The death sentence is among other things, an exercise in futility. It solves nothing, it heals nothing, it satisfies vengeance which many confuse for justice, it reconciles nothing, is irreversible, and is unjust.
That struck us as an anti-capital sentence comment. I believe new_life was saying similar things.
If you are telling me now that you are only referring to personal forgiveness and not to the societal necessity to have capital punishment, then we have been talking past one another.
"My child" refers to how I, as the victim's family, personally would feel about my child's murderer not getting "an eye for an eye", an "equal trade" for what he did. That is an issue about the families of murder victims' response of either vengeance or forgiveness, which is a separate issue from the appropriate state response.
My post #4 was not in response to any question about families of victims but a general statement about the death sentence.
Papa New’s point appears to be that he believes that Capital Punishment is an exercise in futility and that he believes that it is wrong for a society to execute someone.
I don’t have a problem if someone has taken that belief, but I don’t think it is logical to bring into the argument the idea that because Jesus died on the Cross that somehow this makes a lifetime of incarceration (where someone is fed 3 meals a day, gets to watch TV and read books and basically enjoy life with a limitation on where he can go until he dies in his sleep) a just recompense for taking the life of an innocent victim (who no longer has the opportunity to enjoy an earthly life).
I will have to forgive Papa New as he apparently just graduated from Law School where he has obviously been subjected to 7 or 8 years of university and law school indoctrination into the theology of political correctness.
I was young and stupid once too. I have since shaken off the chains of liberalism.
The bottom line in this debate comes down to whether or not we value life. If we value life, then the only just recompense for taking a life is for justice to take the life of the murderer. Anything less than that demeans the value of the life that was taken.
This is both a logical and spiritual position. One does not have to be religious to see that justice demands restitution and there is no restitution in the case of murder other than the death of the person who murdered.
It is no coincidence that people who tend to be pro-abortion are almost universally of the opinion that Capital Punishment should be abolished.
But what will happen when it is abolished? Will the bleeding hearts stop there? No they will continue to press for lighter sentences based on their attitude that a sentence of “life without the possibility of parole” is a cruel and unusual punishment. Then they will attack the 25 to life. Eventually they will succeed in reducing the whole theory of guilt and just send murderers out for re-education.
So if you oppose the imposition of the death sentence for murder then I would have to conclude that you value the life of the murderer more than the life of the victim. There really isn’t any other explanation. The death penalty for murder is just compensation, which is the basis of Western Civilization’s entire judicial system. If you claim that the death penalty should not be imposed because our judicial system is “broken” then you are contributing to it’s breakage rather than striving to fix it.