(October 26, 2016 at 9:05 pm)Faith No More Wrote:

(October 26, 2016 at 8:27 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: I would say perhaps that's an oversimplification of the scenario.  Many people who are mentally ill can still discern right from wrong.  That's why the accused are afforded fair trial, along with psych evals from a qualified professional if they pursue that line of defense.  If a defendant was deemed mentally impaired to the degree of not understanding their actions then I would agree that the death penalty is not an appropriate punishment in that circumstance.

What about the mentally retarded, which the Supreme Court ruled is cruel and unusual, yet Texas sees fit to execute them anyway?

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/...sabled-man

Well, that's horrible.

(October 26, 2016 at 8:14 am)Jehanne Wrote:

(October 25, 2016 at 10:53 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: 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/

The DP is permissible only if it is a societal means of self defense. In other words, only if it is a particular society's only way of keeping the lives of its people safe. Nowadays, however, we have prison systems capable of keeping dangerous criminals locked up where they are no longer a threat:

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Quote:2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."

Catechism taken from the Vatican Website: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/ar...s2c2a5.htm

(October 26, 2016 at 8:46 pm)Jehanne Wrote:

(October 26, 2016 at 10:20 am)Atheist_BG Wrote: I'm an atheist but I do support death penalty. In fact I think it should be introduced in my country as well. Only then we can have some order and fair punishment towards the murderous gypsies.

As a member of the EU, it's doubtful at best, but perhaps it explains why your country is so unhappy:

http://www.euronews.com/2015/03/20/why-i...-in-the-eu

The problem of my country is too complex to explain in just a few sentences. But let me ask you this: if a gipsy (this is a gipsy and they're NOT Bulgarians, they've come from India about a thousand years ago) kills an old man over 10 dollars and they evade justice, why shouldn't we ask for a death penalties? In Bulgaria when a gipsy kills a Bulgarian, they're not being sued because sueing them "violates their human rights" while nobody says a word about the human rights of their victims. In Bulgaria the gipsies have all kinds of rights while Bulgarians have none. They can avoid paying bills for electricity and nobody cares. If a Bulgarian misses to pay even one bill, all sorts of courts and bailiffs will take turns to sue them and take every penny the Bulgarians have left. If you come to Bulgaria and ask a Bulgarian about the gipsies, you won't find anyone who doesn't hate them and who wouldn't want them dead. You know why? Because Bulgarians have no right to defend their property. If a gipsy breaks into your house to steal, your laws give you the right to defend yourself and property in whatever manner you decide, even if it means killing the thief. But in Bulgaria if you injure or kill the thief, you will be sentenced for many years in prison or even for life.

(October 27, 2016 at 1:30 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(October 26, 2016 at 8:14 am)Jehanne Wrote: 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/

The DP is permissible only if it is a societal means of self defense. In other words, only if it is a particular society's only way of keeping the lives of its people safe. Nowadays, however, we have prison systems capable of keeping dangerous criminals locked up where they are no longer a threat:

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Quote:2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."

Catechism taken from the Vatican Website: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/ar...s2c2a5.htm

I have read the Catechism of the Catholic Church in its entirety.  (Note that the Catechism promulgated under Pope John Paul II is the Second edition, which contained some theological alterations from the first, including, the Church's teachings on the death penalty.)  The text which I highlighted in blue is the theological novelty:

Quote:Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life -- Pope Pius XII

(October 27, 2016 at 6:02 am)Atheist_BG Wrote:

(October 26, 2016 at 8:46 pm)Jehanne Wrote: As a member of the EU, it's doubtful at best, but perhaps it explains why your country is so unhappy:

http://www.euronews.com/2015/03/20/why-i...-in-the-eu

The problem of my country is too complex to explain in just a few sentences. But let me ask you this: if a gipsy (this is a gipsy and they're NOT Bulgarians, they've come from India about a thousand years ago) kills an old man over 10 dollars and they evade justice, why shouldn't we ask for a death penalties? In Bulgaria when a gipsy kills a Bulgarian, they're not being sued because sueing them "violates their human rights" while nobody says a word about the human rights of their victims. In Bulgaria the gipsies have all kinds of rights while Bulgarians have none. They can avoid paying bills for electricity and nobody cares. If a Bulgarian misses to pay even one bill, all sorts of courts and bailiffs will take turns to sue them and take every penny the Bulgarians have left. If you come to Bulgaria and ask a Bulgarian about the gipsies, you won't find anyone who doesn't hate them and who wouldn't want them dead. You know why? Because Bulgarians have no right to defend their property. If a gipsy breaks into your house to steal, your laws give you the right to defend yourself and property in whatever manner you decide, even if it means killing the thief. But in Bulgaria if you injure or kill the thief, you will be sentenced for many years in prison or even for life.

Maybe Donald Trump can run for President of Bulgaria?

(October 25, 2016 at 8:09 pm)Jehanne Wrote: With the impending Democratic victory, and hopefully, the continued progressivization of the federal courts, I did some online searches to see what Christian fundamentalists currently think about capital punishment.  This one really stood out:

Andrew Allen Cook was executed on February 22, 2013 for the brutal, senseless murders of two young college students around his age, Grant Patrick Hendrickson, 22, and Michele Lee Cartagena, 19; he was apprehended nearly 2 years after the crime after his dad, an FBI agent, turned him in:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...-1995.html

As an atheist, I am opposed to executions for any and all crimes, no matter how grievous, but what really bothered me after reading this story is what one of the victim's mothers said:

Quote:She added: 'I think that's what it was: the devil's work. When all that is going on, I was just thinking to myself, 'Well, the devil is not going to win. He's not going to win over my heart. He is not going to win.''

This just makes me sick!  For starters, the idea of a "devil", "devils" and/or "evil spirits" is just plain lunacy; it's equivalent to believing that the South won the US Civil War.  But, worse, when this mother was witnessing the slow death of her child's killer, she was thinking, "Hey, they're killing one of Satan's servants" and as opposed to think that a living, breathing human being was dying before her very eyes.  How convenient!  If this does not show the evil of conservative Christian thinking, then what does?

While there are atheists who support the death penalty, I am ecstatic about the upcoming victory of Secretary Clinton and the diminishing role and influence of Christian fundamentalism in the United States.

Who are you to say what is the right way and wrong way this mother must process these series of events that result in so much grief?

(October 25, 2016 at 8:09 pm)Jehanne Wrote: With the impending Democratic victory, and hopefully, the continued progressivization of the federal courts, I did some online searches to see what Christian fundamentalists currently think about capital punishment.  This one really stood out:

Andrew Allen Cook was executed on February 22, 2013 for the brutal, senseless murders of two young college students around his age, Grant Patrick Hendrickson, 22, and Michele Lee Cartagena, 19; he was apprehended nearly 2 years after the crime after his dad, an FBI agent, turned him in:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...-1995.html

As an atheist, I am opposed to executions for any and all crimes, no matter how grievous, but what really bothered me after reading this story is what one of the victim's mothers said:

Quote:She added: 'I think that's what it was: the devil's work. When all that is going on, I was just thinking to myself, 'Well, the devil is not going to win. He's not going to win over my heart. He is not going to win.''

This just makes me sick!  For starters, the idea of a "devil", "devils" and/or "evil spirits" is just plain lunacy; it's equivalent to believing that the South won the US Civil War.  But, worse, when this mother was witnessing the slow death of her child's killer, she was thinking, "Hey, they're killing one of Satan's servants" and as opposed to think that a living, breathing human being was dying before her very eyes.  How convenient!  If this does not show the evil of conservative Christian thinking, then what does?

While there are atheists who support the death penalty, I am ecstatic about the upcoming victory of Secretary Clinton and the diminishing role and influence of Christian fundamentalism in the United States.

Can I ask why being an atheist has anything to do with your views on the death penalty?

Edit to add: While I am no advocate of the death penalty, if anyone were ever to do any serious harm to my daughter, I'd want them dead.

(October 27, 2016 at 8:09 am)Jehanne Wrote: Maybe Donald Trump can run for President of Bulgaria?

That old fart is anti-gay, so better not.

(October 26, 2016 at 10:20 am)Atheist_BG Wrote: I'm an atheist but I do support death penalty. In fact I think it should be introduced in my country as well. Only then we can have some order and fair punishment towards the murderous gypsies.

Just making sure people understood that comment. Substitute gypsies with African-Americans and you've got the same exact type of sentence on your hands.

(October 27, 2016 at 8:59 am)Excited Penguin Wrote:

(October 26, 2016 at 10:20 am)Atheist_BG Wrote: I'm an atheist but I do support death penalty. In fact I think it should be introduced in my country as well. Only then we can have some order and fair punishment towards the murderous gypsies.

Just making sure people understood that comment. Substitute gypsies with African-Americans and you've got the same exact type of sentence on your hands.

Gypsies have nothing to do with AA's. There are some AA's who live in ghettoes and such but there's a great number of then who live and work just like the white men. While it's quite the opposite with gypsies - the majority of them live in garbage heaps because they like it, they refuse to work whatsoever, stealing, prostitution and killing people are considered their birth rights.
I can't show you video with the real situation with the gypsies because the manipulative media have deleted from the internet all the videos that showed what I was talking about and left only the videos where gypsies are being shown as victims.
Before you say "Substitute gypsies with African-Americans" you should come to live here and be robbed, beaten, your daughter/mother/sister raped and your son to be run over by gypsies - why do you think refugees don't want to stay here or even to go through Bulgaria on their way to another country? Then I'll ask you again about them and you will say something completely different. AA's can be integrated into the society because they wanted to. Gypsies can't because they don't want to - they like their status quo of unpunished thefts and killings, living on the back of the Bulgarian tax payers. Angela Merkel tried to integrate them into society and 2 months later she sent them back to us with the words "these people can't be influenced in any way". No wonder, these sub-humans haven't evolved mentally yet to the point to realize that if they don't integrate into society, some day they'll have to choose - integration or death. Cuz some nice day our people will take no more mockeries from gypsies and from our government and the gypsies will be the first to go.