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Originally Posted by JamesCH95
You're taking that COMPLETELY out of context, and in a very irrational way.
People executed in the US got there as a result of the due process of law, laws created by a publicly elected body, and only for very serious and heinous crimes.
The inquisition executed people for their beliefs, on top of enforcing incredibly repressive laws.
I would not object to a team naming itself "Team America" because of the significant moral difference.
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Well, I guess I'll bite. Sorry for being a few days late to the reply.
Your main argument is that the American death penalty is more morally acceptable than the executions committed by the Spanish Inquisition. If I've misinterpreted, please correct me. I'll attempt to disprove this argument.
Firstly, it is near sophistry to claim that your moral lens is any more in focus that the lens used by the Spanish priests. Keep in mind that your view of who should or should be put to death has indubitably been colored by your culture, which, I presume, is that of some region of the United States. Personally, I believe that capital punishment in general is a great moral wrong, that ultimately humanity relies on human compassion to advance, and that putting a criminal to death is the very nadir of what the justice should be: rehabilitation, not punishment. I am certainly not alone in this view; many developed countries in the world not only have abolished the death penalty within their jurisdictions, but have also centered their prison systems on reforming criminals (as opposed to the system of castigation used commonly in America), to great effect.
However, far be it from me to say that my moral standards are better than yours. Who is to say what is right, other than those who follow conscience, and those others who follow precedent? And far be it from
you to say that
your code of ethics has any advantage over that of the Inquisitors.
And so I arrive at the second part of your argument. You claim, denotatively, that the Inquisition executed people for their beliefs, and that they enforced incredibly repressive laws. Your connotations, therefore, are that the United States punishes people purely for reasons outside of religious belief, that it does not enforce incredibly repressive laws. Again, correct me if I am mistaken. I have two counterarguments to this.
Firstly, let us frame ourselves in the perspective of an Inquisitor. At the time, it was the belief of devout Catholics that only devout Catholics, absolved of sin, could pass into heaven. Everybody else was destined for eternal torment in hell. (Of course I am simplifying quite a bit. I do not believe that expanding on 16th-century Catholic beliefs will change my argument. If you believe otherwise, please refute this claim.) From that view, then, it is easy to see why the Inquisition, whose nominal goal was to ensure that those non-Catholics who had converted to Catholicism stayed faithful to the orthodoxy, employed harsh tactics to do so. After all, if a bit of earthly punishment were the difference between heaven and hell, it would surely be justifiable to strongly enforce religious orthodoxy on Earth in order to save the souls of would-be sinners. To the Inquisition (all of whose members were raised not in the culture of the modern United States, but that of medieval Spain), it would have been a great moral wrongdoing to
not punish those who strayed from strict Catholicism. This is further evidenced by the fact that those condemned to burning were allowed to repent their sins before God; if they did so (which, in Catholicism, would let them avoid hell), they were killed mercifully by asphyxiation before their bodies were burned.
Secondly, I'd argue that our modern world is not yet at a place where we don't "execute people for their beliefs", nor "enforce incredibly repressive laws". One only has to look at post-9/11 America to see state-sponsored religious persecution abound. There are many examples (I'd be happy to elaborate if you'd like), but a significant recent instance was the death of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen killed in a drone strike in Yemen. His only crime was that his father was part of al-Qaeda.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris is me
Nah, but I would object to a team named "Team Death Penalty" or "Team Execution of US Inmates". There's a huge difference between a name directly referring to a moral atrocity and a name referring to an entire nation which also does do some morally questionable acts. Is it really that hard to understand his point?
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Your argument is slightly better, though still somewhat misleading. I can see your general point, but I'll take you task on one of your specifics, namely that the "Spanish Inquisition" refers directly "to a moral atrocity". The Spanish Inquisition was more formally known (in English) as the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, a name which pretty accurately describes them: a tribunal that investigates ("inquires") questions of adherence to religious orthodoxy. As to their methods, and how morally questionable they were, I've already addressed that above; you may, of course, find fault with my logic. But until someone does so, I'll simply say,
quod erat demonstrandum.
tl;dr: Rock on, 3469.