webby, make your choice: is jesus's suggestion that destroyers of faith are be drowned to be taken literally or hyperbolically? if literally, do you also claim this should be done? if hyperbolically, what is your point?

do you claim the scoffing criminal on the cross deserved to be crucified? does jesus claim this? if not, then what's your point?

i say again: capital punishment is barbaric. my vision of christ is incompatible with such barabrism, and i am disgusted by any christian for whom it is not.

The death penalty should be imposed for very serious crimes like that of "abduction, rape and murder". It should especially apply to the abduction and murder of children.

Daniel Miles has now been convicted of the murder of Yolande Michael while on the run from a NSW prison. He had escaped from prison where he was serving time for the murder of 16 year old Donna Newland.

In the mid sixties, Leonard Keith Lawson was released from prison after abducting and murdering a 15 year old girl. While on parole he raped and murdered 15 year old Mary Jane Bower at Collaroy, in Sydney. With the police looking for him, he entered SCEGGS girls school in Bowral, and attempted to abduct a schoolgirl. In the struggle with a heroic teacher, he fired a sawn off rifle several times, wounding the female teacher and killing 15 year old Wendy Luscombe.

When Gordon Barry Hadlow was released from a Queensland prison after 22 years, for the rape and murder of a six year old girl, Samantha Dorothy Bacon, he then abducted, raped, and murdered a 9 year old girl, Sharon Margaret Hamilton.

Had these three child rapist murderers been executed, four young women would still be alive today. The attitude of the anti death penalty brigade is curious. The lives of the worst kinds of criminals are sacrosanct. Only the lives of the innocent are expendable. Capital punishment definitely stops repeat offenders.

Another reason for the death penalty is that is an effective tool for the fight against international organised crime. Hired murderers should be executed as there is no excuse for such behaviour. As for the crime bosses who order the executions, they too must be executed for the protection of the community. Failure to do so would see a situation develop where criminal bosses run their criminal organisations from jail and order the execution of judges, prosecutors, politicians, journalists and witnesses. This is already happening in Italy and in many South American countries that have no death penalty. It must not happen here

Hey Hamlet,

I'm not sure where the confusion lies.

The Hebrew word used is "ratsach" which some do indeed translate as murder however it is also used in other parts of the bible when referring to accidental death; see Deut 4:42. "That any one might flee to them who should kill (trans from ratsach) his neighbour unwillingly, and was not his enemy a day or two before, and that he might escape to some one of these cities"

The point may well be debatable however what is not debatable is the fact that the accepted Anglican translation was 'kill' not 'murder' and this particular Anglican prison chapel deviated from this. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremantle_Prison

I am satisfied that the authorities did see the hypocricy and changed the wording in light of it.

redneck

u speak to much sense to be on this issue to be on this post.

CJ Morgan “Indeed, they often get it wrong, including those rare cases where people have been convicted of serious crimes like murder, only to be subsequently exonerated - sometimes many years later”

Whilst no system is perfect, the incidence of error are in the tiny minority. Wikipedia quotes names of cases, but avoid comparing those numbers against the total numbers convicted.

I guess it proves that despite all the best intentions, “life just ain’t always fair”.

However, certainly, errors aside, the majority of folk do support the idea that some criminal acts warrant forfeiture of the right to live.

For my money, I would add second offence drug dealers in the mix.

Their heinous actions are more indiscriminately deadly than either Julian Knight or Martin Bryant’s shooting spree’s and made worse by the motivation to financially profit from their victims.

So if it ever comes up for debate or referendum, I will have no problem in electing for a return of the death penalty.

Oh and all the historical issues which have supposedly been resolved with DNA, well we have DNA as a forensic tool, which will make every criminal conviction more “reliable” in the future that it ever was in the past.

csteel

As God had just killed the firstborn of the Egyptians not so long before the commandment was 'issued', and as I said Leviticus lists stoning as an appropriate response to certain sins / crimes, such as adultery, I fail to see how the interpretation of the Hebrew into the modern day version of 'kill' rather than murder stands up.

In terms of protection of society - if a felon (assuming a fair trial) is caught they should be imprisoned, under appropriate conditions, until they are no longer a danger to society.

This maybe until they have died from natural causes. This may meet the Roman Catholic (sorry folks - I am a prot from way back and I fail to see the bishop of Rome having authority over me) discussion of the protection of society.

Mind you, if an evil-doer is killed because they do not yield to authority and the legal authorities have to use deadly force to capture him / her I do not see a problem: except that unlike the movies no-one who kills another, even in self defence, walks away without some 'wound'. I used to work with a guy, whilst working as a security guard, who shot and killed someone who attacked him with a screwdriver. The coroner ruled that the killing was in self defence: but this guy suffers to this day.

So who would we want as societies executioners?