Hi Wendy: I appreciate your comments. I want to add some additional perspective on this:
You said, "So then we go to what Amazing brought out, McVeigh did admit to this. Ok so now what? He is injected with a medicine and dies in 2-10 minutes. He never has to think about what he did again(as far as we know)."
And, sitting and thinking about what he did for the next 40 years in a jail cell will accomplish nothing either. he will not be giving talks, and warning youth to avoid his thinking patterns. Rather after 40 years, he will die and his thoughts with him. In jail, there is no life ... just day to day existence hoping you will not be beat up, raped, or have your food taken.
You continued, "The families of the lost ones, now will be satisfied in their hearts, that the man is dead? Rejoicing that "justice" was served."
No one I know of will rejoice that this man is executed. I would rather he had not committed the crime. I would rather that the mangled bodies of women and babies were alive and whole again. Where is the justice in his being able to wipe these innocent people out and then sit in a jail cell? Prison hardens people a vast majority of the time. They do not normally develop repentance. And even if they do repent, they have no life, no hope, and no prospect of benefiting from any act of repentance.
You continued, "That seems so inhuman, well, maybe I should say human. I for one can honestly say, I will never rejoice when I see a human die. There is a loss for someone, somewhere when this happens. I could go on and on, but I won't"
I see nothing inhuman about justice, where it is properly applied. I do not advocate the death penalty as a normal use of justice, but only in clear cases where guilt is 100% certain and the crime is of a level that there can be no other way to satisfy justice.
According to many Christians, God himself was willing to kill Adam & Eve over a piece of fruit, and also condemn billions of humans to suffering and death. So, I think the human system of justice in the limited cases of people like McVeigh is far more compassionate and felxible than condemning an entire race over a piece of silly fruit.
I do not see this as an 'eye-for-eye' as you suggested above. Otherwise McVeigh would have to be blown to bits by a bomb 168 times. The justice here is not about like-for-like, but about a man who wantonly murdered innocent babies, children, women, men, fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, brothers and sisters. He forfeited his life or any claim thereto.
I will feel sad and ill when they execute him, even with the compassionate lethal injection. It is at this moment I hope his thoughts focus on his terrible crime, and that his regret if full, and let God do the final act of forgiveness.
Amazing
