Pope Declares Death Penalty Unacceptable in All Cases

The golden rule was certainly an improvement upon roman rule, but it's hardly the pinnacle of morality (and anyway existed in other religions before Jesus). The golden rule arrogantly assumes that another would want to be treated the same as you, but other people might have different values and beliefs (and may also lack insight anyway, if we want to return to arrogance). A better but still imperfect rule would be to treat others as they would want to be treated looking back years later. In a practical sense, this would begin with taking time to listen to them to understand their values.

But as to the death penalty, I see no moral purpose to it. We incarcerate criminals to prevent them from continuing to hurt innocent people. That's enough.

 

I seriously doubt Jesus was smiling on his way to the cross.The way he was murdered was horrific beyond imagination.

 

Pretty common method of execution for the times. I mean, there were less painful ways available I suppose. I can imagine worse ways. Like being broken on the wheel, or being strapped down and slathered with honey to be slowly eaten alive by insects/vermin while baking in the sun.

 

Hammurabi had the Golden Rule (1800 BC) as did other systems. Confucius taught this rule as did Buddha.

Your understanding of the Golden rule is lacking and makes no sense. What are you talking about .. someone might not wanted to be treated the same as you ?

Do some people want to be murdered .. raped, stolen from such that they are upset when someone who does not want this will not do this to them because they do not want it done to them ? Holy carp this is nonsense.

 

Because murder is a sin and killing is not.

 

I understand it well. Your illustrations show where it does have value. However, there are plenty of instances where opinions might differ. For example, some people want everything possible to be done to keep them alive, even for a few more weeks. This is most applicable to end of life care. Some people want to stay alive for another 3 months, even if it means choosing between a state of being drugged to near unconsciousness or excruciating pain while wallowing in ones own filth until the nurse comes and cleans you up. Others would rather die on their own terms before that happens and so will decline intubation, ECMO, artificial feeding, or CPR... or less commonly will seek doctor assisted suicide. Medical ethics is already beyond the golden rule.

 

The Golden Rule.

If you do not want someone else telling you when you life should be ended .. then do not do this to others.

As stated previously .. I think your understanding of this rule is mistaken. The golden rule is not about forcing anything on anyone.

 

The golden rule starts with the assumption that what others want is what we want. This is not something that should be assumed. It's a good start and it is helpful because it does well for how concise it is, but it's not the pinnacle of morality.

 

I think those who cross the boundary illegally & don't have criminal records, should be returned immediately to Mexico or their home countries, whichever is cheaper. Illegals with criminal records but never punished should be arrested & take through the legal channels. Dreamers should be allowed to stay in the U.S. since they played no part on the decision that brought them here, and ours is the only culture they know, and in many cases English the only language they know. No one should be killed. Crossing a border is and should never be grounds for murder.

 

No it does not. It has nothing to do with assuming anyone wants anything. It is a guideline for individual action and assumes nothing about the other.

If you do not want others doing X to you, then you should not do X to others. You are reversing the rule in saying.. If you are OK with X then it is OK for X to be done to others. That is not the rule.

 

Actually both of those statements are covered by the golden rule. Per wikipedia citing A Dictionary of Philosophy.

In all cases, it starts with the assumption that others want what you want. This is false. That is why it is imperfect. But it does get at the heart of morality by insisting that we empathize with how our actions affect others.

 

Poverty is far to be the most important factor. Ghana, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, all of those countries are much poorer than the USA and have far less violence. Poverty is just an excuse. USA have a cultural violence and I suspect that violence cause too a lot of poverty.

I care about rates. You have to look at the big picture and lot some few individual cases blind your views. China has a much much smaller homicide rate than a lot of countries, including USA, UK or France. USA has already twice to three time the homicide rate of those countries. What is the best ? Get 300 per million people murdered or get 10 per a million murdered and maybe one judicial mistake. In the end, you would still have much less people murdered.

I just care of what is efficient. I live in a country which has a laxist justice, I think it's even more disrespectfull toward life. They abolished death penalty, but life sentence doesn't really exist.

The pope can give morale lessons, I would listen him only when he would lead south america to reasonnable homicide rate. You can't be the spiritual leader of the most violent parts of the world and lecture people on how death penalty is bad and violent.

 

Pope Declares Death Penalty Unacceptable in All Cases
I'm not Catholic, but I feel Pope Francis I is the best Pope of my personal lifetime, and possibly one of the greats of history. This declaration in recognition of the value of human life as well as the natural rights that should always accompany it, demonstrates how far the Catholic Church has progressed since the Inquisition. Good for Pope Francis.

 

Yeah, this coming from a man that heads an organization that murdered 100 Million people, brutally tortured Millions of others, confiscated the property of Millions of others, and put Millions in ecclesiastical jails for crimes like failing or refusing to tithe.

No, it hasn't.

Classical Biblical Hebrew, which is nothing more than the Ugaritic dialect of Canaanite without the case endings (accusative, nominative, genitive, dative, locative and vocative), Canaanite and all other languages the region (Sumerian, Akkadian, Eblaite, Hittite and Hurrian) are connotial.

Words have a connotation, so that they have a unique meaning and cannot be used interchangeably with other words.

The words have an extraordinary precision.

The Hebrew word for murder, which is what is used in the commandment, means precisely to take a life with premeditation; with malice aforethought; or for personal profit or gain.

The Hebrew word for kill, which is not used in the commandment, means precisely to take a life through accident or negligence.

Suppose you were driving down the road with your windows down, and a wasp flew into your car and stung you on the neck. In doing so, you reacted by taking your hands off the steering wheel to knock the wasp away, resulting in your car crossing the center line and striking an SUV driven by the Smith family, instantly causing the death of all 5 family members in the SUV.

Did you murder them?

No. You didn't even know the Smith family. Never met them. Had no prior knowledge they'd even be driving that day, or even on the same road as you. Your actions were neither premeditated nor malicious, and you gain nothing personally or financially by their deaths.

You did kill them, however, Your actions caused their death, and while one might argue negligence, the odds of a wasp flying into your car are extremely low, and the odds of that same wasp stinging you are even lower, so it is not something that could have been reasonably foreseen, and thus there's no culpability.

When you examine the other commandments -- the ones nobody bothers to read -- you'll find that someone who commits murder is to be put to death, while someone who kills another should be ostracized for a period of 7 years.

 

I am not religious, unless you consider the Giant Spaghetti monster which is real and there is nothing you can say to change that!

Being so, I am definitely not Catholic so don't have to "get in line". I support the death penalty for those that are murderers and worse, only in egregious instances though.

These people take up resources, so to say they aren't hurting anyone while they are in jail is inaccurate IMO. This is why I am for the death penalty in the worst case scenarios and no pompous old dude in a pointy hat can change that.

 

I still can't believe that the Catholics threw out a legitimate Pope and put this socialist clown in. I haven't been in a Catholic church since he took over.

 

It does not. That is a gross mistranslation.

It says "thou shall not MURDER".

 

Because that's not what the Bible states. The commandment is a prohibition on murder, not killing. If a person actually reads the Bible, even an English translation, its very clear that it is a prohibition against the unjust and unwarranted killing of another person. The Law given by Moses, of which the Commandments are a part, describes many cases in which killing is permitted - self-defense, war, punishment for a crime.

There are even procedures described to protect a person who accidentally kills another person.

Read the Bible.

 

No, the point is the contradiction between communism and the seemingly communist Pope proclaiming people should not kill.

Democide and genocide and starvation are the primary tools of communism for keeping its subjects in line.

Always humorous how leftists hold up the Pope as the authority to be followed when the Pope seems to support some major lefty cause.

But it severely hurts your argument when you praise one policy of an organization and reject so many others.

Nope, not correct. Last year (May 2018, when the Pope made a statement about homosexuality, it was grossly and deliberately misrepresented. The Pope stated that the person should be loved but the acts condemned, the Pope never stated or hinted that homosexuality should be accepted and it was not a sin, and he never even hinted at supporting same sex marriage.

The official stance of the RCC is (and its accepted by the current Pope):
“Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered’. They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved” (Catechism 2357).

Over 2000 years, nothing has changed in the RCC regarding homosexuality. In Christianity, homosexuality is currently and always has been a sin.

 

The pope's opinion has about as much relevance as yours or mine or any other person. Does the fact that the pope's opinion aligns with your opinion give your opinion any more credence than before he made the statement? What was the purpose of your original post? The only purpose it could have in my mind is "Look everyone, see, I am right, the death penalty is bad because the pope agrees with me!" I would imagine that you disagree with the pope on many issues (I could be wrong), so to suddenly point out the time that he agrees with you is actually quite humorous to me. And I predicted that this would happen on PF when I heard the "news" on the radio.

 

Is this the same pope who defends pedophile priests? I think I will think for myself.

 

I believe churches should be consistent.

The Catholics should continue to torture Jews.

The Mormons should continue to boink plural wives.

The Baptists should stay away from alcohol.

The Quakers should avoid military service.

 

The "legitimate Pope" was a homo pedophile who was going to be outed by a number of Cardinals.

The socialist clown used to be a bouncer in a Brazilian nightclub -- how cool !!

 

I am going to add you to my "follow" list because you are obviously a gifted philosopher @LiveUninhibited .

Most people don't understand philosophy however because they are too stupid.

While I agree with the Philosopher Jesus on doing to others as we want them to do unto us, I disagree with him about loving enemies.

Enemies must first be hated in order that we might constitute the will to kill them.

Enemies deserve to die. And we must kill them all.

Yay though I walk thru the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for there is nothing on this Earth that I cannot kill.

 

The Pope is not infallible and he doesn’t speak for all Christians.