Okay, religious folk. First, let me say this: I'm one of you. I'm not coming at you from the outside, and I don't think the basis for what you believe is wrong. So, we're natural friends. That's fun, right? We cool? Because we may not be when I'm done here, even though I say all this with the best intentions; to ask the tough questions we all should be asking ourselves before major decisions are made.
What kind of major decisions?
Oh, the kind involving ending the life of a human being. That's the one.
Are you a Christian?
(Note: I should have said earlier that I was talking about Christian folk, not just religious folk. It's not that I have a problem with other religions for the most part. It's just that I hear these opinions coming out of Christians more often than not, and being one, I not only have an idea of what is informing those decisions.)
So after that caveat, back to my last question: Are you a Christian?
If you are, you should be a fervent believer in the 10 Commandments. You know the ones: don't kill, don't steal, don't sleep around, don't lie, don't do unholy things on the Lord's day, etc. Some very important stuff in there that we, as Christians, should follow.
Now, our society has decided to lump these different rules into different laws. We as Christians often say that each is as bad as the other, and yet we also happily go along with society thinking lying is mildly offensive and murder is the worst thing. That's a little weird. It seems unBiblical to believe some sins are worse than others. But that should be another post entirely.
Back to the killing.
In many parts of the world, there's a thing called corporal punishment, or capital punishment. It means that the state can sentence you to death for something horrific that you did. There are also people in places where the death penalty is illegal who would like to see it enacted. They think it will lower crime and murder rates. They think it'll keep our streets safer. And mostly, they think it will offer up justice, especially to the family's victims.
There's some substance in some of those statements, for sure. And there's even some Biblical support for something like that, too. (I won't even bother getting into the vast Biblical support for non-violence of any kind -- it's a complicated collection with some potentially contradicting content which requires the writing of people far superior to me at understanding the Bible.)
But what I really want to talk about is this: what happens for the person who flips the switch or injects the drug cocktail? This is a gray area that I've thought about for a long time. Does killing a killer make it okay by God? It's perfectly legal by Man (or, rather, it can be if done in certain situations like self defense or as a prison executioner), but lots of things are considered legal by one and illegal by the other, so we shouldn't exactly always be siding by Man on this one.
It's tough. It's hard to figure out. It's why my pacifism is more of a defensism. I'm taking the safest route.
But I think where the grey area falls off the cliff and we're left with some pretty-close-to-black crevices is what about those who didn't commit the crime?
Now just to reiterate, this is a post for the Christians. This isn't a post advocating for all those wrongly accused, nor for those opposing capital punishment due to the potential for a wrongly accused to be killed. There are other places for that, and they may have many arguments which I fully support.
What happens to the person who pulled that switch? Who prepared and/or injected that cocktail that lead to them taking their final breath? When you kill a person who has done nothing wrong, does God look at you and say, "Well, society asked you to do it, and even though they got their facts wrong, you can't be blamed for this one so you're good to go! You killed an innocent person and we're gonna just ignore that one up in the ol' Heavensville here."?
Christians believe that you must repent of all your sins in order to be forgiven of them and be saved. But if you feel absolutely zero remorse for killing someone, because you believed it was the right to do, or even more so, because you had no idea (or never find out) that the accused was innocent, you can't repent for it or feel remorse for it.
Is capital punishment sending Christians to hell? Good, honest, law-abiding Christians.
Would the smart Christian viewpoint be to do whatever it takes to not commit sins against God? Well, the biggest of these, as we often reinforce through the media, and mega churches, and popular belief in general, is killing an innocent person. So if you're a Christian that has gotten this far, as yourself: are you okay with the possibility (however small) of a good Christian person being forced to kill an innocent person, thus sending that first person to hell? How can we align that with the commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill?
It's just something to ponder. But it's yet another realized reason why I am 100% against the death penalty.
I would love to hear an argument, from a Christian individual who follows and believes in the 10 commandments, as to how they could be for it, especially given the scenario I laid out. Please give me one.
What kind of major decisions?
Oh, the kind involving ending the life of a human being. That's the one.
Are you a Christian?
(Note: I should have said earlier that I was talking about Christian folk, not just religious folk. It's not that I have a problem with other religions for the most part. It's just that I hear these opinions coming out of Christians more often than not, and being one, I not only have an idea of what is informing those decisions.)
So after that caveat, back to my last question: Are you a Christian?
If you are, you should be a fervent believer in the 10 Commandments. You know the ones: don't kill, don't steal, don't sleep around, don't lie, don't do unholy things on the Lord's day, etc. Some very important stuff in there that we, as Christians, should follow.
Now, our society has decided to lump these different rules into different laws. We as Christians often say that each is as bad as the other, and yet we also happily go along with society thinking lying is mildly offensive and murder is the worst thing. That's a little weird. It seems unBiblical to believe some sins are worse than others. But that should be another post entirely.
Back to the killing.
In many parts of the world, there's a thing called corporal punishment, or capital punishment. It means that the state can sentence you to death for something horrific that you did. There are also people in places where the death penalty is illegal who would like to see it enacted. They think it will lower crime and murder rates. They think it'll keep our streets safer. And mostly, they think it will offer up justice, especially to the family's victims.
There's some substance in some of those statements, for sure. And there's even some Biblical support for something like that, too. (I won't even bother getting into the vast Biblical support for non-violence of any kind -- it's a complicated collection with some potentially contradicting content which requires the writing of people far superior to me at understanding the Bible.)
But what I really want to talk about is this: what happens for the person who flips the switch or injects the drug cocktail? This is a gray area that I've thought about for a long time. Does killing a killer make it okay by God? It's perfectly legal by Man (or, rather, it can be if done in certain situations like self defense or as a prison executioner), but lots of things are considered legal by one and illegal by the other, so we shouldn't exactly always be siding by Man on this one.
It's tough. It's hard to figure out. It's why my pacifism is more of a defensism. I'm taking the safest route.
But I think where the grey area falls off the cliff and we're left with some pretty-close-to-black crevices is what about those who didn't commit the crime?
Now just to reiterate, this is a post for the Christians. This isn't a post advocating for all those wrongly accused, nor for those opposing capital punishment due to the potential for a wrongly accused to be killed. There are other places for that, and they may have many arguments which I fully support.
What happens to the person who pulled that switch? Who prepared and/or injected that cocktail that lead to them taking their final breath? When you kill a person who has done nothing wrong, does God look at you and say, "Well, society asked you to do it, and even though they got their facts wrong, you can't be blamed for this one so you're good to go! You killed an innocent person and we're gonna just ignore that one up in the ol' Heavensville here."?
Christians believe that you must repent of all your sins in order to be forgiven of them and be saved. But if you feel absolutely zero remorse for killing someone, because you believed it was the right to do, or even more so, because you had no idea (or never find out) that the accused was innocent, you can't repent for it or feel remorse for it.
Is capital punishment sending Christians to hell? Good, honest, law-abiding Christians.
Would the smart Christian viewpoint be to do whatever it takes to not commit sins against God? Well, the biggest of these, as we often reinforce through the media, and mega churches, and popular belief in general, is killing an innocent person. So if you're a Christian that has gotten this far, as yourself: are you okay with the possibility (however small) of a good Christian person being forced to kill an innocent person, thus sending that first person to hell? How can we align that with the commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill?
It's just something to ponder. But it's yet another realized reason why I am 100% against the death penalty.
I would love to hear an argument, from a Christian individual who follows and believes in the 10 commandments, as to how they could be for it, especially given the scenario I laid out. Please give me one.