Death Penalty Is Unacceptable in a Human Society

We are living in the 21st century, in the century of innovations, the exploration of space and the investigation of new galaxies, in the century of cloning and genetic modifications. However, the issue of Charles Darvin’s evolution and the gradations in the origins of primitive society is still open. Then another question comes up. What is the ruling power in today’s world? What prevails in modern society: emotions and instincts or human consciousness?
Many highly-developed countries where democratic regimes are successfully flourishing talk a lot about the principles of humanism, and even make some attempts to follow them. But let’s answer the following question sincerely: In how many countries is capital punishment abolished? Is not the death penalty an index of human society? That is an issue of serious debate. I just want to point out the evident contradictions in formulating the pros and cons.
First of all, let’s look at this problem from a personal perspective. A man is accused of conducting numerous acts of terrorism; another is charged with multiple murders. What punishment should they receive? Our first reaction is inadequate. We are captured by a storm of emotions, we are eager to take the law into our own hands. But if we take a step backward, cool our heads, then we can see that the man is innocent. His life is hanging by a thread.
Among the most weighty arguments for the death penalty are deterrence, maximum public safety, and the necessity to keep these inhuman-beings in prison at the expense of taxes. I would totally agree with these reasons, but for the following questions: Who is going to execute this penalty? Can we deprive a man of his life?
All these things bring up religious and moral aspects that exist in close relation. If we take into account Christianity, that the right to live was given by God and a man has no right to murder another man. “You shall not kill”. Thus execution using capital punishment by an innocent man makes him a murderer. This person, being a murderer, is step by step acquiring a new profession of a serial killer who is paid for the job. One can proclaim that he is just a tool in the hands of justice. Then it is worse for him, as he is turning from a human-being to an inhuman creature without a human conscience, without a human will. Moving this way we gradually skip back to a barbarian society with the principle “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.
In the course of time, we have worked out refined torture instruments and tools of death penalty execution. From century to century they have been significantly improved: drowning, crucifixion, burning, hanging, guillotining, electrocution, gas chambers, lethal injection, and others.
Only imagine how many books have been written about capital punishment and how many books have been written about humanism. If we put these books on the two sides of a scale, which side will tip it? Who knows… Can we live in an era of new death penalty technologies and innovative torture tools? It seems so. We are just afraid of looking into the face of truth.
Nevertheless, life is a movement in a certain trajectory. Which trajectory we will choose is up to us. Then why do we not use the gift given us by nature, the gift of consciousness, the ability to think and make deliberate decisions?