Would you, as an atheist, support it?  As for me, I would not, for the following reasons:

1)  Alternatives exist, namely, prison, and in that respect, "Death by Prison" seems a completely humane alternative.

2)  Death is cruel; telling someone that "on such and such" a day "at such and such" a time, you will cease to exist seems, to me, cruel.

3)  Innocent people, of course, are going to get executed -- "improbable, but not impossible."

4)  Free will seems illusory at best; Stephen Hawking likens the brain to a computer, wetware, and if so, an absolute moral accountability seems at least somewhat illusory.

5)  The families of the condemned suffer, as do the families of the victims, as death sentences in the United States and Japan often take many years to carry out.

Thoughts?

Unfortunately, the death penalty might be a more humane way to end a persons life compared to a life sentence in some countries.

Perhaps you could add to the poll that "The accused can choose between the death penalty or life in prison (if it's a life sentence)". Since assisted suicide is legal in some countries, why shouldn't a prisoner be able to choose between the death penalty and a life sentence?

(January 20, 2016 at 7:24 am)Jehanne Wrote: Would you, as an atheist, support it?  As for me, I would not, for the following reasons:

1)  Alternatives exist, namely, prison, and in that respect, "Death by Prison" seems a completely humane alternative.

2)  Death is cruel; telling someone that "on such and such" a day "at such and such" a time, you will cease to exist seems, to me, cruel.

3)  Innocent people, of course, are going to get executed -- "improbable, but not impossible."

4)  Free will seems illusory at best; Stephen Hawking likens the brain to a computer, wetware, and if so, an absolute moral accountability seems at least somewhat illusory.

5)  The families of the condemned suffer, as do the families of the victims, as death sentences in the United States and Japan often take many years to carry out.
Thoughts?

If one of your question would have gone a little bit further i would have tick that box.

The question.......In very limited circumstances, such as multiple murders, rapes or torture and when rehabilitation is not possible.

I used to be in favour of it, but I'm now I'm somewhat more on the fence. Those are all valid arguments you make, except the free will one. If we assume there is no free will, then those handing out penalties have no free will either, to "change" the punishment. But if there in fact was free will but we assumed there wasn't, then we'd be adding unecessary leniency. However, if it was shown we have vastly reduced free will compared to how things appear to be, but still some free will, the implications would be very interesting. I've already seen cases where people have got reduced sentencing due to their brain structure acting as a mitigating circumstance (psycopathy).

In theory, of course I'm against it. If unlimited resources existed to safely house all criminals who commit all crimes, then that would be fine. But here in England we have prisons so clogged up with people that new offenders are getting more and more suspended and light sentences due to lack of space. So it all has a knock-on effect. How much of an effect, I'm not qualified to say. But people seem to rarely talk about this side of things. It may well be this isn't a big factor after all, in which case I'd come down more strongly on the side of no death penalty.

Ideally, I'd like to see those people unsafe to be in society put to productive, supervised work. Then they are giving something back to society. How you deal with those that refuse is difficult, but there could be incentives and so on.

Ricky Gervais made a comment that stuck with me a while back, although he probably didn't originate it. He said that if you start giving death sentences for crimes other than murder, you get to a point where people are more likely to commit murder as well as whatever non-murder crime, as the stakes are already as high as they can get.

Nope. Never.

More expensive than life sentence due to appeals, does not deter crime, focuses on punishment instead of resocialization, poses the very real risk of wrongly executing innocents, and most of all, it's fucking barbaric.

(January 20, 2016 at 7:47 am)Red_Wind Wrote: Unfortunately, the death penalty might be a more humane way to end a persons life compared to a life sentence in some countries.

Perhaps you could add to the poll that "The accused can choose between the death penalty or life in prison (if it's a life sentence)". Since assisted suicide is legal in some countries, why shouldn't a prisoner be able to choose between the death penalty and a life sentence?

Too true. If I was facing a life sentence, I'd rather die than live it out.

(January 20, 2016 at 8:21 am)robvalue Wrote:

(January 20, 2016 at 7:47 am)Red_Wind Wrote: Unfortunately, the death penalty might be a more humane way to end a persons life compared to a life sentence in some countries.

Perhaps you could add to the poll that "The accused can choose between the death penalty or life in prison (if it's a life sentence)". Since assisted suicide is legal in some countries, why shouldn't a prisoner be able to choose between the death penalty and a life sentence?

Too true. If I was facing a life sentence, I'd rather die than live it out.

It depends. You don't know beforehand whether you will have to serve it.

I think death penalty should only be administered to unborn babies...

Well, if I was found guilty and given even 20 years, I'd rather die. I couldn't hack it. If there was no chance of a successful appeal, pass me the bleach. Of course, this is a situation where I've done something really heinous, and not just been stitched up, so it's hopefully extremely unlikely.

(January 20, 2016 at 7:47 am)Red_Wind Wrote: Unfortunately, the death penalty might be a more humane way to end a persons life compared to a life sentence in some countries.

Perhaps you could add to the poll that "The accused can choose between the death penalty or life in prison (if it's a life sentence)". Since assisted suicide is legal in some countries, why shouldn't a prisoner be able to choose between the death penalty and a life sentence?

One can argue that prisoners can make the choice to end theirs lives on their own; they don't need the State to do that for them.  People do commit suicide in jails and prisons all the time.