See https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/16/poll-atheists-overwhelmingly-oppose-the-death-penalty-most-christians-favor-it/ . I am an atheist and I disapprove of the death penalty. I remember Michael Dukakis, when he was a USA presidential candidate, saying I he was opposed to the death penalty - even for rapists and murderers. I was impressed by that view of his (though I was an active JW back then). I wished (and I still wish) he had defeated the Republican presidential candidate. What are your thoughts about the death penalty?
Poll: Atheists overwhelmingly oppose the death penalty, but most Christians favor it
by Disillusioned JW 44 Replies latest social current
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Disillusioned JW
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Anony Mous
I used to be against it, because I thought most people can be redeemed. Then I got older and wiser. Some people are just evil and their only goal in life is to destroy others too, I think it has to be carefully considered, but if the evidence is overwhelming and it wasn't a mistake or accident and the person is considered a threat to society, the death penalty is cheaper than keeping them alive. Think of people like Osama Bin Laden, Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy, there is nothing you can do to redeem them, the death penalty also shouldn't be so humane, a firing squad is sufficient in those cases.
I'm an atheist libertarian, but I don't think that matters, I think most people change their views as they get older. Similar why many older people are religious, the current spate of old people were hippies and atheists and communists in the 70s, yet now the majority of the elderly are conservative christians, it's not like all the hippies died, they got older, a real job and had their own children forcing them to become wiser.
I see why too, I believed all religion was bad, but there are definitely long term benefits to having a religious community and even religious rituals.
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waton
the death penalty also shouldn't be so humane,
AM, no, it should be a painless elimination, under full anesthesia. but with the criminology budgets heavily expandet to make prevention, protection, detection prosecution, elimination as flawless as possible.
Reserve prisons, ghettos for groups that are crime prone.
PS perhaps the atheistic frame of mind favours a free for all, a lawless mess of a universe.
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pistolpete
Then I got older and wiser. Some people are just evil and their only goal in life is to destroy others too
I feel the same way. And I would have no problem injecting, pulling down the lever to let the voltage run, or just plain shooting evil people in the head.
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Diogenesister
Anony mous I used to be against it, because I thought most people can be redeemed. Then I got older and wiser. Some people are just evil and their only goal in life is to destroy others
Me too. Isn't it interesting quite a few of us feel this way?
If you'd asked me when I was a believer I'd have said execution was institutionalised revenge and I was totally against it.
As you say some people cannot be redeemed, unfortunately nature made them that way in the case of psychopaths. However, even though I'm actually deeply sorry for psychopaths, the fact is they take life - often making their victim feel utterly terrified in the process. Because I think there is no after life I see murder as even more heinous and we must do all we can to prevent it.
I used to believe at least the victims will be resurrected, which made me more able to forgive ...now? As you say, we cannot allow a Ted Bundy etc to exist within our society They are far too dangerous. And child killers, for me, are beyond the pale. These days I would volunteer to throw the switch on them. It's not judgementalism, it's pragmatism. Life is precious and murder is the one crime you can never make right. It would have to be for cases where there was no doubt who committed the crime. Prior to DNA testing I'd be less sure as I know there have been horrendous miscarriages of justice, which is my one reservation when it comes to the death penalty.
As an aside I had a mate who was a Pierrepoint , related to Britain's last hangman, lol. He was an artist.
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Rocketman123
Sorry cant agree with this poll
You cant honesty make a suggestive statement like that with single brush stroke over all atheists or either Christians.
ie. I'm a atheist and I'm for the death penalty under certain circumstances.
This poll sucks and I wouldn't put much validity to it.
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Disillusioned JW
Though generations become more conservative as they get older (except perhaps in the recent several years), the old people today are more liberal than old people of the same age group decades ago. Likewise people in their 20s and 30s today are more liberal than those in the same age groups decades ago. At least that is what polls of adult population of the USA say. Some of that change is attributed to access to information and ideas on the internet.
In my case while I was a teenager I was liberal regarding political views and human rights (despite being an active JW/[unbaptized JW]) and I have remained such, and in some aspects I have become even more liberal in those areas as I learned more. I also eventually became less "fundamentalist" and more theologically liberal in my interpretation of the Bible as a result of later reading what theologically liberal scholars of the Bible have written. After I learned more of the scientific evidence for biological evolution and the geological evidence that there was never a worldwide flood on Earth (at least not during the past 100 million years) I became an atheist and a philosophical naturalist.
I think the societal benefits that come from religious communities come from the promotion of standards of morality and ethics and the teaching of the benefits of such, as well as the promotion of some form of meditative and/or contemplative practice. I believe those characteristics can also be instilled in secular community organizations and in so-called nontheistic humanistic 'religions'. Two such 'religions' started by Jews (who were former rabbis, or who remained rabbis) are "Ethical Culture" and "Humanistic Judaism". Some people have called for "Humanistic Christianity" and even a nonsupernaturalistic "Secular Humanistic 'Christianity' ".
In my locality there is an ultra-liberal Presbyterian congregation in which one of the pastors is an atheist and he has announced to the congregation that he is an atheist. That congregation has allowed him to keep his position in the church. I visited the congregation one night when an atheist friend of mine (who is a medical doctor and a former Christian) gave a lecture there proving that science shows that biological evolution is true. The majority of the members of that congregation are elderly (including nearly all of those in attendance for the lecture about evolution). The focus of that congregation is not on theology but instead on other matters (I think it is on social justice matters). One pastor, minister, or elder of that congregation is a woman who said that Jesus was a man and never more than a man (never God or a god) and she referred to the findings of the Jesus Seminar. I think she is at least 50 years old.
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Disillusioned JW
Rocketman123, the poll doesn't say that all atheists are against the death penalty but rather that an overwhelming majority of them are. Likewise it doesn't say that all Christians are for the death penalty but rather that most of them are. I probably should have made that more clear in the wording of my title for this topic thread, but instead I used nearly verbatim the wording of the atheist's article which I posted a link to.
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Rocketman123
Weird nevertheless DJW
How do you accurately define who wants what concerning the death penalty when human orchestrated crimes vary so much from one to another ?
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waton
I do not understand the high tolerance for crime among atheists. or
the high tolerance for gang rape among feminists,
as a nonagenarian deist I believe everyone has a right to live, to life, -- except when you deny that right to someone else by killing them. then you have given up that right, proven yourself unworthy to live. then,
ask for euthanasia a eu = good --death. a privilege you probable denied your victim[s].