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While this may not neccesarily have much to do with religion, it has a lot to do with morals, which are largely affected by ones religion/spirituality.

How do you feel about the death penalty, why?

If you are against it that means that you are 100% against it, that there is never a need for it, not treason, not murder, not anything

If you are for it, that means that you find that there is at least one crime worth the death penalty, treason, murder, rape, etc.

Now, it is also possible to be on mixed ground, meaning that you find that the military can execute war criminals for certain reasons, and even members of the nations own military for certain reasons such as treason. But it is not ok for there to be criminal execution outside of the military. (you could also go vice versa, and if you do, I would really like to see your logic behind that).

Edit: if you say absolutely no death penalty, put in a solution that seems logically viable.

Against. Very against. A life is a life. Killing is killing. Sure maybe they don't deserve to live, but it's not our right as humans with faults to determine who lives and who dies.

Sorry to quote the bible, I'm not Christian but it's a quote I really like, and try to live by; "Let he without sin cast the first stone."

Let's say you're a parent, you want to teach your kids certain things, correct? If they stole something, you don't teach them not to steal by in turn stealing something. If you want to teach them not to hit their kids, you don't hit them. Why would the government expect to teach the citizens not to kill people when in turn it is doing the same thing?

The death penalty is hypocritical. At the government's hands many people have died, many more people than some of the murder's have killed themselves.

I don't condone what they've done, nor do I think it's "okay" however by instituting a system which practices and condones killing people itself, you cannot expect any less from the citizens by which it rules. You also cannot say that such a system cuts down the rate of crime or murder, as the rate is far lower in Canada than it is in the States and yet we do not have capital punishment ourselves.

In order to expect something of someone else, you yourself must live by those same principals. For the government to set laws which state that killing another human is wrong they themselves must also live by these same standards.

I'm very against the death penalty.
I just don't see any real evidence that it does anything that life in prison wouldn't do.
Except that perhaps killing a person would maybe quench a person's thirst for revenge... stare

My personal motto comes from Fiddler on the Roof...

Again, I will bring up treason, where one is selling the lives and safety of every citizen in the nation, and gravely endangering the nation.

I'd have to say mixed...saying I'm totally against it looks very nice and compassionate in writing.


But it's just one of those things where my opinion could totally change if a person committed a capital crime and hurt someone I loved. I'm only human. I don't know what I would do in that situation and I hope I will never have to find out.

Not in Canada. In Canada life in prison means 25 years, maximum you can parole before that. However you can be given mulitple life sentences. I think we worry too much about rehabilitating people sometimes, and so we get caught up in this idea, which actually won't work in reality. Life in prison should mean life.

And yes, I would be fine with you only getting life in prison. Why would you be getting the death penalty? Because you had put other's LIVES at risk. By stating that what you did was wrong and then taking your life it is hypocritical. By killing someone the government is devaluing people's lives and cannot therefore make a rule that it is wrong to kill someone. You must abide by the rules you set before you can expect anyone else to abide by them.

I believe that the death penalty is acceptable only when there is no way to otherwise prevent the offender from harming society again. In today's society, I believe it is wrong--life in prison should replace the death penalty.
However, I don't mean "life" as in 25 years and then they're free, or life until bail/parole/whatever comes into the picture; I mean they should stay in jail, "rehabilitated" or not, until they are stone cold dead.

I can only hope that I would be able to forgive someone if they did something terrible to a person I loved.

i do not believe we have the privilege of taking life.

if another has taken life, that is their sin. we ought not compound it by doing the same.

this for me includes not only capital punishment but warmaking as well as the use of abortion as an option for birth control (in other words, for non-health reasons).