Bring back the death penalty in this case

Do you know that Psalm is about the people lamenting about their suffering and about the people who were oppressing them? I don’t understand your quote? Are you implying that The Bible says people who bash infants against rocks will be happy?

@ThisWiseRobin if you’re Christian, then surely you should be willing to forgive this person hoping they gain salvation? And leaving judgement only to God?

No we cannot bring back the death penalty. Would anyone genuinely trust any of our successive governments to ensure it was implemented properly and fairly? Prime Minister Farage wouldn’t try to intervene to get more racist points? Come on.

The state should never have the power to kill its citizens. End of.

I’m a Christian too OP but I don’t believe in the death penalty. I just don’t think that humans have the moral right or ‘authority’ to take a life - yes, even if it’s been ordered by a judge and jury.

I don’t know the case you’re referring to but I do know that people who harm children get a particularly difficult time in prison. Losing their liberty and rights, not to mention the constant looking-over-your-shoulder, is a just punishment.

YABU. You’re not emotional because you’re a Christian its because you’re a human

As usual, first post nails it. Awful case but no government should have the power to execute whichever citizens they please. You might agree with who today’s authorities decide should die but not with future governments’ choices. So no, obviously not. Thanks for making my day a little darker and bleaker, OP.

You Shalt Not Kill

I cannot agree with the death penalty. If it's wrong to murder then we should not be murdering no matter how heinous the crime. It doesnt make it ok if its state sanctioned.
I am not a christian Im pagan but christian values are as good as any.
But sometimes the things I hear make me feel that the entire human race should be eliminated in one fell swoop.

I think every Christian can understand that immediate emotional reaction. Reading about the abuse or murder of a child is heartbreaking, and anger is a natural response. Jesus Himself showed righteous anger in the face of evil.

But as Christians we're called to be careful not to let grief become a desire for vengeance. The child deserves justice, and society must be protected from someone capable of such evil. A whole-life sentence may well be appropriate. Wanting justice is not wrong.

The passage about the millstone (Matthew 18:6) is indeed a severe warning about the gravity of harming "little ones," but Jesus isn't giving us permission to delight in someone's death or suffering. Elsewhere He tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44), and on the Cross He prayed for those who were killing Him.

The Church teaches that no sin is beyond God's mercy if there is genuine repentance, however unimaginable that may seem to us. That doesn't remove the need for punishment or lessen the horror of the crime. Mercy and justice are not opposites.

It's perfectly understandable to say, "I can't forgive this right now." Forgiveness is often a process rather than a feeling. We can ask God to do in our hearts what we cannot yet do ourselves, while praying for the innocent victim, for those left grieving, and even—however difficult—for the sinner's conversion.

It’s a horrible case but there have been much worse cases of child abuse than this one. Preston Davey being a recent example. Seems odd you’d think this was worse, given it wasnt even murder but culpable homicide.

Also, the death penalty is abhorrent.

YABU

Are you a Reform voter, OP, or maybe an American bot for the Westboro brigade?

An ancient book may have proposed chucking miscreants into the sea with a millstone around their neck (although I think you may have misinterpreted that one). Fortunately our legal system is based on more rational thought.

We absolutely do not need the death penalty in the UK. No exceptions.

Fundamentalist Christian bots

There's been some horrific cases is the press recently. Some people believe that the death penalty is appropriate in these cases. They're wrong but they think that

Perfectly in keeping with what a rage-baiting, Right-wing troll-infested cesspit MN has become.

Why so many death penalty threads lately?!

I think you would need to be damn sure it was a proven fact before offing someone! The expert witness said he didn’t think the hairdryer killed the baby. Whatever the hell happened here would need to be fully established before you could argue the death penalty based on it.

That’s nothing like what the poster said

Couldn’t have put it better.

It's not "mental gymnastics".

There is no such thing as "evil". It's an abstract concept dreamt up to explain things that are difficult to comprehend when the premise is the individual in question is no different to any normal person. This is the problem with the concept. Acts perceived as "evil" are not carried out by normal people, because normal people don't behave in these ways.

That repulsive pair who were shoving their penises in a baby’s throat…. Just a bit misunderstood were they and in need of some therapy?

This is a ridiculous leap to the absurd and that fact you posit it as a question shows you know how ridiculous it is, but for the sake of keeping it civil -

People who can do these sorts of things are not "misunderstood", they clearly have disordered and disturbed personalities, so no, "some therapy" isn't even going to touch the sides, and it's not a "mental health" issue either.

Perhaps you could go and read about Personality Disorders, Addiction and suchlike, and move away from dark ages nonsense like believing in "evil".

Oh and frankly, you can take your idiotic,offensive assertion that this is "excusing murderers" and ram it up your hoop.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX. Well you can crack on with thinking that some people aren’t evil and just suffering with poor mental health if you want to.

theres some mental gymnastics involved in trying to excuse these murderers. though. That repulsive pair who were shoving their penises in a baby’s throat…. Just a bit misunderstood were they and in need of some therapy?

Give over

I cannot fathom how anyone can abuse or kill a child

Mentally disturbed people, who are possibly also in the grip of addiction, do all sorts of things that mentally well, happy, fit and healthy people will not ordinarily do.

The problem is, there is often a total inability to recognise this fact, so the presumption is that people committing heinous acts are invariably "monsters", or "evil", and that's nothing more than a convenient distraction from the fact that they are human, and human beings sometimes do terrible things under certain circumstances. There is no such thing as evil, just unwell, aberrant, and atypical human beings.

How a mother can kill her baby with a hairdryer

The expert cited at the trial maintains that in his view the child was likely dead before the hairdryer ever came into the picture.

Never mind bringing back the death penalty.

How about bringing back the OP...

Yes the crux of it is ‘I read something that made me feel sad and angry, and I think we should put that person to death to satiate the thirst for vengeance it has given me’. Very well considered and very Christian! It’s what calls for the return of the death penalty come down to I guess, a sort of lynch mob mentality but wanting it legalised.

The millstone around the neck thing that Jesus talked about was for his unforgivable sin, so far as I am aware. And that sin is to de-convert a Christian.

Mat 18:1 At that hour the disciples came near to Jesus, saying, "Who, now, is greater in the kingdom of the heavens?"
Mat 18:2 And Jesus having called near a child, set him in the midst of them,
Mat 18:3 and said, "Truly I say to you, if you may not be turned and become as the children, you may not enter into the kingdom of the heavens;
Mat 18:4 whoever then may humble himself as this child, he is the greater in the kingdom of the heavens.
Mat 18:5 And he who may receive one such child in My Name, receives Me,
Mat 18:6 and whoever may cause to stumble one of those little ones who are believing in Me, it is better for him that a weighty millstone may be hanged on his neck, and he may be sunk in the depth of the sea. (LSV)

Jesus was not talking about actual children.

I am atheist. OP is Christian. What Jesus is saying there is that if I were to turn you away from believing in Jesus, then it would be ME who should be drowned.

So yes, Jesus was pro death sentence. But this is the only case where he said it is a requirement.

So if you are a Christian, you still have to forgive.

I don't think religion has any place in influencing law and punishments. I disagree with state sanctioned killings for any reason.

So making prison staff work in a far more dangerous environment?