[John Kilduff]

It is wrong to take vengeance. Revenge is essentially an evil emotion. By willfully submitting themselves to primitive and evil emotions, humans become less Godlike and even less human. Resisting the urge for vengeance, on the other hand, is the sign of a higher consciousness.

Many on Death Row have later been exonerated by DNA ewvidence (and some posthumously, I believe). You can free an innocent man from prison but you cannot resurrect him from the grave. Only Jesus was resurrected, and it is not for humans to pretend to be Gods, in meting out death as punishment.

Taking a life in hatred, as the state and state's apparatchiks do, is in itself an evil act.

The emotion for vengeance is understandable but what sets man above the animals is that man has the conscious ability to suppress the evil and to choose the good, whereas animals do not have the capability of making that willful choice. Choosing to kill (or to have killed) in vengeance or in hatred, is not living up to the God-given human potential.

Deliberately acting in cruelty is also evil.

Therefore the death penalty is evil on two counts: it is a deliberate act of cruelty, as well as a willful rejection of the higher reaches of human potential. Both are sins against God, and against the spirit of Love, and against everything pointing towards higher human potential.

Thanks for reading.