Death penalty

[nebula]

. . . that we should HAVE to take care of people ....

"As you have done for the least of these My brethren. . . ."

[Believer1997]

. . . that we should HAVE to take care of people ....

"As you have done for the least of these My brethren. . . ."

Yes... and I personally continue to do so and believe strongly in that directive from Jesus ... but the previous few posts back is what we were discussing. It is simply not ... logical to do what the poster suggested in his "plan"....

Nevermind... you'd have to have been there...

Neb - no disrespect meant.... hope none is taken... God Bless You.

[Guest LadyC]

if octomom had been aware that her parents and relatives would be responsible for her children, and that she would NOT be able to get welfare and become famous and get sponsors, she'd have never had that many children. in fact, she wouldn't have had any, because her parents would not have been able to pay for all of her IVF treatments. (she doesn't seem to have any interest in men, so it's unlikely she'd have gotten pregnant the conventional way.)

[Ovedya]

Why do people always argue the extremes in order to present are argue their point?

Can you deny that if family did a better job at taking care of family, we'd have a lot less welfare in this country?

I think it's a systemic problem not necessarily solved trough family taking care of family. In Latino cultures adultery is actually pretty common, and in America unwed single mothers is almost pandemic among African Americans. We have seen in the past 30 years a systemic breakdown of family culture and family values. Unfortunately most of Welfare is participated in by minorities. That's not racism, it's just a fact. Support systems rarely exist in communities outside of small community churches, which educate young people and train them in traditional family values. Those that do exist don't have a lot of success because young women are just trying to survive. They have enough trouble trying to raise their own children in those environments.

I believe a solution to the problem is teaching young men how to be men. The vicious cycle of "single mother raises young boy. Young boy's only role model is the womanizing basketball player or rapper. Young boy gets young girl pregnant and leaves her to raise her child on her own while young boy goes on to the next sexual conquest." has to be broken. There needs to be some accountability directed toward community leaders and those few role models that exist in the impoverished communities, and those communities themselves also need to step up and say, "no more!"

No amount of sex education in the schools or local "family planning" clinics that throw pamphlets and condoms at the problem, then offer low cost abortions when their "planning" doesn't work, is going to solve the problem. The government can't fix it, "family planning" won't fix it, and Dr. Phil is just a bald white guy with a little common sense and a T.V. show; he can't fix it either.

[artsylady]

At least with capital punishment, the person knows they are about to die and can make peace with God before they do. Some of these hardened murderers get thrown into general population and are stabbed and killed before they can repent. Or before they WILL repend. The promise of a certain soon death sometimes forces to confront eternity which they would otherwise never do.

[Ovedya]

if octomom had been aware that her parents and relatives would be responsible for her children, and that she would NOT be able to get welfare and become famous and get sponsors, she'd have never had that many children. in fact, she wouldn't have had any, because her parents would not have been able to pay for all of her IVF treatments. (she doesn't seem to have any interest in men, so it's unlikely she'd have gotten pregnant the conventional way.)

I think the saddest part of this is the fact that she doesn't seem to care that she's going to be raising these children in a home without a father, without a strong male figure. And, in fact, in our current culture it seems to be okay. Folks don't seem to mind, they're not outraged that she's done this entirely without a man, without a husband.

I've gotten beyond the welfare issue. Fact is, a lot of single mothers on Welfare have multiple children. The only thing that sparked the outrage was that "octomom" had 8 kids at the same time.

[Smalcald]

The octomom thing is just so sad and freaky that I really don't know where to began. The women are obviously mentally disturbed and she obviously had the plan along with her Doctor to use these kids to make money and fulfill some strange need inside of herself. The Doctor needed some free advertising for how successful he was at IVF, but the whole thing has now backfired. Once again this sort of frankinscience with IVF and all of this weird unnatural stuff is not how God intended children to be made. IVF goes against God

[Guest LadyC]

if octomom had been aware that her parents and relatives would be responsible for her children, and that she would NOT be able to get welfare and become famous and get sponsors, she'd have never had that many children. in fact, she wouldn't have had any, because her parents would not have been able to pay for all of her IVF treatments. (she doesn't seem to have any interest in men, so it's unlikely she'd have gotten pregnant the conventional way.)

I think the saddest part of this is the fact that she doesn't seem to care that she's going to be raising these children in a home without a father, without a strong male figure. And, in fact, in our current culture it seems to be okay. Folks don't seem to mind, they're not outraged that she's done this entirely without a man, without a husband.

I've gotten beyond the welfare issue. Fact is, a lot of single mothers on Welfare have multiple children. The only thing that sparked the outrage was that "octomom" had 8 kids at the same time.

i think a lot of people care that she's doing all this without a man in the picture. of course, i think most people are more outraged by the fact that it appears that her purpose in having so many children was to get rich.

yes, lots of women on welfare have multiple children. but it's a rare woman who goes out and intentionally keeps having babies when she knows she can't pay for them... most women just don't like the hassle of the welfare system, and let's face it, welfare doesn't pay enough to support 2, much less 14. and she's probably the first in history that had IVF 6 times to get 14 kids while on welfare... i'm with smalcald on this... i think she, and maybe the doctor, conspired to do this for monetary gain, not from welfare, but from the fame and fortune and reality tv shows that would follow.

but we've really gotten off topic.... maybe one of the mods could split the octomom part of this thread to it's own spot, so that we aren't distracting from the death penalty issue.

[Celt]

No offense to those like Believer997, but the actual meaning of "Thou shalt not kill" in God's Word is 'thou shalt not murder'.

In Matthew 19:18 it was translated properly when our Lord Jesus said "Thou shalt do no murder". Whether we like it or not, the act of killing is not the same thing as the act of murder. When man kills chickens or cows for food, that certainly isn't the same thing as murder. Murder means to go out and do a premeditated planned killing, not in self-defence, not by accident, but "in cold-blood". Even in a heated argument and someone winds up dead by accident, it's called 'manslaughter', and per God's Law there were certain cities setup beforehand the manslaughterer was to flee to, because of the family of the dead person that would seek to kill him.

Also, we all have the right to defend ourselves and kill if necessary to defend our lives and our family. This was shown by our Lord Jesus in Luke 22 when He was sending His disciples out on their ministries, and He told those who didn't have a sword to go buy one. It is shown all throughout the Old Testament when God told Israel to fight their enemies, even after His Law was given through Moses.

Like I said, there has been a concerted disinformation campaign practiced among some of today's Churches towards disarming and pascifist dogma. That campaign is not coming from within God's Word, it's coming from influence by God's enemies, and the enemies of His people, even from one-world religious summits that western religious leaders have been attending over the past decades, even to religious summits held in Moscow (a part of Communist long-range strategy against the West per the Russian KGB defector Goliytsin in his work 'New Lies For Old'). They are told to go back to western Churches and preach pascifist dogma and disarming.

During the Vietnam War, when fellow-vets were returning back Stateside, the hippies met us at the airport terminals with signs saying, "Baby killers" and "Murderers". They were the result of propaganda by the enemy, some of them even waving the North Vietnamese flag while burning the United States flag in protest. The enemy's propaganda machine produced deceived thinkers like "Hanoi Jane", and a lot of those kind of protestors are still among us today. And it appears a lot of them serve among the anti-gun lobbyists, which is helping to disarm law-abiding citizens in an attempt to take away our God-given right to bear arms in order to defend ourselves.

[Guest LadyC]

back on topic...

smalcald, we shoud not do away with the death penalty for practical reasons. the ONLY reason that it doesn't effectively deter crime in some people's minds is because most people on death row never get executed. they get their sentences commuted to life in prison, or win an appeal based on a technicality. those that do get executed don't get it swiftly. i wonder how many years on average a person sits behind bars before their date comes up? probably at least 15-20.

that being said, it does deter crime. once they're dead, they can't commit more crimes. of course, very few crimes are qualified for the death penalty in the first place, and the crime rate won't get lowered as long as 1) death row convicts don't die, and 2) non-death-row prisoners only have to serve 10% or so of their sentence. the consequences just aren't harsh enough to be an incentive for people who are thinking about entering a world of crime, and not enforced enough to give convicted criminals incentive to straighten up.... they have more to gain from their criminal activity than to lose from getting caught.