birdlike

Wait, what does corruption or fallibility of the system have to do with a case in which the murderer is definitely a murderer, definitely committed the crime, admits the crime and states he has no remorse over the crime? I thought the arguments against the death penalty had to do principally with the inability to be sure the system got the right guy! When we KNOW we got the right guy, what's wrong with executing him? There's no chance that we're executing an innocent, in such a case. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

This is the part I wish more people understood, religion being but one topic to which it is applicable. If more people were willing to admit, "I don't know", this forum would get 80% fewer posts. Blues, Dave You'd see a lot less from me! (Just kidding. I know everything, so I'd still never shut up.) Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Thou art God! I GROK!!

Oooh, sick burn! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I've had lots of dreams in which I died, and knew I was about to die ahead of time (crashing plane, nuke going off, gunshot to the head, etc. -- even snakebite a few times). In most of those dreams, I spend my last few moments trying to prepare my mind for some quantum jump to some other state of being (an afterlife? a merging with the cosmos? an existence as an ethereal being, like a ghost?) I have made up my mind to try to not preoccupy myself with any fear or regret as I die. If there's a higher power, and I'm about to be judged (as a guy who lived life as a non-believer), so be it. I guess I'll have to make my case before a God who's pissed off at me. But if there's NOTHINGNESS right beyond the edge of life, what purpose is there to feeling embarrassment or regret or guilt? I won't even be worried about what those I leave behind might think when they go rummaging through my personal effects later on and go, "He was into that?! If you worry about that stuff, you might as well spend all of your waking hours worrying, and then get shitty sleep while worrying, too -- because death can claim you on any given day. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I really dont get why people struggle to accept that How is it you can believe matter is and has always been, but it's so hard to believe a higher power exists and always has? Empirical evidence, and scientific observation, not all things are explained YET by science but that in noway means that they wont be at some time in the Future. I have no time for a "GOD OF THE GAPS" theory But if you're wrong, you could have an eternity to go, "oops..." So really, then, you don't have to believe in God to believe in God; you might just be a person who consider himself the smarter bettor. Somehow, I think that if a person who really is not convinced to have faith in God goes around saying he's a believer, when the end of times comes, any God worth calling God is not gonna be fooled. Same goes for the deathbed conversions, which are essentially not worth the breath they're uttered on. Funny, my reply at top was made before I even read this part. (a bad habit of mine) But here you are admitting that people hedge their bets to try not to be caught out by God when they croak. I doubt God falls for that. Any God who falls for that is pretty damned unworthy of the position. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

This is hilarious. You somehow don't realize that the same exact challenge can be made about the god you believe in, and when atheists/agnostics make that challenge, believers dismiss it. Now you're using it?! Why can you sit back and say that God has always existed, but we can't claim equally that there's no God, and there was no necessity for one to create the universe because the universe has always existed? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

True. But why do you say "as infinite as"? Are there degrees of "infinite"? Can one thing be "infinite," but not "AS infinite" as some other thing? Can my love of prime rib be infinite, but not AS infinite as someone else's love of lobster tails? And how can you state that the universe is "infinite"? We don't know that, we just suspect it. It's not provable, at any rate. At what point do you stop pushing to the outer "edge" of it and start heading back home saying, "Well, we went out as far as we need to go to satisfy ourselves that there's no end"? What if the end you sought was just a mile farther out? Besides all that, I think that the original poster said "MATTER" cannot be created or destroyed, but what I always heard was the same phrase, but the thing that could not be created or destroyed was "ENERGY." Did this whole discussion get predicated on a misallegation, a misquote?? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

See, this is the kind of thing that makes me and a whole bunch of other people get very frustrated (and eventually even contemptuous) of "believers" -- right at the outset of a discussion, they display an inability (or is it an unwillingness?) to follow even the most basic logical progressions. He said that the question of "where did it all come from?" is a good one, and then he said that the ANSWERS PROVIDED BY RELIGIOUS MYTH are what is "childish foolishness." I ask in all candor and honesty, if you could not follow that (or would not), how can this become a productive, insightful discussion? I don't ask that in order to be obnoxious or insulting, and I'm sorry if it might come across that way; I truly want to know. Because we should not have to spend the discussion explaining away the misunderstandings you arrive at when we state our viewpoints. That's wasted time and energy. And eventually the discussion will end with the nonbelievers giving up and walking away, causing you the impression that you've "won" because they can't abide having to do the, "OK, here it is again for the umpteenth time, that's not what I said..." thing. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

You are ignoring the fact matter can be converted into energy. Yeah, well, he ignored that science does not "prove"; I'm waiting to see what he'll come up with to make the Hat Trick. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Really? I'm an agnostic; and I freely admit that I have NO FREAKIN' IDEA as to how it all began. Moreover, I think that anyone who claims to "know" (usually through religious faith) how it all began is full of shit, or does not know how to recognize their own inability to truly "know" such a thing. Expect to get replies in droves that point out that "science does not PROVE ANYTHING." And they're pretty much right. So your post actually underscores the idea that believers, who eschew science in favor of faith, really don't even understand science. I have no idea (as I said earlier). But I am loathe to go crediting a "higher power" of whom I have seen neither proof nor even evidence, and whose lore on its face seems intrinsically preposterous to me. And I would throw the same question back at the believers: what created your creator? I mean, if people say that the universe could not "always" have been here, because it needed to be created, why is it valid to say that your "God" was always here and did not need to be created? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

And guns, Bill. You forgot guns. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

What will we use to lubricate the windmills? ...Oh, I forgot, the blood of the taxed-to-death workers. How'd I forget?! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I agree. Around here, I have seen human-interest articles in newspapers that feature these arrogant, self-centered schmucks who display an in-your-face, I-love-my-gas-guzzler attitude. It's sickening. It's one thing to be ignorant of the issue; another thing to be apathetic; but these people are like, "I'm fucking up the world? Cool! What'd the fuckin' world ever do for ME?" Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Seriously. For any skydiver (or NASCAR fan, or waterskier, etc., for that matter) to gripe about what people won't do to transition to sustainable energy sources is pretty hypocritical. Wasn't there just a thread in another section of the forums about the fuel burn of a DeHavilland Twin Otter for skydiving? Something between 25 and 33 gallons per load to altitude?! Holy shit. That's quite a lot of fuel, and there are dropzones all over the place burning that, and smaller DZs with smaller planes burning somewhat less, perhaps -- all to take a bunch of people on a trip to nowhere... We are so shameless! I am interested in addressing energy needs for the future, but NONE OF THIS WILL MATTER IF WE DO NOT CONTROL THE EARTH'S POPULATION GROWTH, and even work to whittle it down from its current level. And I am also interested in discussing the opposition some throw up about offshore drilling to get more oil; the refrain I hear is, "Why do you support that, when it'll be at least ten years before we see a return?" Well, how many years would it be before we got the energy production from wind/solar/geothermal etc. commensurate to what the oil would be giving us ten years from now when it arrives? For billvon, here's another reason why there is opposition to the Danish-type plan: Americans (and other free people) do not like having their government levy taxes as a punitive measure for making choices that remain legal. That's anathema to freedom. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Why can't I say that I don't think the poll is valid since answering "none" would be taken to mean that I oppose the death penalty when it really means that I fully support the death penalty but would not shut it down just because the number of innocents that could be wrongly executed would be > 0 ? I guess it's time for me to state, folks, that the idea of executing an innocent person is horrid to me, and I find it troubling. I just don't agree that the death penalty need be scrapped and stopped because of that, any more than I would say, "Set all inmates free tomorrow because some number of inmates > 0 is in there for crimes they didn't commit." This is a textbook example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I said that the poll is completely flawed. YOU said that the "system that will take innocent lives ... is at minimum equally (emphasis mine) flawed." I don't agree that the flaws in the death penalty system are "equal" to "completely"! Every system can do undue harm to innocent people. The system of administering life in prison can leave innocent people to be killed in prison by the same violent offenders whom you would not execute. Why won't you address that as a flaw in the system that you prefer? The fact is, you are acting as though it is the purpose of the death penalty system to execute innocents. First of all, it's a rare thing; second, it is something the system TRIES NOT to do; third, why not agree that murderers do deserve death, and work on a better way to enforce that punishent accurately and fairly? It seems lots of people take that moment to suddenly say that mankind can't do any better. Pish. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Forgive me if it sounds cold and callous, but I have something to say about the Olympics or anything else achieving what would ordinarily be thought of as "positive change" in China. Maybe I don't want things to get "better" in China. Maybe I should be happy that we gave the Olympics to China, which probably regards the gesture as an approbation of how they are doing things. The fact is, if China conquers its AIDS problem, if it begins to allow more and more people to do and buy as they wish, the whole situation over there (what, nearly 2 billion people?) is going to cause some serious damage to the world. SERIOUS. As it is, China is rivaling the U.S. for consumption... and when it finally does pass us, it is gonna fuckin' BLOW past us on its way to doubling or tripling us, yeah? With the way overpopulation is projected to devastate the world in very little time, one of the best things we could do would be to NOT try to "help" mortality rates, folks. We are gonna see our "prosperity" leave us with a burned out husk of a planet before long. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

If a society will modify what it is calling justice based on the financial concerns of meting it out, then what that society has is not justice. Some things are too important to do on the cheap. And let's face it, all the disingenuousness aside, the only reason that it "costs more" to apply the death penalty is because we (a) keep them alive for a couple of decades on death row, which is at least as costly, or more so, than keeping a non-capital inmate alive for that number of years, (b) allow them a ridiculous amount of appeal, I mean, so much that it makes a mockery out of the fact that they were convicted in the first place. If we did the trial, took maybe a second look at it (damn it, not a whole new trial, made sure everything looked kosher, and then had at it with the execution (and not paying doctors or shit like that to administer it, just a bullet in the head or a hanging), it would not be expensive. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

To say nothing of the fact that people starve even as the Chinese communists put on a lavish show to bring themselves glory and adoration. Oh, let's not mention the bulldozing of homes to make way for the construction! "Out of the way, peasant! What, in the last few weeks? My point was not about whether they would or did try. It was about the idiotic lack of foresight of those who decided to give China the games. They should have known that the pollution problem would not get cleared up. After all, if they could eliminate pollution for the Olympics, why wouldn't they do it just for the general good of doing it? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I'll start right off by saying that I did not answer the poll. I find it to be completely flawed in its basic premise. I support the death penalty but I don't do so by "agreeing" to a certain number of innocent people executed. I support it because I believe it is the right thing to do--to end the life of the kind of depraved being who would immorally and illegally end the life of another. I think that the more of the rotten people that society removes from its midst--permanently removes, so as to be able to totally forget about them and put their existences behind us--the better. (That takes care of any argument for keeping them in a cell for life, as far as I'm concerned.) Right off the bat, you bias your post with an appeal to authority. "Civilized" by whose standards? Are you prepared to name a list of countries that you tar with the epithet "uncivilized"? Does being an "uncivilized" country mean that it is filled with lesser humans? Oh, I guess that it's the so-called "civilized" countries themselves that get to determine what the definition of "civilized" even is, and then proudly emblazon that appelation upon themselves. If you think that the world's conscience has reformed itself, you've got another think coming. Have you [ilooked around at the world lately? You say that it operates under a reformed conscience? Holy shit. The absolute last thing I care about when it comes to executing murderers is whether they feel pain when they are executed. If I had my way, murderers would be made to feel terror, anxiety, and at least as much pain as their victims were made by them to feel. An appeal to me on the basis of how the death penalty is unjust if the condemned feels pain is laughable, in my view. Oooh, "the killing machine! Is this another liberal appeal to emotions? I'd never have guessed. Why not sprinkle in some descriptions of "the shiny, lethal needle, so practiced in its art of snuffing out life with its treacly venom worming its way into the victim's veins"? To me, it's a completely flawed question. It's not as though the government can hold a referendum, ask us our threshold number, come up with an average, and then somehow be able to hold to that average or under, anyway! The innocents who get executed are not exectued on purpose, so the system is not able to control how many. The government could not make a valid "promise" that the number of innocents executed would be kept under a given predetermined number. So this is a pointless exercise. I don't agree to ANY innocents executed. That's the whole point, for me. I expect that we will do the BEST THAT WE CAN to be FAIR, because I have absolutely ZERO desire for ANYONE who is not guilty to be executed. The difference between me and death penalty opponents is that I understand that we must accept that a certain number of mistakes will be made by any human system. We know that in aviation, a certain number of mistakes will occur and get people killed. Sometimes they are even done by malfeasance, as when companies falsify maintenance records and parts fail and lead to fatal crashes. That does not mean we should declare a moratorium or end to the system of putting planes in the air, because we know that when it does work properly, the system has a purpose and accomplishes a desired outcome. Same with the death penalty. I think that this is one of the weakest points for the anti side, as deterrence is not now, nor has it ever been, the main purpose for the penal system. And if the failure of execution to act as a deterrent is a cause to end execution, why then is the failure of life in prison to deter murder (in those jurisdictions where that is the greatest penalty) not also seen as something that should be ended? This is a logical question that you must answer if your point is to have validity. You used failure to deter as a challenge to one penalty, but not another. If deterrence is a prerequesite to a penalty being used, why do you still advocate any penalties that fail to deter? I think that your question ought not to be about how many innocents are executed, but rather, whether the thing that the death penalty does is something we should want done. I would ask you to go through each of the 200 cases you mention and tell us if they were overturned because of definitive exculpatory evidence (like DNA, even though even that can be wrong or falsified or scammed and is not 100% proof against corrupt use or tampering) that PROVED the condemned to be INNOCENT. And tell us if there are any of those 200 that still appear to be guilty, but wrangled a reprieve because of some Miranda flaw or some other bullshit technicality. You are actually prepared to refer to the U.S. as a non-civilized country because of the death penalty. I think that says unflattering things about the rationality of your approach to this issue. What about the cost of an innocent person being murdered in prison by a person who might otherwise have been executed? It begins to be clear that even keeping people in prison cannot be justified because of the risk to innocents. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

That would be the first rule I would set up if I were making up the myth of a guy like God, who is full of contradictions and impossibilities and whose mythos falls apart under even basic logical analysis. Ah, more nondisprovables! Keep 'em coming! They're such wonderful "proof." Then why didn't God tell us, in his bible, that we should expect that even good people should expect really shitty things to happen to them even though God could just, with a wiggle of his nose like Samantha the witch, spare them, because it's part of a plan they were created to be too tiny-intellected to fathom? How can you tell the difference between bad things that GOD made happen and bad things the DEVIL made happen, then? Any God who made every particle of the universe could have, on the same whim, made a wonderful world without pain, hate, suffering, "sin"... How about, you go on believing, we'll go on not believing, and you can stop trying to persuade us to believe, hey? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Wow. That is an AWESOME summary. I love it! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I'm wondering why you anti-dp guys are ALSO not addressing the subject of this thread, which is NOT whether an innocent would be executed, but whether the guy should have gotten his stupid consular phone call or whether that doesn't really fuckin' matter. Or are you saying you STILL insist that this guy might not have been guilty of the murders? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I see you understand logic as well as you understand the appeals process. No worse than you understand the "show me something--anything--that backs up your assertions, especially when asked repeatedly" process. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire