View Single Post
Old 05-23-2005, 03:25 AM   #65 (permalink)
tiberry
Insane
 
tiberry's Avatar
 
Location: Location, Location!
Is this really so complicated an argument?

1. Society in general holds that "killing is wrong". Can we all agree on that? Seems a bit ironic that this is both the rationale for and against the death penalty! Also note that this is a prerequisite to administering the death penalty; that the perpetrator know (or more accurately accept society's opinion) that killing is wrong.

2. Assuming 1 is true, then the death penalty can be looked to as serving one or two broad purposes:

A. As a deterrent by threatening to take the life of someone who kills indiscriminately; based on the assumption that the perpetrator must value his life and therefore the fear of loosing it (if caught) outweighs the desire to kill.

B. Provides for "just punishment" and retribution of said crime committed. This could be both vengeful and also serve as a social purification process - i.e. if society holds that killing is wrong, then eliminating those who do not accept this maintains order and discipline.

The problem of course is accepting the judgment of society as authoritative in carrying out the sentence of death. It becomes nearly impossible (and distasteful) to accept this responsibility, therefore we (society) revert to religion for an answer; seeking out a divine arbitrator to decide for us so we don't have to.

It's logically quite simple, I'd think. Removing religion from the equation you're forced to rely on society's determination that "killing is wrong" and should not have any issue accepting society's means to enforcing the rule. There are countless other "wrong" things mentioned in Christianity, which seems to be the general focus of the thread - yet none of these seem to be nearly as debated as the death penalty. I've yet to see a thread about the legal ramifications of not "Honoring thy Mother and Father"...it’s this dichotomy of enforcing religious rules that to me, renders the religious factor nearly invalid – merely an attempt to escape accepting responsibility as a society.

Consider this: A person who admittedly kills indiscriminately, professing that they know full well that society holds that this is "wrong". In other words, this person is mentally capable of accepting social norms and otherwise belonging to our society, but actively chooses not to.

At this point we (society) have one of two broad choices to make. They are:

1. Ignore this person and allow them to kill indiscriminately at will.

2. Remove them from society.

No one seems to have an issue with choosing number 2, yet it's number 2 that causes so much confusion. Here we have two more broad choices:

1. Lock the person up indefinitely, thereby effectively removing them from society until they fully accept the social norm that "killing is wrong". By the way, we'll pay lots of money for this...

2. Kill them and be done with it.

If you accept that this decision is ultimately based on the enforcement of a social (not religious) rule and is intended to serve for the betterment of society in general, then I’d say that the choice is clear.

You decide.
__________________
My life's work is to bridge the gap between that which is perceived by the mind and that which is quantifiable by words and numbers.

Last edited by tiberry; 05-23-2005 at 03:29 AM..
tiberry is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360