Re: Death Penalty: vision 2020: Eric E.

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

Hey Eric and others!

Thanks for your reply!

My comments are spliced in to the body of this discussion below for Eric or 
anyone to follow if they wish.  I am going to offer only a few comments on 
some of the points raised below, because many of Eric's claims were answered 
eloquently, and backed up with data and sources, by Bruce and Jean 
Livingston, in their post to vision2020 on the subject of Re: Death Penalty: 
vision2020: Eric E.


> >I offered to present to you scholarly works by
> >Christian thinkers who are at polar opposites on the death penalty, both 
>for
> >and completely against.  Remember?  This is my way of demonstrating the
> >seriousness of this disagreement within Christianity.
>
>I would love to read them-- but I would always have in mind that one side 
>of
>the issue must be right, even if I am never able to fully determine which.
>It would be stupid of me to assume that the basic tenet of both opposing
>positions could be simultaneously God's true intent.   :¬


I understand YOUR POSITION about one position having to be the true one.  My 
goal is simply to see if you will admit that given the serious debate among 
Christian scholars about the death penalty, that even if your assumptions 
about a God given set of ethical rules outside the human realm is correct, 
you may make mistakes about these rules, given the filtering of our 
knowledge through imperfect human minds.  And so why do you appear so 
convinced the death penalty, carried out with forethought my a State that is 
supposed to stand for the highest morals, is moral?  You do concede you 
might be wrong about the death penalty, but then go on to argue vehemently 
as though you have no doubt.

You state later in your reply, without qualification, "God commanded the 
death penalty."  You can refer to this passage below.  Yet just above you 
wrote about the death penalty debate, "one side of the issue must be right, 
even if I am never able to fully determine which."  You allow doubt about 
this subject, then banish the doubt with claims that you are certain you 
know what God's commands are.  And again I state, why are you so certain 
about God's laws when there are saintly and inspired Christian scholars who 
disagree with your dogmatic statements about God's commands on the death 
penalty?

And also the veracity of the claim that there is of a set of ethical rules 
we can know accurately handed down by a God outside the human realm is 
questionable and could be debated endlessly by reasonable people.

Consider the following argument, using assumptions of some Christian 
ethicists:

What puzzles me about some Christian thinkers is how keen they are to argue 
that humans are flawed fallen sinners with weakness and temptation and 
limited understanding of the ways of the all knowing all powerful God, then 
turn around and use the same limited human minds in insisting they know what 
exactly are the real and true set of ethical rules from God.  Of course they 
claim rules are directly inspired by God, a kind of dictation.  But there 
are thousands of people claiming this divine dictation who disagree with 
each other.  Then the same flawed sinful limited human minds now come back 
into the debate to PROVE that their revealed God given truths are the REAL 
ONES, and other competing differing rules are false.

I cannot see any way out of this epistemological problem.  Once you have 
established the extreme failings of human beings in their character
and limited capabilities of knowledge, you cannot then reconstruct
certain knowledge when human minds must filter and perceive the knowledge.



> >To your latest assertion that a life sentence is execution, I believe you
> >have not surveyed the opinions of those serving life sentences to 
>discover
> >if they agree with you.  There are many serving life sentences in prison 
>who
> >know they will die in prison, but have still found life worth living, and
> >who are you to say the life they have found is equivalent to an 
>execution?
>
>Well, Ted, the question "who am I to say...?" could be easily turned toward
>you and asked "Who are you...to say they are?"



It is not I who would speak for anyone in prison at this moment.  I merely 
made a statement of fact that YOU had not asked the death row inmates, some 
of whom have been exonerated as of late after having been on death row, if 
THEY thought their life worth living, even facing life imprisonment.  I 
therefore concluded you made an unfounded statement of fact that did not 
"irk" me so much as leave me incredulous that you would present yourself as 
a spokesman for those on death row.



>So-- since you want to talk facts and
>logic, Ted,



My insistence on facts and logic is required for ANYONE serious about 
discussions on issues of importance, and should not distinguish me 
especially in any way.




>In my biased, fundamentalist opinion, the whole mess started when we 
>thought
>we could come up with a better system than God had devised.
>


>God commanded the death penalty.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(exclamation points added by Ted. Otherwise Eric E. wrote this section.)



So our trying to rise above that is us
>saying we're wiser and more "in-the-know" than God.




> >But who made the decision that justice is just a matter of dollars and
> >cents?
>
> >Ted
>
>No one did and I certainly never would.  I was simply trying to 
>emphatically
>make the point that something seems strange about a system that spends
>$50,000-80,000 dollars a year to keep a criminal comfy, and yet can't
>provide health coverage for it's honest citizens, and can't afford to give
>decent pay to its most valuable employees-- educators.



I certainly agree that "something seems strange" about the system you 
describe above!


>I am very glad to hear that you love music, Ted. It is almost my greatest
>passion. Come out and hear me sometime!  I can still sing pretty good for a
>guy with strange logic and a whacky brain.



My brain is "whacky" beyond belief at times.  Maybe that's why I try to 
balance this with being so annoyingly reasonable and factual that I become a 
total bore.



Musicians are supposed to be
>wierd-- it's part of the image we have to keep up. Please know that no
>matter how presumptuous I may sound in my writing, I mean everything I say
>with all due respect to all types of people that God created in his image. 
>I
>enjoy debating and discussing, but I never intend to offend,




and I believe
>love and fellowship has to overide all argument.


This statement in it's idealism I sympathize with greatly!  I was right 
about you in sensing something I liked!  However, it seems to be in 
disharmony with a belief in the death penalty that you sometimes express 
with dogmatic argument to convince us we, by empowering the State with the 
RIGHT TO KILL, should with forethought take another life.
We all have contradictions!


I hope that is clear. That
>is one reason why I love music-- it usually communicates clearly and 
>without
>offense.


Tell that to current rapper M&M with his "obscene rap," or the Beatles when 
"A Day In The Life" was banned by the BBC because of the line "I'd love to 
turn you on."

>My best regards,
>
>Eric Engerbretson


Best Regards to you to, Eric!

Ted



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