andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Take for instance the 6th commandment: "Thou shalt not 
> murder/kill". That does not leave open anything you would say.

  Putting aside the morality of death penalty for a moment, in the
states of the US where there is death penalty killing people is still
against the law. Is this a contradiction? No. In the penal system of
these states it's not a contradiction. It's perfectly valid to write
a law saying that killing is illegal, yet still have death penalty.

  Let's approach it from yet another angle: Another commandment says
that you must respect your parents. Yet if your father commits a horrible
crime should you respect him or should you report it to the authorities?
Even though the answer is the latter, that doesn't make the commandment
any less relevant.

  You can have your opinion on whether death penalty is acceptable,
but that doesn't mean that the penal system described in the old testament
would not be understandable. Killing can be unlawful even if there exists
death penalty.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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