Death Penalty?

[Deeje]

Deeje there are many times in this discussion where you try to put words in my mouth, which is kind of odd because I'm writing everything down and there really is no room for that because every word is documented and you can see where I literally stated souls and spirits were not the same thing. It would be a much better discussion if you would read all my posts before responding to them as well. Most of your rebuttals are usually answered and addressed later on. I thought I neatly defined most of the stuff already in my previous posts about this subject. I will say that human breath and spirits are not the same thing.



These scriptures were far more convincing than how you describe the waiting period, to me that the spirit, not breath, must leave the body in order to be declared death. Also, although the translations in the Bible vs. The Tanakh differ. I don't think that should create an immense divide in our understanding of these things. I respect the Tanakh, however, I will continue to hold closer to the KJV as it is universally understood and it is better to speak with the Christian Community as well as the content that it offers.


Let's start with this. 'I will be that I will be.' versus 'I am that I am" Hmmm... This is obviously a matter of translation. One is a future tense version of the other. When Christ stated in John 8 that he was I am, which caused the Jews to start to throw stones at him. I am pretty sure that in whatever translation fit this description, Jesus declared his divinity and people were angry at him. Please also note that the Tanakh was in it's history an oral document, meaning that it was passed down mostly between rabbi to rabbi written as someone recited it to them. If you ever played the game telephone, things tend to get changed just a little, where as the scrolls found that comprised the Old and New Testament, had a little more secured method of passing down information.(Not to say it was perfect as well, but just so you are aware.)



Again with the 'not even remotely what is taught in scripture'. Can't you see I have shared so many teachings in the bible where this is applicable? If you need more I can share more. Don't get caught up in whether Jesus is God. You even stated that He and anointed ones will rule with God which is pretty much what I mean. Again, God is a title not a person. If there are those ruling with God, which is supposedly assuming the office of him who created us, than the anointed, Jesus, and the Father are the same God. If there is no difference to what they do and what they work for, than they are all God. John 10:34-38 and Psalms 82:6. Obviously i must add that we believe God the Father is the Most High, and that will not change.



Again you put words in my mouth here again. You used the word 'intended' in place for my word 'wanted'. God intended for humans to suffer, because he knew that only through suffering could they learn and grow. He never wanted them to suffer. And so he gave them commandments, which if they followed they could be free of suffering. He gave them His Son, who was the Prince of Peace that if they lived through Him they would have joy and peace. Just as you have warped some of my words in these discussions, so you have warped the words of God. Adam and Eve should be respected not because they disobeyed God, but because they like all of us, gave us the opportunity to know good and evil and choose the good and reject the evil. If you finish the story of Adam and Eve, you will find that they spent the rest of their lives teaching their children and grand children and great grandchildren the ways of the Lord. They were our first parents and we shouldn't judge them for being human like us, we should honor them so our days may be long in the land. For all we know, their only sin was taking the fruit, what are the sins in our lives? What would happen if we all simply obeyed God? Please do not blame Adam and Eve for something we could change if we just followed the commandments.



I think you confirmed what we believe about the resurrection with those two scriptures. My original argument was more of the difference between a mortal body and a resurrected body as they are different in composition. It is not just being woken up from a sleep as you mentioned previously. It is reuniting the spirit that has been taken up, to an renewed perfect immortal body. How would you able to convince me that a spirit is trapped unconscious in a cremated corpse? There is no scriptural evidence to that and it is just really creepy to think about. All will achieve resurrection as stated in 1st Corinthians 15:20-22. Though as you mentioned in Thessolonians that the just and unjust will be resurrected separately. The just will be first and the unjust will be later on. Then will be the final judgement.



Geez that is pretty harsh wouldn't you say?! I mean again, we are reading from the same scripture,(I was courteous not to add anything you wouldn't deem scripture like the Book of Mormon or Quran) We might not agree with everything, but if our God is different, I think it's time we figure out why? According to the Bible, God has very distinctive characteristics that are unchangeable. He is perfect. He is omniscient, He is merciful, He is just. I think we all agree on this. Then based on these characteristics lets define which version of God shows these the best? You say that God punished Adam and all mankind after him due to Adam's disobedience. All of our suffering is caused by this man's disobedience. I said that God punished Adam for his disobedience, and all of our suffering is because of our disobedience. Which version is a Just God? You said that God wanted us to remain in the Garden to enjoy His bliss for eternity, yet his perfect creation made an imperfect decision to disobey him and now all of us, except 144000 will never see God's Kingdom. I said that God wanted his perfect creation to make the imperfect decision to leave the garden so that they could know good from evil so that they could be tested and tried and be redeemed through his perfect Son so that ALL might return to God's kingdom. Which version is merciful. You said God didn't want Adam and Eve to partake of the fruit, yet he set up every possible way for that to happen (Eve, serpent, unguarded access to the tree, freedom of choice) I said that God planned for Adam to take of the fruit by giving him every possible way for him, and planned for there to be a redemption process afterwards, and then protected the Tree of Life with cherubim so they would live forever in their sins. Which version is Omniscient and perfect? I still believe we believe in the same God, because you have also told me that He is perfect as I believe his is too! I invite you to remove all exceptions in God's character, and see for yourself that God is perfect. He doesn't make mistakes. It would have been a huge mistake if he didn't intend for Adam and Eve to leave the Garden eventually. He would have been to blame being the all-knowing father, leaving his children unattended with snakes and who knows what. Please review these things. I believe them to be true. I believe in an unchangeable God written of in the Bible. I believe it's time for you to believe as well.

I am sorry, but you can keep your Mormon beliefs and I will keep mine. Where do you get the idea that Adam and his wife would never leave the garden? They were told to "fill the earth" with their offspring, not just the garden. God intended man to create his own paradise based on the blueprint he gave them with Eden. God planted that garden....humans would plant their own and keep working until the whole world looked like that Edenic paradise.

This interchange is getting nowhere. There is no point to it. You have made your choice and so have I.

All of the scriptures you provided have been addressed.....none of them mean what you think they do.

I believe that the end times are upon us and that it is God who selects the ones who will be citizens in his incoming kingdom. These are the "sheep" and those who fail to"do the will of the Father" by teaching false doctrines and following false prophets, will suffer rejection, no matter how sincerely they believe that they are serving their "Lord". (Matthew 7:21-23)

I believe that my future is here on earth, and you apparently are in going back to heaven where you came from.....there can be no reconciliation of our beliefs, they are completely opposed. Before my conception, I did not exist.

You believe that Jesus is Yahweh, yet not once is he called by that name in the Bible. Yahweh is the "Most High" God of Israel which makes him the God of Jesus Christ. (Psalm 83:18; John 20:17; Revelation 3:12) It also makes him my God. If Yahweh is Jesus Christ, then who did he worship?

You make a hero out of a villain. No thanks. You can keep all that. I have stated my beliefs and the scriptural reasons for them.

I wish you well....but will not respond further on this thread.

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

Romans 5:12 is pretty clear...

Romans 5:12 states Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

I'm not sure if your stating it's clear to support my statement or that it's clear to oppose it. I guess either way it's not clear in that respect. There is no question that Adam introduced sin in the world, and because of sin we are subject to a physical and spiritual death. God's plan was that sin would be introduced so that we can choose the good from the evil. If sin never existed, what good would the freedom of choice really be? Christ swallowed up both of those deaths. Physical through resurrection and spiritual by his atonement, which is what Paul is trying to get us to understand. Yet, for God to be Just, Adam would only be responsible for Adam. Adam had to repent for his sin, (Which he did) by facing the consequences of sin, just like we all do. God will correct us Hebrews 12:6, 9. Adam didn't cause all the suffering in the world. We did. Our sins did. Only in our obedience and faith in God can our suffering cease. God is fair. He would never put you as the scapegoat for someone else's sin. It was only Christ, who gave himself up, out of his and his Father's will to meet the demands of Justice whereby ALL men may be saved. For by men we are doomed, and by Christ we are saved. Thanks for the scripture.

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

I wish you well....but will not respond further on this thread.

Thank you for you wishes, I really did enjoy researching the scriptures with you, it made my study a thought-provoking one. It is always good getting a different point of view to play off of. I see you do have much conviction and wisdom in your beliefs and I really did get a good view at your beliefs whether you thought I did or not. I wish nothing more for those who believe in something good, to first understand what they believe first and then to practice it. Mine is not a Mormon, or an Isaiah or a John belief. Mormon was simply a prophet who compiled the Book of Mormon, just as John compiled the New Testament and Isaiah possibly compiled the Old Testament. Mine will forever be a Christ belief. He is my Savior and Redeemer. To know who God and Christ is is Life eternal John 17:3. I hope I didn't offend you. May Jehovah's peace be with you.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

God's plan was that sin would be introduced so that we can choose the good from the evil.

To reason on this further: death results from sin, so God's purpose was that we grow old, sick, and die?

No, I don't believe that. Jehovah God endowed us with the ability to make our own choices, choices that He doesn't always know ahead of time which side we'll take. Reference Abraham offering up Isaac @ Genesis 22. God told Abraham in vs.12, “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."

Did Jehovah God not know beforehand? No. Why? Because He chooses to respect us and dignify our ability using Free Will.

There are other Biblical events which reveal that God chooses not to know how people will respond...the Ninevites in Jonah's day, for instance.

I appreciate your kind demeanor. I wish you well...and safe through this Covid-19 pandemic.

 

[The_Fisher_King]

The question is whether humans are able to determine who get's sentence to death. My response is that they do not have the right to do this, and only God has that right. However, in the scriptures, it mentions that God does grant that right to certain people who judge in His behalf, which is correct. Now, what if someone misinterprets God's command, such as in the Christian Crusades and the Islamic Extremist, where people are killed in the name of their God. How should we determine this act of terrorism? How are we to judge between what was correctly interpreted in the Scriptures to what was misinformed? Does that make sense?

Ah, okay. That is a tricky one. I think we can only go on someone's intention and the effect of the act. If an adult with capacity and not being forced into it intended to kill a large number of innocent people and was successful in doing so, and all the evidence points to them having intended to do so and having done so, then I believe it is the responsibility of the judge to pronounce the death penalty on that person.

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

To reason on this further: death results from sin, so God's purpose was that we grow old, sick, and die?

No, I don't believe that. Jehovah God endowed us with the ability to make our own choices, choices that He doesn't always know ahead of time which side we'll take. Reference Abraham offering up Isaac @ Genesis 22. God told Abraham in vs.12, “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."

It is a pleasure to discuss the things of God. As far as God's purposes are concerned growing old, sickness, and even death are irrelevant aren't they? Christ was introduced to end all of those eventually, which was His purpose. God's purpose was to introduce sin and death so that it could be overcome. Death and Sin were not overcome in the Garden, you cannot overcome something that doesn't exist in the first place. Do you believe in Christ's atonement? Do you know what it really means? Christ was the sacrificial Lamb preached in the old Testament Passover, and even alludes the scripture that you shared with Abraham. God was going to give up his only Begotten Son in the Flesh, a foreshadowing for what Abraham was instructed to do. Christ was the answer to all righteousness. That is interesting isn't it? ALL righteousness. Matthew 3:15. Fulfill all righteousness? What does that even mean? Why would Christ need to fulfill all righteousness? I mean wasn't all righteousness fulfilled in the Garden? Wouldn't it be better for Christ to say he would restore all righteousness as it was in the Garden? Christ wasn't needed to fulfill anything if Adam just did what he was told right? Yet, something was obviously missing. Something that need to be filled. Not replaced, not restored, just fulfilled. All of it. Something that hadn't or couldn't have happened before. Christ came here to finish something John 5:36. And that was his work. God's purpose was to send Christ. From the beginning he prepared the world for that. Everything in the Blble either alludes to or explains Christs coming or resurrection. He is the Alpha and the Omega. The First and the Last. If you understand the Bible, you would know.

No, I don't believe that. Jehovah God endowed us with the ability to make our own choices, choices that He doesn't always know ahead of time which side we'll take

That is exactly right. I'm glad you understand that God will never force us to make a choice. He will command us, persuade us, and sometimes plead for us to make the choices He knows will be good for us, but he will never take away our will or free agency. His plan is to get all of his children to align their will with his so they can return to him again. What God knows exactly is the outcome of the choices we do make, good or evil. He knows the difference between good and evil, unlike Adam and Eve in the garden, because they were perfect creations. It was only after they ate the fruit that God stated in Genesis 3: 22-24 that Adam gained that ability as they did. Why would God leave that amazing power unprotected? If we state, that He was testing them and they failed, Why did God allow them to continue life and produce seed and teach them to worship Him, still leaving them with that power? He could of kicked them our without that power, kill them, erase their minds, start over again, He was all-powerful to do that. He could of but he didn't. Why? The only answer can be that he wanted them to. He wanted them to know good and evil. He wanted them to gain that power. He wanted them to experience a life away from paradise. Why? So they could learn experience. So they could utilize that new found power they possess and we possess. So we can choose the good over the evil as God mastered. We know that God is testing us to this day. That test didn't end with Adam and it certainly didn't end with Christ. But Christ and Adam were precious instruments to get us to 1. Be able to know good and evil and 2. To get us to use the example and atonement of Christ when we make mistakes. That is was God foresaw. That is what he wanted. Pain and suffering happens when we don't obey God's commandment. When we do, pain and suffering are easier to manage and can be completely wiped away with Christ. This is the Gospel of Christ.

 

[dfnj]

There's two ways of looking at this.
First is the religious foundation - quote, "Right is right if no-one lives by it,
wrong is wrong if everybody lives by it."

That sums up our world today. What was wrong is now considered right
because everyone does it.

Second is this - morality has two foundations, religion and biology.
It became acceptable, for instance, in the 1970's to say that marriage
was superfluous and cultural, anyone can raise kids without fathers etc..
The stats didn't bear that out. 75% of African American kids wound up
without stable families - it showed in outcomes (education, employment,
stable marriages, crime, income etc..)
Ditto for gambling, porn, divorce etc.. That no-harm little affair can have
devastating consequences for instance. And we aren't even allowed to
talk about the loss of children in our society and what that leads to.

So there IS an absolute morality if you are talking religion or social
outcomes. Things have consequences.

I disagree. Morality is very contextual. The executioner and the soldier commit murder but depending on which side you are on it is considered okay. Sex is morally okay as long as it is consensual. Some people include you must be married for it to be moral. Some people don't think sex before marriage is morally okay. But most people think rape is immoral.

I think people who claim morality is absolute just want to dictate to others what they think morality should be.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

First of all, I agree: an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Justice means a penalty equal to the crime.

However, that said, the death penalty should only be used in the gravest of situations, and only when the evidence is absolutely overwhelming.

In other words, if you find 17 bodies of little kids buried in Joe's back yard, and he has a bloody torture chamber in his basement, this is not the time to show mercy, as the crime is severe, repetative, ongoing, and there is zero doubt of guilt.

On the other hand, if Jim is accused of a drive by shooting, and there is no evidence but an eyewitness ID, and we all know how iffy eye witness memories can be, the odds of putting an innocent man to death are just too high.

Also, there are cases of murders of passion where the death penalty may not be implicated. If Dave gets into a heated argument with his wife and shoves her so that she falls, and on the way down she hits her head on the corner of the coffee table and dies, he obviously did not mean to kill her. That's a long way from 17 bodies in the back yard.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

No, I don't believe that. Jehovah God endowed us with the ability to make our own choices, choices that He doesn't always know ahead of time which side we'll take

I see. So we are automatons, and not children. How then can he hold us morally responsible? It makes as much sense as spanking a computer program.

 

[PruePhillip]

I disagree. Morality is very contextual. The executioner and the soldier commit murder but depending on which side you are on it is considered okay. Sex is morally okay as long as it is consensual. Some people include you must be married for it to be moral. Some people don't think sex before marriage is morally okay. But most people think rape is immoral.

I think people who claim morality is absolute just want to dictate to others what they think morality should be.

If an adult male has consensual sex with a 12 year old girl, is that okay?
If a married man has consensual sex with his best friend's wife, is that okay?
If a man marries six consenting women, is that okay?
If a man downloads a thousand gig of hard porn from a consenting porn site, is that okay?
If a teacher introduces children to consenting children, is that okay?

One of the major things effected by all this consenting sex is the loss of children. Sounds
almost contradictory. But the loss of children has lethal consequences for a society, but we
aren't allowed to talk about that.

 

[dfnj]

If an adult male has consensual sex with a 12 year old girl, is that okay?

It is against secular you law. Surely you can understand this.

 

[Jane Boswell]

Having read all of your peripheral tirades, none addresse the conspicuous culprit at hand. It is as obvious as daylight. Naming it by name gets you into a world of trouble, here and elsewhere.
That indicates insecurity on many levels, in spite of Hiroshima (August 5).

 

[IndigoChild5559]

If an adult male has consensual sex with a 12 year old girl, is that okay?
If a married man has consensual sex with his best friend's wife, is that okay?
If a man marries six consenting women, is that okay?
If a man downloads a thousand gig of hard porn from a consenting porn site, is that okay?
If a teacher introduces children to consenting children, is that okay?

One of the major things effected by all this consenting sex is the loss of children. Sounds
almost contradictory. But the loss of children has lethal consequences for a society, but we
aren't allowed to talk about that.

Great post. Add incest to the mix, too.

 

[PruePhillip]

It is against secular you law. Surely you can understand this.

Sure, but we can change that, and given time, we will.
The sexualization of children is an on-going thing. Taking children from their parent's
control is becoming a thing (in some countries this is being introduced by gender
dysphoria laws.) The age of sexual maturity is getting lower. Culturally many kids
are having sex at a younger age.
Etc, etc, etc..

 

[Milton Platt]

There are instances in the Scriptures (Bible, Quran, many others) where followers of God are commanded to utilize the 'death penalty' as a form of almost Godly punishment. I understand that in the end, the world is to be cleansed of all unrighteousness in order to bring to pass a utopia of peace or what is understood better as heaven, and God is that ultimate judge, yet my question is what benefit has the 'death penalty' brought those in the scriptures? I refer to the massacres or conquests of land produced by Jews and Muslims as a commandment of their God? I haven't seen an instance where this lead to anything good as these same sects are fighting to this day because of wrongs they have caused others. It is written in Mosaic law that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Christ attempted to end this seemingly misinterpreted scripture when he said to love those who hate you and do good to those who despitefully use you. Today, there are several places that believe in the death penalty as a form of punishment for heinous crimes, possibly most due to expenses. I don't believe life should be just thrown away by human judgement or expenses as anyone can change their life and start new as we read in many instances in the Bible. How would you justify the Death Penalty?

I am against the death penalty because:
1. It is irreversible in the event of a mistake.
2. We have an imperfect justice system.
3. In the event of the correct person being convicted, death ends punishment.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

I see. So we are automatons, and not children. How then can he hold us morally responsible? It makes as much sense as spanking a computer program.

“So we are automatons....”
What?! You misread apparently
I jsaid that we were created “with the ability to make our own choices”,
the very opposite of automaton.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

“So we are automatons....”
What?! You misread apparently
I jsaid that we were created “with the ability to make our own choices”,
the very opposite of automaton.

Apparently so. My apologies.