and many people for the same reasons will agree with you on that too.
regarding the numbers you pointed out, people have already posted other statistics that directly disagree with yours. so i would think that common sense states that the harsher the penalty, the less offenders. and, sure, there would be (and are today) some innocent people caught in the mix. nothing can prevent this and we all know that. if you wanna make an omlette then yer gonna have to break some eggs.
