If something is truly a law it works exactly the same way for whoever uses it. It functions impersonally. Look at gravity and buoyancy. Or your Universal Constants. They work no better for Christians than anyone else.

Have a look at the architecture and art in our Capitol City sometime. It’s in no way limited to any one particular mythology.

If Ms. Pearson can’t see what’s right in front of her face I’ll go right ahead and call her a willfully ignorant liar.

Per our comments policy, any further comments along those lines will be removed for being off topic.

Motive is another reason for establishing the rightness or wrongness of an act. Since executing someone (with all the precautions that are currently in place to avoid killing innocent people, which still aren’t enough to actually avoid killing innocent people) is more expensive than keeping someone locked up for life, and isn’t really any more successful at preventing further crimes, the only possible reason for executing people is to fulfill someone’s desire for vengeance.

The motives for executing (safety of others + revenge) people and imprisoning (safety of others + sometimes reformation) them are different enough that their morality or lack thereof are able to be judged separately on that level as well.

I haven’t seen that passage. Please provide book, chapter, and verse.

Deuteronomy 23:15-16:

“15 If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. 16 Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them.”

As for the passages that you quoted, I don’t see them as promoting slavery in any form. Rather, they seem to be exhorting slaves to harden and to become indifferent to their condition. Even so today’s Christians do not recognize this, Christianity is a religion of self-denial – specially denial of one’s bodily impulses, amongst which, the impulse to avoid pain. Christianity is very much a copy – though one polluted with Judaism – of Graeco-Roman Stoic philosophy. And Stoic philosophers – amongst which some were themselves slaves – preached indifference to whatever external condition happened to afflict them.

That’s a legitimate objection against the death penalty. However, it has nothing to do with a so-called principled objection against the death penalty: namely, that the death penalty is wrong, because it involves killing and killing is wrong. Presumably, taking people’s liberty by imprisoning them is also wrong, and yet those same people support imprisoning people for crimes. Thus, they are inconsistent and have double standards. Either the government can’t do things that are wrong for an individual, in which case that applies both to the death penalty and to imprisonment, or it can, in which they are both in principle legitimate.

“For another, an executed person cannot be reformed and made into a productive member of society.”

What a shame, we will have to do without the wondrous contributions of all those murderers, terrorists and child torturers and molesters. It pains me. Truly a reason to oppose the death penalty.

Not really, because executing a murderer (and some other criminals) is entirely right. Since it is lawful and rightful, it is not murder, any more than lawful and rightful imprisonment of a criminal is a form of hostage-taking. Some people need to be killed, just like some people need to be locked up, it’s as simple as that.

You are saying: execution (what you call murder) is wrong if committed by a state, because murder is wrong if committed by an individual. I ask you: is imprisonment (what you may call state-sponsored hostage-taking) by the state wrong because it is wrong for an individual to take hostages? It is impossible to condemn the death penalty without also condemning jailing people, without being inconsistent.

“I never said or assumed either thing. Every person has some irrational and some rational beliefs, I would never presume to suggest that some irrational beliefs sum up a person’s character as irrational, or vice versa. The theist belief in a god is not rational, but is not to say that they are in general irrational people. The same is true for atheists.”

I would also argue that becoming an atheist might not make people more rational, and sometimes might do the opposite (like in the nihilist case I mentioned). Moreover, I would also argue that it is not unreasonable to believe in a power that set everything in the world, as opposed to assuming that everything happened by its own accord.

And the exact same argument can be made about the death penalty in the U.S. Just because the state does something doesn’t make it right or moral. Murder is still murder, whether its the state murdering gays in Iran or people convicted of murder (and sometimes innocent of murder) in the U.S.

Junius said ” I suggested that you and others stop calling all religious people irrational, or assume that all atheists are rational.”.

I never said or assumed either thing. Every person has some irrational and some rational beliefs, I would never presume to suggest that some irrational beliefs sum up a person’s character as irrational, or vice versa. The theist belief in a god is not rational, but is not to say that they are in general irrational people. The same is true for atheists. The refusal to accept a premise for which there is no evidence is rational, but does not mean any given atheist is not irrational in general.

Only if you imagine that the people who wrote it were not rather fond of killing, or that the same books (Exodus and Deuteronomy) do not specify what poor individuals should be killed for puny offenses.

“It may be lawful to execute criminals, but its certainly not rightful. For the record would you say the execution of gays in Iran is lawful and rightful and therefore not murder?”

It is lawful, as it’s legal under the laws of Iran, but not rightful, and therefore, it’s absolutely wrong.

“I’ve known many, many atheists and I’ve never heard of a single one that says there is no right and no wrong. ”

Consider yourself lucky.

“Once again, if you assertion that christians believe in absolutes with regards to killing people rests on making strained distinctions between murder and killing you have a VERY weak case for their supposedly superior morality.”

I did not argue for the superiority of Christians, I argued for the superiority of people who do believe in absolutes – which happens to include, but is not limited to, Christians. I didn’t bring the argument to demean anyone, rather, I suggested that you and others stop calling all religious people irrational, or assume that all atheists are rational.