"Of course, Judeo-Christian morality, which requires consistent application of eternal standards, covers both Mr. Schiavo and Mr. Stixx and forbids them both to deprive others of the inalienable right to Life."

What's your stance on the death penalty?

Ambivalent.

Then perhaps you should amend "inalienable" to "occasionally alienable" and strike any complaints about moral relativism from your repertoire.

Why? The source of the rights expressly provides for capital punishment. So long as it is imposed in an orderly and consistent fashion according to the moral law it is itself obviously moral and perfectly consistent with liberty.

Creeper: So if I'm for someone being deprived of their liberty because they committed a crime than I'm occasionally for liberty for all and should also strike the moral relativism complaints? Your argument needs some tweaking.

"So if I'm for someone being deprived of their liberty because they committed a crime than I'm occasionally for liberty for all"

Well, yes.

" and should also strike the moral relativism complaints?"

Depends. Does your moral understanding include liberty for all at all times, including nobody ever being locked up for a crime?

"The source of the rights expressly provides for capital punishment."

Is this the old Old Testament vs. New Testament thing? What was Jesus's stance on the death penalty?

Liberty doesn't guarantee freedom:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1385/

Pro

All ye without sin may cast the first stone.

Who is without sin?

creeper;

That passage seems to cause you folks immense problems. First of all, Christ then told the adulteress to go forth and sin no more. Second, He scourged the moneychangers himself.

The Rights granted by God impose obligations. Failure to meet them is to be punished by death. Your life can't be alienated to others.

"First of all, Christ then told the adulteress to go forth and sin no more."

And since she was still alive, she was able to do so.

"Second, He scourged the moneychangers himself."

I'm not sure how that is relevant to this. Did he impose the death penalty on them? Did he kill them?

"The Rights granted by God impose obligations. Failure to meet them is to be punished by death."

Failure to meet which obligations is to be punished by death? What if one confesses one's sins and asks for forgiveness?

Creeper:

It's fun, isn't it, to just sit back and watch life pass you by while you ask endless heavy questions and conclude everytime there is no answer? But grown-ups have to decide and act sometime.

"Liberty doesn't guarantee freedom"

That may well be so, but a morality that forbids depriving others of the inalienable right to Life does exactly that, or it would not be a consistent application of eternal standards.

There is a clear contradiction between "inalienable right to life" and "the death penalty is okay under certain circumstances". Either the right to life is not inalienable, or the death penalty is not okay under any circumstances.

God specifically ordered her not to sin anymore, an obvious threat.

He threw the stone.

They can be forgiven. That has nothing to do with their being punished.

Peter,

It sure is fun, but why do you think there is no answer? Or why does the answer have to be a logical contradiction? Orrin can easily square the circle.

"God specifically ordered her not to sin anymore, an obvious threat."

It's a command. There was no obvious threat, since no one who had sinned could cast a stone against her. Perhaps you see an implied threat, but of what - that God would strike her dead himself?

Failure to meet which obligations is to be punished by death?

He commands her not to sin. He doesn't order them not to punish sin.

Hell

"He doesn't order them not to punish sin."

Since they have sinned, he has ordered exactly that.

Here's an obligation that results in being put to death if you fail to meet it: working on the Sabbath.

No, morality expressly provides for the deprivation of life for transgressors.

I agree we should return to Sabbatarianism.

I assume you're using the word 'morality' as shorthand for 'Judeo-Christianity'.

Since working on the Sabbath, sleeping with your sister-in-law, growing two crops in one field etc. are punishable by death, it sure is refreshing to see that Judeo-Christian morality consistently applies these eternal standards to this very day.

"I agree we should return to Sabbatarianism."

I can never get anything done on a Saturday either.

None of them are forbidden by Judeo-Christian morality.

Peter B. Thank you. Adults have to make decisions and get on with life.

College students, although adults under the law, aren't really grownups because they don't have to live in the real world yet, and if they stay on at the academy, they may never join us in the real world.

Creeper is like the college sophomore who has discovered there are questions in life more difficult to answer than which video to watch tonight, so he and his pals have taken it upon themselves to solve the problems of the world in one endless incoherent bull session during which they think they have solved the mind numbing questions plaguing philosophers for thousands of years.

Pace Creeper. It's already been done. You can take up another line of work.

The Constitution is a document carefully crafted by uber-adults who have scoured the work of philosophers and kings through the ages and come up with a masterpiece not seen before on the earth.

We've done okay looking to it for our laws and our way of life. When we execute a criminal, we do so because in our wisdom, we the people have determined that execution is the proper punishment for the crime. It's just that simple.

Don't like capital punishment, get the legislature to change the laws?

"None of them are forbidden by Judeo-Christian morality."

Where could I find a manual of sorts to this Judeo-Christian morality that you keep talking about?

Hey erp,

I remember well being that college sophomore you speak of, but that was decades ago. As someone of such admirable grown-upness as yourself can glean from a careful reading, I'm not having a rant against the death penalty in general nor attempting to solve the world's problems in a bull session... just pointing out the inconsistencies in Orrin's position. Why? Because it's there.

Funny how you and Peter can't stop yourself from bragging about being such decisive grown-ups though. Perhaps on a good day you would even class yourself as an "uber-adult", whaddya think?

creeper:

Here's a good start:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1270/

But it's easiest to think of it in the simplest of terms:

Grant each person his God-given dignity and punish those who refuse to.

"Grant each person his God-given dignity and punish those who refuse to."

No problem there, but why can't this be accomplished without violating the inalienable right to Life or the Ten Commandments?

That is the inalienable right to life and the Ten commandments.

Not quite. Enter the death penalty, and you've got the occasionally alienable right to life and the Nine Commandments plus a special bonus one that you are free to break as long as you can come up with a justification for doing so.

No, the punishment is prescribed by God for violating the morality He requires of us. Your right to life is not alienated to others.

Do you advocate the death penalty for adultery?

"Your right to life is not alienated to others."

Then it is only up to God to exact the death penalty, not to man.

Yes.

God delegated.

When, where and how did God delegate the death penalty?

Is it okay for those who have sinned to cast the first stone?

Is adultery really not forbidden by Judeo-Christian morality?

Yes, it's okay for sinners to stone. We're all sinners.

Adulterers should be stoned.

"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man."

Note that not onluy does God command us to use capital punishment but clearly differentiates between the two different kinds of taking of life. One is according to his Law, the other not.

creeper-

You are an innocent human being. I take your life in a robbery. I am put to death as punishment for taking an innocent life. Why is that unjust? Discrimination?

Because atheists are the only ones who read the Bible literally. It's why they think it confusing.

There's something entertaining about watching the pugnaciously ignorant play their rope-a-dope games thinking they are landing knockout blows.

As for Philosophy, I had a coworker in the mid-1970s who said he never bothered to write the Ph.D dissertation when he realized that not only had thousands of years of Philosphy never answered any questions, but for the most part hadn't even figured out what questions needed to be answered, or if they were even asking the right questions.

Death penalty: An unwillingness to say there are any circumstances in which a person should be permanantly removed from society is to say all lives are equally worthless.

"Because atheists are the only ones who read the Bible literally."

Yeah, right. I'm perfectly willing to accept chunks of it (like Genesis, for example) as a metaphor; you keep insisting that it be taken literally.

"Yes, it's okay for sinners to stone. We're all sinners."

Did Jesus say it's okay for sinners to stone?

"Note that not only does God command us to use capital punishment but clearly differentiates between the two different kinds of taking of life. One is according to his Law, the other not."

You have to reach pretty far back into the Old Testament for that. Did Jesus agree with "an eye for an eye"?

"Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us."

"There's something entertaining about watching the pugnaciously ignorant play their rope-a-dope games thinking they are landing knockout blows."

Another mind-reader.

"Death penalty: An unwillingness to say there are any circumstances in which a person should be permanantly removed from society is to say all lives are equally worthless."

To remove someone from society does not need to mean putting them to death.

The end is not to remove them from society.

The end is not to remove them from society.

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.”

Not only did Christ agree with capital punishment but specifically said to Pilate that the power to execute Him derived from God.

Creeper, Alas, I am not an uber-adult. On my best day, I am glad to be an ordinary one.

Orrin:

You may be ambivalent about the death penalty, but I am all for executing those who commit heinous crimes.

Vince:

One would like to be more certain that's who we're executing. Some reforms would be in order, not least getting rid of eyewitness identifications.

Certainly. for instance, DNA tests should always be available to a defendant, although I would add the proviso that if the defendant asks for the test, the results will be entered in to evidence regardless of outcome. You'd be surprised at how many convicts ask for DNA tests that prove them guilty.

A more relevant passage on death in the Gospels is this: "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish". (Luke 13, I believe).

And that just addresses accidental death (and/or wanton abuse of power).

What does it mean when the Big Nice Guy says that a (seemingly) shocking fate awaits us all?