Nine months after Kenneth Smith’s botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogen
Nine months after Kenneth Smith’s botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogen
The government shouldn’t be sanctioning killing. Period.
Other than Japan, the US is the only Western country left with this primitive, revenge-based way of looking at crime and punishment. Yet, the US continues to be the most violent country of them all and the murder capital of the Western world.
Usually, when something doesn’t work, we try something else. Time for the US to try something else.
The US is likely more violent due to a combination of corrupt capitalism and lead poisoning.
We do need to try something else, but that something else is in terms of economics, infrastructure, and healthcare, not punishment.
I definitely agree there, especially in healthcare. What an awful mess in the US when you look at how successful other countries are with universal healthcare.
But I will just never accept capital punishment. It’s such an awful way to seek revenge. It’s especially surprising that conservatives love the concept of government power extending to killing its own citizens. And evangelicals who are commanded by Jesus himself to turn the other cheek and seek forgiveness. I know they are backward on many things, but this seems particularly egregious.
See, you are assuming it’s about revenge. No, it is just acknowledging that what is done is so awful, you have to take the consequence to the next level.
And while I get wanting to call out evangelical hypocrisy, the Bible should have nothing to do with policy. Besides, the most famous supposedly anti-death penalty account was likely added years later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_the_woman_taken_in_adultery
Yes, I definitely assume it’s about revenge, because, to most people, it’s about revenge. You might call is “justice.” I call it revenge. It’s an eye for an eye. It’s old testament, and Jesus specifically pointed it out as wrong many times. Not only in the story you mentioned. Yet, here we are.
It is a punishment to fit the crime, as it should be.
When else does Jesus talk specifically about the death penalty? He was talking about getting hit with turn the other cheek. You can’t turn the other cheek when you are dead.
It’s society seeking revenge. The dead don’t care.
The bible talks about not seeking revenge on so many occasions.
One example:
Romans 12:17-21 NIV
Many other examples. Yet, evangelicals are some of the biggest proponents of this type of government-sanctioned revenge.
That isn’t talking about a secular death penalty, which has prescribed under the pentateuch such as at Numbers 35:16-20. Also, Romans is traditionally believed to be written by Paul and is not a gospel account.
But what does it matter? Policy should not be based on the Bible.
You keep going back to the old testament. That’s what Jesus came to rectify.
Paul’s letters are definitely seen as the among the most consequential scriptures. But you’re right, it doesn’t matter. Everyone has their own interpretation anyway.
Also, many of your fellow believers in the death penalty do believe that policy should be based on the bible. Just calling out the hypocrisy.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, my friend
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