Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Mephisto
Well, it patently is not! Otherwise they would not be executing so many people.
|
China executes so many people because damn near everything carries the death penalty over there. Considering how minor many of the offenses are (in our eyes), and how large China's population is, the numbers are actually very small. Think about the numbers of people who sell drugs (they include nicotine too I think) or make porn in western world. That's a lot more than a few thousand/year. I'm certainly not advocating following China's example though!
Quote:
Well, nor am I but most Western cultures are based upon Judeo-Christian values. Heck, your President himself is a born again Christian. More apparent hypocracy.
|
Well, my understanding of Judeo-Christian values is that it is ok to kill in self-defense or as punishment for extreme sins. At least the old testament is like that. In fact, it gets pretty brutal in parts. Then Jesus came along and said to forgive everybody. I've hardly ever met anybody who truly follows this though. People always make exceptions, and everyone's ideas on what's acceptable and what isn't differ quite a bit (as you're seeing in this thread).
By the way, I was agreeing with you that the death penalty sometimes kills innocent people. That is certainly the main issue involved in these arguments.