DEATH!!!

Today I will rant on about one of the biggest controversial issues in the entire world. The death penalty. Some countries see this as acceptable, China Indonesia ect. Some see it as unacceptable, Australia England ect and some are right in the middle still debating over it. America is probably the biggest one of these.

I personally am against the death penalty. My main reason for holding this point of view is probably a direct result of my atheism. As far as I am aware you only get one life. Only one chance. If that goes away you are gone, dead and your conciseness does not live on in some incorporeal form. I know that this is a hard thought for some people to grasp. Not being self aware, I myself cant imagine what it would be like and I'm not really eager to see what it would be like.  I should probably add that as I am Australian I may have a cultural bias towards the issue as it is illegal over here.

I have heard many of the arguments for the death penalty. Some are sound and others are very week. I however find all of them unconvincing. The worst one would have to be killing for religious reasons, for example stoning a woman for adultery or burning a witch.  This is completely pathetic and it is one of the reasons I am a very outspoken atheist. I am fine with you believing crap, but when you kill people over it I am not okay with that.

Another reason I here is that it is justice. Now I contest this. How can it be just to wipe a person from existence. To destroy all their thoughts, their emotions, their fears, there loves and their hates. This reminds me of a video game, fable two, one of the first things you have to do is kill off a bandit leader who is raiding people, after you do this your teacher tells you “think off all your experiences and memories, Thag (the bandit) and his men had just as many now they have none. Do you feel the weight of responsibility?” and you the player can ether say you do or do not realise the seriousness of what you have just done.  Another good pop culture example of this is in lord of the rings the fellowship of the ring Frodo tells Gandalf the gray that his uncle should have killed Gollum when he had the chance Gandalf than responds by saying something along the lines of “many people who live deserve to die, and many people who die deserve life, can you give it to them?” though both of these are taken from popular culture and were probably not meant to be philosophically pondered over they both have a good point, a life is valuable.

Probably the top argument I hear is the large amount of money it takes to keep people in jail instead of death. While I realise that this is a lot of cash, I also ask to those people. How much is a human life worth in dollar terms?  And if you answer, would you tell people not to pay above that amount if it was your life on the line?

Now I am by no means saying that killing is wrong in all cases.  I can see a use for it in war. In self defence. But once your foe no longer poses a threat to you killing him would be an action of vengeance which is a pointless waste of resources.

Just a few of my thoughts on the topic. I would also like to thank Microsoft for being completely awesome and kick ass by already having the words “Frodo” “Gandalf” and “Gollum” in there Microsoft word dictionary.

                                                                                              











I know this de-motivational picture isn't funny. But the state killing rarely is.