I detect a worrying tendency to turn serious and possibly even interesting topics into random chatter.
Scared of controversy?
Anyway, couple of replies to previous posts:
Tank: Both OT and NT matter, however OT requires more interpretation and is not to be taken literally in every aspect, some books within are prose, poems, songs &c. and should be considered as such. If you want to read something really worrying, just look at Judges - if you don't put a lot of thought into it and read it in context, I think the message could be quite disturbing.
Anyone who supports death penalty: Was just wondering, based on what you decide who deserves to be executed?
(A) Some higher, universal set of moral standards?
(B) Your own definition of morality?
(C) Whatever your Government, say the UK's decided to be the law?
(D) The UN's definition? The UNDHR? Amnesty's?
(E) Religion?
If so, concerning case (A), what would that morale be, and how could anyone decide on it?
(B) Who gives you the right to decide on morality of everyone? (Well, actually that's what I do, but I find it difficult to be so convinced of my own view on morality and justice that I could use these standards to kill anyone)
(C) So much for Sovereignty, then? In that case, surely you would also argue that we should intervene everywhere, where common UK law is contradicted? Where do you draw the line?
(D) None of these support the death penalty for similar reasons as given under (B)
(E) This is probably the hardest part to argue against, if someone claims their god forces them to commit any given action, including performing capital punishment. But then again, all states involved in this particular case are secular ones. That aside, being Christian myself, I cannot accept any other religion as a justification for anything whatsoever, and Christianity does not condone murder. And the difference between murder and capital punishment is a fine line ..
Hope I make some sort of sense, would be interesting to hear opinions on this morality issue. Oh, I'm probably going to be writing my dissertation on something related to this, so I might quote you all
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