I come from a Christian/Catholic
background and I completely agree with Sister Helen Prejean that the death penalty
disagrees with the teaching of Jesus and violates human dignity. Using deductive
reasoning and modus ponens, if the teachings of Jesus are not to do unto others
as they have done to you, then the death penalty is wrong. The teachings of
Jesus are “to return hate for hate and evil for evil”. Therefore, Christians
should believe that the death penalty is wrong. This is a valid and sound argument.
However, there are a large number of Christians that support the death penalty.
It seems as if Christians may disagree with Sister Prejean because they believe
that if someone has done a horrific and unforgivable crime, then they should be
punished by death for that. However, people could spend years on death row and
in rare cases someone else might have committed the crime. Also, all of the tax
dollars that go into paying for someone on death row is more expensive than a
normal inmate. Therefore, Christians should agree with Sister Prejean not only
for moral reasons but for economical reasons as well.
Hello SigmaLove,
ReplyDeleteGreat uses of moral and economical reasonings. I agree with you. It is not really worth the money, time, and effort of going through death row. Like you said, it takes so much time to go though death row. Look at the Scot and Lacy Peterson case still. Scot is living on his little studio enjoying his life before death row, because they can't convict him 100% for what he did. It will take many years before he even gets put down. As for the religious side of your argument, it is too hard to put someone down, spiritually and morally. There are so many Christian stories showing forgiveness after killing other people's family members.
Hey there,
ReplyDeleteI like how you clearly stated your premises and conclusion. I also agree with your premise that Jesus’ teaching is to not “return hate for hate and evil for evil.” Thus, if a Christian is a Christian who professes his or her faith completely, then he or she should think that the death penalty should then not be implemented. However, like you mentioned, there are exceptions as not every Christian agrees with Sister Prejean’s statement. Then you backed that up with the fact that it’s also expensive to use the death penalty rather than keeping in an inmate which is effective for your argument. :)
- Louise