Japan Hands Down Death Sentence To A Minor

[bkilbour]

I once watched a video of a child rapist/murderer on trial. He so loved his vice that, when asked why he was fine with beinf hanged (one of the last hangings in Alaska, as of yet), he said that he would, in prison, do everything in his power to assault and kill guards, to escape. When asked what the reason was for that, he said that he would go back to killing kids.
Oh, sure, no repeat offenders.

In Vermont and massachusets, where judges lax on penalties for sex offenders have been giving barely more than community service for many crimes of said nature, repeat offense is at an intolerable high.

Remember David Westerfield? In Southern California, he raped, tortured, and killed a little girl. Though there is a little doubt as to whether he was the only one who was involved (a bit of forensic evidence and an unstable "confession" from another pedophile suggest that multiple people were involved), he still ended up in death row, having done it. The man himself doesn't deny it.
How would you feel if that happened to your daughter, and the unrepentant man who did it goes free afterm say, twenty years; people will tell you, "you know, his life is precious too," but your daugher is still dead. People will tell you, "you know, the death penalty is inhumane," but so was the way your daughter died. And people will tell you that you need to move on... just like the murderer did.

I have found that few, so, so few of the families of victims of these crimes oppose the death penalty. Yet masses of people oppose execution who have never been through anything remotely like that maintain their unsympathetic outlook on it as if these victims never had any feelings.

Sure, it sounds nice and all to say you oppose it on some moral high ground, but put yourself in someone elses shoes, and it will look a lot different.

[Peanut]

Our economic and justice system is so screwed up, man. Everything is intertwined and everything is corrupted. Often times, I can't stand my country.

Could be worse, we could live in a country where government officials have to be bribed if you want them to do anything for you.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I once watched a video of a child rapist/murderer on trial. He so loved his vice that, when asked why he was fine with beinf hanged (one of the last hangings in Alaska, as of yet), he said that he would, in prison, do everything in his power to assault and kill guards, to escape. When asked what the reason was for that, he said that he would go back to killing kids.
Oh, sure, no repeat offenders.

In Vermont and massachusets, where judges lax on penalties for sex offenders have been giving barely more than community service for many crimes of said nature, repeat offense is at an intolerable high.

Remember David Westerfield? In Southern California, he raped, tortured, and killed a little girl. Though there is a little doubt as to whether he was the only one who was involved (a bit of forensic evidence and an unstable "confession" from another pedophile suggest that multiple people were involved), he still ended up in death row, having done it. The man himself doesn't deny it.
How would you feel if that happened to your daughter, and the unrepentant man who did it goes free afterm say, twenty years]lot[/I] different.

bkilbour, I understand where you're coming from. It is no doubt that there are some absolutely cruel people in the world. And deep down, my own carnal instinct is that they deserve the cruelest punishment that man can think of. I know if I had a daughter and someone raped and killed her (and then had absolutely no remorse), I would be infuriated. I'm sure that my whole being will be absolutely filled with pure rage. My carnality would wish that this man die.

But I believe the message of Christ is contrary to this. I don't think Christ preached fairness. He preached to transcend fairness ("You heard it said, an eye for an eye, but I tell unto you to love your enemies"). He wants us to love our enemies. Love which is exemplified by Christ in the gospels.

I don't know about others, but I am going to assume that we do understand the repercussions and consequences of doing our best to maintain this moral ground. Everyone is made in the Image of God, and to bring harm to another is to bring harm to someone whom God loves.

I will say this: I do not believe that the death penalty is wrong on the basis that you are depriving someone of their possible salvation or redemption. I think this line of thinking does not quite parallel the message of Christ. It waters down the power of God's love this concept of "soul-winning". I am against the death penalty because the act itself is not an act of love. If we are to embody love, than we should not wish death upon anyone. Not even the worst offender. It is not what Christ would have done. If we are to go against the carnality of our own flesh, we must be vehemently opposed to the natural instinct of the "an eye for an eye" mentality.

I absolutely agree with you: Repeat offense is intolerable. However, when we are stopping repeat offense with actions such as capital punishment, are we not simply perpetuating repeated offense? We are not to rid the world of people. Instead, we are to rid of the injustices in the world. We are to rid the world of violence and oppression. But how can we get rid of violence in the world if we are using violence? This does not make sense to me.

As natural as it is, I don't want to be an animal. I want to be an embodiment of love.

Could be worse, we could live in a country where government officials have to be bribed if you want them to do anything for you.

I didn't say it was better anywhere else. =p

[Nate]

Oh, sure, no repeat offenders.

Um...and where did I say no repeat offenders? I said that there were few. Few is not the same as none. Also, I was saying that about child molesters/rapists, not murderers.

In Vermont and massachusets, where judges lax on penalties for sex offenders have been giving barely more than community service for many crimes of said nature, repeat offense is at an intolerable high.

I didn't say that lax penalties were good. I just said the death penalty is not warranted. Nowhere did I say "You know, child molesters should just get a slap on the wrist." I just said don't execute them. Please don't put words in my mouth.

How would you feel if that happened to your daughter, and the unrepentant man who did it goes free afterm say, twenty years]
Yep. Guess what? Killing that man wouldn't bring my daughter back from the dead.

People will tell you, "you know, the death penalty is inhumane," but so was the way your daughter died.

Yep. And guess what? Treating him inhumanely wouldn't bring my daughter back from the dead.

Also, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. His doing something terrible does not make it good or right for something terrible to happen to him. Vengeance is the Lord's. And if he repents and becomes a Christian, should I not accept him as a brother? Should I turn him away because he is a sinner, like I am? Am I better than him in some way?

What happens when he's been executed and my daughter is still dead? Who do I go after then, hmm? Who do I order to be punished for my continuing pain and suffering? His death won't make me feel better. It won't make my life normal. It won't do anything except take the life of a fellow human being, who may have a wonderful, miraculous conversion like Saul did, and become a man of God who is wise and insightful. That can't ever happen if we just take his life.

I have found that few, so, so few of the families of victims of these crimes oppose the death penalty.

Because they feel the need to exact some form of revenge. They want to see the person "get what they deserve." I say revenge is God's. Not ours. I say if we got what we deserved, ALL OF US would be in Hell. Guess why we're not? Because God is loving and merciful. Are we not called to be like Him? Are we to be any less loving and merciful just because we are human?

I say no.

Yet masses of people oppose execution who have never been through anything remotely like that maintain their unsympathetic outlook on it as if these victims never had any feelings.

I think they do have feelings. I think their feelings are wrong. Feelings can be wrong. Don't believe me? Let's look at God's Word, the Bible. "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure." First half of Jeremiah 17:9. God says the heart, our feelings, are deceitful. It leads us to sin. To evil.

You act like I haven't had a family member killed. My dad was run over by a car. It was an accident. The girl who ran him over didn't mean to. But guess what? My dad died all the same. It doesn't matter how he died. He died. He's dead. He's gone, at least until I get to Heaven.

We could have sued the girl. She was acting negligently. She didn't do what she was supposed to. Didn't check her mirrors. We could have won. And what would we have gotten? Some money? That wouldn't bring dad back. And what would we do to her? Ruin her life, probably. Put her in debt. Chase her out of her home, maybe even.

Death is a terrible thing. But vengeance is wrong. Flat out wrong. It won't bring back the dead. It won't heal psychological scars. It does nothing but provide a temporary relief, until the pain of hurt and loss sets back in. And then there is no target. There is nothing. Frustration. Anger.

If you talk to people who have seen the murderers of their daughters or sons or mothers or fathers executed, you will hear them say almost all the time "Their death didn't make anything better. It didn't take the pain away."

So the only reason to want to kill someone, to execute them if it literally does nothing to help the victims recover, is some feeling of self-righteousness and "holier than thou" superiority. And that...doesn't sound like something God would endorse.

[Cognitive Gear]

How would you feel if that happened to your daughter, and the unrepentant man who did it goes free afterm say, twenty years]lot[/I] different.

There are plenty of cases where the family of the murdered opposed the death sentence, and forgave the murderer.

I had an entire reply typed out here, but I have seen that Nate and Ryan pretty much covered most of the ground I was going to. So I will simply point out:

What better way to show and live the love of Christ than to forgive those that have wronged us more deeply than most people will ever experience?

[bkilbour]

the will of God?
People keep acting as though God has always opposed the death penalty Himself.
The opposite is true, if you read the old testament.
There are many, many laws in the books of Moses that outline just when and how God wanted His people to kill someone.

And remember that God never changes, according to the book of Malachi.
And even Christ said in Matthew that He supports the justice system - even to say that the punishmment imposed upon a murderer was needful, not that people should just forgive him.
Or maybe we ought to look at Romans 13;3-4. Paul uses the word "sword," not life inprisonment.

The "Eye for an eye" law refers to the will of God in which a man hurts a pregnant woman to the point of killing her unborn child. Not simply revenge.

If you honestly want to tell people "but that won't bring them back," then speak of it as to God. "God, killing Herod for his blasphemies was wrong. Couldn't you have just told him off? God, that whole flood thing, You knew better. It didn't take away their sins, did it? Or Jezebel, did you bring back the prophets she killed by feeding her to the dogs? Hell is wrong, God, because it's not showing Your love to people."
Yes, our God is loving, but so many people seem to not have read past that single point in the Bible, and thus I fear that they don't intimately know who God is, or every facet of His being. This includes His harsh, sometimes violent sense of justice, as well as salvation.

[TopazRaven]

I think Nate is right about how giving someone the death penalty would not make the family of a victim feel any better. Besides, don't you think living on and knowing what you did every day while locked away is the better punishment? I've never had a friend or family member who was murdered and hopefully never will. If such a thing happens, yes, I probably would be angry and hateful. I might even want to kill the person myself for awhile, but I'd probably never actually do it. I'm very weak and a coward after all, plus I know murder of anyone is not right. I know personally speaking I myself have certain emotional problems, especially when it comes to the thought of someone I care about being hurt. In the end though, I don't think I would want the other person to really die though, especially if they did get life in prison. Unless I was afraid said person would come back and try to kill me or something. The biggest crime that ever happened to my family was when a man attacked my mother and stole her purse and her car. He bent her arm back so hard he almost broke it and then he sold all her stuff for drugs. He must have sold her credit cards to someone because that same night some people called our house saying they had them and they wanted a money reward for finding them and if we didn't give it to them then they would come and kill us. We still have no idea how they got our number. For awhile there, I hated him. I almost hoped he would be found dead, apparantly he had escaped from a hospital. A drug addict with some kind of cancer I think. I'm also pretty sure he had a mental hanicap, but he was dying any other way. That was a little over two years ago, but I'm not angry anymore. I've forgiven. It could have been so much worse. He could of seriously hurt my mother, he could have killed her. But, he didn't. I don't think he wanted to hurt her, he just wanted her stuff and she tried to fight him so he had no choice but to bend her arm back to get her car keys. He did pretend he had a gun, but he didn't actually have one. In the end though. Yeah. I was angry, I was hateful and if something like that ever happens again I probably will be again. These aren't good feelings to have, I know they certaintly don't make God happy, but in least I know I am capable of forgiving.

[ashfire]

I will tell of one thing that happen this week. A Los Angeles County Fire Captain and a Firefighter Prison Inmate were killed in a traffic accident when their transport vehicle was struck by vehicle driven by a elderly driver. The fire department vehicle rolled over several times throwing members of the unit out of and under the vehicle. A truck with a forklift just happened on the scene and helped raise the unit off of the trapped inmates.
The inmate that was killed was in jail for selling drugs but was given the honor of being a firefighter by being shielded when his body was placed in the morgue vehicle from the public and news media by the firefighters that responded to the scene.
I have heard of in some areas of the country that prison inmates are allowed to work in emergency operations even Emergency Medical Services outside the prison walls.
Now a few of the people may have just been involved in minor crimes and sent to prison.
Some murders maybe placed in confinement and not be part of the regular prison population so they live a different live while there.

[Esoteric]

This is a hard subject and I won't enter the debate and further than this one post, but I do support the death penalty.

This is the age-old battle between Grace and Government. The government has laws for the good of its citizens and must enforce them. Grace is the business of the church, but punishment is the business of the Government, and it's a difficult scale to balance. I understand why as Christians many here are opposed to taking life under any circumstance, but there must be consequences for breaking laws and naturally the dealth penalty is the ultimate consequence. On a side note, King David authorized the executions of a lot of people in a judicial capacity over Israel (I'm not talking about Uriah here) and he was called 'a man after God's own heart'.

His execution will not magically restore the lives of the people he harmed, and what about the suffering of his friends and family? Should we just say "Oh, so what if his parents get sad and cry if we kill him, they'll know how the people he hurt feels." That's a horrible, HORRIBLE way to think. I can't believe anyone would even consider that as being anything resembling justice.

The victim's family may think this way, (and be honest, if someone broke into your house in the middle of the night and murdered you parents and siblings, you'd be tempted to feel similar rage) but that's not the reason the government should use the death penalty. This is a world of consequences-- of cause and effect. God has graciously offered us salvation from all the mistakes we make, but that doesn't mean they don't still effect us here. Christian or no, if I start doing drugs I'm going to suffer the physical consequences. If I decide to cheat on a test, the teacher isn't just going to say, "Well, you meant well and the Lord commanded us to forgive and forget, so you can just take it again tomorrow." No, I'd get suspended or kicked out or something. Painful consequences help tell us humans when we're doing something wrong.

If a person kills someone in premeditated cold blood--someone who was doing no physical harm to them and had no intention to--then I think that person should forfeit their life also. This does not apply to defense-killing, to accidental killing, or possibly to most hot-blooded murders. But for cold-blooded, if you take a life, you give your own. That's just the price. Call it 'an eye for an eye' if you like, but dang it's an effective deterrent.

If a person contemplating murder knows that by law they are going to be executed if they get caught, well, then they just might have second thoughts about murder, or of even using a weapon when they try to rob someone. The ones this doesn't deter are already the most potentially dangerous in society, and (this is a gross generalization) perhaps the crime they commit will be more deserving of such harsh punishment.

A man on death row can repent. That'd be great. They can become saved Christians and go to heaven when they're executed. But they should still pay the price for their actions on this earth. Accept responsibility for them. Supposedly these days, lethal injection doesn't even hurt.

You may say, well why isn't just sending them to prison for life punishment enough? Well, the country's resources can't support sending every murderer to prison for life. As it is now our prisons are super crowded. You may say this creates jobs. Well, would you like to be a prison guard babysitting murderers everyday? It's a dangerous job that doesn't actually produce a product--except maybe license plates. These are not good jobs for supporting an economy. The legal system as it is is slowly draining us dry. We need to get people out of jails--preferably by deterring them from committing crimes in the first place. But if necessary with harsher punishments. This is my opinion and you are free to disagree.

[Shao Feng-Li]

I support the death penalty too. As Christians, I believe we have a moral obligation to uphold it. I'd pretty much echo Esoteric here. Also, I don't want to lock these people up in cages as if they're animals. Neither do I want these horrible people living off my taxes. Nothing makes you feel good like knowing your taxes are keeping murderers and child rapists alive in cages.

But yeah, it's not about it not feeling right, or making the victim's families feel one way or another- justice must be served. If the are repentant and they get saved, they'll go to Heaven.

Vengence belongs to God and all that, but what do you think God uses to execute his vengeance? Natural death? Cancer?

Romans 13:4 (King James Version)

4For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

(I'm just talking idealistically- not regarding the state any legal system's are in.)

His execution will not magically restore the lives of the people he harmed, and what about the suffering of his friends and family? Should we just say "Oh, so what if his parents get sad and cry if we kill him, they'll know how the people he hurt feels." That's a horrible, HORRIBLE way to think. I can't believe anyone would even consider that as being anything resembling justice.

Lock him away in a cage to rot instead. Or make him feel bad and release him. Society will be happy to have him back. I mean... I know I'm ecstatic to know that there's a few registered sex offenders living in the neighborhood.

[ShiroiHikari]

But didn't God say "vengeance is mine"? Was that just a one-time thing? A special case? And then later on in the Bible it says things like that Romans 13:4 you just posted. What?

Is "do not kill" the same thing as "do not murder"? Does it mean we are never to take another human life under any circumstances, or is it only condemning pre-meditated cold-blooded murder?

God, I am so confused lately.

Wait a minute...

[quote="Romans 12:19 (King James Version)"]

19Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine]

So which is it? Take vengeance into your own hands, or not?

Edit: I think it would be apropos to note that Romans 13 is talking about submitting to the government.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

If we're professing Christians, why are we using the Old Testament to counteract the statements of Jesus? I mean the first half of the word "Christian" is "Christ". Yes, God has the right to take life away... But we are NOT God. We are finite, broken humans who don't know anything.

It truly does both confuse and concern me. He said to love our enemies. We are to put THEM above ourselves! How on earth can we love our enemies if we have the audacity to say that we don't wanna pay our tax money to keep them alive in jail? That diminishes the sacredness of life! It's using out own standards to determine if a life is worth protecting or not.

And I find that to be a wrong attitude towards life. It's contrary to the message of Christ. He was the fullest revelation of God and the embodiment of love. Last time I checked, when Jesus said to love your enemies, I'm sure he meant "Don't kill them." How can we love our enemies if we believe that they need to die? By our flawed, arbitrary standards of justice, no less.

If we are to be separate from the patterns of society, then why do we choose to conform to it?

Shao, you cited Romans 13. I think we all need to have proper examination from scripture as opposed to understanding it what it says from face value. To do the latter is to absolutely disregard the historical context of the Bible. And the only reason I mention this is because I believe it is critical to understanding our faith. The article cites trained Christian scholars and I think it must be considered if believe that your faith is important to you.

http://bible.org/article/paul-and-civil-obedience-romans-131-7

http://unlearningtheproblem.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/what-luck-for-rulers-that-men-do-not-think-adolf-hitler-an-exegetical-exploration-of-romans-13/

[Midknight74012]

I'll just leave this here.

http://www.truthortradition.com/modules.php?file=article&name=News&sid=225

[blkmage]

I liked the part where Jesus didn't stop the mob from stoning the adulterous woman.

[ShiroiHikari]

If we're professing Christians, why are we using the Old Testament to counteract the statements of Jesus? I mean the first half of the word "Christian" is "Christ". Yes, God has the right to take life away... But we are NOT God. We are finite, broken humans who don't know anything.

It truly does both confuse and concern me. He said to love our enemies. We are to put THEM above ourselves! How on earth can we love our enemies if we have the audacity to say that we don't wanna pay our tax money to keep them alive in jail? That diminishes the sacredness of life! It's using out own standards to determine if a life is worth protecting or not.

And I find that to be a wrong attitude towards life. It's contrary to the message of Christ. He was the fullest revelation of God and the embodiment of love. Last time I checked, when Jesus said to love your enemies, I'm sure he meant "Don't kill them." How can we love our enemies if we believe that they need to die? By our flawed, arbitrary standards of justice, no less.

For once, I think I agree with you.

Edit:

I liked the part where Jesus didn't stop the mob from stoning the adulterous woman.

[citation needed]

[Midori]

[citation needed]

I believe he's talking about this: [quote="John 8:1-11"]Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?â€

[Shao Feng-Li]

But didn't God say "vengeance is mine"? Was that just a one-time thing? A special case? And then later on in the Bible it says things like that Romans 13:4 you just posted. What?

Is "do not kill" the same thing as "do not murder"? Does it mean we are never to take another human life under any circumstances, or is it only condemning pre-meditated cold-blooded murder?

God, I am so confused lately.

Wait a minute...



So which is it? Take vengeance into your own hands, or not?

Edit: I think it would be apropos to note that Romans 13 is talking about submitting to the government.

God has given the civil arm authority to execute justice. From fining speeders on the road to executing those who have commited capital crimes.
By your logic no crimes ever should be corrected. And the woman acused of adultry was given no trial. Neither was her adultrous partner acused. Assuming she actaully is guilty. Those acusing her aren't exactly honest people.

[Nate]

People keep acting as though God has always opposed the death penalty Himself.

By that logic, God wants to kill the firstborn of everyone living in Egypt. It's called context.

There are many, many laws in the books of Moses that outline just when and how God wanted His people to kill someone.

Yes, like when God said He wanted people to stone a woman who committed adultery! I'm sure God never, ever told someone NOT to stone a woman who committed adultery ever!

That was sarcasm. Your only way out of that one is to admit God sometimes changes the rules, or Jesus isn't God. The first one means you can't appeal to the Old Testament to support the death penalty, and the latter makes you not a Christian.

I believe I have now definitively won this debate. Dang I'm good.

And remember that God never changes, according to the book of Malachi.

Which is why God never said it was okay to eat pork or shrimp ever again after He commanded us to not eat them. Oh wait, never mind, book of Acts. Silly me.

Here's the problem. You're equating the statement "God never changes" to "God's commandments never change." The first is true]And even Christ said in Matthew that He supports the justice system - even to say that the punishmment imposed upon a murderer was needful, not that people should just forgive him.[/QUOTE]
And again, contradicted by Jesus stopping the crowd from stoning the adulterous woman. That was the punishment handed down in the Old Testament. And what did Jesus say? "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Pretty powerful stuff there.

The "Eye for an eye" law refers to the will of God in which a man hurts a pregnant woman to the point of killing her unborn child. Not simply revenge.

Untrue.

19Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: 20fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered.

That's from Leviticus 24:19-20. It says clearly what you do to a person must be done to you in return. Nothing about pregnant women.

22 When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. 23If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

That's from Exodus 21. There's the pregnant woman part, but that part isn't in Leviticus.

16If a malicious witness comes forward to accuse someone of wrongdoing, 17then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days, 18and the judges shall make a thorough inquiry. If the witness is a false witness, having testified falsely against another, 19then you shall do to the false witness just as the false witness had meant to do to the other. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 20The rest shall hear and be afraid, and a crime such as this shall never again be committed among you. 21Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Deuteronomy 19. This is in reference to perjury, and not about pregnant women, but again verse 21 says "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."

If you honestly want to tell people "but that won't bring them back," then speak of it as to God.

That's not a valid comparison and you know it. Otherwise I could say "Gee, God killed all the firstborn in Egypt and God always does the right thing, so it'd be right for me to go kill all the firstborn in Egypt right now!" God's wrath as described in the Old Testament is not comparable to a prison guard giving a lethal injection to someone.

King David authorized the executions of a lot of people in a judicial capacity over Israel (I'm not talking about Uriah here) and he was called 'a man after God's own heart'.

King David peeked on a woman taking a bath from his balcony and was called a man after God's own heart. Clearly, this means peeking at women taking baths is right.

That's a logical fallacy you just committed, saying "This person is righteous, so everything they do is right." It doesn't follow. Everything a man of God does is not what God wants, nor is it right.

if you take a life, you give your own. That's just the price.

Only because the law says it is. If the law says a person's hand would be chopped off if they stole a purse, would you shrug and say "That's just the price"? If a person's tongue would be cut out for perjury, would you shrug and say "That's just the price"? If so, at least you're consistent, I'll grant you that. But if you say "No, that's too extreme," I don't see how you can say removing a hand or tongue is extreme but an entire life is not.

Call it 'an eye for an eye' if you like, but dang it's an effective deterrent.

Actually, the death penalty is not a deterrent for violent crime at all. As you can see, the rate of violent crimes is higher in states with death penalty laws.

If a person contemplating murder knows that by law they are going to be executed if they get caught, well, then they just might have second thoughts about murder, or of even using a weapon when they try to rob someone.

Sigh. Wrong, wrong, wrong. First, people who think about murder don't think they're going to get caught. They think they can commit the "perfect murder" where they're never found out. Thus, they don't care about the death penalty because they think they'll never be arrested or tried. It's not a deterrent because they don't think they'll be punished.

Second, most murders are not planned. Most people don't sit in their house and think of a way to murder someone. Most murders are spur-of-the-moment, on a whim. Like a guy who comes in to find his wife cheating on him. He doesn't plan to murder, but he pulls out a gun and murders them both. Heat of the moment. He was angry. On a side note, this is why I'm opposed to firearms, but that's a whole other kettle of fish that let's not get into here.

Well, the country's resources can't support sending every murderer to prison for life. As it is now our prisons are super crowded.

Gee why is that? Maybe because we view marijuana as a drug and throw people in prison for growing a plant in their windowsill! Sorry, but if you're going to whine about crowded prisons and talk about resources, then QUIT SENDING PEOPLE TO PRISON FOR TRIVIAL DRUG CHARGES. I'm not talking about dealers, I'm talking about guys who have a plant or two. That's the real reason prisons are crowded, because of the failed "War on Drugs."

We need to get people out of jails--preferably by deterring them from committing crimes in the first place. But if necessary with harsher punishments. This is my opinion and you are free to disagree.

I don't disagree that we need to get people out of jails, and deterring them from committing crimes in the first place is absolutely correct. We do that with social programs, helping the needy, and the like. I only disagree with your conclusion that this makes the death penalty necessary, since one, it is shown that the death penalty does NOT deter crime, and two, trying to do evil to bring about good is not acceptable.

I know I'm ecstatic to know that there's a few registered sex offenders living in the neighborhood.

There is so much wrong with this statement that I'm not even going to touch it, because I will rage uncontrollably, swear, and generally be a huge jerk.

I'm not sure how that's different from how I normally am, but I'll still try to avoid it.

[Jingo Jaden]

*Before posting, I'd like you to treat this post as my personal two cents on the issue. Not meant to flare up anything*

Guys, the western justice system is typically not based of a theological doctrine. More often than not it is based upon the ideas of justice and leniency. Justice being an eye for an eye and probably the most extreme route a court can go.

As a civilized nation, a ruler, or judge, or any executive officer will find himself in a position in which replicating Jesus is either impossible or impractical. If a judge was to base his idea of crimes around the idea of sin, then would he not be obliged to forgive all wrongs if requested? A judge on earth is only going to have earthly authority over those he are asked to judge, which means, he has to judge them from an earthly, non theological standpoint. Influenced to some degree hopefully, but he would be obliged to not assume a position as a savior, or a God, just an agent of whatever justice that his nation or state has adopted.

If justice is even remotely going to enter the equation, or at least the type of justice which demands a civilized process meaning that the end game will not be brutal in nature, although potentially punishing or rehabilitating depending on the severity of said crime then one more often than not have to take account the damage that has been made, and indeed, the damage that can still be done by the offender. Yes, some offenders can still even do damage as long as they have influence or in some cases even opportunity. Just look at the Mexican prisons and the drug lords which still plays a powerful hand in what seems to be a war that will tear the nation apart and very likely may lead to a future war with it's northern neighbors. Now, I am not equating even the average mass murderer with that type of power, but it returns to the original concept of westernized justice, as regular justice would at times seem barbaric, even though it is the definition of fair.

Now, I do believe that a man being responsible for the extreme suffering of a few, or ending some lives do not deserve to live from a judicial standpoint, much less to have taxpayer money funding his existence even if he is in a space that he would not vouch for. A lifetime in jail is not a pleasant one, although mankind can adapt to make it acceptable for oneself I presume. Yet, in a secular court one cannot really presume anything to be sacred so to speak. Valuable sure, but not sacred. You pay with what you have, or what you can earn if you are fined. Likewise, a secular court is not to condemn anyone as far as the spiritual goes. It is above a nation, or so to speak, above a Cesar.

Adopting the christian scripture into entire national aspects to the courts themselves is a daunting prospect for a civilization. Depending on how you digest killings and murder, a nation would either only be limited to a defensive army or no army at all. The courts would have an incredibly low efficiency due to the number of convicts who would request forgiveness or mercy. The financial aspects and social justice might make the economy quite poor and of course, nullifying sin in a nation's drive as much as possible will only ensure that nations who do take the liberty to sin, create a massive army, have effective, if even unfair courts with high effectiveness to easily out-influence if not even conquer said nation trying to adopt the holy doctrines to it's fullest value. I suspect Jesus knew this, which was why he said. Give unto Cesar what is to Cesar and give unto God what is to God. Cesar 'the state' would be able to demand taxes and various other elements whereas God would be able to demand that we try to live as righteous of a life that we can. I think mankind should be as righteous as they can be within the lines of what is practical, but if required, they should also be able to be just.

Indeed, I find the death penalty warranted in many cases. Ranging from the arch typical 'How should Hitler have been judged' or to more regular, yet extraordinarily inhumane acts committed by our fellow men, and often brothers and sisters in Christ. If an extraordinarily inhumane crime being beyond a reasonable doubt has been committed, then I see no reason why a court should not be able to make the offender pay with what he already has, and in some cases, will have taken from others. Even if repentant for his crimes the said person should sometimes face the earthly justice he deserves. Not because we wish to harm in spiritually, but because it would be just, and said person would never be able to commit any more harm. Of course, the first thing that might reasonably save a person from a death penalty might be repentance which is a reasonable standpoint. However, if I had done something inhumane, and been repentant for it, and received the death penalty. Would I consider the ones who judged me to be cruel? No, not even slightly. I know I would have deserved it, and in spiritual terms, already deserve it.

I support the death penalty in the most extreme circumstances when it is beyond a reasonable doubt. Such as great war crimes, situations were leaving a person alive would be likely to do more harm through his/her influence even from within a jail and extremely inhumane acts. If this by chance is too unchristian for some then that's fine. It's a worthwhile debate to have. Heck, where I come from, we cannot even be imprisoned for life. But when I see a child rapist/molester, age 55 get five years for 65 counts of molestation to rape and probably will be out in 3 years due to him being so old, then in all honesty I'd say life imprisonment would be a minimum, but the death penalty preferable.

I could bring some more theology into this, but this post might already easily flare up in a provocative way albeit not my intentions. I merit much of the life imprisonment standpoint, but I find it often to be too unjust or impractical depending on the cases in question. Thankfully, there are not too many cases like these each year, but there are enough of them to keep it a viable option in my opinion.

[Peanut]

If we're professing Christians, why are we using the Old Testament to counteract the statements of Jesus? I mean the first half of the word "Christian" is "Christ". Yes, God has the right to take life away... But we are NOT God. We are finite, broken humans who don't know anything.

It truly does both confuse and concern me. He said to love our enemies. We are to put THEM above ourselves! How on earth can we love our enemies if we have the audacity to say that we don't wanna pay our tax money to keep them alive in jail? That diminishes the sacredness of life! It's using out own standards to determine if a life is worth protecting or not.

And I find that to be a wrong attitude towards life. It's contrary to the message of Christ. He was the fullest revelation of God and the embodiment of love. Last time I checked, when Jesus said to love your enemies, I'm sure he meant "Don't kill them." How can we love our enemies if we believe that they need to die? By our flawed, arbitrary standards of justice, no less.

If we are to be separate from the patterns of society, then why do we choose to conform to it?

I'd be careful here if I was you Ryan for a number of reasons. One being the fact that you emphasize faith over certainty/knowledge/reason when it comes to the existence of God along with other things so to say that there are certain beliefs which a Christian must have is somewhat contradictory. After all, if we can't know God exists then we can't know if there are any beliefs we as Christians are required to hold. So any argument from your position is problematic or at the very least inconsistent when you use this logic.

Another issue that can be brought up is that you seem to be giving preferential treatment to the New Testament over the Old Testament. I think the correct interpretation is to see Christ's words as fulfillment of the law instead of the end of it (in fact, Paul says that in Romans...so yeah, can't really get around that one...). I don't think Christ's words are in contradiction to the law or any of the Old Testament when we really look at it through his perspective. In fact, in other cultures that aren't western, the law get's much more preference then we give it. The truth is, we in the west are all about grace and in many ways go too far.

Finally, it could be argued that imprisonment is worse or just as bad as the death sentence. From there you could argue that any form of punishment isn't loving our enemies and completely destroy any system of justice. I know you don't go this far and never would but it does seem to me that you forget both that God is justice along with love and that, to paraphrase Jesus here, the only authority the government has is what's given to it from God.

Shao, you cited Romans 13. I think we all need to have proper examination from scripture as opposed to understanding it what it says from face value. To do the latter is to absolutely disregard the historical context of the Bible. And the only reason I mention this is because I believe it is critical to understanding our faith. The article cites trained Christian scholars and I think it must be considered if believe that your faith is important to you.

http://bible.org/article/paul-and-civil-obedience-romans-131-7

http://unlearningtheproblem.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/what-luck-for-rulers-that-men-do-not-think-adolf-hitler-an-exegetical-exploration-of-romans-13/

Hmmm, if this thread still exists once I get back and can actually have access to a commentary on Romans, I may engage this further. But if I was going to say something right now its that the Kingdom of God isn't as political as people like to assume it is. I know this for one simple reason, that is what most first century Jews had a belief in a thundering Messiah who was supposed to overthrow the Roman rule somehow. The common view was entirely political and yet we clearly see that Jesus didn't match their expectations. It doesn't seem to be entirely from his passive resistance either but the fact that he really isn't trying to seize power and, in fact, seems pretty subservient to the ruling parties. If anything, if we are going to follow his example, we should be submitting to the government but in a way that does not let them walk all over us. Again though, if this thread isn't locked, I'll return to this with more detail and an actual examination of the text.

[Yamamaya]

You killed my family so the government is going to kill you. Isn't that nothing more than revenge?

I've noted that a few people have called criminals "horrible people." Apparently you're forgetting Romans 3:10 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;

In other words, we're all in the same boat. We're just as unworthy as that killer in prison.

Funny story, England used to execute people for just about any crime. Many times, they would hold public executions of pick pockets. However, pick pockets were known to wander around the crowds, picking pockets.

On another note, the death penalty doesn't deter crimes of passion anymore than prison because the individual did it in a fit of passion. They probably had little time to think about the consequences.

On to the topic of the Japanese court system, I've heard they tend to presume Guilty until Proven Innocent.

The dedicated criminal never plans to get caught anyway.

Edit: I'm not completely opposed to the DP in extreme cases either.

[blkmage]

I'm glad that MSP brought up exegesis and context and Nate brought up various social issues surrounding criminal justice so I don't have to.

However, there seems to be a presumption of infallibility of the court system as well as a misunderstanding of the role of prisons as correctional facilities.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I'd be careful here if I was you Ryan for a number of reasons. One being the fact that you emphasize faith over certainty/knowledge/reason when it comes to the existence of God along with other things so to say that there are certain beliefs which a Christian must have is somewhat contradictory. After all, if we can't know God exists then we can't know if there are any beliefs we as Christians are required to hold. So any argument from your position is problematic or at the very least inconsistent when you use this logic.

I don't see why this is an issue here. I'm not speaking from a philosophical vantage point. I'm saying that if YOU are a professing believer of Christianity, then you ought to LISTEN to what Christ says. Sermon on the Mount, yo.

Another issue that can be brought up is that you seem to be giving preferential treatment to the New Testament over the Old Testament. I think the correct interpretation is to see Christ's words as fulfillment of the law instead of the end of it (in fact, Paul says that in Romans...so yeah, can't really get around that one...). I don't think Christ's words are in contradiction to the law or any of the Old Testament when we really look at it through his perspective. In fact, in other cultures that aren't western, the law get's much more preference then we give it. The truth is, we in the west are all about grace and in many ways go too far.

Not so much preferential treatment. I'm saying that people are negating the words of Christ by going to the Old Testament, which is not as much of a reflection of Christ as... well... Christ is. (That and I adhere to progressive revelation). Christ is the fullest revelation of God. Because he fulfills the law, then naturally some things have changed.

Specifically the whole "Love your enemies" thing. I don't see any other way around this.

However, there seems to be a presumption of infallibility of the court system as well as a misunderstanding of the role of prisons as correctional facilities.

You know? I just learned about the upcoming wikileaks information regarding more of US Foreign Policy crap going on... and I think that America is just another pisshole of a country. It just has more money and guns so that it can be even more corrupt. No doubt every other facet of our country will also be corrupt and focused on individualism.

[Shao Feng-Li]

Nate I grew up with a child rapist and he got off scott free. Maybe I'm a teenybit biased.

In the end I firmly believe in capital punishment and that God righteously uses the civil arm to carry it out.

[Midori]

This thread is getting rather heated. I don't think it's going to do anybody any more good, so I'm cutting it short. As justification I'm going to quote Mithrandir's excellent post about theological discussions.
http://www.christiananime.net/showthread.php?p=1439121

In the interest of being fair minded we have agreed to be somewhat more flexible in how we apply these rules but reserve the right to cut-off controversial topics before they get out of hand.

There's not really any way to draw a hard line on what level of discussion should and should not be allowed on the board without simply saying "all or none," however this topic keeps coming up, and we keep trying to accommodate. From the moderation point of view, though, it seems like every time we allow the line to slip a little farther, we get called out for being "arbitrary" about what we're doing when we finally do step in.

There is a another, harder to quantify "cost" associated with this privilege. We're going to have to make some calls that you're not going to like. Part of having this flexibility is the understanding that we're probably going to tell you to drop certain topics. We expect your understanding and compliance. As we've asserted in other threads, the mod staff is only human. We're not going to draw the line on controversial topics in the same place as everyone else (or possibly even anyone else) on the board. On the other hand, we're going to try and draw a consistent line based on what topics we've noticed tend to get out of hand.

With that in mind, I'm going to try stopping this thread before it gets out of hand rather than after, which I'm pretty sure it will. I hope you understand how difficult this decision is.