Today in my theology class, we had a very interesting discussion with everyone. We had just watched the movie by Mel Gibson, The Passion of the Christ. So the discussion led to talking about what are some things that we can protest about. Therefore, my teacher put abortion, hunger and capital punishment on the board. Of course my theology professor who just happens to be a priest mind you, absolutely disagrees with the use of capital punishment. He was expected everyone to agree with him being that all the student in the class, well almost all of them are Christians and they would probably follow the teachings of the church. But that is not what he got.

So all of my class got into the discussion whether capital punishment should be legal. One of the students blurted out “Hell yea” and my professor just stopped and looked at him. I think at that point everyone was in awe and very uncomfortable. Then others started to get their words in. some said that we don’t have the right to take someones life so therefore capital punishment should be illegal. Everyone started getting into the conversation and literally spend the whole class time on it.

Now the topic is very controversial because we have those who think that it should be legal and practiced on those that commit horrible crimes as punishment. But when should people receive the capital punishment if it is legal, raping someone or murdering someone? Why is it that sometimes when one murders another, they receive capital punishment and when another commits the same punishment, they just get time in prison.

I don’t think that we should be able to decide who dies or who lives. Of course there are some crimes that are horrendous and deserve to be punished but as my professor said, the worst punishment someone could get is to be a prisoner for the rest of their lives. We wont be any better if we do exactly what the criminals have done. Just last year, 42 males were executed in the US. 26 of them were in Texas. Are we god? Should we decide who lives and dies? My professor were trying to make us see his side because of him being in the church and their beliefs but we all have to come up with our own decisions on issues like capital punishment. Should capital punishment be legal or illegal?