Reply #86: Your secret's safe with me, rrneck, as I have the same rep among my Bible-belt brethren

[bertman]

and sistren.

Evil encompasses many meanings and many forms. As far as evil behavior by human beings, as I said before I don't know the cause, only the effects. My allusion to genetics and brain waves was strictly broad-brush speculation.

When someone exhibits behavior that violates the laws we supposedly enlightened human beings have passed to protect each other we try to sanction them for doing so. Appropriately the punishments vary in severity depending upon the nature of the infraction. To offer people a chance, or chances, to be rehabilitated for such violations as theft, fraud, assault, assault and battery, to name a few, is a wholly acceptable way, IMO, for our society to expend its energy and wealth. We are saying to these individuals that even though they have violated the social compact and we are punishing them, we are going to offer them another chance to change their behavior.

IMO that recognizes that the damage those persons caused to others and to society was not so extreme that we consider them beyond redemption and unworthy of enjoying the benefits of society--although those benefits may be somewhat modified by the stigma of their past.

On the other hand, when a human being takes from another human being the most precious things that we possess, liberty (enslavement), a sense of personal security and physical inviolability (rape), one's physical and mental well-being (maiming, rape, enslavement), and the ultimate--their life (murder), to my way of thinking these people have forfeited their right to live. And not only that, they should not be allowed to drain valuable resources from the rest of society. Resources required to feed, house, clothe, and imprison them. By their actions they have cancelled their rights to enjoy the bounty of the earth and even the air to breathe.

I understand that this desire to try to redeem/rehabilitate these people springs in large part from the teachings of some religious and spiritual groups that life is sacred and we humans should never take a human life because of that. I respect that, but I don't buy it.

What I do not understand is how we human beings can allow someone to live who has taken that life (and those other things I mentioned before) away from another human being. A man or woman decides that he/she is going to kill another human being for some reason. Then they commit the crime. The life of the victim, the dreams, the hopes, the possibilities have all been erased at the whim of another human being. That can never be given back. That person will never see a sunrise, never hug a child, never laugh, never cry, never feel the soft gentle rain of summer, never marvel at the beauty of the full moon, never enjoy another breath. Yet, the murderer will still live and breathe and even have human contact.

To me THAT is an abomination. I don't see it as barbaric or cruel to expect the perpetrator to cease to experience life because of the heinous nature of his/her crime(s). It is unbelievable to me that we humans would offer to the murderer the very thing they have deprived those who they murdered of.

You comment that "as for the guy he killed? Could we have made him not evil anymore? I guess now we will never know." That conveys a lack of understanding that this person had not only already killed another human being, but had made it clear that he was going to kill yet another. And, according to those who knew him and testified before the court, he would have made good on his threat. Why would someone like that deserve ANY chance at life?

Let's suppose that my friend had not killed this man who threatened his son. And let's suppose that this man had then killed my friend's son, true to his threat. What you are saying is that he would still deserve a chance to live, and breathe, and eat, and dream, despite his having murdered two people. I'm sorry, but this is just way beyond my comprehension.

So, there's my thinking on this awful subject.