Too often, individuals equate executions to murder. This is patently false and incongruent with God’s teaching. Ultimate vengeance is in God’s realm, and in His alone. However, valid executions are neither a province of murder nor of vengeance. The abysmal lack of understanding of this fact evidences false teaching and widespread ignorance.

Few Americans are conversant with the Bible’s original languages. The Hebrew and Greek – tongues in which the Old and New Testaments were written, respectively – employ more precision because of their extensive vocabulary than do later English translations.

The Bible condemns murder. Whosoever sheddeth mans blood (here the original language translates murder), by man shall his blood be shed (the language here does not translate murder): for in the image of God made he man. [Genesis 9:6] Capital punishment not only is authorized, it is commanded. The Bible is NOT contradictory. And of course, the import here is a fair trial based on sufficient and proper evidence.

Please also note the New Testament warnings concerning lawbreakers. Romans 13: (1) Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. (2) Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. (3) For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: (4) For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

Neither is self-defense a province of murder nor vengeance. Rather this is an attempt to prevent the taking of innocent life before the actual act is committed.

On a grander scale, this is the very reason for just wars being prosecuted. Many disagree as to what constitutes a just war. No reasonable man wants war; however, it is preferable to tyranny. The implication is that if society desires what is right and just; then reason, objectivity, and humility must prevail to learn, accept, and obey God’s teachings. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD? [Isaiah 1:18] O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. [Jeremiah 10:23]

The rights of the innocent must prevail over those of the wicked. The ?stiff-necked? never will accept these “hard” teachings.

We hear the proclamation for peace — even world peace. But again, the unmodified word, “peace”, in the English language is vague. There is the “peace” of the grave, “peace” in a totalitarian country or even ?peace? in a hospital ward full of the dying; no reasonable person desires these. Decent, law-abiding citizens want the removal of murderers (especially politically-driven murderers) from society.

And prison, except to hold murderers until trial and execution, is not the answer. Far too many murderers either are released to prey on society or remain incarcerated as a heavy burden on society (tax payers). The Bible COMMANDS death to murderers and so it should be.

(In the physical sense, true peace is defined as the removal of hostilities at the hands of the wicked. In the spiritual sense, it means being right with God thereby avoiding His terrible vengeance at the Final Judgment. No one will be to escape or hide from the Lord. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess at that time. Only for the lost, it will be too late.)

We all should adhere to the admonition and warnings of God to live peaceably among men or suffer the consequences now and in the hereafter. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. [2 Corinthians 5:10]

As a last point of capital punishment, the US Constitution (with few exceptions [i.e., treason]) does not grant this power (and therefore it is prohibited) to the central government. That authority is not prohibited to (and thereby remains the prerogative of) the states; subject to their respective constitutions.

Uh, that’s precisely right, Roger. And given the fallout from the video, it’s an excellent argument for COMMUTING his sentence to life imprisionment.

Executing Saadam just added more fuel to the fire, strengthening the positions of both the Sunni extremists and Moqtada al-Sadr.

Why don’t some of you neocons go back to one of the founding texts of your ideology: “Maximum Feasible Misunderstanding”, Moynihan’s study of the early Community Action Agency component of our tragic adventure in Iraq.

point 2. The deterrent effect of any punishment is positively correlated with; its severity, its certainty, its swiftness. If it were possible to capture 90% of criminals in the act, and punish them then, it wouldn’t take a very sever punishment to maximize the deterrent effect. Our current system, on the other hand, is slower and more cumbersum than needs be to be just; the defense lawyers and the ACLU both have reasons to pour cement in the works. Nonetheless, there are criminals who have admitted that the death penalty has had a deterrent effect on them.

But it’s impossible to evaluate any moral question without reference to some code, which derives from some Bible or another. Even the codes we describe as “secular” have some connection to objective morality.

My point was not that the Old or New Testaments have control of this issue, but that the penal codes of our society, in this case the death penalty, must have a purpose for the people who compose the society other than simply isolating the offender.

If punishment isn’t accompanied by anger, or a sense of insult, then the punishment makes no sense, and its simply utilitarian and mechanistic.

The problem with refraining from references to the bible in dealth penalty discussions is that, for many Christians, their rational against it is largely based on a choice sampling of various biblical readings. Personally, there is no more enjoyable argument than when you can take your debating opponent’s own gun and turn it against him. When it comes to support for the death penalty, I can easily produce 5 examples of santioned death edicts for every act of mercy. The Book of Esther, which I referenced, is a story of mass murder and revenge that boggles the mind, and the moral of that story, if one wanted to draw anything from it, is that Sadaam Hussein was infinitely worse than Haman, who through a mere intention wound up being hung at the gallows, along with his 9 sons, plus tens of thousands of others associated with Haman were also legally murdered.

Point to this? After a few posts and rebuttals, all biblical, anyone who still has the stomach to use the Bible as an authority against captial punishment is going to find himself flapping on a set of wings that no longer fly.

With full respect to the Christians or members of whatever other non death-cult religion who may be reading, my preference would be to leave the Bible out of it—”render onto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s” and all that…..

I think that you’ll find Christians to be quite divided over the death peanalty, and “other non death-cult religions” probably would not make reference to the Bible anyway.

It’s hard to keep some reference to the bible out of any discussion involving moralty, even implicitly.

The reference I made, ironically enough, supports the death peanalty as an extreme sanction.

Verdict by analogy: Sadaam should have gone to the gallows in 1992, along with everyone that supported him.