Pope Declares Death Penalty Unacceptable in All Cases

Im glad you asked. Yes. Here in Los Angeles, I have to hear celebrities tell me why my second amendment rights should be infringed on while they live in Beverly Hills and enjoy armed security on the set.

 

Plenty of translations of the Bible end up saying different things. There are versions of the Bible the use the word Homosexual; a word that did not exist at the time of righting. It’s really an argument of semantics here.

I can agree that is a bit of hypocrisy right there.
But since we bring up the topic of the second amendment I’d like to bring up an important point. The number of people in the general public killed by legal firearms far exceeds the number of people in the general public killed by violent criminals serving life sentences in an appropriate prison facility. So if we can agree that the benefits of firearms outweigh the negatives then surely we can agree that there is some benefit to be had by doing away with the death penalty.

 

1) What exactly do you think I am arguing here?
2) If your moral compass tells you what is right, why did you start an entire thread to point out that the pope has taken the same position as your moral compass?

 

1) What ARE you arguing? If you think I misunderstood your point feel free to make it more clear.
2) Because it was news worthy.

 

All I am asking is you find someone who knows Hebrew and the Hebrew text of the Torah
or look for a translation that went directly from the ancient manuscripts to modern English.

Most Bible translations went from ancient Hebrew, to Greek, to Latin, to English.

I also have the New Testament direct from ancient Greek to Modern English.

The Hebrew word for murder is distinctly different from kill as it is in American.
The word, as written by the ancients is, "murder".
Cling to your King James as you chose.


Just wait.
@DennisTate will set you straight.

 

1) Wasn't arguing anything, just made a point that my first thought was that some liberals would use the pope's declaration as evidence of their position being correct.
2) Newsworthy? Okay. When was the last time you created a thread about something the pope said?

 

You are correct Moi621... the correct translation is indeed....."Thou shalt do no murder" and even Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus may have
had a significantly different understanding of what that would mean for his followers.........
than many of his followers understand.

Mark 3:4 "And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace."

On one level... Yeshua was referring to the situation at Jericho where Caananites were killed on an annual High Sabbath day.

I think that he was also referring to the situation faced by the Machabees who were attacked by Greco- Syrian armies on the weekly Sabbaths.

Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible, First Book Of Machabees Chapter 2

http://www.drbo.org/chapter/45002.htm

A dogmatic and simplistic across the board prohibition against taking the life even of extremely evil people.....
violates this principle:

Ecclesiastes 7:16 "Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?"

 

From what I have read in its original text the commandment is closer to thou shall not murder. Murder and kill have dmuch different meanings, with the same outcome.

 

In a way yes. I think everyone who crosses the border illegally (jumping over fences, sneaking with boats, etc) should be killed at the spot (i.e. border). If they are already inside, jailed and after the term is spent, kicked out of the country.

 

Being an inveterate atheist I prefer 'An eye for an eye.' Mad-dog humans should be put down.

 

I don't see as empathy as something unlimited. If you have empathy for everyone, so you have for no one.

Japan is one of the country of the world with one of the lowest homicide rate. China too. Both have death penalty.

By the way, death penalty isn't a magical solution and among countries with the lowest homicide rate, there is a mix of non death penatly countries and death penatly countries.

The chinese case is very interesting. Most of the time, GDP/inhabitant and homicide rate are highly related, it doesn't prevent china to have a very low homicide rate, and china has a very severe judicial policy.

However, it doesn't change a fact, the very catholic south america know too much homicides. the pople will give us morale lessons when the no death penalty south american countries will have reached a chinese like homicide rate.

 

Mary Magdeline discovers the tomb is empty - espies G of G gardener mowing the grass - quoth she, 'Someone has stolen him.' - 'Someone has stolen who?' 'Someone has stolen my lord.' - 'Go and tell someone who gives a ****. Cantcha see I'm busy!'

 

How did you come up with that bit of convoluted logic?

It sounds like something from a Freshman philosophy paper.

 

Let he who is without sin throw the first stone. [A direct intervention in an execution]
Turn the other cheek
Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, so you do unto me.
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.

No real Christian can support the death penalty, only phony ones. As you can see, so it is written.

 

From observatiom mostly. I saw some people spending so much time having "empathy" (empathy in the words) for people far away and not considering people close to them. I rarely saw people against death penalty, or for lighter prison sentences defending people who live hell in their day to day life because of free criminals. They always speak of "rights", respect of life. But what rights have people constantly bullied by criminals ? What respect of life is it to release a rapist or a murderer that will repeat that ?

and a simple consideration, nobody has an unlimited number of thinking, if you consecrate to much thoughts to criminal, you don't consecrate them to something else, for instance justice and defence of people persecuted by criminals.

I just notice, among the most peacefull country of the world, you have two countries with extremly severe judicial system.

China is much more respectfull of life than, for instance, colombia or mexico.

 

The meek shall inherit the earth. They won't, the strong will.

 

Anecdotal and irrelevant. Just because some don't that doesn't make it a universal law.

Irrelevant. You can reduce crime and make the roads safer by executing people for a traffic violations. That doesn't make is a good thing.

And you ignore life sentences w/o the possibility of parole. You don't have to argue for the death penalty to prevent people from being released who are dangerous.

And how many innocent people are executed in your beloved China? Perhaps you would like to see another Tienanmen Square for protesters here as well?

 

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.

 

@HereWeGoAgain The less innocent people dies, the better it is. The life of murderers, rapists or people who cripple other people have almost no value to me. Around 2400 people are executed in China each year. Even if all people executed were innocent, which is probably not the case, China would have still much less innocent people getting their life taken away than in USA or any south american nation.

I don't have any wish to see another Tienanmen.

I quoted Japan too. Japan isn't a dictator and didn't had Tienanmen like case since the end WW2.

And if executing some of the people who trigger deadly accidents by driving constantly drunk lower the number of death rate on the roads, then it would be a good thing.
Someone who drive drunk and trigger an accident is not very different from my point of view than some intentionnal murderers.

I care of the protection if innocent lives, and China is much better and efficient at protecting innocent lives than a lot of "free", "democratic" and "progressive" regimes.

I'm not a lover of chinese regime, but on the point of homicide rate and death sentence, there is very few countries who can give them lessons.

 

I’ll try to edit down the length of quotes to save some space here. Going to be a wall as it is.

I don’t cling to any version of the Bible as I’m not a Christian. I am trying to have a discussion and I find it useful to engage posters on material that they draw their views from. And when it comes down to it, murder or kill, the result is the same; the loss of human life which is a tragedy.

1)Well then you made a blanket statement that misrepresent my reason for posting the story. The Popes view is relevant, but it hardly informs my views. It seemed an appropriate start to a discussion.
2)This is the first post I’ve made in world news, so my posting history hardly informs what I ought to do with the present. Do you think the Pope making a declaration like this is not newsworthy?

So with the same outcome, why is the distinction between words so important. Both result in the loss of life which is a tragedy.

I bet Jesus Christ were he alive today would be out there picking em off like flies, amiright? I thought I stopped being a Christian because I realized I was gay, and I didn’t feel accepted, but maybe it’s the more broad disrespect for human life that turned me off.

The rest of the phrase is “Leaves the whole world blind.” you know that right?

I cut your post down a bit, trying to save some space as mentioned above.
I don’t get how you view empathy. It you can not find empathy for ALL then you might as well have it for none. The people who need it most are the people least likely to get it.
You said yourself that the death penalty isn’t a cure all, I mean look at America. We’re pretty good at killing each other and we have it. There are more important factors like poverty and the health of the social structure. Maybe taking a stand as a society against killing people, any people, would do more to fix our problems than continuing with the status quo.

Did you really just say that you’re okay with innocent people being executed in China and then say you care about protecting innocent lives? You’re absurd.
We are perfectly capable of locking away our worst criminals for the rest of their lives. The incidents of of jailed persons killing anyone in the general public is virtually zero. Add the fact that there is no proof the death penalty is a deterrent and we come to the conclusion that you just want to kill them back. You want the last word. You’re giving in to the demands of your lizard brain and the world is worse off for it.

 

@DaveBN

Do you accept the Hebrew word is Murder and not Kill yet
regardless of your fav Bible translation?
Several on Board responded to you & Moi with such confirmation.

 

Sure. The word can be murder. I really don’t have any skin in the game on that one.
As I already said I don’t have a preferred Biblical translation as I’m not a Christian. Just trying to meet people in their realm of experience.

 

I was never a believer or faithful, but sometimes I enjoy Bible study.
And comparing translations is fun for me when I study.

Oh and you murder your neighbor.
You kill the enemy.

 

Always good to be passionate about fields of study. Good on ya.
I guess, based on the original translations, that commandment doesn’t really support my position, but I think Jesus Christ did enough throughout his life to back me up. He’s the one positive I find in Christianity.

 

Good point.