Lauren isn’t feeling well, and she asked me to write a post.
It looks like through some interesting political maneuvering that the death penalty might become illegal in Nebraska. Governor Ricketts has promised to veto the bill, but it looks like there are enough votes to override his veto.
I, myself, hold no strong views on the death penalty. While I generally think that it doesn’t do any good, that it costs a lot of money and that we probably get it wrong every so often; I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with it.
But I recently ran across someone who that the death penalty is demanded by God and that you couldn’t be a Christian unless you supported it. This was on the internet, so I had time to read through and think about the arguments that were presented, so I don’t think I misunderstood them. You can read them here if you want. Well, actually you can’t, because the website is poorly designed. But if you go to the menu at the top, choose Topics then Religion, you will see the pages that, one can only assume, that page was meant to link to.
For a Christian, the death penalty is the cornerstone of human government, the first law that God laid down in Gen. 9:6. To knock it out of our society is to knock God’s moral authority out. Then we are to the wolves. In Europe, it has led to atrocities such as that Norway mass murderer of 77 people at that camp, many of them children and youth, who was given the “max” in Norway — 21 years in prison. It’s all a slippery slope downward, justice-wise, when you start by eliminating the God-ordained death penalty.
–Some random person on the internet
Anyway, I fully expect no one to comment on this.
I am not very politically-minded or smart, but I do have NPR playing in the car so I can get smarter by osmosis as I daydream. The other day they were talking about the Boston marathon bomber and how he is going to be put to death (correct me if I’m wrong). Apparently the family of the 8-year-old boy who died wrote a letter asking that the man not be put to death – not out of kindness – but because every time the case goes to appeal it drags up all the hurt and pain, opening a fresh wound. They would prefer he just go away to prison to be forgotten.
As a joke, I wasn’t going to comment, but since Lauren did…
I’ve heard arguments for and against the death penalty from a Christian point of view, but never that it is mandated by God. That’s interesting. I guess I can see where you might take Gen 9:2 to mean that.
I decided not to comment.
Nessun commento.
Bless you.