(snip)

Apologies for taking a while to answer this and other posts, but lately I've been finding it hard to devote the time and energy to debating. Summeritis, I guess. And a consequence of posting *way* too long and incoherently.

> ...where you make a statement that I am so incapable of comprehending that I lack the ability to refute it.
>

Well, this is a difference in our POV. If you really believe that an unsaved person is going to Hell when he dies, and you condemn him to death, you're condemning him to Hell, correct?

Of course I don't mean that your judgment is what causes perdition; I just mean that your decision to kill a person results in eternal perdition for the person, and that you would be fully aware of this. So in an important sense it is condemning him to Hell.

> > ...And the Bible tells us that we will be held accountable for those who failed to receive the Gospel as a result of our (in)actions; their blood is on our hands.
>
> Book, chapter, verse, please?
>

All right, I apologize. I shouldn't have said that as though it were a quote (although I didn't put it in quotation marks), because it isn't; it's a phrase that's been ringing in my head from various sermons, tracts, etc. that I've been reading and listening to over the years.

But I think the idea is there in the Bible; Matthew 28:19-20, the Great Commission, tells us we're basically still here to spread the Gospel (not the only reason we're on Earth, but one of the big ones). I Corinthians 10:13-15; God calls everyone to repentance, but they *can't* repent unless we give them the Gospel. Matthew 18:14; God doesn't want *anyone* to be lost. I Corinthians 9:16-22; Paul himself bent over backwards and did everything at all in his power so that he could save as many as possible. I Corinthians 3:9-15; our missionary work (the work of Paul and Apollos) is building the temple of God (not only the physical body, but our physical works in life), and we will be judged in the afterlife for how well we build. And so on.

Our *job* is to bring people to Christ, to save souls, even the most depraved. (Especially the most depraved; Matthew 9:12-13.) There will be judgment of the saved, not for whether we are guilty or innocent, but of, in our innocence, how much positive good we have done in the world (the Parable of the Talents comes to mind, as does that of the Sheep and the Goats). God *does* care very much about each and every sinner, and, as a corollary, cares very much about how we treat each and every sinner.

(snip)

> This is taking instruction for individuals and assigning it to human government. Death by lynch mob does not equal capital punishment.
>

I'm not sure I agree with this. What is the fundamental difference between death by lynch mob and capital punishment? Only that the former lacks due process (to obtain certainty of guilt, which is far from perfect even with the most sophisticated of justice systems), and the death they deal out will probably be more painful and less dignified (whatever "dignified" means; there've been some notoriously botched state executions in the past, too, that led to slow, lingering deaths; I find it hard to believe that anyone ever thought electrocution was the most humane way to kill).

Otherwise it's the same thing; the majority of the people form as a body to exercise their power and mete out what they consider to be justice. The U.S. government is just on a bigger scale, and because of that has implemented more systems to try to be fair and humane. But there have been and still are civil governments in other parts of the world that are little more than glorified lynch mobs.

Yes, Paul said the government has the power of the sword to enforce fairness and security, but the "sword" doesn't necessarily mean killing. (Jesus said he came not to bring peace, but a sword; does that mean he intended Christians to begin a holy war of violence against non-Christians?) All governments comprise groups of individuals; Paul didn't use an impersonal "it" for the ruler but a personal "he". The prince of a state is just as much an individual and just as bound by God's individual commands as any other individual, a point God drove home hard to Saul, David, and Solomon, just to name three.

> Then you close with about three more paragraphs that are rephrasings of things I've said elsewhere in this thread. Not that you can't reiterate them in your own words if you share the sentiment, but I'm not sure why this was part of a reply to me.

I just went back and read my old post, and while I agree it ended up being longer and less structured than I intended it to be (don't they all... *sigh*) I'm not sure why you reacted so strongly. Maybe it's just me unable to see my own faults.

No, the last three paragraphs were not addressed to you. That was a tangent based on other things I have seen on this board and elsewhere (in the media, among my own friends, etc.) I should've made it clearer whom I was talking about then.

I am sorry that it came out as though I were attacking a million ideas that weren't yours. But I was trying to hit on that one thing you said, that civil government isn't bound by the same rules individuals are. (The only source I can think of for this is Romans 13, and I already talked about the meaning of the sword. Besides, this isn't addressed to the ruler but to the ruled; it's saying that as Christians we should bow to the authority and should have nothing to fear from him unless we do evil. Notice I didn't say that we shouldn't have a death penalty because then we could murder more easily, or that DP critics should begin an insurrection against the US, or that murderers on death row are justified in trying to break out.)

Of course the US government has the right to collect fines and I don't, and the US government has the right to imprison and I don't, and the US government has the right to deport and I don't... but that's just because, in order to keep order, security, peace and all those good things, people can't do such things haphazardly; they have to be done through a system, and the government is the system. A good government is only the instrument for exercising my individual rights (John Locke etc.). If my stuff is stolen, I have the right to get it back (law enforcement, restoration of stolen goods) and I have the right to try to make sure it doesn't happen again (fines, jail terms). But I have to exercise those rights through the government.

All government policies and debates boil down to that, basically. Do I have the right to demand help from my neighbors when I'm in a state of trouble or emergency and can't support myself? (Welfare.) Do I have the right to ask for protection from outsiders who'd want to attack me? (Defense, law enforcement.) Do I have the right to ask that dangerous people be put somewhere where I'm safe from them? (Prisons.)

My point is that I *don't* have the right to ask for someone's death in the case of a murder, and the government doesn't have the right to carry that out for me.

I'd like to talk more clearly about the points we disagree upon, but it appears from your last post that I'm having a hard time figuring that out. It's probably my fault for not reading carefully enough, but, for clarification, if those are all *not* reasons why the government should kill murderers (not whether it has the right to, why it *should*), then what is? What I got from you was that anyone who takes another's life *must* be removed from society as quickly and efficiently as possible, which I still don't really understand. I agree that we must be *protected* from potential murderers, as part of our defense of human life; killing the murderer, though, seems to be using a wrong to make a right. I still haven't heard a reason why this sacrifice is a necessary sacrifice. To me, if it's not absolutely necessary to kill, then I wouldn't do it. All the arguments about risk to prison guards and expense etc. not only have been addressed by others better than I could, but are specious unless you first accept the idea that a murderer gives up his human rights by murdering. That's the issue I thought we were trying to debate now.

I've been trying to hit at the Biblical grounds for that idea, the ones based directly on quoting OT sources that demand death for certain crimes (that's the issue of my little mini-thread with Nyperold that's meandered a bit now), and my Biblical grounds for believing that the DP is not permissible in a government that tries to govern in a godly way.

If you don't accept that, then at a certain point all we can do is agree to disagree. But the point you seem to be trying to make is that the Bible is neutral on the DP and it's a decision that Christians should make on secular grounds, which I disagree with.

(And if we do, then I believe others have already pointed out that, all theory and speculation aside, there *are* many civilized countries right now that have banned the death penalty, and they seem to be functioning just fine without it; in some cases, they're doing better than countries that practice capital punishment. I don't see that they're racked by violence and anarchy or that their economies are spiraling into a tailspin, anyway.)

Again, I apologize for any problems or errors in that post or any other. I'm not much of a professional debater, and I tend to go on tangents, both faults I'm working on. But though I think I know what your position is, I'm still having a hard time seeing entirely where you're coming from. Thanks for your patience and willingness to respond so far.

Ar"mea culpa"thur