Christian loons who support the death penalty.

[Minimalist]

Jesus freaks are a bit slow on the uptake.

Wasn't that said because he thought the world was going to end in a few decades? The world didn't end, and his followers started following the older rules instead.

Why was any of that stuff said?  Because whoever wrote it thought it was a good idea at the time.

[vorlon13]

In the christer orbit, though, pro life to the extent of disallowing abortions amongst your congregation, but allowing it for those with whom you disagree (like Jews and Moslems) and then supporting the death penalty for members of your own flock that blaspheme, apostatize, or commit heresy and everyone else outside of your flock would seem to me to be entirely consistent with Biblical precepts.

And actually, allowing abortion in your own flock would be scripturally acceptable too, now that I think about it.

Actually, the topic is starting to seem contradictory the more I think about it. Christers that disallow abortions in all cases up to plus 30 days of age are ignorant of their
Gods teachings, and the Bible is richly supportive of a death penalty for all manner of infractions. Let's not blur lunacy with piety . . .

[rexbeccarox]

I have no qualms about the death penalty, personally.

Not even when you've taken into account the reported 4% of death row inmates' innocence? Faced with that, I have huge qualms, myself.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/national...-innocent/

[Jehanne]

I agree it's hypocritical for a Christian to call themselves pro life but then take a non pro life stance when it comes to criminals. Life is either sacred or it isn't.

I don't support Hilary but I don't support Trump either.

As with Catholicism, this is clearly yet another rupture with the co-called "infallible" teachings of the Catholic Church, because, the Church, clearly, taught that the death penalty was permissible:

http://patristica.net/denzinger/

[Jehanne]

I have no qualms about the death penalty, personally.

If you were the one administering it, I think that you would feel differently.  Lethal injection is a slow process, and it takes its toll even on those correctional employees who have to participate in it:

Corrections officers actually carry out the executions, and 31% of them suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In comparison, 20% of Iraq veterans suffer PTSD. Lewis E. Lawes, who supervised 303 executions in New York, wrote, “I shall ask for the abolition of the Penalty of Death, until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me.”[34] Donald Cabana, who served as a corrections officer in Missouir, Florida, and Mississippi, said you "do not have the right to ask me, or any prison official, to bloody my hands with an innocent person’s blood.  Not in the name of justice, not in the name of fairness."[34] Ron McAndrews, a corrections officer from Florida and Texas, said: "[T]hose of us who have lived through an execution know just what the death penalty does to those who must perform it. In my tenure as warden, I helped perform three electrocutions in Florida and oversaw five lethal injections in Texas. In both places, I saw staff traumatized by the duties they were asked to perform. Officers who had never even met the condemned fought tears, cowering in corners so as not to be seen.  Some of my colleagues turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of knowing that a man had died by their hands. I myself was haunted by the men I was asked to execute in the name of the State of Florida. I would wake up in the middle of the night to find them lurking at the foot of my bed. One of them had been cooked to death in a botched electrocution. I stood just four feet away watching flames rise out of his head, hearing the electrician ask me, ‘Is that enough?  Should I continue?’ It wasn’t until I left my post as warden that I finally sought counseling for the trauma I had been through."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/get...th-penalty

[GrandizerII]

There's also the issue of whether any person should have the right to take away another person's life, especially without their consent.

[brewer]

Voting about this on the 8th. So far, none of you have changed my mind.

[LadyForCamus]

I have no qualms about the death penalty, personally.

If you were the one administering it, I think that you would feel differently.  Lethal injection is a slow process, and it takes its toll even on those correctional employees who have to participate in it:

Corrections officers actually carry out the executions, and 31% of them suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In comparison, 20% of Iraq veterans suffer PTSD. Lewis E. Lawes, who supervised 303 executions in New York, wrote, “I shall ask for the abolition of the Penalty of Death, until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me.”[34] Donald Cabana, who served as a corrections officer in Missouir, Florida, and Mississippi, said you "do not have the right to ask me, or any prison official, to bloody my hands with an innocent person’s blood.  Not in the name of justice, not in the name of fairness."[34] Ron McAndrews, a corrections officer from Florida and Texas, said: "[T]hose of us who have lived through an execution know just what the death penalty does to those who must perform it. In my tenure as warden, I helped perform three electrocutions in Florida and oversaw five lethal injections in Texas. In both places, I saw staff traumatized by the duties they were asked to perform. Officers who had never even met the condemned fought tears, cowering in corners so as not to be seen.  Some of my colleagues turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of knowing that a man had died by their hands. I myself was haunted by the men I was asked to execute in the name of the State of Florida. I would wake up in the middle of the night to find them lurking at the foot of my bed. One of them had been cooked to death in a botched electrocution. I stood just four feet away watching flames rise out of his head, hearing the electrician ask me, ‘Is that enough?  Should I continue?’ It wasn’t until I left my post as warden that I finally sought counseling for the trauma I had been through."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/get...th-penalty

And then I'll think about what the person did; like the man who raped and killed a 20 month old baby girl, and then raped and killed her mother. Everyone was complaining that he 'gasped several times' before dying. How inhumane! I just can't see how anyone who commits such atrocities against humanity has any business maintaining a pulse. I dunno... I used to be adamantly against capital punishment, but having children has severely, emotionally skewed my perspective on the matter. Probably to the point that I shouldn't even be weighing in.

[abaris]

I may disagree with the death penalty, but I also know plenty of atheists who support it. I don't necessarily see this as a religious point of view.

No, certainly not. But it's hypocrisy of the first order if you have love and forgiveness in every second phrase and supposedly are pro life. Pro life as long as it's not born. If it's born it can rot in the streets as far as many of the most vocal advocats are concerned. Or it's off to death row if the line is overstepped.

[mlmooney89]

I get why people would find Christians for the death penalty hypocritical but I don't see the "As an atheist, I am opposed to executions for any and all crimes, no matter how grievous," really works. It has nothing to do with not believing in god that led you to be against it. I'm an atheist and I'm for the death penalty completely.