Harm from Fundamentalism: Re: death penalty

["Ted Moffett" <ted_moffett@hotmail.com>]

Visionaries:

Doug Wilson claims that the only question before the house is what 
"absolutist-enough-to-coerce standard?" will be applied and to whom in the 
legal system?  Apart from the weakening of the word "absolute" to the point 
of creating an oxymoron by using that word in that phrase, one question that 
has been put before the "house" is simply that there are ethical issues that 
promote intelligent and devoted Christians to disagree, that do not easily 
lend themselves to an "absolute" solution, suggesting that there is 
"relativism" in Christian ethics, a conclusion that it seems Mr. Wilson 
would find unfortunate, considering how he has presented his ethical system 
as a preferred alternative to the ethical chaos and moral anarchy that he 
asserts relativism will bring.  I wonder why Mr. Wilson declares his 
question to be the only one before the house?

Of course we must enforce laws based on a standard, and the 
"absolute-enough-to-coerce" standard is subject often to ethical judgments 
that reasonable and thoughtful people will disagree on, like the death 
penalty, which has been eliminated throughout most of Europe.  Turkey just 
banned the death penalty in part to assist in their acceptance into the 
European Union, an example the USA might wish to consider.  It seems that in 
the predominantly Christian Western world there is major disagreement on the 
death penalty and whether it is a "reasonable-enough-to-coerce" sort of 
penalty, suggesting again the among these mostly Christian populated nations 
my thesis that the death penalty is open to much relativistic debate is 
quite accurate.

It is not always true that someone who has murdered will murder again,  
especially if they are locked up for life, so Mr. Wilson's assertion is 
false that if you do not execute someone guilty of murder you are in effect 
sentencing the murderer's next victim to death.

All I am asking for is honest debate based on logic and fact.
I recognize the importance of Christian ethics in our civilization and 
admire many of the ethical teachings of Christ.  But I also think that 
extreme unyielding dogmatic fundamentalism creates major problems in the 
world when people will kill and go to war over extreme beliefs, such as the 
9-11 attacks, the fighting in Kashmir, the middle east, Northern Ireland, 
etc.  I could go on and on with examples, but any student of history can 
give this lesson.

So I present this question to the "house?"  Is there social harm from 
dogmatic fundamentalist views that will not admit that there are  
relativistic issues that EVERY human being must grapple with?

Ted


>From: Douglas <dougwils@moscow.com>
>To: vision2020@moscow.com
>Subject: death penalty
>Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 10:35:45 -0700
>




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