Huh, no counter-arguments, just a bunch of downvotes. Looks like fundamentalist conservative christians can't even stand their ground in a debate so they just stone you with downvotes and then have the nerve to call everybody to the left of them dumb.
I'm not a Fundamentalists so I'm not the fight you're looking for. I will however point out that a 5 hour old comment early on a Sunday morning not getting answered by any Christian Fundamentalists who would have to be patrolling FS comments instead of going to church is hardly conclusive.
Looking for a debate, not a fight. And yes you have a point there but let me remind you of the fact that time zones are a thing that exists. Also they apparently did find the time to downvote me, so it's not like they just left fs and had no idea about my attempt to spark a discussion.
@ewqua I'm not a "fundamentalist Christian" but I consider myself a Christian. The "fundamentalists" of which you speak typically do not join the military, and if the do they take non-combatant roles such as medic or office worker. Most are against capital punishment as well, but I have known some that take the biblical view of "an eye for an eye."
To address the specifics of the post: the difference (and I think this is self explanatory, but I'm obviously wrong) is that an unborn child is innocent, while a murderer on death row has made his/her choices and deserves to "reap what he does." How any liberal can compare the two is beyond my capacity to comprehend sheer stupidity. As for the military, even the most extreme bible-thumper understands that there is evil in this world that must be fought.
Continued...
... Furthermore, our military is entirely volunteer. Our soldiers are adults who have made their choices.
To recap; death row inmate = made his choices and is not innocent. Soldier = made his choices and is not innocent. Unborn baby = hasn't had a chance to do anything good or bad yet and is the absolute definition of innocence.
That's the difference.
@ewqua I'm not sure what your maps are trying to prove. I'm Catholic and am somewhat neutral on both capital punishment and abortion. The arguments for both under special circumstances are valid. Unfortunately they are both used too often and without special circumstance. Tsarnaev came to this country for the purpose of killing (in the name of his religion, if that's your point) and was already branded as a threat internationally he should be treated as a combatant and executed. That Dylan kid obviously has mental health issues and should be incarcerated and treated. Should abortion be used as a lifesaving device, absolutely. Repeated use as contraception has to give you pause though. Have you ever seen the Christians gathered outside a prison weeping and praying for the condemned as an execution approaches?
@pokethebear My maps are no solid proof of anything, but there seems to be a correlation between high religiousness and the presence of death sentence in the US states. So there you go. My stance on death sentence is quite unsure, on one hand yes there are special circumstances and yes as you've mentioned it's used far too often. But inmates wait for 15 years before being executed so it's not like death sentence saves that much taxpayer money since you use it to feed the criminal for 15 years anyway. When it comes to abortion, yes it's immoral to use it instead of contraceptives but stuff can go wrong, actual contraceptives can fail and you can get pregnant on them anyway. And even if someone uses it instead of contraceptives, would you let that extremely irresponsible person have a child? That way, many children would live in abusive homes with alcoholic/junkie parents. To me this seems like a worse fate than a completely painless death.
The coexistence of the death penalty and religiosity are both due to higher concentrations of conservatism. Conservatives tolerate religyism much better than liberals do, and conservatives believe in punishing crime while liberals seem think we must all understand where the criminal comes from and tolerate his deviance. After all, who are we to judge his self identification as a murderer?
This is correlation, but not causation.
Conservatives tolerate religion when it's THEIR religion, aka Christianity (at least in the US). When it's another religion or the lack of religious beliefs, they do not tolerate it. Did you know that in some states it's written in the doctrines that you can't run for office if you're an atheist? Of course these laws are not in effect because federal law overrides state law but it's kind of jarring to know that it is still in the books.
Crimes should be punished but there should be a balanced amount of punishment and help, if punishment worked by itself then medieval torture techniques would still be used.
Conservatives also believe that people once out of the womb are a product of their choices. You chose to accept serving in the war (now anyways after the US has stopped the draft). Your country chooses when its needed to get into the war as well.
the US hasn't stopped the draft, we just haven't had to use it in a while. In fact there were recent discussions on whether or not to extend the draft to cover females as well...
Quite true. That's why men have to register for Selective Service when they turn 18. There has been no need to resort to conscription since the Vietnam War, but it is still an option.
People: don't abort "babies"!!! It's MURDER!!!!!
Woman: *has baby* *cant afford it* *asks for assistance*
People: ugh. Why have kids if you're not prepared to raise them yourself. This is what's wrong with this country!!!1!1!!!
The root problem is that people are having sex who aren't mature enough to be doing so. If everyone grasped the gravity of what having sex could get them in to, there wouldn't be this problem.
If you tell a child "don't do that cause I said so", they will try it eventually, because it's like the forbidden fruit for them. You need to educate them on the subject and tell them why exactly they shouldn't do that.
http://geocurrents.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Per-Capita-Execution-Map.jpg
Just putting this out here. Food for thought maybe?
To address the specifics of the post: the difference (and I think this is self explanatory, but I'm obviously wrong) is that an unborn child is innocent, while a murderer on death row has made his/her choices and deserves to "reap what he does." How any liberal can compare the two is beyond my capacity to comprehend sheer stupidity. As for the military, even the most extreme bible-thumper understands that there is evil in this world that must be fought.
Continued...
To recap; death row inmate = made his choices and is not innocent. Soldier = made his choices and is not innocent. Unborn baby = hasn't had a chance to do anything good or bad yet and is the absolute definition of innocence.
That's the difference.
This is correlation, but not causation.
Crimes should be punished but there should be a balanced amount of punishment and help, if punishment worked by itself then medieval torture techniques would still be used.
Woman: *has baby* *cant afford it* *asks for assistance*
People: ugh. Why have kids if you're not prepared to raise them yourself. This is what's wrong with this country!!!1!1!!!